I was a real late comer to the Trine party, only getting around to playing it early last year after it had been out for almost 2 years prior. Looking back over the review I wonder how much my opinion of the game would have changed had I played it soon after its release as for its time it would have really been quite a stand out title. In 2011, with the indie revolution in full effect, it’s unique take on the platformer genre was probably lost among other titles like Super Meat Boy. Still the game stuck with me and whilst I might be somewhat late to the party again I decided to venture back into the Trine world yet again.
Trine 2 puts you back in familiar territory, starting off with the wizard Amadeus being awoken from his slumber by an unearthly glow coming from his windows. Rushing out to investigate he finds that the glow was coming from the Trine itself, the magical artifact that had bound him in the previous games to Pontius the Knight and Zoya the Thief. Upon reaching the Trine Pontius appears from within the artifact and informs Amadeus that they have to once again save the kingdom from an as of yet unknown threat.
Everything about the look and feel of Trine 2 feels so much more ambitious than its predecessor. Whilst you could chalk much of this up to the 2 and a bit years between releases it still feels like a lot more effort went into the art direction, cinematography and art work. There’s heavy use of advanced lighting effects, depth of field and extensive camera work that I don’t remember being present in the original. The original Trine was colourful and vibrant and Trine 2 builds on that base to create something that, whilst possibly being a bit too colorful in some points (making it hard to determine what’s what on occasion), is a definite step up.
The core physics based platformer/puzzle solving game play remains true to the core of the original Trine whilst streamlining some aspects and adding in new types of puzzles that makes the sequel quite distinct. The wizard still conjures up objects, the thief can still grappling hook onto things and the warrior is still used purely for combat and has little to do with puzzle solving unless it involves smashing through a wall (although even that is made redundant by certain talent choices). The changes are for the most part positive with only a few minor issues that I feel need to be raised.
Both Trine and Trine 2 have the same shared experience leveling system but Trine 2’s deviates from the original’s significantly. Instead of getting 1 point to spend in each character’s talent tree you’re instead given 1 point per level to spend on any one of the 3 talent trees. The difference is quite stark as whilst in the previous game the puzzles could be designed around knowing what kind of abilities a player might have in Trine 2 you can pretty much short circuit most challenges by going a specific build. To be upfront about it you can pretty much make the game easy mode by dumping all your points into the wizard, letting you do things like this:
Now I have no idea how the developers intended to have that puzzle solved but I have the feeling it wasn’t supposed to be anything like what you’re seeing above. That’s part of the charm of the physics based game play, letting you create solutions that weren’t exactly intended, but when most of the puzzles were trivialized by a power leveled wizard it made me wonder why there weren’t some limits in order to stop you from doing this. I guess Frozenbyte thought that was part of the fun and I can’t say I disagree with them on this.
The combat of Trine 2 is pretty much identical to that of its predecessor; being a fun distraction from the core puzzle based platforming but not a whole lot more than that. For the most part it’s very hack ‘n’ slashy with you being able to spam your way through hordes of enemies even without the aid of additional talent tree upgrades. The boss fights start off interesting although they’re also prone to being beatable through mouse and keyboard spam. The final boss fight was actually pretty intense even if it felt like it was designed with only one of the 3 characters in mind. Overall I’d rate combat as passable, being more of a distraction than a core piece of the game play.
There are some notable bugs with combat however. Some enemies are easily confused by standing near or on top of them and not in an intentional this-is-part-of-the-game way. The type that I most often found this worked with was the dual fire blade wielding goblins who if you got close enough to then jumped behind would think you were still right in front of them. They’d then get stuck in a loop of attacking in that direction, allowing you to wail on them from behind with no consequence. Some of the boss fights bugged out in a similar way to a lesser extent but it was obvious that the enemies were coded with a rather simplistic AI. It’s a relatively small complaint in the grand scheme of things but it was definitely noticeable.
As a I alluded to earlier the talent tree has also been greatly simplified allowing you to level each character as you see fit. The choice of power leveling the wizard was a simple one, the more I leveled him earlier the more experience I got access to, leveling the others faster. As you can see from the screen cap above, taken about an hour before the end, I had nearly all the abilities. In the end I think there was only 2 I didn’t manage to get but even that doesn’t really matter considering that there’s a respec button at the bottom, one that can be used as often as you want with no consequences.
Additionally All the ancillary aspects of Trine 2 have been stream lined from the original. The mana bars for every character are gone completely which I thought was weird to begin with but after playing through the entire game without it I’m glad they took it out. All the mana bar did was add tedium to the game, forcing you to go back to check points in order to restock if you accidentally created the wrong object (which was far too easy in the original) or lost it all from spamming flame arrows.
The story of Trine 2 is somewhat thin on the ground, at least in comparison to recent releases, but it is serviceable enough to keep the game driving forward. Although there’s not a whole lot of dialog in the game the voice acting is above the level of what I’ve come to expect from games like these, with each of the character’s voices fitting well with their perceived personas. Just like the original Trine I’ll have to commend Frozenbyte for not taking the cheap option and leaving the ending open for yet another sequel, something that never fails to annoy me.
Trine 2 is a definite improvement over its predecessor in almost all respects. The visuals and art direction are a lot better, a definite sign that Frozenbyte has confidence in the IP and is willing to invest more heavily in it. The streamlined game play takes away the tedium making the game much more enjoyable overall. Overall I was quite impressed with Trine 2 not feeling the compulsion to play through to the end just for the review like I did with the previous one. Even if you haven’t played the original I would still recommend Trine 2 as it stands alone well, especially if you’re a fan of platformers or puzzle games.
Rating: 8.25/10
Trine 2 is available on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox360 right now for $14.99, $14.99, and 1200 Microsoft Points. Gane was played on the hard difficulty with around 7 hours of total play time with 23% of the achievements unlocked.
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