Like No Other: The Legend of the Twin Books PC Review

Like No Other: The Legend of the Twin Books is the second game by Actoon Studio, and like their previous game, Wind Peaks, it’s an adorable, entirely non-violent, short, and sweet game. However, unlike the previous game, this one is a point-and-click adventure, but it still has that same hand-drawn art style that’s wonderful in its cartoon simplicity.
 

Like No Other: The Legend of the Twin Books is a simple game. It literally markets itself, on its own Steam page, as a game with easy-to-learn, accessible controls, lower difficulty, and no death or violence. This is a game that shows that games do not need to use violence to tell a fun story, although it is a very short story that it tells. So, to be forewarned, the game is incredibly short. It’s about 60-90 minutes long, although if you want to search all the areas thoroughly and look for all the special collectible caches, it’ll maybe be closer to two hours long.

However, the developers also list this on their Steam page. Like No Other: The Legend of the Twin Books is not pretending to be some long game. As a matter of fact, the game plays like some of those old kid’s games like Putt-Putt in that it has inoffensive dialogue, situations, and characters, it can be finished within a single sitting, and it isn’t difficult to complete.

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The few scenes that offer any level of difficulty, such as one section in which you need to sneak around some wolves, remove the wolves you’ve already gotten past. This means that if you fail on the second wolf, you don’t have to redo the first wolf to get to them. Like No Other: The Legend of the Twin Books is a not challenging game, and it doesn’t want to be. It wants you to have a chilled-out time making your way through its fun little plot and its cute little levels.

The gameplay in Like No Other: The Legend of the Twin Books is very standard point-and-click stuff. You find items, put them in your inventory, and then use those items to solve environmental puzzles. None of the puzzles are particularly challenging, aside from one that can be a little annoying. However, only having one irritating puzzle in a point-and-click game is like scoring the jackpot.
 

This means that you don’t have to expect the kind of moon logic you usually see from games like the early LucasArts point-and-click games or some of the sillier puzzles in the more recent Broken Age. This game is very simple in terms of its puzzles. You need a crowbar to open some manholes? Well, there’s a crowbar over there! Congratulations: puzzle complete. However, some get a little more complicated than that, but not to an extraordinary degree. Typically, the puzzles are very logical. Find keys to open a locked door. That sort of thing rather than all the random things you do in Grim Fandango to finish any puzzle in that bizarre if fantastic game.

The gameplay is set within two main areas, and they are not long areas considering the length of the game, but both will take equally as long to explore and finish. Like No Other: The Legend of the Twin Books has very small but utterly unique levels. There’s no repetition there, although there is some backtracking at times. And you will explore these handcrafted levels while finishing the various puzzles you encounter.
 

One of the only real areas worth somewhat critiquing is that there are a couple other people you can interact with in this world, but they don’t offer much value. Other point-and-click games made dialogue puzzles part of the gameplay, but Like No Other: The Legend of the Twin Books does not. The characters you encounter are little more than set dressing, and you don’t exactly need to speak to them. However, they do add a bit of life to the levels. Although, the levels are intentionally set in a post-natural disaster town that’s been abandoned.

And that’s where we get to Dan, the protagonist of Like No Other: The Legend of the Twin Books. He’s described as a bumbling, first-time adventurer, and that’s exactly what he is. He’s basically an old guy who’s decided to go looking for some adventure! And that’s what he does. He explores these two areas, does what he needs to do, and then the game ends. It is a little too abruptly and with little lead-up to the conclusion.
 

 

This is one of the other areas that Like No Other: The Legend of the Twin Books can be critiqued. The ending comes out of nowhere. It felt like there should have been a little more story overall, but then it was just over. Not that that’s necessarily the worst thing in the world, as many games have terrible endings, and this isn’t the worst one out there, but considering the already minuscule length of the game, it could’ve had a little more to it by the end there. Or more of an indication that it even reached the end before the credits randomly started rolling.

However, Like No Other: The Legend of the Twin Books is a fun little game worth playing through if you enjoy these kinds of games. It isn’t amazing, but it offers a charming world, some entertaining voice acting, a few enjoyable puzzles, and a great hand-drawn aesthetic to treat your eyes. Keep the length in mind when deciding to purchase, as it may be too short for some people.
 

Justin van Huyssteen (@LC_Lupus)
Senior Editor, NoobFeed