Just like its predecessors, Trine gives us control of three characters with distinct abilities. Adept at strength, the knight Pontius wields sword and shield, while the thief Zoya is more adept at arrows and grappling hooks. The sorcerer Amadeus is a past master in the art of making very useful crates appear by magic to be able to access certain areas of the decor. The complementarity of the three heroes is somewhat reminiscent of the venerable Lost Vikings. Except that the gameplay is much more dynamic than in the old Blizzard title, since it borrows a lot from the most nervous platform games, allows you to instantly zap from one character to another, or even allows you to browse the adventure in co-op, each player then wielding the hero he prefers. Another characteristic of the Trine series that we obviously find in this third episode: an absolutely fabulous artistic direction, which achieves the feat of permanently displaying shimmering colors and extensive light effects, without ever causing disgust or fall into bad taste. The medieval fantasy atmosphere is enhanced, especially since it also benefits from superb music and storytelling influenced by tales of yesteryear. All this works wonderfully, and we find with great pleasure this atmosphere and this special touch. From this point of view, nothing really changes, therefore. However, the Finnish studio Frozenbyte still decided to modify some ingredients of the recipe. Thus, the powers of the heroes have undergone some adjustments and, above all, they are fewer than before since the tree of talents that the characters had until now has purely and simply disappeared. This is obviously regrettable, especially since some puzzles are suddenly simplified. Fortunately, the extreme accuracy of the level design partially compensates for this fact and avoids any feeling of repetition or routine.
THERE IS 3D, 3D AND... 3D
But the real novelty of the game comes from the introduction of the third dimension in the gameplay. If the series has always used real-time 3D graphics, and even allows itself to be among the cream of the crop for those who like to play in 3D, it was content until then with 2D gameplay, since the characters could not move only on the horizontal axis. Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power is an opportunity to add even more depth to the gaming experience, since movements can now also be made forwards or backwards. We are not entitled to a TPS in an open world (and so much the better), because the progression always generally follows a linear path. The platform game aspect therefore remains intact. The developers have especially taken advantage of this new capacity to further enrich the level design, to offer a richer staging thanks to more cinematographic camera movements and, above all, to develop some puzzles taking advantage of the depth. Some players resistant to change may be disturbed, but the strengths of this novelty seem to us to largely compensate for its main flaw. Namely, that it is sometimes difficult to aim correctly during the jump phases, when you move on all axes at the same time. Nothing insurmountable, but handling is necessarily a little less obvious than with purely 2D gameplay.
Similarly, we won't really complain about the more extensive use of the physics engine, even if it's not without occasional bugs. In terms of novelties, we can also note the appearance of a card that materializes the different levels of the game. To unlock them, you must have collected a certain number of golden triangles in previous missions. But there is no need to go through the levels in a loop, because it is possible to collect triangles in secondary missions dedicated to a single character at a time. A good way to vary the pleasures and to force the players to really enjoy all the heroes. The real big flaw in the game, and it's a big one, is actually the feeling of incompleteness that it leaves once you've completed the adventure. Not only is the lifespan quite low (about 5 hours in solo, and even less in coop) but, above all, the open end absolutely does not conclude the scenario which serves as motivation for our heroes. Will the true end of the adventure take the form of a Trine 4, a major expansion, free downloadable content or paid DLC? No one knows yet, and therein lies the problem. Fortunately, the path that leads to this end point in the form of ellipsis is devilishly pleasant!
