This feels like a cheap attempt to artificially lengthen a short runtime, and though most of the collectibles can be found not too far from the main path of each level, and can be gathered with little effort, it’s still frustrating to be approaching the late game and discover than you have to return to earlier levels to collect these glowing McGuffins for no real reason other than busywork. In a move that feels a little too much like a free-to-play mobile game design, Trineangles aren’t just required to unlock extra side missions, but also to gain access to story missions as well. The point of these levels is to earn more Trineangles, as these are used to unlock later stages so that you can progress in the game. Both aspects are a little underwhelming, such as Pontius’ tale of having fallen in a hole and needing to make his way back to his friends, and the fact that the gameplay is mostly either straight combat or entirely navigation-based, depending on which character the level is focused on. This offers the illusion of freedom more than anything else, as the story progresses in a definitively linear manner, and the only option to veer off of the main path is to take part in side-missions which operate much like challenge rooms, only with a slight brush of story that is supposed to fill in details about the main characters’ adventures. Once a level is completed you return to the world map, from where you can select the adventure that your characters will head off on next. I’m not sure if this was a failure on my part to see his usefulness, or whether the nature of the experience just didn’t lend itself to his particular talents.Īs you make your way through the world you’ll start collecting glowing objects, known in game as Trineangles, which operate as a form of progression-based currency. The one character that I found I often overlooked was Amadeus, the Wizard, as his abilities never seemed to be quite the right fit for the puzzles in front of me. ![]() You only control one character at a time, and switch between them using the L and R buttons, meaning that you don’t so much combine abilities as use them in close succession. Pontius, the Knight, is the best option for combat and anything that require feats of strength, while Zoya, who’s a Rogue, can use her bow and arrow to hit distant targets and her grappling hook to pull objects or swing across gaps. Puzzles are largely solved by working out which of the three heroes are best to tackle the problem in front of you, as they each have different abilities that relate to their character type. Though the menu screen boasts of the fact that many puzzles have multiple solutions, I managed to brute-force my way through some navigational puzzles by cheesing my way through, jumping around objects or over obstacles, and it didn’t necessarily feel like this was the developers’ intent. This new perspective brings with it swooping camera work and windings paths through areas that make the game feel more like an epic, but there’s a sense that the developers aren’t always fully sure of how to build their puzzles in a 3D environment. Trine 3 marks the first time that the series has experimented with fully 3D levels, and while the game still delivers a fairly linear level progression, the new sense of scale allows for some fun exploration and for the areas that you explore to feel more alive than 2D can sometimes deliver. ![]() Trine 3 brings back our trio of heroes (Pontius, Amadeus and Zoya) and sets them off on a new adventure, one that will teach them about the history of their world, and about Trine itself. ![]() Despite that effort not working out, I’ve since been fond of the series, and jumped at the chance to play Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power on Nintendo Switch, especially as I hadn’t yet had chance to experience the game from its earlier release back in 2015. My first exposure to the Trine series came as part of an ill-fated attempt to introduce my partner to co-operative gaming, back in the earlier days of the PlayStation 4.
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