As well as the different abilities of your little squad the thief becomes adept at dispatching enemies with three simultaneous arrows and a quick draw, while the knight earns a thunderous hammer and a knockdown sprint. The combat works quite well too: skeletons come in various flavours (archer, standard, heavy, shield) to give a little variety to the re-killing of the undead. Special items are occasionally found in chests, these normally take a bit of extra work to find but are worth i t giving extra abilities like breathing underwater or being able to spawn more boxes at any one time.
Checkpoints are common, automatically spawning and defeated comrades as you pass them while slightly filling your health bars, helping to avoid any frustration commonly found in platformers. Other parts of the game are fairly standard but well executed: health and mana (each character has their own health and mana to perform their special abilities) potions are spawned from killing enemies and experience potions are littered through each level and are also dropped from fallen foes. This may all sound very basic, but it is not often you see such a solid and refreshing approach to creation and problem solving, especially in a children’s game. The physics engine holds up beautifully, with each object behaving as you’d expect it to in each scenario. You can swing up onto platforms (quite a knack to that), build boxes and climb in any way you see fit, jump platforms in a more traditional fashion or any combination of these. Trine is a rare game because of this, so few games allow a personal take on problem solving and it really shows during gameplay. Together these characters can handle each situation in multiple ways, allowing organic and unique solutions to many of the problems you’ll face. He can move objects around using telekinesis and even create objects out of the ether multiple boxes, pathways and floating platforms can be made and manoeuvred to escape each area. The mage however is almost useless in combat (save for throwing boxes at the enemy), but he is invaluable for navigation and solving puzzles. He can also pick up heavy objects and launch them, affecting a meaty thud upon any bony adversary that happens in the way. The knight is the combat heavy, able to block all damage from a certain direction with his shield and attack quickly he can destroy enemies efficiently. Many puzzles can be completed utilising only the thief, and it is fun to do so but that would be a disservice to the other two companions. The thief is the most fun and most useful providing a bow for basic combat, a fire bow to light torches (and skeletons), and a grappling hook to swing over pits and traps. This feels intuitive and the other two are stowed away while not used (unless playing co-op), which removes any problematic AI. You play as all three characters, switching up between them on the fly. The real meat of this game (as is with most games) is in the gameplay and what wonderful gameplay it is. But this is only a tiny part of a small game, so it doesn’t take the shine off too much it does however stop the game from being something truly exceptional. This is the weakest aspect of the game the narration is patronising, typical of content aimed at children and makes a dull story more so. This basic style is continued with rudimentary cutscenes between each level and narration played throughout loading screens.
A thief, a mage and a knight are bound together by a magical artifact and go on an adventure to break the curse, fighting undead skeletons and learning to work together as they go along. Trine Enchanted Edition feels like a children’s game at heart, although that doesn’t mean poor quality, and nor should it but this does reflect in the story, which is very simple. As a 2D puzzle platformer and side scrolling combat game, Trine finds a perfect home with other Steam bargains for around a tenner.
TRINE 1 ENCHANTED EDITION SERIES
Trine Enchanted Edition is the 2014 remake of Trine (2009) using the Trine 2 engine the series is created by the Finnish developers Frozenbyte.
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