Trailer Review - It Takes Two
This week the new trailer for the game It Takes Two came out, and I LOVED it! What I found most interesting is I remembered the first trailer made me feel very ambivalent. I even remember thinking: "How long is this trailer going to be!?" The only other thing I recalled was a fantastical world and co-op gameplay (though the name of the game might've had the biggest part in reminding me of that fact.) Let's take a look at the direction of the reveal trailer and then contrast it with the latest one.
The trailer starts with a sentient book narrating:
"This is the story of a magical kingdom. One of wizards and warriors. It’s an epic tale set upon the high seas. An odyssey through time and space! Pew, pew, pew, pew!"
This is cut to corresponding gameplay with wizards, boats, time and space. The footage is also split screen, which indicates this is a game where two people play cooperatively. The opening ends with a "So, you're probably wondering how I got into this situation" freeze frame indicating the two characters who look like home made dolls are a real life married couple. The ripped photo indicates their relationship is probably not going well.
The humans' names are Cody and May; they're shown waking up surprised to find themselves not in human form. The book says they have to fix their relationship in order to change back. Then the song "It Takes Two" by Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston starts, juxtaposed with a split screen gameplay montage.
The narrator continues throughout the trailer:
"This is a story of passion... this is a story of attraction... this is a story of collaboration."
Cody and May realize they're under some sort of spell which they need to break. There's then a title card montage: "We're better together" along with some final quippy jokes.
Splitscreens are incredibly difficult to use in trailers because they're so busy. In some of these shots, swapping the order of the shots might've improved readability. Here, Cody hits the ball, and the result is the ball May is on swings forward. But here, the side with the effect comes before the cause (assuming you read left to right)
This trailer is very well edited, and hits all the right notes with the dialogue, music, and sound effects and yet I find myself thinking the game looks cool IN SPITE of the trailer. What I'm lacking is any sort of connection to the characters or the world.
The framing of the book narrator feels like "Look how crazy and wacky this world is!" in a way which feels generic, even if I can recognize the unique artistry in the design and animation. Also, the opening narration is such a mishmash of cliché adventure tropes the story never seems to differentiate itself. The characters have a buddy comedy or exasperated couple vibe which also feels very generic and non-specific. To cap it off, the trailer is a whopping two minutes and 45 seconds, very long especially for a reveal trailer.
It's a very odd feeling watching this trailer because I can recognize the incredible amount of variety in both the art and gameplay, but I find it very difficult to get excited because I'm not invested in the characters and the story feels so familiar and rote. The other difficulty facing this game is it looks like most of it is played in split screen, which made my eyes frequently lose focus because it can be visually overwhelming.
Now let's contrast this with the "We're Better Together" trailer:
This trailer starts with a cutscene of a girl holding a book saying: "Doctor Hakim, they have to stay together!" It then cuts to a shot where the girl is looking outside her window; it looks like the girl's parents are arguing and her dad is about to drive away. In the same shot, the girl holds up homemade dolls of her parents and says: "You can't just give up! I wish you could be friends again." She mashes the dolls together, and then we see the parents in doll form appearing in another world.
This is only fifteen seconds into the trailer and already I'm SO much more invested in the story. A little girl doesn't want her parents to get divorced, so she wishes them to stay together. The book the girl wished upon is now the sentient narrator we saw from before; he says: "Are you ready for the rollercoaster ride of your life?" The parents are defiant, but he pulls a lever shooting them into a hole.
Title card: "From the creators of A WAY OUT and BROTHERS: A Tale of Two Sons."
Already I'm thinking: "Wait, WHY DID YOU NOT TELL ME THIS SOONER!?" This is a track record for a developer that you simply do not hide when you're trying to sell a game. As soon as I saw this title card I was flabbergasted by the fact the reveal trailer didn't include this pedigree card. When the pedigree of the game developers is this good, this information helps both the developers AND the potential audience. People who were fans of those games are going to want to know when there's a new game made by the same people! You can see many comments from people who say they were sold as soon as they saw that title card.
