If you have followed the Trine series and played all parts of the franchise, then you know that the first two were decent, and the third, although beautiful, still has a lot of problems. The most important thing, in my opinion, is a broken story, because the developers promised to release a sequel soon, but something went wrong and the studio almost went bankrupt, leaving gamers with a cliffhanger at the end of the game. And now, thanks to support from the European Union, the developers are back to bring us another great looking and great sounding puzzle game. Did they succeed?? Now let’s figure it out.
Trine 4 completely ignores the events of the failed third part, so if you want to buy the game just for the answers to the questions you want, then I hasten to disappoint you – there won’t be any. The game was subtitled The Nightmare Prince and acquired its own story. The prince of a kingdom became fascinated by dark magic, and now it is consuming him, dragging him into a nightmare. The mysterious sorceress calls on our old friends to save the guy and the trio sets off on their journey. And, perhaps, the plot is the weakest part of Trine 4. The story is straightforward, the ending is predicted, and there will be only one interesting plot twist. In addition, the local dialogues, which are designed for maximum three-year-old children, are a little annoying. Everything is too childish, naive and without a drop of irony, or what?. These dialogues are too simple, so I want them to end as soon as possible so that the gameplay can begin.
The first thing I would like to note is a return to the roots. The developers decided to abandon entering 3D space, as was the case in the third part, and returned to classic 2D. This allowed the game’s creators to better develop the puzzles that are a fundamental part of the franchise. And I tell you, they did it. Never before in any part of Trine have I enjoyed solving puzzles on a location so much. The fact is that the creators make the most of the potential of each of the characters, forcing you to constantly combine their skills with each other. And here, it’s probably worth saying a few words about the characters if there are people who are not familiar with the franchise. There is a sorcerer named Amadeus, a knight named Pontius and a thief named Zoe. Each character has fundamental abilities that will improve over time. Amadeus creates a cube and has telekinesis, Pontius has a shield that can reflect enemy attacks and redirect light and serve as an additional ledge. Well, Zoya has a bow and a rope, which allows her to fasten objects together, swing on special ledges, and so on. In general, each character is useful in one way or another.
The Prince and the https://jabulabetscasino.co.uk/withdrawal/ Fruit of His Nightmare.
It is also worth noting that the game can be played in completely different ways. There is a single playthrough, there is a classic co-op and there is a completely new mode in which you can play for several characters at the same time, plus four of them. I highly do not recommend entering this mode, as the whole essence of the gameplay collapses. No one will stop you from simply taking four magicians, creating four boxes and climbing onto that ledge, which, frankly, would need to be reached by solving a complex puzzle. This is not an interesting mode at all. If you choose a single playthrough, then the player will control all three characters, and he will be able to switch between them at any convenient time. The puzzles are, of course, simplified, since one person can only perform one action with one hero. In general, this is a very cool feature when the world still changes a little, depending on how many people complete the game. And, as for me, the top mode is cooperative, when each player plays the role of one character. Well, or if there are at least two players and they can juggle characters. Then the true face of Trine is revealed, and the game really makes you think about how to solve this or that puzzle.
And if you think that having completed all the previous parts of Trine, you are a guru of this series and can solve all the puzzles in one or two seconds, then you are very mistaken. The game has a bunch of new mechanics that you’ll have to take into account. For example, Zoya has returned to the ability to connect several objects together, but as a bonus she also has the ability to create a path with the help of a rope that other characters can follow. All heroes have received similar improvements, so some gaming conventions will have to be learned again, especially if you haven’t played games in the series for a long time. By the way, leveling has also returned, which was meanly cut out from the third part, where all possible skills were demonstrated to us in training. In the character leveling menu there are two directions in which the hero develops. There is leveling up for stones collected at locations, which unlocks some character feature automatically, like Pontius’ dash, or Zoe’s elemental arrows. But there is also leveling up for skill points, which are earned by collecting experience from defeated opponents in the arenas. In this case, you can independently choose what to upgrade and which character. The effect of lightning on a knight’s sword, a somersault on a thief, or a blow of a cube on the ground by a magician. And if you are playing with a partner, then you need to level up competently so that you don’t level up the same thing, because two skills per team are better than one. True, everything pumped in can be reset at any time without any losses, so I’ve already gone out of my way with a pitchfork. Download what you want, reset, redistribute points and move on.
Menu for leveling up all characters.
There’s just one thing that worries me a little. While going through the game with my partner, I noticed some uselessness of one of the characters. And now I’m talking about Amadeus, who, not only is the dullest in terms of abilities, but also his ability is used extremely rarely in comparison with other characters. Perhaps I’m just being picky, due to the fact that I played mostly Pontius, and my partner was Zoya, but I still got this impression. Created a cube for Amadeus, placed it somewhere and forgot about this character, while Pontius, for example, has many uses for his abilities: reflect a ray of light, reflect a stream of water, substitute a shield for additional height, make a dash and break purple blocks. And so it was only after four hours of play and six levels. What did Amadeus do during this time?? Create a box and lift it. Basically, that’s all. But then again, maybe I’m just being picky.
Well, now it’s time to get back to puzzles. It’s not difficult to guess that the more abilities our heroes have, the more difficult the puzzles appear for them. In the first ten minutes after receiving elemental arrows, you will definitely forget that the descending slab can be frozen. And there are more and more skills, which means the puzzles are longer and more complex. At later levels, the tasks are already huge complexes in which characters will have to be juggled on the fly. And that’s great. If the first levels with the collection of all collectible items could be completed in twenty minutes, then by the middle of the game the locations are completed in more than an hour. And this is taking into account the fact that you are a genius and solve puzzles in seconds. Otherwise, the passage may be delayed. The developers weren’t lying when they said that Trine 4 would be the longest game in the history of the series. Personally, I was afraid that they would drag it out with tedious dialogues, crystal farming, which got me in the threequel, or something else. But no. The entire duration of the game is taken up by the plot, puzzle solving and battles. By the way, about them.
Leave a Reply