Brothers, am I right?
If you have a brother, you know sometimes they can be a real pain and you might want them to go away. Well, that’s what Max did in Max: The Curse of Brotherhood as he was fed up with his brother Felix and in more ways than one, wished him away and into the clutches of the evil Mustacho. He is the King Koopa of the magic land that has kidnapped Felix and it will be up to Max, who realized right away that he made a huge mistake, to get his brother back!
The game reminds me of Kirby: Canvas Curse since you get to control paint and draw your way to freedom on certain paths. You can also use the power of the ink to raise the ground to reach certain parts of the level but that isn’t the only thing you can do with your magic add ons. During gameplay, you’ll enhance your abilities where you can control different things in the world such as plants/vines for instance. You’ll be able to control things through each part of the game and then upgrade for more control.
The game has chapters for you to traverse though and each one plays like a point and click adventure where you guide Max through the different stages and you have to dodge different enemies, monsters, and environmental hazards along the way. I mentioned before that the game reminds me of a point and click adventure and what I meant by that is that Max: The Curse of Brotherhood allows you make your own path but in a limited capacity.
This could be also be said for a point and click game as well as the fact that Max doesn’t have that much room for error in terms of getting away from enemies as well as jump distance. If you jump from too high a distance, you will perish and that reminds me of the classic old-school computer games. During gameplay, it was all trial and error which isn’t a bad thing at times but sometimes that can be chalked up to so-so level design.
I felt there was a lot of trial and error in terms of jump distance and timing to avoid enemies early in the game, which doesn’t really prepare you for the later challenges in the game if the difficulty spike is huge from the start. You have the option to use the Gamepad and Switch in off TV mode or play with the Pro Controller. I am most comfortable with the Pro Controller so that’s my controller of choice and Max: The Curse of Brotherhood controls very well.
Since the game treats the magic marker like a paintbrush the touch screen would be a better option for gameplay but when you need to act fast and get away from monsters, the Pro Controller is the way to go! You can also find portal-eyes that Mustacho controls that you’ll want to pluck so he can’t see what you’re doing during your adventure. The game does has that slight feel of repetition at times, where you feel like you’re doing the same things again and again but the levels aren’t that long and you don’t traverse through the same environments each time.
The game is trying to remove the repetition feel from it while you’re playing by doing these things but it could have tried a little bit harder. To recap, Max: The Curse of Brotherhood is a charming tale of brother disliking brother only to realize what he had when it’s taken away. The music and graphics look great for the Switch but the feel of repetition rear their ugly head into the gameplay and it’s these reasons that I’m giving Max: The Curse of Brotherhood for Nintendo Switch a 7/10. I’d like to thank Wired Productions for the review code.