Trine 2: The Complete Story

Honestly, Trine 2 is one of the best games I’ve played in quite a while. Just figured I’d get that out there right away, in the unlikely event that you are unable to extract my glowing praise and overall satisfaction with Trine 2 as a 2.5D platformer done right from the rest of my review. At this point you can either go buy the game now, or complete the rest of this review and then go buy it.

As stated, Trine 2 is a 2.5D platformer. In it you navigate levels that range from spooky forest, deserts, ice mountains, or boggy swamps, while playing as one of three characters – a wizard, a thief, and a knight. Each character has his or her own unique abilities and uses. For example, the knight, Pontius, is particularly useful when fighting enemies, what with his sword and shield, and is generally good whenever you want a nice strong character. Zoya, the thief, can also be used in combat, as she is equipped with a bow and arrow. However, she is far more important for her grappling hook ability, which will let you navigate up to higher points or just traverse chasms. The wizard, Amadeus, isn’t much use in combat, since he can’t even conjure up a fireball (a running joke from the first game). He is much more suited towards solving puzzles, either using his ability to conjure boxes or platforms to weigh down a switch, or his levitate ability to manipulate objects so that vents line up or a door is opened. The catch with Trine is that, while you may, in single player, only use one character, you can instantly switch to the other ones, assuming you haven’t gotten any of them killed by, say, misjudging a swing and ending up in a lava pit.

It isn't a good thing when you're fighting a giant goblin and the only character left alive is an impotent wizard.

Bound together when each character touched the Trine, an ancient artifact, at the beginning of the first game, this unlikely group of heroes has been tasked with once again protecting the realm. In this game things are a little bit different than simply defeating an invading sorcerer’s skeleton army though, and the story will take them through a variety of beautifully rendered environments that pretty much put everything else I’ve ever seen to shame. You’ll have to face off against a goblin army, man eating plants, and several other nasty creatures if you want to find out why the Trine has brought you to this bizarre part of the world. Then, since you should be playing Trine 2: The Complete Story, you can play the included DLC levels, which will add a few more hours to your experience as you attempt to stop the goblin army from taking over your homeland.

The story and the journey it takes you on is great because of the vastly different parts of the world it takes you to, again circling back to all those beautifully rendered environments. However, the fundamentals of the game are found in the mechanics, which in this case covers things like the puzzles and combat. Here you’ll see that the game is just as brilliant as it is beautiful. That is largely due to the number of ways you can approach any problem, which depends on how you customize your characters. You see, as you explore, kill monsters, and find hidden areas, you’ll discover vials that grant you experience when you pick them up. Collect 50 vials and you gain a talent point. Each character has his or her own talent tree, with various tiers. There is even a top tier talent for each character that only unlocks when a sufficient number of upper tier talents have been unlocked across all three characters.

While the talent tree is a simple one is this game, what you can accomplish with those talents is far from simple.

The talents are an interesting feature because of the way the drastically alter your ability to solve puzzles. Having played the original Trine, which included the same experience/leveling system, I favored expanding Amadeus’ ability to summon more and more objects, until I could ultimately have 4 objects simultaneously, including a platform, after I unlocked that additional talent. The reason for this is that I got rather good in the original game at carefully stacking two boxes, then a platform, and then a final box that had to placed quickly and precisely, lest the platform tip over due to it’s unbalanced nature. With this combination I could pretty much overcome any jump, reach to the highest points where experience or other secrets were hidden, or just carefully manipulate objects so that doors would be propped open. So yes, I liked the wizard.

However, that is just one route you can choose, and soon I came to realize just how useful some of those other abilities really are. While I’ve always liked Zoya for her grappling hook, enabling me to swing through an area quickly or just generally reach new highs or even a few well placed secrets where the only way to get to it is to dangle over a void, there are two talents in particular that I found very useful. Ice arrows and decoys are nice, but it’s the exploding arrows and a low gravity field that I found to be this character’s highlights. Exploding arrows are nice not only for the damage they deal to enemies, but also for their ability to destroy barricades, lose rock, or other obstacles that either impede your progress or hide items you’d really like to have access to. The low gravity field, one of which can be active at a time, is another good ability with plenty of uses, such as activating a field right on a door that collapses too fast for you to get through it after pulling a switch.

Ice arrows can also be used to make floating platforms. See, it's all about how you think to use something.

Pontius has a few good abilities too, like unlocking a two handed war hammer that can be thrown to either act as a range weapon, or destroy the same type of objects as Zoya’s explosive arrows. While this may seem redundant, the war hammer can be used in ways the arrows cannot, such as flinging the hammer at a body of water, and waiting as it sinks down to destroy the barricade there, something explosive arrows cannot do. A flaming sword, magnetic shield, and charge ability round out some of the other abilities, though I would have to say my favorite, and arguably the most useful, ability is Kite Shield, which lets you use Pontius’ shield to glide, so long as you block up.

The real beauty is when you start to combine all these things in new and inventive ways to solve puzzles or reach new heights. A method I eventually came to love involves Zoya’s gravity field, Pontius’ Kite Shield, and Amadeus’ summoning and manipulating abilities. In this case, I would fire off a low gravity field roughly where I wanted it. If I needed it adjusted, or possibly there was no solid surface to trigger a low gravity arrow initially, I would summon a box, and then fire another arrow, effectively relocating the gravity field in the process. The next step required setting up several boxes or platforms within the field, because I could them jump from one to the other, getting higher, and further than anything I could accomplish before. At this point I’d switch to Pontius to glide over whatever was in my way.

Summoned crates in a gravity field will fall slow enough you can summon more or rearrange existing ones while riding another crate.

As you unlock new abilities, or perhaps as you return to previously completed levels to collect some of the secret items or experience you missed the first time around, you’ll find that your means for solving puzzles drastically increases. Do you build a platform of blocks, attempt a series of high risk grapples, or use your Kite Shield to cross this gap? Do you trigger a door and then prop it open with a low gravity field or a summoned box? Do you attempt to navigate a dangerous path, jumping over swing maces, or do you use summoned boxes to turn those same maces into platforms. It is this type of versatility and ability to come up with more than a single solution that makes the game mechanics as beautiful as the lovingly rendered environment.

I'm going to wrap this up, because any time spent reading my review is time not spent buying and or playing Trine 2. The game is absolutely fantastic. It's a game where your ability to come up with tricky physics based solutions is more limited by your creative use of character abilities rather than some lame "you can't use that item/ability/portal in this area" mechanic. The graphics put pretty much every other game I've ever seen to shame. The story is a nice little bit, particularly if you take the time to hunt down the secrets that fill in the back story on the two women you're to pursue - the damsel in distress and the evil witch. That story is then added to by the included Goblin Menace DLC, assuming you either purchased the game after The Complete Story version was released or bought the DLC before, which is a great idea since it adds more to the game and gives you plenty of opportunities to score some more experience. Exploration and creative thinking are certainly rewarded, which is always a nice find in games. There is even a multiplayer mode where you can have multiple characters active at once. In short, go get this game now, paying at least $10 for it, which is not the lowest price it's been, because the game is an excellent 10 out of 10.

So, the breakdown:

Score: 10/10

Suggested Price: $10+

*****

For more Trine 2: The Complete Story, check out this collection of screenshots unused in the rest of the review. Click on one to enlarge it.