Trine 2 Review

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The most immediately striking element of the game is how intensely rich the world is. Shafts of light fall through shimmering emerald green forests while the icy caverns you slip through sparkle blue. Every area is intricately detailed and visually charming; each new section of the game stuffs your fists so full of eye-candy it's difficult not to just stop and stare. Your movement through the game is entirely fixed to one side-scrolling plane but the way the game looks, the variety of locations and the camera's shifting eye all work to create a real sense of depth and wonderment.

There are three characters available for your hot-swapping perusal, each with their own specific skills and toolsets. Each of the three are required at different times throughout the game in order to complete specific level-advancing puzzle-solving due to their different areas of expertise.

The rogue is equipped with a bow and a grappling hook; she can impale enemies with regular arrows, as well as those of the souped-up fire or ice varieties. Swooping over long drops and even the occasional gaping abyss with the help of helpfully-placed attachable surfaces is an extremely fun undertaking. Moving around as rogue is the most fluid and enjoyable way to travel in my estimation, but grappling hooks and bows are two of my favourite things. While the requirements for grapple-manouevreability seem to have diminished slightly compared to the the first game, there are still places that are otherwise inaccessible and it remains an exceedingly fun way to travel.

As the wizard, you're able to draw boxes into existence with your mousehand. These boxes can then work as platforms to higher ground, impromptu grappling-hookable surfaces for the rogue (when mounted onto convenient ceiling spikes) and various other useful and ingenious things that you come to discover along the way. He's a dab hand at levitation too, with the ability to levitate almost any object - the item you're currently standing atop, or even a flustered enemy. An upgrade which can be bought using collected XP allows for the creation of planar platforms, which work as bridges and other miscellaneous constructional devices. The wizard is at the pinnacle of physics-based puzzlery within the game, and it's very rewarding when you manage to compile a contraption that does what you want it to in a way that doesn't seem particularly plausible; you create your own game in a lot of these instances with how you choose to confront each scenario.

If you need to sword-slash, hammer-hurl or cower beneath a shield, the stout knight proudly fits the bill. He's the most reliable character for speedily stomping goblins, and one of his unlocks is a hammer that's capable of inflicting the necessary damage to take out environmental roadblocks. Out of the three chracters, however, the knight is the least useful. In the first game he was able to move boxes around, which increased his value somewhat, but that's been stripped out of this game perhaps in lieu of his newly acquired hammer-throwing ability. If the other two characters have died and leave the knight as your only option, you'll often find yourself unable to reach the next checkpoint.

One of the most noticeable advancements from the original game is in the increased interactivity with the environment. It feels far more responsive to your presence and is frequently malleable to your will, which really works to escalate the sense of wonderment that the game creates. Leaves give way beneath your feet dropping you softly onto the ground below, mushrooms supply extremely adequate bouncing surfaces allowing access to higher areas and the puzzles employ the environment excellently, resulting in a dynamically-shifting and pleasingly mechanical world.

The puzzles have improved markedly from the original game, too. They encourage manual dexterity alongside enjoyable lateral thinking as the original game did, but new mechanics within the game bring added depth; bending the movements of fire and water in order to help your progression and solve puzzles, using levers to move portals around and guiding blasts of hot air through valves that send you shooting toward your destination - it's the combination of effects and clever puzzle-construction that really compels you to continue playing. Using the different tools at the disposal of each constituent adventurer to neuter the dangers of each gnarled tree-house, icy forest and fiery cavern advances you through the levels and while there's often a feeling of bewilderment and dismay when you reach a particularly puzzling situation, the rewarding moments of sudden realisation are made all the more enjoyable as a result.

Timing and strategy are required in the progression through more danger-laced areas; projectiles of poison and fire are flung intermittently from stationary mischeivous plant-life and open valves, and you must carefully time your journey, or use the knight's shield, in order to survive them. Further trouble arrives at the clumsy hands of enemy goblins who make up the general ground-based gruntery intent on smashing or arrowing you to bits. More hardy enemies loom at larger game-spaced intervals, and end-level bosses wait for you darkly at the end of each area. The bosses themselves are lumbering and stupid, for the most part; they're easily figured out and there are certain invulnerable positions from which you can berate them unhindered, which is a strange departure from the requirements of the rest of the game.

