Trine

Trine is this sidescroller that released around 2009, It boasted its self as this fun physics based puzzle/platformer that also heavily featured co-op and on the fly character swapping. I think originally it was only local co-op but later on they added online co-op. Long ago I played the original 2009 release, and recently I played the Trine: Enchanted Edition, which is either a remaster or remake but from memory it seemed to play very similar.

The game starts off simple enough, you slowly learn the basics of the 3 characters, each introducing themselves one by one. Wizard, Thief, and Knight. The wizard can create these objects by moving the controller stick in various shapes like squares, bridges, and eventually triangles. It has satisfying unique controls here where the blocks appear from the ether with nice particle effects and you can drag them around with nice weighty physics. The Knight is a typical bulky knight guy whom swings his sword wildly at any enemies you encounter but beyond that he has little use, he is by far the most 'filler' character, of course sometimes he comes in handy but frankly you can most of the time just run past or jump over enemies, although they do sometimes drop experience jars that you can collect to level up your characters small amount of abilities. The Thief is by far the most fun and engaging character, so much so that she almost trivializes large portions of the game. She has a bow, so she can engage in combat unlike the Wizard but similar to the Knight, she also has a grappling hook that latches onto any wooden surfaces, making traversing levels a breeze where you can zip around the maps like Spider Man or something, so platforming is the easiest with this character. Many parts where you would need the Wizard to build blocks to get past an obsticle, if you use the Thief you can usually just swing right past it or get yourself to parts the other characters cant. But it works out because the game has on the spot character swapping even while co-op, you just press the controller bumpers and each player can swap freely between characters so if theres one spot where your friend needs the Thief or Wizard he can simply swap to it.

The visuals in particlar are impressive with lots of eye catching, colorful, fantastical scenes and spots like densly decorated forest areas and really nice use of colors and lighting effects, lots of blues and purples giing the game a very atmospheric but subdued moody vibe, it definitely brings out the 'Enchanted' feeling with the lighting and satisfying visuals. Its not some 2D game either, its like fully 3D I guess you'd call '2.5D' where everything has nice detailed models and high-fidelity specular effects and graphical effects, only the game takes place on a sidescroller plain.

The basic gameplay loop has you moving mostly to the right of the screen to find the level exit or sometimes a boss. There are all sorts of little minor puzzle elements you have to figure out like using the Wizard to create platforms and boxes for the other characters to hop onto, or make bridges over spikes or lava, or balancing See-saw type platforms with weights, stuff like that. Sometimes youll have to jump around to the top left of the screen and find switches, buttons, and levers to progress so the game isnt extremely linear , at times almost feels like Castlevania or something like that. Lots of vertical movement. You'll come across enemies mostly like Skeletons but also some bug type insects but its nothing major. The combat consists of either switching to the Knight and swinging your sword wildly, or using the Thief to shoot physics based arrows where you pull back the right stick to charge it up then release it to shoot arrows around the map which have weighty, bouncy momentum to them making them pretty fun to use. You can also pickup objects and drop them ontop of enemies with the Wizard. But the combat isnt anything too serious and the game is especially forgiving and easy with constant big blue orb checkpoints that you instantly respawn at, provinding you have atleast one character left. The difficulty of the game overall is fairly low and its quite an easy game, which isnt nessesarily bad if you just have a friend whos interested in casual gaming, this would be a great pick to sit down and play with them for a few evenings because its a relatively short game only taking about 4-6 hours to complete so its a nice bite sized co-op experience that deals with lots of Mario type platforming sections but also makes you use your brain for the puzzles and some light combat to keep the excitement up a bit.

There are a few bosses, while they look pretty intimidating and cool, theres not much challenge to them. You can just infinitely respawn, so its just about hitting them in one spot until they die. It atleast looks cool. The game does reward you for exploring the various maps because you can pickup experience orbs, but also and more interestingly you can find a wide assortment of these items that act as permanent passive buffs. Like rings, pants, amulets, once you pick any of them up, they get activated for the rest of the game and just sit in your inventory. They didnt really add that much to the game, but it was always a bit exciting picking them up. Its minor things like more health or allowing you new abilites like how many boxes you can make at once, but mostly small passive buffs like health and defense. Once you get a certain amount of experience orbs (50?) it lets you level up each of your characters 3 abilities, a total of 3 times. Stuff like charging your Thiefs arrows faster, more damage, and eventually new abilites like the Knight getting a hammer weapon, and the Wizard being able to create floating Triangle platforms. While it did make the game just a bit more interesting having these upgrades, it wasnt like this big important deal or anything.

The story is really 'just there, basic fantasy tropes.It mostly consists of some old man voiceover during the loading screens talking about acient magic forces of the Trine and how its in the hands of some evil lord and you have to come take it back...that kind of thing. At a certain point it was in one ear and out the other. It's not bad, and I'm thankful that it doesnt waste your time with overly long boring cutscenes, its fairly light on the narration and gets out of your way but sets the concept for the game so in that sense its doing its job.  The music is relaxing, almost too relaxing as it can almost lul you to sleep at times with its slowy churning violins and flutes.

The game mostly takes place like I said in forest areas, but also some castle areas, lava mountain places, a few brief underwater segments, but mostly its forested areas and courtyard/castle type places. The levels dont really have distinct identities or change that much, everything kind of blends together. Its not like other games where you can remember exactly what level 4 is, for example, in Trine they all kinda are the same idea over and over with different layouts, its servicable but nothing crazy memorable. The last few levels of the game however are a bit more memorable where you go inside this big firey castle where theres a lot of vertical platforming and tons of respawning enemies, so finally the game threw some challenge at you. Then the last level has this enemy AI wizard spawning blocks at rolling balls and stuff at you while you have to climb to the top, this level was actually pretty hard and I think even it wont let you respawn so luckily we only failed one or two times, climb to the top, obtained the Trine and game completed, end credits. Sadly no final boss, its one of those games where you kill the last boss in the credits, sorta disappointing but there you have it.

Trine is a fun little casual gamer friendly co-op puzzle platformer thats thankfully light on the puzzles and more about the platforming and fun physics based interactions, sprinkled in with light combat and rewards exploration with item and experience collecting. It helps that its a really short game and you can finish it with a friend in just a few sessions, so with that in mind I had a pretty fun time.

7/10