Gameplay Sound    Graphics Value Genre: Adventure & RPG Min OS X: 10.6

Trine February 27, 2011 | Jon Carr

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Click to enlarge A Lone Skeleton

The game's story and premise start off quickly. A thief breaks into the Astral Academy intending to steal its treasures. She finds the titular Trine and gets more than she bargained for. Soon enough the wizard bumbles along, shortly followed by the knight. The Trine binds them all together and they set off on a journey to save the kingdom from darkness and solve the mystery of their predicament.

Trine is ultimately a platformer with combat and light RPG elements thrown in. A variety of obstacles and challenges will present themselves to you, often requiring the unique skills of each character to get past, or even a mix of your characters abilities. You are free to switch between the three characters at will which makes for seamless gameplay.

The Thief, undoubtedly the most useful of the group, has a bow and a grappling hook. Her bow is best used at long range, but is still effective in close quarters. Her grappling hook just may be the most fun part of the game, as it hooks to any wooden surface, allowing you to zip and soar about the levels with ease and speed. She can gain multiple arrows per shot, faster draw time on her bow, and also flaming arrows.

The Wizard is pure support and has no offense abilities. Instead he can conjure boxes, planks and floating platforms of various sizes all of which are needed to bypass the game's many areas. He also possesses telekinesis, which comes in handy for shifting about his boxes and planks and platforms to the right spot, or to move existing objects about the levels. In a pinch he can conjure a box or plank above a skeletons head to crush it, but overall he's quite useless in a fight.

The Knight, however, excels in combat. The game's pure melee class, his sword makes short work of any shambling undead, while his shield can block arrows, fire, falling debris and basically anything that's going to hurt. He later gains more strength allowing him to pick up large objects and throw them, or dash into foes. You will also find a powerful weapon for him later on in the game which makes bashing skeletons all the more fun.

Your characters level up by collecting green bottles of experience scattered around levels or gained from defeating certain enemies. Every 50 bottles you gain a point to spend on your characters different skills, though some take more than 1 point to level up. You can also find various items and artifacts to boost attributes like mana, health, damage and resistance. These are well hidden in treasure chests, so it's a good idea to explore every level to make sure you don't miss them. They aren't necessary for you to finish the game, but it will make it easier and more fun to do so.

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