Last time, my son and I escaped a mini squirrel army. This time we committed to finishing It Takes Two Rose’s room. We liked this level of the game even better than the previous. It was a great ride with a ton of pillows, toys, a railcar, circus, dinosaurs, a castle, a queen and so much more.
From It Takes Two Rose’s Room to Space
Once we crashed into Rose’s room, we were on a mission to make her cry in hopes of reversing the curse that turned us into dolls. Unfortunately for us, her Moon Baboon toy (now also alive) was bent on preventing us from upsetting her. He was our next mission
To continue our quest, we acquired another unique set of powers. My Cody character gained the ability to shrink to a tiny size or grow as large as a giant. May, my son’s character, gained gravity boots to walk up special walls. It was a ton of fun. The shrink and grow ability was the better of the two.
Several puzzles called for shrinking to enter small spaces, while growing helped reach high places and move heavy objects or weight things down. All the puzzles were really well done. As I grew or shrank, my son walked upside down and up walls to complete his part of puzzles.
Growing and Shrinking to Fight Moon Baboon
At the end of our space themed journey, the Moon Baboon showed up in a flying saucer. It was the best boss fight of the game. We dodged lasers before forcing the saucer to the ground. I grew to giant size to grab the saucer and shake the laser off of it.
With the laser broken off of his ship, the Moon Baboon shot rockets at us. When some fell to the ground without exploding, we rode them like a cartoon characters and aimed them back at the saucer. It took a few rides before we knocked his ship to the ground again.
At that point, I shrunk down to enter the ship’s electronics to access the eject control. It was a fun set of platforming puzzles, dodging the Moon Baboon’s feet as it pushed on the ship pedals. Of course that all went on while my son dodged more lasers outside of the ship. It was great to know all those things were going on at the same time.
In the end, I ejected the Moon Baboon and took control of the ship laser (I missed where he reattached it). While I controlled the laser using a radar style screen, my son piloted the ship to chase after the baboon. The game requires fantastically fun coordination. Once we conquered the moon baboon, we moved on to the next part Rose’s room.
Playing with Rose’s Toys
The next part of the level took us through platforming and other puzzles that consist of classic kids toys. It included things like number blocks, whoopy cushions, board games, etc.. All the platforming puzzles hovered over a giant ball pit. Real nostalgia stuff, except touch those balls and you die.
Things literally took off after finding fidget spinners. We used them to hover over the dangerous ball pit between bounces on pool toys. It became an obstacle course of various inflatable pool toys like tubes, beach balls, etc.. I owned a fidget spinner, so I got a kick out of it.
We later took a trippy ride through a kaleidoscope. As you can imagine the colors and shapes were mind bending. I doubt someone with epilepsy would enjoy it.
After that acid trip, we enjoyed using a handcar to navigate our way through toy towns and prehistoric toy dinosaur sets, until we reached a river boat. The handcart took a bit of coordination, but not nearly as much as that damn boat.
We both took a side of the boat and ran on our side like a hamster wheel. In order to go forward, we both had to run in the same direction. Turning consisted of one of us not running or running the opposite direction. There was a lot of yelling at each other: “Left! Right!”.
That coordination, or lack thereof, was put to the test when we started using the cannons. We constantly turned too far left or right when fighting toy pirate ships, squids and blowing up dynamite. It was a nice change of pace before we headed back to more puzzles.
It Takes Two Rose’s Room Rail Car Circus
After our boat ride, we continued on with the rail car into a toy circus. Each section stopped our progress until we completed the puzzles in that area.
In the circus area, it was our job to move a metal ball across the level, Rube Goldberg style with circus flair. We combined things like trapeze hand offs, canon shots, carnival rides, tight rope riding on a unicycle and more. It was perfectly themed, but balancing that unicycle was tough.
We both had different parts of the balancing act, so coordinating was hard. Keeping that ball from falling was a bit of a chore. We got through and used that metal ball to pop a clown balloon holding up the bridge for us to continue on.
Back on the hand car, we launched into the cardboard castle to find that elephant.
Fight Through the Corrugated Cardboard Castle
The graphics for the cardboard castle were spot on. It really gave the sense of a painted and cut out castle made of corrugated cardboard. We played around with a few activities around the courtyard before solving puzzles to get a bowling ball battering ram going.
The bowling ball got us inside of the castle, but we were captured by toy knights. That annoying Book of Love showed up to let them all know we planned on killing the stuffed elephant queen in Rose’s room. That’s where things took another game genre bending turn.
With our prison cells complete with a toy toilet, it was easy to move them to the side and escape. After we found costumes to hide in plain sight, we realized they gifted us with our next set of powers. My character Cody wore a wizard outfit, while my son’s character May wore a knight costume.
The wizard costume provided ice blast powers. My son’s knight costume provided a flaming sword attack and a flaming dash. That’s where the game genre changed to isometric RPG perspective. It was another great example of how It Takes Two throws variety at you, especially in Rose’s room.
I’ve never been a fan of isometric RPGs due to the perspective, but the fun I had playing this bit in It Takes Two has me second guessing. The fun turned to a trifecta of boss to fight.
First, a giant toy toy doll chased us with a spiked rolling pin. That part was hectic with us running away while also avoiding enemies and obstacles in our way. Next, a bull charged us while rocks fell after he hit the walls.
The final boss was the most interesting. We fought chess pieces come to life. They were limited to moving with the same restrictions those pieces had in chess rules.
Torturing the Stuffed Elephant to Death
At the end of all the craziness of Rose’s room, we ended the level doing horrible things to the poor toy elephant Queen. The poor thing was so innocent just sitting around enjoying tea. It was super nice to us, until it realized why we were there.
It’s attempts to escape in a cardboard rocket (I know Rose’s room is crazy) failed and it crashed into a cardboard skill crane. We coordinated the controls to snatch her up with the skill crane. After that, things really were awful. We tore it’s leg off, then it’s ear, before pushing it off the table top onto the ground.
It was broken and did make Rose cry, but it did not reverse the curse. We felt even more awful. Up to that point, it was the best level of the game. As if the brutal end of the elephant was not enough, the annoying book of love showed back up and we decided that was a good time to end this session.