Ackk Studios shows they know what they’re doing when it comes to music.
Two Brothers comes from the creative minds over at Ackk Studios; from my neck of the woods in northern New Jersey. The game pays homage to an easier time, the good old days of gaming! Two Brothers is similar to a gaming history book. What I mean by that is the game is influenced by quite a few classic games of the past.
For starters, Two Brothers goes back to the Game Boy era in terms of graphics. Safe to say, the old school feeling works. The game play looks really tough and that harkens to the old days of gaming. Things weren’t handed to you as much and you actually had to earn the victory. Another thing I’m going to heap a ton of praise to is the music for Two Brothers. Music can do one of two things, it can set the mood for the action/theme or it can miss the idea entirely and take the game in a different direction. Allow me to say that Two Brothers achieves the first point.
“Death and the afterlife.” These things aren’t looked at too often in video games but Two Brothers is an exception. The game jumps right into that concept with life and death being vital themes to the game. The low key ominous feel of death is fantastic and that is heard throughout “The Afterlife” theme. I had an idea of what I was getting into with this soundtrack because I received the promo sampler from Ackk but I had no idea that the soundtrack would be 90+ tracks. The length just shows that Ackk Studios knew what they wanted to do with the music and didn’t leave anything out.
The music pays homage to a lot of genres/consoles of the past. In “The Overworld” theme, I can hear similar sounds one could hear from a Sega Genesis many years ago. There is such a wide range of tracks for the soundtrack such as the different dungeons to the Overworld theme. The mood/feeling for each song is set perfectly. Just by hearing the tunes, you can tell what should be going on in the action or the locale where the action is taking place. I thought the different variations of the Main Theme would feel repetitive but the slightest variation makes it feel like a totally different song.
