Playing It Takes Two with my eight-year-old has been amazingly satisfying

I had no idea what I was in for when I invited my eight-year-old daughter to play It Takes Two with me. As anyone that has played the game can attest, there is a sobering moment that comes about an hour into It Takes Two. It may land in slightly different places for different players, but at some point, it will hit you. This game is harder than I thought it would be. I have to sit up and pay attention. These puzzles are way more complex than I expected. Some of this platforming is tough. And for me - "Oh lord, I’m playing this thing with an eight-year-old."

Now, my daughter is not entirely new to games, but I would say she is new-ish. She has only been playing console games since the release of Cake Bash back in October 2020, and she has mostly cut her teeth on two PS5 games – Sackboy and Astro. She has some platformer chops, but she is still learning the language of gaming. Which buttons are which. How double jumps work when combined with a dash. She was shocked when she learned that wind could be a thing in games. Saying something like “Hit the triangle!” results in her looking down at the controller, finding the triangle, and both of us dying as she hits it.

However, what my daughter lacks in technical proficiency, she makes up for in enthusiasm. Playing It Takes Two quickly became her favorite activity, to the point where she would wander into my office/bedroom in the middle of the workday and say things like “I turned in all my schoolwork. Can we play It Takes Two?” about five times a day.

She also has an uncanny ability to solve gaming puzzles for someone so new, which served us both well during our playthrough. I would say that I probably solved about 2/3 of the puzzles, but when I was stumped on the other third, she would invariably pipe up with the solution. It made me both ridiculously proud of her, and slightly annoyed at myself.

It Takes Two pushed my daughter’s skills to the absolute limit. We decided at the beginning of the game that she would be the woman character and I would be the man, and we wouldn’t trade controllers to get past difficult sections, instead choosing to muscle through no matter how long it took. I quickly regretted this decision, as my daughter was faced with difficult platforming areas again and again, while I stood there adjusting a widget or shooting nails into a wall for her to cling to. But in the end, our method of play forced us both to put up or shut up, and neither one of us was going to back down from a tough jump or a difficult boss fight.

I should also point out that there were some points in It Takes Two where I completely fell apart, and Pearl went merrily skipping through a platforming section that left me confounded. Take a look at the beginning of this video for a perfect example:

My daughter got a lot better over the course of It Take Two – which is a surprisingly long game. We tended to play in one-hour chunks, which the game is naturally suited to. At first, our split-screen sessions were plagued by a lot of “Wait for me, Daddy!”, and “Where did you go?”. But as time went on, that all shifted to “Catch up, Daddy!” and “Why are you taking so long messing with all this stuff?” She delighted in leaving me behind, so she could explain what I should do when I caught up with her.

It Takes Two is a marvelous game to play with a kid, despite some adult themes and a bit of salty language. The jokes landed with my daughter, and the animation is so flipping good that it looks like a high-end animated film at points. The infamous elephant scene sent us both into fits of hysterical laughter, as did other surprising story moments. The game shifts and mutates often enough to hold even the most scattered attention span, and every new turn unveils new worlds and game mechanics that utterly delight. It is a wonder of a game.

After two months of scattered sessions, we pushed, pulled, and jumped our way across the finish line of one of the best games I’ve played in ages (It Takes Two is definitely a Game of the Year contender). Watching my daughter run face first into It Takes Two’s difficulty level and scale that mountain was amazingly satisfying. That we did it together was a life moment for me - although she may have failed to register the gravity of the occasion. As soon as the credits started rolling, she turned to me and said “So, what’s the next game we’re going to play?” I sighed, and slumped back onto the sofa. It looks like I have a new gaming partner for at least the next ten years.

It Takes Two is now available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam. It is well worth the $39.99.