While merely getting from one side of a map to the other presents rewarding challenges in and of itself, the truly difficult puzzles are often found outside of the main quest. They lie instead in attempting to gather trickily-placed and occasionally well-hidden glowing blue orb collectibles and glass jars of XP. There are a finite number of each dropped throughout the levels, and a counter at the top of your screen informs you how many you have thus far collected and, of course, how many more you will need to collect in order to max out your upgrades along with your sense of undilluted pride.

Online co-operative play is fully supported for up to three people. In the standard campaign mode, three players can play as each of the three characters, or two can negotiate the extra character between them while in "unlimited" mode three players can choose to create a world of boxes as an ensemble of wizards if they so desire. Playing in co-op opens the game up to a multitude of new puzzle solutions, due to the possibility of using two abilities in tandem. Gathering up those trickily-placed collectibles becomes a straightforward matter of creating a single box as wizard and letting your friend surf it on up to each glowing orb; while it's a lot of fun playing this way, it's certainly quite a lot easier than single-player (and less satisfying as a result).

Trine 2 is an absolute gem. It's visually beautiful, aurally arresting and exceedingly clever in its design. Eureka moments are scattered hither and thither as things click into place, and there's an incalculable joy to be had in operating the various doohickeys, buttons and levers scattered across the levels - each action leads to a pleasing reaction in a mechanical and satisfying way. Almost every aspect of the previous game has been immaculately polished, expertly honed and altogether improved upon in the creation of this worthy and impressive successor. It's compelling, fun and delightfully maddening.

What I Liked:

• The audiovisual delight. The way the game looks and sounds creates an incredibly luxurious world to be a part of. In spite the numerous globs of fire heading toward your face, playing through Trine 2 is like applying a relaxing balm directly onto your eyeballs. The colour palettes seep beautifully into each intricate background, the lighting and particle effects are dream-like and the playful score envelops you entirely. It's remarkable that a basic, side-scrolling platformer has achieved such a great feeling of depth; you move along one axis, but the richness of the environment gives rise to a feeling of much greater dimension. The animation is wonderful, too - watching the wizard flail is forever an amusement.

• Level design. The puzzles are laid out cleverly and often have multiple solutions, leading to a great many moments of joyful realisation and smug satisfaction.

• Malleable environments. The way in which the world reacts to your presence, alongside having the ability to bend the elements to do your bidding for you, creates a wonderful feeling of immersion - like you're prodding at the game with your real-life hands. Pulling levers, pressing buttons and levitating irritated goblins.

• Movement. The fluidity of movement for the characters, as well as the game mechanics, makes for a consistently enjoyable experience. Letting the abyss stare back at you when playing rogue as you swing from the underside of what was once the floor; falling into mushroom-laced underbellies and finding a box your wizard crafted earlier joyfully bouncing around without you; and... something to do with the knight, I'm sure - intriguing and fun scenarios befall you quite by accident.

• Replayability. The game has great replay value due to the trickily-placed collectibles and the variety of ways in which puzzles can be solved, both in single-player and co-op mode.

What I Didn't Like:

• Balance issues (i.e. the knight). While both the rogue and the wizard can do most things alone, the knight is dependent upon them both to pass through the majority of the levels. He has his uses, of course; goblins would be infinitely more annoying to deal with without his heavy weapons, while his hammer-throwing is necessary for some progression - but, overall, he's a bit of a damp squib.

• Easy bosses. After cleverly escorting yourself through the danger and puzzlery of a level, reaching the boss is rarely an event due to the ease with which they can be despatched. If greater dexterity or smarter routes of attack were required, as they are in the final level, it would have fitted more aptly with the level of play required by the rest of the game.

• The story. The story is pretty superfluous and wispy; while pleasant enough for a generic fairy-tale, it doesn't exactly keep you on tenterhooks.

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4.5 out of 5 stars

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