Trine 3 Review

The heroes attempt to return their powers to Trine and in doing so they end up messing with powers beyond their knowledge. This causes Trine to shatter which allows an ancient evil sorcerer to escape. It is now up to you to control the three heroes in the quest to repair the damage that has already been caused.

Now I would like to start off by addressing the white elephant in the room. If you have been a fan of the previous two games like I have, you may have been looking hard at Trine 3 after its early access release on Steam some time ago. Early reviews of Trine 3 suggest that the game falls short of reaching the highs of its predecessors mainly based on the games length. Before playing through Trine 3, I saw reviews about it being too short and missing a lot of what the previous games excelled at. Some of this is true, however Trine 3 strongly holds up on its own as a wonderful Trine experience.

While it is true, for a gamer that has completed the previous two games in the Trine series, I have noticed that the game is a lot shorter than the original games which boast a large triple A release game play time. By "a lot" shorter I mean a hell of a lot shorter. The game can be completed in a binge session of around 6-8 hours. This might be disappointing to long-time fans of Trine but the new experience of the full 3D world was so inviting that I didn't feel like this bothered me. 

The most disappointing part of Trine 3, which will very likely go unnoticed by people that haven't played the previous games, is that the heroes' abilities appear to have been truncated. Amadeus the Wizard used to be able to conjure up custom shaped prism's to assist with trudging through the treacherous landscapes and puzzles. He could create up to two cubes to help climb to high places and he could even create ramps which all of the heroes could use. Now Amadeus appears to have lost his ability to create anything more than just one cube at a time.

This extends onto Pontius the Knight too. In the previous games this hero had the ability to switch between his trusty sword that he could swing like the mighty Knight that he is, and a large sledge hammer that he could throw which gave him a ranged attack (check the video below for an example). Now Pontius is left with only a sword and a shield. Zoya on the other hand, appears to be as she was in the other games.

The matter of the skill tree is probably the most notable exclusion from Trine 3. From the video above you will see a short snippet of a skill tree devoted separately to each hero. The skill tree points could be moved around to tweak the performance of your heroes depending on the type of puzzle that you were attempting to get through. This is completely gone in Trine 3 which is another disappointing part to mention. Logically speaking though, the abilities of the past were mostly suited to a 2D playing field and the addition of the third dimension would render these abilities too difficult to use, or just impossible to execute. Still, it's disappointing that a new skill tree hasn't been implemented here.

Now I have been playing Trine 3 on the Playstation 4 which is where the previous games saw a world of hurt when it came to attempting to play online co-op with your friends. Trine 2 was an early purchase for me and after it became a "free" Playstation Plus title, a few more people got their hands on it. This was cause for some co-op action, except for the fact that the only servers that I could connect to were returning a ping of 99999 (basically a bad connection that won't work). So in the past the online co-op has been broken at best so to combat that problem this time around the online part has been completely removed, just like the frontal lobe in a mental patient after a lobotomy. The PC, Mac and Linux versions of the game still have the online feature but the PS4 has been left out of this loop. This is unfortunate considering co-op gaming is becoming a lot more widely accepted these days. After all, you don't actually have to have your smelly best friend sitting on the couch next to you to play with them.

Trine 3 is a good experience. Wait no! It's a great experience to have and this is coming from a long-time fan of the series. Trine 3 doesn't destroy the fantastic fantasia that the previous games created. Rather it moves it half a step forward into territory that is exciting for its future. Somehow the developers of Trine 3 (Frozenbyte) have managed to transform a 2D platformer into a 3D platformer without losing absolutely any of the games charm and overall aesthetic and feel. Trine 3 still feels like a Trine game even though it is played like it has never played before. The bright colours are back with a feeling of absolute beauty in each and every level that is played.


If you don't mind playing through a short game that is relatively easy in the difficulty department you should get a kick out of Trine 3. The puzzles generally won't challenge most adult players and the enemies are thin in numbers and encounters are minimal. It's obvious at all times that the heroes (mainly Pontius) are massively over powered for all of the enemies in this game, even when they appear in greater numbers.

I'll leave you with this opinion. Fans of the Trine games will very likely leave Trine 3 one of two ways. 1. With an appreciation for the new direction which paths the way for an exciting new future of Trine. 2. Walk away wanting more after completely finishing the game to 100% completion in one sitting...

Thanks for checking out our review.

Aussie Gamers Express

Lucas (LewkOne)