I played through this over the last few days on PC and having just finished it all I can do is gush infinite praise on the game.
It was truly a magnificent journey. It was the most beautiful game I've played in my life, traveling along lush and varied locals. The animation on the characters was great and really brought them to life. The music was so good! It added so much to the ambiance of the locations and the two really gave that tolkien fantasy feel perfectly. I even thought the voice acting was top-notch, it made the characters grow on me and the narration gave the whole tale a polished feel.
The gameplay was a complete joy from start to finish. The combat was satisfying whether you're dropping crates on enemies, kicking them across the room or blowing them up with flaming arrows. The platforming, wizard object creation, and grapple swinging worked very well in unison and gave you a lot of leeway on how you wanted to get through the level. The entire game was literally you doing what you wanted and usually you could make it work! Whether it was the combat, the secrets, or simply getting through the level. I thought this was an extremely refreshing approach compared to having a rigid level design where there would only be one exact puzzle solution.
The checkpoint system was utterly brilliant. Being able to simply warp back a few feet if a character dies (while all the enemies killed remain dead and puzzles solved remain solved) took all the frustration out of the game. With a different checkpoint system I could see a version of Trine that is frustrating and unfun to play. But with the system they went for, they were able to carve a balanced game of rising challenge that no matter how difficult it gets, does not frustrate and make the game unfun. Trine is always fun.
Even the length was perfect for a non-$50/60 title. 5+ hours of pure satisfaction is well worth $20-30. Plus it's cool how if you want to clean up the completion on earlier levels the game makes it easier by removing the secrets you've found already and letting you use all your end-game abilities.
While there were some slight flaws like the physics/detection being a little wonky at times and sometimes the skeletons keep on spawning way too long but you don't want to move forward because they might drop an experience bottle, but every game has their flaws and no game is perfect. What I got out of the experience was one of the best action/puzzle/platformers I've played in my life and a beautiful one at that.
At the end of the day I'd put Trine in the upper echelon of gaming classics, and I look forward to replaying it again one day in the far future.
Is there any word on if Frozenbyte is looking into doing a sequel? I played the free DLC level which was short but sweet and it seemed like it was just the start of another adventure?
