Unlike the last game I reviewed, this game stumbled into my life a mere two days ago. I didn’t play the prequel, I read little to nothing about it, and it was a mere dollar-seventy for three steam copies. For that price, I could scrap together a few friends and get a quick game to critic! I’ll also be Dekonsting this title later this evening, so consider this blog a biased player review, and if you’re interested in learning a more factual analysis, read the blog directly succeeding this one.
From the few words I did hear,
I heard it was worth playing, and I was not disappointed.
That game being: Frozenbyte’s: Trine 2
Players
First and foremost, let’s describe the three playable
characters. They are Amadeus the wizard, Zoya the thief, and Pontius the knight.
The wizard is the character you solve most of your physical-puzzles
with. He allows you to create crates and
planks of varying sizes (left mouse), as well as levitate certain objects around
your screen (right mouse). It should be noted the wizard has no way to
physically deal damage, thus being unable to kill monsters. I played this
character 98% of the time with my group of friends, so he is my most known.
Trust me when I say he cannot kill monsters!
The thief is a bow-using stealth character that also has
an amiable grappling hook. She can shoot her bow (left click), as well as imbuing
those arrows with secondary effects. The grappling hook can grapple (right
click) onto many surfaces in the game environment. The thief is very good at
dealing damage from a far, and is very quick at navigating the environment.
The knight is your typical sword-n-board warrior. He can
swing his mighty sword (left click) which break environmental blockades and barrels.
He is also able to raise his shield (right click) in a direction depending on
the mouse location. Being that this character can take the most hits, he is the
best way to encounter most combat situations with.
I should note that if you have played the first Trine,
these characters should not be strangers to you, as they are reoccurring. In a
game like this I feel it to be the best choice with its method of storytelling,
however as I didn’t play the first Trine, I did miss some of the bark humor.
Objectives
The game progress in the sense of physical objectives is
fairly ambiguous, though very easy to see once you reach it. What I mean is; essentially
you’re always moving to the right of the screen along a 2D side-scroller given
some context via the prologue/epilogue. Once you complete one chapter, you move
onto the next. Though you’re not directly told to “Go kill boss X at the end of
tunnel of Y” in each chapter, you can very well assume that some major
objective is approaching as you progress along the level. This, though sometimes
making you feel confused as to reason, lets the sudden-boss fights give you a
jolt of fear. Many “Oh sh!t” moments were had during the Skype call whilst I was
playing.
The clearer and more apparent objectives in this game are
the “rooms” you encounter that break up the entirety of the level. Often times
a level consists of 15-20 rooms that are as simple as jump across this chasm,
or as complex as mini Portal-esk level sequences (they were definitely thinking
with portals when they were designing the game, and there’s nothing wrong with
that!).
The final objective worth noting is the fact that you can
level up by collecting these blue bubbles. Upon leveling up, you get skill
points that you can spend in your skill tree. These skills unlock perks for the
characters, such as more boxes on screen, exploding arrows, or using your
shield as a parachute.
Procedures
Woohoo! I’m at the part where I can explain the main
mechanic of the game! The main procedure in this game is you ability to switch
between any of the characters at any time.
Example: you’re running along as the thief, when
suddenly: a fireball is coming right for you! You can quickly switch to the
knight, shield block, and all is safe.
I thought it was cool too.
The skill tree I aforementioned in the objectives is
crucial as your Trine is the one that levels up, and that leads to you spending
points based on which of the favourite heroes you like to play. This creates a unique mechanic allowing certain
room-types to hold more difficulty based on your skill point spread.
Rules
The rules in this game are pretty lax in regards to how
many there are. The rule I found the most annoying was not allowing you to have
access to all the blue bubbles the first run through of a story quest. This is
due to the game knowing you don’t have the properly allocated skills. Which i got a little fussy over. I want those bubbles, dam it!
Resources
There are essentially two resources in this game:
Health – This one is the most obvious, however a bit
unique in this game. Each character has
their own health, and when one dies you are unable to switch to them. This
means that you may screw yourself over if you allow your wizard to die; only to
find out you need him for a levitation puzzle.
You’re able to raise dead teammates at checkpoints, so if
one dies you don’t have to restart the whole level. The difficult part is
reaching that freaking checkpoint as a wizard while sprinting through hordes of
goblins with NO WAY TO KILL THEM- sorry, flash backs from last night.
Blue Bubbles – Though not the official name, this serves
as essentially exp that lets you gain levels and spend skill points. It’s only late in the game where you really need some of the higher level skills to
complete the rooms. The blue bubbles in general are a resource for the majority
of the game that: is nice to have, you aim to get it, but you’re not sweating
it if you miss it.
Unless you feel the need to collect every.single.bubble.
Not like I can relate to that, or anything –cough–
Conflict
The conflict in this game is based off a story mechanic established
and - what I’m to understand - fully explained in the first game. The mystical
"Trine" has bound the three characters together into one common
entity, and thus the player controls only one character which can be switched
to the other two at any time.
After saving the kingdom a few years past (the first
Trine), the kingdom is in trouble yet again, and the trine has found and
recruited Amadeus, Zoya, and Pontius. The trouble this time is to find out why
the forest has become uneasy and violent. Though they seem to find answers,
they keep leading to more and more questions.
The story in this game is light-hearted fairy tell mischief,
and thus isn’t quite my cup of tea. However it does its duty, and though I feel
the plot twist was about as obvious as a straight man in a gay bar; I still
gave a loud “I knew it!” when it was revealed, which in itself is a good
reaction.
Most of the physical conflicts are stretched between a
whole two AI types, those being melee and range. One runs at you and the other
stays back and lobs a fairly-slow moving shot.
There are bosses you encounter, however I couldn’t believe
this but they are literally all the same boss with a different health
pool, skin, and environment.
The last boss was a unique encounter, however.
Outcome
The outcome in this game is like the end of a book; there
wasn’t a question of what the ending was, just how long it took you to get
there. The advancing difficulty of the rooms added a very clean difficulty
curve. Though I noticed towards the end, you get either insta-killed or nearly
killed. Where towards the beginning of the game a simple mess up would lead you
to just having to run back around.
Final Thoughts
I genuinely enjoyed this game. Something I need to mention that I don’t normally
do, is that this game is beautiful. Though the gameplay exists on a 2D
plane, the environments are all done in beautiful 3D with stunning textures,
lighting, and shaders. I paused and
looked at the environment more so than I have in any other game. Albeit I’m not
a gamer to revel in scenery, so take that for what it’s worth.
Until next time,
Jordon
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