Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Trine: Enchanted Edition is a side scrolling action adventure and puzzle game available for download from the PlayStation Store for the PS4. Trine: Enchanted Edition fully utilises the Trine 2: Complete Story engine to enhance the original Trine game on PS3 and is the latest release in the award winning and popular Trine franchise. Trine is the work of the self-funded development team Frozenbyte based in Helsinki, Finland who was founded in 2001 and had developed the successful P.C. indie games Shadowgrounds in November 2005 and Shadowgrounds: Survivor in November 2007 which are sci-fi action games that saw the player battling hordes of aliens before Trine was originally released in 2009 with Trine 2 following in 2011, while Frozenbyte’s follow-up IP to Trine is a fast-paced old-school platform game called Splot which released in October 2014.
The story revolves around the death of the king, while leaving no direct heir to the throne as chaos ensues for a race to the throne, although there is a much greater evil lurking in the shadows as the dead rise and begin to walk as they assemble an undead army, therefore forcing the people that lived there to flee from what was once a lively and prosperous kingdom.
There are three characters including: Amadeus, Pontius and Zoya with their own unique weapons and abilities. Amadeus is a wizard, while Pontius is a brave warrior and Zoya is a thief who prefers to consider herself to be an entrepreneur. The spells, skills and abilities of each of the three characters certainly represent who they are supposed to be in the game. Amadeus as a wizard is able to conjure magic spells to create objects to counter balance weights and enable him to climb to reach previously unattainable heights and platforms, although he can also use his magic spells to lower objects onto enemies, particularly when out of an enemies’ view as a quick ambush; while Pontius as a brave warrior has no magic spells, but as he wears thick armour he also carries his sword for attacking enemies and a shield to protect him from enemies on the attack and falling objects; and Zoya as a thief is able to aim crossbows from afar to take out her enemies and sneak through areas quickly and away from danger with her grappling hook.
Players can level up any of the 3 characters by collecting 50 orbs which will be found hidden amongst the levels as progression is made through the game, whilst looking harder for some of them by overcoming a puzzle to reach the height of the orb as well as collecting a fair amount of orbs as enemies are killed. kill. Each level up earned gains a skill point which can in turn be used to improve an ability of any of the 3 characters, although some of the skills can be unlocked via finding treasure chests that will sometimes be situated in plain sight, while some of them will be hidden away behind a puzzle. There are 9 improvements that can be made to each of the 3 characters by levelling up, although each improvement costs between 1 and 4 skill points which means players will have to continuously level up in order to reach the maximum potential for each character to be able to maximise their skills. Players actually have to be quite specific and very sure of upgrade choices when designating the usage of the skill points as they cannot be reset to redistributed to improve an alternative set of abilities; which is the opposite approach to Trine 2: Complete Story as that game allows you to do exactly that at any given time. Skills that can be improved from these points include: Amadeus being able to conjure multiple boxes and planks simultaneously; while Zoya is able to fire multiple arrows at once and the ability to shoot arrows of fire from her crossbow at enemies as well as lighting previously unlit lanterns to act as torches for darker areas; and Pontius is able to increase his possibility of producing a critical hit to enemies and a temporary speed boost to charge at enemies which is particularly efficient against shielded enemies, alongside many more upgrades available for each of the 3 characters.
The level design is massive in scale with such a variety of mysterious environments to explore ranging from underground catacombs and crystal caverns to sun drenched ancient ruins and even abandoned castles. Each level has a range of physics based puzzles in which players will be required to counter balance the weight of an object in order for you to be able to reach a higher platform.
The enemy design varies greatly with plenty of skeletons swinging their swords, firing bows and arrows and even blowing fire, while there are poison spitting spiders, carefully laid traps such as spikes and boulders, hazards such as fireballs and so much more besides including large enemy bosses that attack quickly resulting in them being harder to hit. The enemy design progresses through phases throughout the game to keep the challenge of the enemies, traps, hazards and enemy bosses feeling fresh and exciting.
