Trine - Review
(for the PC)



I don't usually start off with a summary of whatever game I'm talking about, I tend to make the natural assumption that if you care to read about it you've already gone and checked out sites, or commercials, or the appropriate wikipedia entry to find out what you need to know. Or perhaps you've already played it, who knows. If you haven't played Trine, it's definitely worth a look for some reasons. Honestly by my own judgment, though, I think three stars is too generous and I'm already reconsidering putting it to two. In any case, you play the role of a wizard, warrior and a thief whose bodies have merged into one entity, and they're on a quest to discover what's going on and how to return to their normal selves.

The story takes off from there, but the important part is you play the role of all three characters and can switch between them at will. The wizard can build platforms and objects and move things around, the thief has a ranged attack, a grappling hook and is very quick, and the warrior is big and heavy with a sword and shield and tough armor. You generally swap them out to battle enemies and puzzle-solve your way through the world.

First I'll butter it up by reminding myself what a pretty game Trine is. It really is an attractive game, visually and stylistically. The voice acting is a bit corny but works for the fantasy setting, and the music is darn nice to boot. As for the settings themselves, you don't get much more detailed or attractive than Trine, a 2D platforming game. You'll come across lush environments and nothing but excellent special effects all the way through.

To boot, the puzzle solving aspect is nice. Having to switch between characters on the fly (ie, stack a platform as a wizard, switch to the thief in mid-jump across the empty chasm, then grapple onto the next platform, then switch to the warrior after that jump and slice down the enemies waiting on that other side)... well, this can get a bit hectic but is very neat and intuitive as far as the game itself goes. It makes 2D platforming feel very fresh and fun.

Where it all falls down is in the ambiguity. Most and many of the puzzles in Trine can be solved several different ways, but almost every way I came up with to solve a puzzle seemed to exploit the physics engine to its very limits. I felt like I wasn't solving the puzzle "right", it felt like I was cobbling together a solution out of random parts and that I was doing it all wrong. Oh, sure, I would get past it okay and I would continue on, but I would feel robbed of that feeling of "oh! I got it!", which proves to make the puzzles sort of dry and unsatisfying.

When much of the game is using the physics of the boxes or the grappling to manipulate the terrain or get past obstacles, and there's no one clear-set way to do it, it just comes down to seeing how you can jam boxes in different positions into spikes in the wall so you can sort of MAYBE jump on the corner to MAYBE jump high enough to reach the top. It doesn't feel like that's how it's supposed to be... but for what it's worth, that's how the puzzles in this game are solved.

Gameplay is key in any game, and a puzzle game that doesn't leave you feeling good after you solve a puzzle isn't worth all that much. It's just a sandbox filled with cubes that you haphazardly stack and place, and no amount of practice makes the physics any less wonky. Still, it's not downright frustrating and it is very finish-able, and the world is pretty and the combat is fun, and the puzzles don't hamper you too too much. So, certainly worth a play if you like platforming games with a fantasy twist.