The platformer of tomorrow

User Rating: 9 | Trine PC
Trine is a beautiful platformer game nestled in a book-like fantasy setting. The main positives are superb graphics, fun gameplay and fluidity. The negatives are linearity and uninspiring storyline.

Graphics 10/10
The graphics are just gorgeous. Beautifully lit forests and caverns, strange mechanisms or ruined temples, day or night, everything looks great, but I especially like the way forests look. The graphics are very fantasy like, hard-to-describe, just look at pictures, although those don't do enough justice because they don't capture the dynamics of the light effects. For a platformer, this really is stunning graphical display.

Sound 9/10
Music enhanced the theme of the game a great deal. You will hear fantasy tones throughout the whole game, voice acting is great at some parts, others don't shine too much. Overall I liked the sound aspects of the game.

Story 5/10
The truth is there is little backstory. It starts interesting, you characters will find a gem which turns them into a single person, capable of chaging between personalities and looks. But after that it is all just a chase after a bad guy. Besides that the linearity of game is obvious. You always have only one path (although most of time you can accomplish it in several different ways), perhaps small sideways with secrets, but that's about it. I would have greatly enjoyed a more free-roam approach, travelling between locations non-linear style, not just level after level.

Gameplay 9/10
You control a character, which can change between 2 other characters (with the exception of the first chapter where you control the three of them one after another). One is a fighter with a variety of weapons, one a thief who is an adept at using ropes and the last one is mage, who is not able to cast any offensive spells, he rather summon cages or ladder and uses telekinesis. Sometimes there is only one way of passing a certain point, but many times you have the choice between using the characters different abilities to complete the objective.
What enhances the gameplay even further are great physics, like summoning boxes above monster, or hurling them onto them with telekinesis to deal damage, etc.

Replay value 7/10
Its fun while it lasts, but I am not sure if you would be willing to replay it. There are some special objects which you can gather along the way and the game keeps track of these, so it might be worth to replay the levels where you missed them.

Overall I consider this a fairly great game, although not groundbreaking. It reminded me a lot of the time when platformers were great and it also showed how great they can still be, if done correctly.