Trine: Enchanted Edition supports the share feature that allows players to upload a video clip or a screen shot to Facebook or Twitter; and broadcast live gameplay footage via Twitch or Ustream as the game is being experienced the game with a simple tap of the share button and selecting the option of choice. The PS4’s hard-drive continuously stores the most recent fifteen minutes of gameplay footage, so players still have the chance to decide if they would like to share something amazing a few minutes after it has taken place. The share feature is a next-gen revolution that has only improved with the further customisation provided by the Share Factory app that allows commentary, music, themes, stickers, effects, text, picture-in-picture video between game footage and the player’s reaction from the PlayStation Camera and much more besides, which will only continue to prosper and flourish as it matures with additional features and further experimentation in the future. The Share Play feature provides a platform for a gamer that does not own the game to take control once started and invited that person to play, although it only lasts for one hour; it is a great service as it effectively presents a one hour demo of the game to anyone invited who does not own it, while being an excellent sociable feature too.
Trine: Enchanted Edition supports the remote play feature that allows play on almost any PS4 game on the PlayStation Vita via a Wi-Fi internet connection by pairing up the PS4 and Vita via configuring the settings for connection, then entering the code provided from the settings menu on the Vita’s PS4 Link application with the initial setup taking around only two minutes. The performance during remote play is just as amazing as the general performance of the PS4 version with the graphics, audio, loading times and control scheme all remaining at the same standard of quality with optimisations to the control scheme as L2 and R2 from the DualShock 4 controller have been reconfigured to the left and right of the Vita’s rear touch pad respectively, while the touch pad controls have been precisely mapped to the Vita’s touch screen.
The controls are extremely well mapped to the DualShock 4 controller. The face buttons control scheme consists of pressing X to jump; holding X to leap higher naturally or from a bouncing object; pressing square or R2 to attack with Pontius’ sword or to use Zoya’s grappling hook; pressing triangle to change weapons or arrows; pressing R1 or L1 to change between the three characters; changing the direction of the left analogue stick to the left or right or pressing the left or right buttons on the d-pad to move the character; changing the direction of the right analogue stick to manoeuvre the cursor in the appropriate direction for Pontius to be able to protect himself from attacks, hazards and traps by moving his shield to deflect them and for Zoya to be able to fire her crossbow; holding L2 or R2 in combination with the right analogue stick allows Amadeus to craft objects from magic spells, pick them up and move those objects accordingly to counter balance the weight of objects to help with puzzles and to attack enemies by dropping objects on their heads; pressing the share button takes players to the share feature menu; and pressing the options button to display the pause menu.
The touch pad controls certainly provide the equal best use for the touch pad in any PS4 game with Trine 2: Complete Story as players can manoeuvre the cursor for any of the 3 characters. The best demonstration of the quality of the touch pad controls is particularly when using Amadeus as players can lightly touch the surface of the touch pad while holding R2 to draw an object and lift that object by moving a finger around the touch pad, while watching the object move in real time in accordance to exactly where players want it to move in the game. Other demonstrations of the capabilities of the touch pad include aiming and firing Zoya’s crossbow and raising Pontius’ shield to the appropriate angle to block any incoming attacks, traps or hazards, while tapping the touch pad will display the skill points menu. There is no question Trine: Enchanted Edition’s controls stand out in particular for the experimentation and appropriate use of the touch pad, whereas many PS4 games are still yet to succeed in providing the touch pad with an efficient purpose even since the release of Trine 2: Complete Story which initially perfected the touch pad controls a year before the release of Trine: Enchanted Edition.
The colour of the light bar on the DualShock 4 controller remains the same standard colour throughout the game, which is a bit surprising as there could have been some experimentation in this area as a neutral colour could have been assigned to each of the three characters for when they are exploring with a particular colour for attacking enemies and a separate colour for when enemies are attacking, alongside an eerie glowing effect which could have been utilised for when Amadeus is casting a spell. However, the lack of experimentation for the light bar can be forgiven considering the testing and work that has obviously been explored with the touch pad controls, while players can feel a moderate vibration particularly when they are being attacked during combat situations and when a lever is discovered that needs to be turned to operate a mechanism to raise a bridge.
