Troll and I: Review

The idea behind Troll and I is a simple story of an unlikely friendship between a young tribesman named Otto, and a massive out of this world Troll. The friendship kindles over their mutual enemy that has come to the forest lands with the express intent on capturing the Troll for bounty. The enemy comes from the west with greedy poachers out to capture the Troll and Otto's tribe just happens to be in the way.

Early on in the game the visuals presented are ample for a small development team, however the pace of the game is painfully slow while the game teaches you the mechanics of the game while you control Otto. The game takes you through a series of techniques on how to craft weapons and hunt animals for food (health), which is what one would expect when starting a game. However, before long you meet up with your new friend the Troll. There isn't so much explanation on how to use the Troll but there's not too much to it so working it out is easy enough. However the game seems to forget all about you from there on in. There are audio cues from time to time which give you a suggestion on what needs to be done, with little help on how to actually do it. It won't be long before the level design starts to confuse you on where you need to go next and what you actually need to do. Fumbling your way through and experimenting will be your only course of action here.
Unfortunately this is where the game sharply declines rapidly in all areas. Controlling the Troll offers up undesirable camera angles which often zoom in too close for you to actually see what you're doing. Bugs in the game's makeup are absolutely everywhere. From the controls becoming completely unresponsive to the worst possible, critical errors that crash the game down and closes unexpectedly. After playing Troll and I for around three hours I encountered no less than seven critical errors that made it harder and harder to continue playing through such a broken game.
So if the bugs and critical errors that are littered throughout weren't enough, the combat gameplay suffers also. While it was fun to one hit the enemies with the Troll and watch their bodies smash into green goo, this soon became more of a chore than an integral piece in the game play. While it makes sense that the Troll and slow and cumbersome in combat, it became frustrating that most enemies would move out of the way making them extremely hard to attack using the Troll. I soon worked out that fighting the smaller Troll like creatures was absolutely unnecessary in most areas and it was easier and faster to just run past them and climb away to safety. I began skipping battles, not because they were too difficult, but simply because it wasn't fun and just seemed to drag on.
The concept of Troll and I should work and feels like it would be a great game had it been given the proper testing and patches before its release. Essentially, a good looking game with potential has been turned into a broken mess of bugs and crashes which render it difficult, if not impossible to play. On the bright side, if you can deal with the endless list of issues, there's a pretty easy Platinum trophy there for the taking on PS4.

Troll and I is available now on PS4, Xbox One, Switch and PC.

Lucas
Aussie Gamers Express
28th March 2017
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