WITWI - Trine 4 ULTRAWIDE Gameplay Impressions
0Grab on to your booster seat because this one touched me deeply.
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I find it very difficult to begin explaining what I think about this game because I think of it very highly. So much in fact that I need to be careful of the words I find to describe it.
+Incredible aesthetics and graphics
+Sublime audio
+Magnificent voice acting/ narration
+appealing environments/ Level Design
+captivating story
+Immensely satisfactory music
+Thought provoking puzzles
-Short length (Minor negative)
I want to start off by the game's ability to immediately captivate. As soon as I start the first level, I get immersed in this world of magic and wonder. I feel like I am in a fairy tale. I have been playing games for well over a decade and a half now and I cannot easily name many games that have achieved such thing.
The story of the game is interesting as well. You are summoned by the council of magicians to bring back a prince that has ran away. He is having a bit of difficulty with differentiating nightmares and reality. The two instances eventually blend, bringing evil creatures in the real world. You must navigate through the breath taking, awe inspiring world and fight monsters to bring him back. Along the way you are bound to make enemies, as well as adorable friends.
The voice acting is spectacular. Even more so, are the environments in this game. Trine games have always been ahead of their time in the graphical department, except Trine 3. It was not a bad looking game by any means, but it was not as good looking as 2 in some aspects.
Right off the bat, gone are the 3D sectors of the game. This game is strictly 2D at all times, just like Trine 2 and 1. Sadly, the 3D aspect of Trine 3 was too ambitious but not well executed.
Your magician can now conjure up to 4 different objects. A flat surface, a metal ball, a bouncy ball if you buy the upgrade and a cube. Eventually you will be able to summon up to 3 objects at the same time.
Your thief, the archer, can shoot regular, fire and ice arrows. Generally the regular arrows will become obsolete once you unlock the elemental arrows. She can roll, use a grappling hook (Up to 2 later on) and create a magic string that will make objects levitate.
The last hero is the Knight. His shield can deflect a few attacks before it breaks and regenerates, you can enchant your sword with an upgrade to electrify and stun enemies, you can stomp the ground to break objects or damage enemies and you can deflect things with your shield. Those things can be rays of light, water, enemy projectiles etc.
All of those elements will combine eventually as they will all be needed at some point to solve a puzzle. What I love about the puzzle solving is that it never becomes absurdly difficult. As someone that is not used to playing games like these, it did make me scratch my head but it was never a convoluted mess of a puzzle that I could never figure out. With the exception of 3 instances out of the tens of hundreds instances that I needed to look up the solution for time.
The combat of the game is very simplistic and not entirely too challenging. I like the difficulty options. Having played it on hard, I now wish that I had just gone for the easy mode. The difference between the difficulty modes is relatively simple. On easy mode, monsters will appear less frequently and there will not be any elite monsters spawning. Elite monsters will boost other enemy monsters and will be more difficult to take down. In normal difficulty, neither of these two restrictions apply.
One thing I would like to mention about the duration is that it is not very long. On that note however, everything that you get is full of substance. I did not feel like there was any filler, or unnecessary moments that I wanted to not go through. This game never put me in a situation where I did not want to be in. And looking back, there are no levels that I thought to myself "wow, this sucked".
In summary, Trine 4 is a delight. Awe inspiring visuals, enjoyable story, captivating characters, fun voice acting, great audio design overall and challenging but not obnoxiously hard puzzles, make for a near perfect package. This game is a 2D puzzle platformer. I heavily despise all those genres. Yet, here I am, calling this one of my favourite video games that I have ever played! If you are even remotely interested in the genre, play this game. If you HATE the genre, PLAY THIS GAME! :)