Pilot Brothers attempts to do something not often seen in adventure games - it has two active playable characters at all times. Sure there are a lot of games that will have you switch between characters at certain points in the story, but there aren’t a lot where they are both together all the time. Heck, even in
Sam & Max games, you control Sam pretty much all the time.
As you might expect from this type of setup, the characters react differently to the different items in the world. Where one character might simply look at a trash bin, the other will dig in it. Where one character will just stare dumbly at a banana tree while you have the watering can selected, the other will actually use the can. Quite frankly, this mechanic only added to the complexity of Pilot Brothers.
There were legitimate times when having two characters was necessary in order to solve a puzzle, but the fact that one character can’t use an inventory item with an object and the other could felt ridiculous more times than not. There are even occasions where both brothers will actually do something to the item in question, and you basically have to figure out the right combination of actions in order to solve the problem. A prime example of this is in an early scene when one brother can turn the music sheets sitting on a piano while the other brother plays it. It just makes Pilot Brothers feel more complex than it really needs to be.
Couple this feature with the unknowable solutions and its either go to the hint buttons or use each character with each inventory item with each in-world item until someone actually does something other than tell the player that the action didn’t make sense.
I can’t see anyone enjoying Pilot Brothers. Maybe I just don’t know the source material well enough to be able to get into their heads, but I found each step to be like pulling teeth and simply not worth the time and effort. It’s rare that I say I can’t find an audience that would like this game, but that’s the case here unless there is some major following of these two characters and the shows are just as out-of-the-box as this game.
