Trine: Three’s Company Review

TrineHave you heard of Trine? If you haven’t it’s a puzzle/platformer game for the PS3 and PC. Like Shadow Complex it uses 3D characters and landscape but limits gameplay to a 2D plane. This can sometimes become confusing but you quickly adjust to the format.

Have you heard of Trine? If you haven’t, its a puzzle/platformer game for the PS3 and PC. Similar to the graphics in Shadow Complex, Trine uses 3D characters and landscape but limits gameplay to a 2D plane. This can sometimes become confusing but you will quickly adjust to the format. Trine is absolutely beautiful, its lavish environments reminds me of the game Folklore sometimes.  The combination of very vivid and bright colors and expressive lighting makes the settings they choose very attractive to play in.

What also makes it so attractive to play is the ability to use 3 different characters as one. You are a wizard, thief and warrior all at time same time and can use each character’s ability to solve puzzles and progress through the level. You also use these same abilities to acquire green flasks that represent experience points allowing each character to get stronger/level up. As each character levels up they can hone their skills making them more effective when completing challenges. Throughout the levels there are checkpoints so if perhaps one or all your characters die you can go back to that spot to revive them. If your wondering how your characters could die, there are plenty of ways such as falling off cliffs, drowning, getting hit by objects, or killed by enemies. Don’t forget this is a platformer as well. Checkpoints also serve as a place to replenish some of your HP or your wizard’s MP if you run out.  There are other ways to do this such as killing enemies, they occasionally drop HP and MP flasks too as well as give you experience points.

There is no formula on how to use each characters abilities to solve the puzzle.  You can do whatever it takes to get the job done. The wizard has no fighting abilities but can levitate and summon objects to help solve platforming and weight-based challenges. The thief, a female character I might add, can shoot a bow and arrow and use a grappling hook. I like that they made the thief a woman because it helps break up the monotony of what would have otherwise been just an all male cast. I also like that she is fully clothed and not used as a sexual ploy to attract potential buyers. Lastly, the knight is just that: a warrior with a sword and shield to prove it.

Together these 3 make for a fun gaming experience but like everything there are always some flaws. My biggest pet peeve with the game are its controls. I feel that they are not intuitive enough. For example, on the PS3 you switch between characters with either L1 or R1. This can be a problem because usually the action buttons are also assigned to L1 or R1, and switching between characters is not important enough to share these buttons. Instead of using L1 or R1 I think switching characters should have been moved to L2 and R2. So then you can free up those buttons for critical actions, like when the wizard needs to draw to make an object you hold down L1 or R1 and draw with the right joystick. I found when in a rush to switch characters I always pressed L2 or R2 first, and when I wanted to perform an action I pressed L1 or R1 instead which was frustrating. What is also frustrating is holding down on the right stick to block when using the knight. Everyone should know you would use either back or R1 to simply block. The thief’s control scheme is fine but it would have been nice if I had more control while aiming her arrows. To shoot arrows, you hold the right stick in the opposite direction and let go to fire. I would have preferred to hold the right stick in the direction I wanted to aim at and using R1 to fire instead.

Another small pet peeve of mine is the story.  It could have been 10 times more engrossing and its not. It feels like they banked a lot on the gameplay as the selling point of Trine (which it is), but supposedly there is a story in there too. I feel it could have been more interesting or told in a more engaging way where I might have actually cared. Overall, I like Trine a lot and if you have a PS3 then you should download it off the PSN store immediately. It is definitely not a waste of your time. A perfect game to pick up during your Modern Warfare downtime because if you didn’t know, just like the famous TV show said: Three’s Company too.