The visual cutting to the music in this part of the trailer is excellent
A trailer-ized version of Fleetwood Mac's song "The Chain" starts (I found the composer for this trailer version via their post on LinkedIn). The narrator says: "This world is the result of your broken relationship!" This single line of dialogue makes the game's levels instantly that much more compelling. The first trailer framed the world as "Look at how crazy with variety this game is!" By knowing there's a story context for the levels, we can now look at them and try to understand what each place says about the characters. Rather than levels existing for the sake of variety, each one is now like a puzzle for the trailer audience; this is much more fun to engage with as an audience.
The narrator continues by saying if they want to go home they have to find what they lost. This is ostensibly the same premise as the first trailer, but it feels like a more concrete goal. The couple encounter their old vacuum cleaner in the form of a boss battle; May says this wouldn't have happened had Cody not broken it. I love how this shows gameplay and story weave together; it makes me curious to see more.
There are a couple more scenes where they encounter parts of their lives like Cody's abandoned greenhouse, and a toy castle Cody secretly built out of May's chess board which she hadn't used due to lack of time. The narrator riffs off of this by telling them they can control time; this both fits with the story and explains a gameplay mechanic.
Story context can make gameplay ideas so much richer.
After this middle section they find a pair of binoculars which let them see into the real world where their bodies seem to be comatose. The talking binoculars tell them their daughter is the cause of their change into dolls and being brought to the fantastical world.
The final title card montage run reads: "Join a friend on a journey to fix the love." and "It takes passion, attraction, collaboration, time, gravity boots, magic, a friend, me, you. It Takes Two." Another notable thing is the final end montage forgoes a lot of the split screen, which makes the footage more cinematic and much easier to process.
During the final montage the narrator reiterates they're trying to fix the relationship. Cody says: "But what if we freeze to death, first?" to which the narrator offers another gameplay mechanic as a solution. The trailer ends with a button where the narrator is trying to get them to kiss; Cody just says: "What is wrong with that guy?"
I don't know about you, but this trailer got me PUMPED to play the game thanks in no small part to the energetic music cue combined with the wonderfully interwoven story and gameplay. In the reveal trailer the book felt kind of annoying, and the couple felt generically antagonistic. In this trailer it feels more like the book is a mix of a companion and antagonistic jokester and the couple's arguments feel more specific, relatable, but still kind of loving.
This cutscene late in the trailer reminds us what is at stake and the characters' goals.
If I reverse engineer the high level ideas of each trailer, this is what it looks like to me:
Reveal trailer:
The game takes place in a magical fantasy world
There's a wacky sentient book character
There's a lot of stuff in this co-op game
The main characters used to be human
They have to fix their relationship to change back
There's a lot of stuff in this co-op game
The characters have a buddy comedy dynamic
"Better Together" trailer:
A girl wishes to a book for her parents to stay together; they are magically changed into her dolls and enter a world which is a manifestation of their broken relationship
From the creators of A WAY OUT and Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons.
The game is played cooperatively
The couple adventure through objects and places from their past like a broken vacuum, abandoned greenhouse and hobby projects.
There are a variety of gameplay mechanics
The parents find out their daughter somehow caused their change.
They need to fix their relationship and get back home.
I'm clearly biased towards the "Better Together" trailer, but this is just me honestly writing out all the ideas and messages my brain received from the two trailers. The second trailer is so much richer in both story and gameplay because it tells me WHY they all exist. I've said before that reveal trailers are usually made to be broadly appealing, and then subsequent trailers should go deeper, but in this case I think the reveal trailer framed itself so broadly that it lost the specificity of the game's hooks.
Both trailers were clearly made by either a professional trailer house or someone with a lot of experience making trailers, but the direction made a world of difference. The reveal trailer struggled to interest me, but this trailer makes me want to find a co-op partner and start playing. I think it's not enough just to present the most broad strokes of a game and then add variety and content. If you can help the audience understand why they should care, it will make a world of difference.
