Trine 2 Review (PC)

Before you launch Trine 2 for the first time, make sure you have your visual sugar resistant goggles on – this game is a looker. Consider this a fair warning, as this game is like candy for your eyes, even sweeter in the graphical sense than Bastion was.

Trine 2 is a co-op puzzle platformer.  It’s set in a fairytale world where there’s magic, goblins and enchanted forests – pretty much everything you’d expect from your regular children’s bedtime story (giant frogs and treasure hunting included). The game operates on the premise of solving environmental, physics-based puzzles  with some additional combat in-between to get from level to level. You control one of the three heroes at a time, and you can switch between them on the fly with a simple press of either bumper. In the case of a character’s death, they’ll resurrect at the nearest checkpoint bubble, so they’re never gone for more than a couple of minutes. If you decide to play in co-op, which really seems the only right way to play Trine 2, you can either play with one or two friends. If you choose the former, you’ll still be able to switch characters. The latter option has all three characters assigned. This is a very comfortable solution, because if you’re one buddy short, the third character can be switched to at any time.

My eyes! My eyes! It's too pretty!

The team is made up of a brave Knight, a cunning Thief, and a mighty Wizard. All three characters have unique skills which are all vital to the puzzle solving that awaits you. The Knight is the best character to fight the incoming goblins and spiders, and he also has a shield that he can use to deflect projectiles, which is very helpful at times. As I mentioned before, this is a physics based game, so you can direct the deflected projectiles where ever you want by adjusting the angle of your shield accordingly. These little things are what makes Trine 2 fun to play, not just to watch. The Thief has a bow and a grappling hook, however you won’t want to use her for combat – she’s more of the get-there-fast character, with speed and agility at her disposal.

The Wizard is more of a conjurer than anything else, because apparently all he can do is create boxes and planks out of thin air and make them levitate. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? Unfortunately, it is too much in fact, and you can very easily break the game if you decide to abuse the simple trick of making one hero stand on a box, and then just flying them above all obstacles and puzzle elements. Discovering this pretty much ruins the fun of puzzle solving, because roughly 80% of all the game’s puzzles can be simply avoided using this trick. Perhaps this is something the developers would want to look at before releasing any major patches.

Gotta stack 'em up.

If you decide to go against your natural urge to simplify everything and choose the honest way to play Trine 2, you’ll find the puzzles not too demanding at all. There is a hint system in case you really get lost, but in all my time spent with the game I had to wait to hear the hint only once, and probably only because I was very tired. The puzzles are mostly constructed in one rather simple way. Create a couple of boxes to get to higher ground, rearrange some pipes to divert flames/water/steam, pull a lever, and exit through the door. Maybe it’s a difficulty setting issue, but the game almost felt too casual to me. It’s not very challenging, but it’s great to play with a friend. The gorgeous visuals make it a fun way to chill with a buddy.

Trine 2 was certainly made to be enjoyed with other people. And this very fact seems to be its biggest, only major problem. For a co-op focused game, there sure are too many bugs that appear only in this mode. The way co-op works is very near to being broken, and here’s why. First of all, the characters can’t be too far from each other, because the camera will focus on just one, making it impossible for the other players to know what they’re doing. If you have one character standing in the middle of the frame, and the others go too far in any direction, the camera will zoom in on just one, instead of zooming out to get them all. This causes all kinds of frustration and bad language. Once the camera loses track of someone, they’re as good as dead, because the levels are designed in a way that forces you to constantly avoid environmental hazards. It’s certain that if a player can’t see their character, they’ll immediately fall into their deaths, or get killed by fire and projectiles.

Another thing that bothered me while playing co-op was that the characters are unbalanced to the point when you’ll often tell your buddies to just kill themselves to get resurrected at the next checkpoint, because you’ve already gone past the platforming sequence their characters  seem unable to negotiate. This issue and the completely busted camera almost make me want to say that Trine 2 is a co-op game with broken co-op. Fortunately there are ways to get past these issues, even if they mean not playing the game as it was intended by the developers. If Trine 2 is ever to be considered a successful release, the team has to do something about these game-breaking bugs right away.

"Guys? Are you off-screen again?"

Trine 2 is most definitely an outstanding achievement in the graphics and art design departments, and it’s simply a delight to watch. No doubt this is the most well-done and enjoyable part of the game. It looks so great that even though it’s very far from being a perfect product, you’ll often find yourself making excuses in its name, like “well, this is obviously broken… but look how fantastic it looks!”