Unmistakable beautiful, a feast often clasping perfection only to lose its grip thanks to repetitive combat.
The tale follows the fate of three characters on a quest to save their fictional kingdom from the grips of evil, all for their different motives. The story really just acts as a mechanism to transport you from place to place but its simplicity ensures no issues in this respect. Its attempts of humour fall dead flat however and the narrator has a distinctly niggling and annoying voice.
All three characters are required although balancing issues channel the player towards the silky cool thieve. Aesthetically the best designed her bow and grappling hook offer the best cover, offing the speediest transportation and a useful offensive option. The Warrior offers nothing in transversing the many puzzles and obstacles but up close is superior in combat. Finally a distracted wizard, who has the handy ability to draw limited number of objects and move select others, but lacks a attack of any sort leving him vunerable. A choice of boxes, planks and later grappling places that allows a depth and verity of gameplay options. Despite the obvious lenience towards our female hero, the setup offers plenty of verity in gameplay and exciting puzzle solving options.
On this note the level design is very strong, exploiting its character option brilliantly providing sections of perfection when coupled with the exceptional visuals. The verity of puzzles ensure boredom stays far at bay in these prime stages. However boredom and some degree of annoyance will seep through in combat, a somewhat lacking aspect of this otherwise superb game. Although not bad per say, the complete lack of any complexity leads to repetition, and the enemies spawning leads to notable frustrations. Not only from a players perspective but more so because this game could have been so much more if this portion of the game had been attempted as intelligently as the other main stays of Trine.
I cannot express how much of a shame this is considering how beautiful this game looks and feels. Technically and artistically Trine is awesome bringing this world, otherwise devoid of depth, alive. From grand halls to rich textured forests Trine is a feast for the eyes. The audio although not exceptional does its job well. The net effect is for Trine to punch well above its weight.
Replay value is certainly high especially with the games trophy support. Trine is well worth your time despite its combat issues.