Trine 3
Released: August 20, 2015
Game Length: 5 Hours
Grade: C-
Expectations: Among the many indie developers came a company by the name of Frozenbyte that decided to make a series based on rotating between three different characters. You may not have noticed Trine when it came out in 2009, but it got a bit of attention when the free update of the Enchanted Edition came out with online and local co-op in 2014. That's all because they utilized the multiplayer aspect with Trine 2 and later the awesome Trine 2: Complete Story Edition with the expanded Goblin Menace update that I played with a bunch of my friends in the following years. Then I briefly saw an article about Trine 3 and... nobody was talking about it. I don't get it! What in the world happened that made the game so terrible?
Reality: Wait, that was it? That's the game? Now I understand why Trine 3 is sitting at a 66% positive rating on Steam. It is extremely short and blatantly left unfinished. I understand that the team ran out of money in their attempt of establishing a 3D-interface for what originally only worked for a 2D-platform, but they really dropped the ball on this one. First off, the game comes across a little too childish and immature. The character model redesigns, the map interface shown on a wood table instead of a book, and the story doesn't quite show the "epic" feel I had with the previous two games. There is an achievement called "Sheep Happens" and a challenge level that revolves around "The Cake is a Lie" later in the game. Second, moving in three dimensions was a terrible idea when half your abilities require a shift in controls. The wizard can move a box like normal, but you have to to press another button that makes your character stationary so that you can use your movement controls to pull things on a Z-Axis. You now have to hold a button to shift between targets because there is no way the game can distinguish which way you are facing. The third problem is of course the technical issues utilizing your new abilities. The thief can now rope things together, but the game has a hard time deciding how to handle the physics. You can be squeezed into walls, fall through cracks, or popped high into the air depending on how things move. I encountered a ton of glitches from enemy bodies clipping into the wall, the paper background making objects look like they were in front of a badly made green screen, and cutscenes where simple non-movable items were jumping all over the place.
Changes: As I already mentioned, there are a lot of things that just don't work mechanic-wise. The wizard still can move things around, but the game has this nasty habit of trying to "reset" the item he is grabbing over his head. If anything prevents that, there is no telling what the object will do with the game's quirky physics. He cannot "draw" a box anymore or modify its size; only one unique box can be created over his head. The thief now has a rope that she can tie objects together, but the length of that rope depends on pushing up or down with the right analog stick. For some reason you see objects "poke" along as it seems the thief doesn't have enough strength to automatically "pull-up" an object. Oh, and you can't untie the rope either. The only way is to break the rope entirely by shooting an arrow through it. I also really hope you don't have a person play as a sword-swinging maniac on your team. Speaking of the knight, I still don't know how holding up his shield makes him "float" across ravines. If one character dies, they sort of hover over the ground until you come and revive them. If you are in possession of only one character, then they will respawn at the previous checkpoint. I really, really hope you can figure out where to stand when that bridge now provides some additional depth to the game.
Short Story: The gravest issue with the game that everyone can see is that it was left unfinished. There are a total of 8 chapters - 3 introductory chapters where you control only one character, 1 chapter where the device pulls you in to save an academy, 3 chapters where you go through locations to find out what happened, and 1 chapter with a boss fight. Then the game ends after finding your first shard during that same boss fight! You don't get to fight the main boss or learn how the adventure concludes. A cutscene appears with the villain doing more evil things and the credits roll. You can go back and try to collect all the little pyramid things or complete any of the little side-story challenges where you are only in control of one of the three characters, but that barely extends your playtime over 5 Hours. In the end, I do not recommend this game at all.
12-18-2020