Graphically, Trine has never looked as good as this before with breathtaking visuals running at a stunning native resolution of 1080p in 60 frames per second and stereoscopic 3D. To put that into perspective; previous versions of Trine on consoles run at a resolution of 720p in 30 frames per second without 3D, so Trine: Enchanted Edition on PS4 certainly offers the best graphical quality of any console version of Trine and rivals the overall performance quality of a high end P.C. when running the game. There are some amazing graphical touches such as the lighting and shadows with the positioning of the shadows changing when re-positioning an object to block the nearest light source or when Zoya makes a dark area lighter by aiming a fiery arrow from her crossbow to light a lantern, therefore completely changing the casting of light and shadows. Trine: Enchanted Edition is on par with the excellent implementation of stereoscopic 3D from Trine 2: Complete Story and is quite possibly the best implementation of stereoscopic 3D in any game with an amazing depth of field as characters stand out as there is noticeable depth between the foreground and background, while there has been so much emphasis placed into the depth of the 3D that even the menus pop out from their backgrounds.
The presentation of the game is solid with a great user interface across various menus such as the main, settings and gameplay menus with support for navigation via the left analogue stick, directional pad and face buttons, although it does not include support for navigation via the right analogue stick and touch pad. The background of the menu screens consists of a beautifully natural and flourishing landscape with the sun reflecting off the water below, lots of vegetation and butterflies flying around the tall trees and lanterns.
The audio consists of voice-overs, sound effects and music with the voice-overs being an essential part of the story driven narrative of Trine: Enchanted Edition with a cast of voice-over artists that perform their roles exceptionally well and really bring a lot to the atmosphere of the game as is also the case for the entire voice-over cast in Trine 2: Complete Story. Terry Wilton provides an amazing narration of the story having also provided his vocal talents as Father Simeon and Vlad in Broken Sword: The Serpent’s Curse; the narrator in Dota 2 and Barny in Risen 2: Dark Waters and Risen 3: Titan Lords, while Kevin Howarth voices Amadeus having also voiced Georgie Porgie in The Wolf Among Us and various voice-overs for The Witcher and Venetica, alongside Victoria Kruger voices Zoya who has voiced Isabela in Dragon Age II and Brian Bowles who voices Pontius having voiced various roles in Jumping Flash 1 and 2; Heart of Darkness; Genji: Days of the Blade; and Star Wars: The Old Republic amongst other videogames. The sound effects are wide ranging for each character as they have their own abilities and weapons, alongside ambient sound effects that bring more life to the environments such as birds tweeting and fire lit wood, while the music has a score that is quite adventurous. Despite achieving a phenomenal sense of atmosphere with the audio; there is a lack of DualShock 4 speaker implementation which could have produced the ambient, character or enemy sound effects and would have therefore been a great addition to the quality of the audio by providing a further layer to the atmosphere of the game.
The trophy list includes 47 trophies with 38 bronze, 4 silver, 4 gold and 1 platinum trophy which is 14 trophies more than the 33 trophies contained within the platinum trophy list for the original release of Trine on PS3; Trine: Enchanted Edition on PS4 has a comprehensively re-balanced trophy list consisting of some trophies resembling those from the PS3 version and some brand new trophies for good measure.
Players will be able to obtain around half of the trophies by naturally progressing through the game and completing it on any difficulty level as 16 of the levels will reward with a bronze trophy for completion, completing a level with a single character is rewarded with a silver trophy for each of the 3 characters and the Completed silver trophy for completing the game on any difficulty level. There are a number of trophies related to killing enemies with particular methods that range in difficulty such as The Cool Way bronze trophy for killing a monster by jumping on it with the Knight, another with the Wizard’s abilities and killing another enemy with the Thief’s grappling hook kick within the same level; the Spring Master bronze trophy for jumping on at least 3 skeletons in a row without touching the ground; and the Whoops bronze trophy for killing 3 monsters with a single physical drop or throw. There are significantly harder trophies such as the Treasure Hunter gold trophy for finding all of the treasure chests with a further 15 bronze trophies for collecting all of the experience pick-ups across every level and a further bronze trophy for collecting all of the purple pick-ups in the extra level with all 17 trophies certainly taking some exploring; the Grand Collector gold trophy for collecting all of the experience pick-ups in the game; the Walk in the Park gold trophy for completing the game on the hard difficulty level while also using hardcore mode; and the Better Than the Developers gold trophy for completing the Tower of Sarek without any deaths on hard difficulty. It is estimated that depending upon skill and a good trophy guide to provide some helpful tips that it would take around 15 to 20 hours to platinum the trophy list.
