I instantly found myself drawn to Trine, from early screenshots and video. The world in which the game takes place in is one that has been pulled directly from various fairytales; the heroes are all a typical fantasy archetype, with a humorous slant. Levels are straightforward, charmingly constructed and all lend themselves well to the unique style of physics based play encountered in Trine. As a package, Trine delivered exactly what I expected from it, for the most part.

Trinetakes place in a prosperous kingdom, because this story couldn’t exist anywhere else. Without ruining the intro for you, let me just say that this idyllic fantasy kingdom fell into hard times. These hard times culminated with the slightly less living residents becoming tired of being gravbound. With the dead walking in the dark, where the sun had previously shone, Trine sets us up with the perfect backdrop for a fairytale of a game.

When control is first turned over after the intro, the game provides you a brief play period with each of the three characters you’ll be spending time with for the duration. The agile, bow-wielding Thief can cast herself through the air and ascend to great heights with the aid of her grappling hook. On the opposite end of that play style resides the Knight, a metal clad, sword wielding savior of the land. In-between these two extremes sits the Wizard. The Wizard isn’t overly agile, nor can he slay the throngs of enemies you’re put up against, but he can summon objects with a mere wave of his hand. Each one of the characters has situations where it becomes clear very early on that they shine. An event occurring at the end of this introduction bonds the three characters, allowing you to take control over whichever one of them you need to, depending on your situation in the game.

The previously mentioned characters all have their initial clear-cut roles. These roles don’t remain stagnant however, as you have the opportunity to pour experience points in new skills, or further develop old ones. I found myself using the Thief for combat far more than the Knight, while her grappling hook allowed me to bypass the majority of puzzles without having to take the form of the Wizard. There’s no one character that stands out as clearly superior to the others, they all just lend themselves to different approaches to the game. After a certain point, towards the end of the game, the Wizard does gain access to a spell that allows you to simply bypass much of the puzzles that you would previously have been forced to navigate, I found myself feeling like I was cheating every time I used it instead of simply enjoying the level I was running through.

The stages in the game never differ wildly in appearance and the cohesive art style fits the feel of the game well. You’ll encounter catacombs, caverns, forges and looming towers, all of which possess their own unique features but remain firmly planted in the look of this fairytale universe. Everything glows in the moody lighting, colors are rich and everything looks off, lending credence to the fact that this world has come under evil times. The visuals are generally striking, not once did I encounter an area or even a single object that didn’t hold up to the rest of the game.

Navigating the levels requires you to make use of the various skills and abilities provided you by the three characters. There are quite a few different puzzles here, but they’ve all solved relatively easily and won’t require you to put on your thinking cap to get around them. After about the second level you rarely run into something you feel you haven’t encountered before, but it’s fine, because the feel of progression is never interrupted.

The game offers up to 3-player local co-op. I didn’t get to try out the three player, but two player co-op was great. I played a few levels with my sister, who hasn’t played anything but Pac-Man, ever. She was able to pick it up in about 15 minutes and didn’t have a problem with anything, a testament to how well the game is designed. There’s no option for network co-op, which seems like a no-brainer for the title, one of the few things that disappoint.

With all of the great story elements, features, characters and all the rest, the game does have some problems, however slight. A few times in the game I was simply overwhelmed with enemies, which wasn’t fun. The combat in the game works well enough but that’s really all it does. The few times I got hung up on a puzzle, enemies would spawn in and it felt like I was being punished for taking too long, not too fun. My biggest complaint would have to be that the final stage of the game takes a drastic departure from everything leading up to it. I felt rushed, irritated, and just about tossed my controller a few times. In the end, I had to turn the graphics down to low to eliminate any visual distractions and just turned all the sound off so I could concentrate, which successfully saw me through to the credits.

The game has just about everything you could ask for. There are great characters with fun abilities, well designed levels, awesome visuals, and even co-op. The world the game takes place in is charming, and welcomes you to sink a few hours into it at a time. After playing Trine, I’m looking forward to replaying it with all my leveled up abilities, and maybe a few more times through with friends. My time with the game was exclusively spent with the PC version, while it should be heading to PS3 at the end of the month and 360 later this year. This is a game that warrants attention, and I’d suggest picking it up.

Doin It RIGHT:- Incredible graphics. - Great characters. - Excellent gameplay. - Co-op! - Soundtrack is great.	Doin It RONG:- No online play. - Horrible final level. - Combat isn’t stellar, too much of it.
FINAL SCORE: 9 / 10

       

Tags: FrozenByte, PC, PS3, Review, Trine

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 9:58 am and is filed under PC, PlayStation 3, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.