It’s no secret that we are big fans of the Trine series at
Retro 101. We’ve covered both the original games across numerous formats and
rated them very highly. Indeed, there’s just something about them that fills
the Lost Vikings sized hole in our lives. Frozenbyte promised to try something
different with Trine 3 and now the 3D experiment has made its way to the
Switch.
As always with the series, Trine 3 looks jaw-dropingly
gorgeous. The environments leap into life with colour and flourishes of detail
that you just don’t find in many games. If you have the ability to play the
game in 3D then things get even more beautiful as well. It’s simply stunning
how good this looks and playing anything else afterwards is a real comedown in
the visual department.
The big change is that now the game is in 3D. You can run
into and out of the screen and the levels now scroll into the play field as
well as left and right. This allows for some nice sections with the three
heroes floating and swinging along but also brings with it some changes that
not everyone will be happy with.
The main issue is that levels feel less focused than in the
previous 2D outings. Puzzle solving is less complex and there is more emphasis
on general combat and platforming. Using the wizard has become a bit of a pain
as well as moving his objects around in the 3D landscape never really feels as
natural as it should. There’s also an issue with depth and it can be hard to
tell if you are going to land where you think you are. It’s kind of like an N64
platformer with the most beautiful graphics ever.
The characters have now lost the ability to upgrade their
skills as well (though they are given selected skills to start). The Knight can
stomp, charge, deflect and float with his shield while the thief can now tie
her grappling hooks to things to hold them in place. The wizard is more limited
with his abilities and now restricted to the summoning of a single box.
The new approach to skills is made use of well though and
you will need everything to progress. The fact the heroes start with their
skills also allows the game to throw things at you right from the off and get
you thinking. It’s good the game does throw you in quickly because it is
somewhat shorter than other games in the series. Starting out with a level to
introduce each character you then get five main levels to fight through. Upon
completion you are faced with a cliff hanger ending which hints at more to
come. What form that will take will remain to be seen.
There are a host of shorter levels to unlock as well which
focus on an individual character and as such effectively give you one life to
complete them. These are tougher and designed to fit skill sets of the
respective characters. Though brief they are fun to play and never out stay
their welcome.
Both main story and side levels are unlocked by collecting
glowing triangles. We don’t really like things like this as it can work as an
artificial game lengthening device that forces players to go back to levels and
hunt around for the missing twenty or thirty they need to progress. We didn’t
have much trouble with getting the requisite amounts but it’s something we’d
like to see removed in any future games.
Overall, while there has been a lot of a change in mechanics
and progression the game never stops being fun. It’s certainly a more
knock-about kind of fun than before but it remains humorous and throws up
enough adventure to keep you interested until the end. When the 3D works in the
games favour you can see exactly what the team were going for and there are
some solid foundations here for future forays into it. It may not be up there
with the near perfection of the 2D games but it has bucket load of potential if
the team ever decide to revisit the idea.
Overall 7/10
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