There are three difficulty levels including: easy, medium and hard, while additional complexity can be enabled or disabled for any of the levels and characters by selecting the hardcore mode. The hardcore mode provides an even greater challenge by limiting the amount of times dead characters can be resurrected and by disabling the ability to save during a level. Players are given a hint regarding the puzzle being attempted to overcome when struggling to find their way through the puzzle currently being faced which provides a diagram of the controller advising players on which action is needed to perform in order to progress beyond the puzzle, although it is finely balanced as it does not instruct on where the action needs to be performed, therefore a very human thought process is still required.
As a multiplayer game Trine: Enchanted Edition excels just as much as Trine 2: Complete Story as there are extensive local co-operative multiplayer and online co-operative multiplayer experiences spanning the entire game. Trine was originally local co-operative with no online functionality, but the inclusion of online co-operative multiplayer means that players can switch from playing a single player game to having a friend join at any given time by pressing the options button on their DualShock 4 controller via the drop-in/drop-out co-op system, alongside being able to convert a single player or local co-operative multiplayer game into hosting an online multiplayer game from the current one for the public or friends from the friends list to be able to join in the game at the level currently reached, alternatively players can also join anyone else’s online multiplayer game from the multiplayer menu. The performance of local and online multiplayer is consistently outstanding with more than competent matchmaking when searching for an online game or allowing players to join the game, while there is a combination of local and online co-operative multiplayer as there could be two players locally and one player online, one player locally and one player online or vice versa which is certainly a positive design choice as it makes the multiplayer far more user friendly.
There are no online leaderboards which is surprising as they could have featured leaderboards for each level with positions decided by how quickly a level has been completed and how swiftly the player has completed the overall game, alongside points scoring leaderboards based upon overall performance with points rewarded for killing an enemy, finding and collecting the contents of treasure chests and completing a level within a set period of time, although the lack of online leaderboards can be forgiven considering the extent of the multiplayer features.
The replayability of Trine: Enchanted Edition is provided from a number of different areas, such as being able to play as three characters and being able to level up all of the skills for each character, which allows players to be more experimental with their approach to attacking enemies and overcoming puzzles. An extensive amount of features, customisation and three varying difficulty levels as well as a hardcore mode, alongside a mixture of drop-in/drop-out local co-op and online co-op are sure to have players coming back to play Trine: Enchanted Edition for many hours beyond the initial playthrough of the game.
Overall, Trine: Enchanted Edition offers content that will have players returning to the game long after initial investment, such as an enchanting story, three customisable difficulty levels via the hardcore mode, a skill points, levelling up system, drop-in/drop-out local and online co-op multiplayer and even stunning stereoscopic 3D and touch pad control features. Trine: Enchanted Edition is exceptional value as it offers just as much content as would be expected to find in a retail game, but for a much lower price of £9.99* or a bundle of the PS4 versions of both Trine games for just £19.99*. Trine: Enchanted Edition delivers the ultimate experience of Trine across any platform and for that reason alone; should certainly be made a a must purchase.
Jason Bonnar
Analysis
- Title: Trine: Enchanted Edition
- Developer: Frozenbyte
- Publisher: Frozenbyte
- System: PS4
- Format: PSN Download
- Cross-Buy: No
- Cross-Play: No
- Players: 1-3 (3 Players Offline Co-Op/3 Players Online Co-Op)
- Hard Drive Space Required: 1.32GB
- * Correct at time of going to press. January 19th 2015.