The game at a glance

The story kick off like a fairytale book and you start by playing a tutorial level with each character separately to learn about their unique abilities and mechanics. They all reach the trine, and they souls are bound together by the artifact, making them into an inseparable trio, like it or not. Then their quest to solve the mysteries around the trine and separate their souls starts.
Right from the beginning, you can tell you’re in a beautiful and magical world filled with ruins, treasures and all sorts of contraptions. I actually like that, to my surprise, this is not just a pure puzzle platformer game: it also has its fair share of battles against the undeads, as well as a hardcore mode that puts the enphasis on battle skills to get through it. Also the balance between exploring, solving puzzles/figuring out how to get past an obstacle, and fighting is pretty good so no parts in the game are particularly boring, which is good for the overall rythm.

 thebetween puzzle solving and side scrolling action

As I mentionned earlier, something I liked about this game was the right balance between puzzles, platforming, and fighting. Other than the great art and graphics, the other strong suit of Trine is the gameplay in my opinion. It is incredibly free as there is always several solutions to a single problem: you could grapple your way through a part, or make platforms with the mage (or a combination of both). Amadeus has the most free gameplay of the game. He can make a number of blocks, planks, and very useful floating platforms (which you can then grapple onto) and move around most objects within the screen, use spikes to stick his creations to a ceiling, the floor, etc… With so many possibilities, getting past some areas or contraptions have many different solutions depending on your level of creativity.

I was playing the whole game with a friend who was playing Amadeus for the most part, and he’s especially crafty and loves to test lots of different things and possibilities, and I was surprised (and very amused xD) to see some of the crazy ways he came up to get past some areas. We loved to call these: “the way the developers intended it”. But that is why I enjoyed the gameplay so much: possibilities, potential, and most importantly if you find a way no matter how unlikely it is, you’re free to do it. That’s how games should be in my opinion.
You also find this same freedom while fighting enemies. All three characters have ways to kill them, even though to be fair you should use Zoya and Pontius for the most part. But if you want to kill them by making them fall in holes or by dropping blocks from above their heads, you’re free to do so. Sometimes it’s details like this that allow you to have a good laugh when playing a game, and having fun is more important to me than the technical stuff even if they greatly help enjoy a game.

My favorite bits in this game

Clearly the gamplay and graphics did it for me. These were the two aspects of the game that stood out in my opinion. The feeling you’re taking a trip in a fantasy tale is present at every single stage of this game. Even during loading screens where you see the hand drawn map on the desk with its candles and feather pen. I love that kind of mood.

Gameplay wise, it was the freedom I really enjoyed. There were many ways to get past obstacles that encouraged testing and creativity between the possibilities all 3 characters offered, and choice will always be something I value tremendously in gameplay.