The gameplay is very simple. It’s more of a management game. It’s different and interesting but what’s there is not deep or the main focus. It’s all about the story to the point the gameplay is part of the story. It’s heartwarming and well told but the ending was abrupt. It’s very short too, it lasted around 1 hour and 40 minutes for me. It’s worth experiencing its charm, just don’t expect some deep gameplay. It’s a fine Apple Arcade game. Not sure I’d feel the same if it was a stand alone game.

Takeshi and Hiroshi attempts to tell an adorable story of brotherly bonding but falls entirely flat on its face thanks to abysmal gameplay elements. The story segments are cute enough, made with some wonderful puppetry, and oozing charm. Though the story it tells isn't anything all that interesting, it's nice enough. It's the gameplay segments between the story bits that drag this game down significantly. It's somewhat of a "reverse RPG," where instead of controlling a player character's actions, you only choose what enemies to send against a knight, who then auto-battles with them. As the game progresses, you gain a few abilities that you can use in these battles, but only once per round. The goal is to balance how much fun your younger brother is having with how much thrill he's experiencing, rendering the enemy selection into more of a puzzle game. The frustration in this stems from the randomness -- attacks don't deal consistent amounts of damage and it's possible for attacks to even miss. This makes strategy almost impossible and boils rounds down to almost entirely luck. This becomes especially frustrating in later rounds, with longer lasting battles requiring replay if an important attack misses or does slightly less damage than expected. Personally, I think this shouldn't be a game and instead the story segments should be a short film, it does not lend itself well to an interactive experience.

I enjoyed this little indie game much more than I thought I would. I really love the story of an aspiring game designer entertaining his little brother, especially with these absolutely CHARMING stop-motion cutscenes!
(Please, Nintendo. Make an Earthbound/Mother game with this kind of production. It's so your style.)

Admittedly, the gameplay loop is a bit too weak, albeit unique. It feels like a puzzle game backing a simplistic role-playing game, but the choice to randomize the selection of monsters makes this a bit difficult reaching your goal and building up Hiroshi's stress levels.

The game has lots of heart, and I could use more like this!