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It seems almost an age ago when Trine was released, it took the indie gaming world completely by storm. It featured a compelling yet comical story that appealed to everyone and it coupled it with stunning fantasy visuals that made the current gen’s brown shit-stained visuals look terrible.

So ChatterboxZombie and I fired up a copy of Trine 2 and jumped into some sexy coop Christmas gameplay action, we wanted to figure out how the second game compared to the first. Was it better? Was it worse? Was it the same? Was it good enough to distract me from playing Saints Row 3?

Well, it wasn’t worse…but the rest is correct. It’s better, yet still the same…and it certainly stopped me playing Saints Row 3.

Alright, some of you might not be aware of Trine or what it’s all about…so let me enlighten you. Its a fantasy story set around three heroes: The Thief named Zoya, The Knight named Pontius and the Mage named Amadeus. A mysterious and somewhat sentient relic named the “Trine” bound the three souls of the heroes together so they can work together to help save the kingdom from whatever evil seeks to take dominance.

Got that? Good, moving on.

Trine 2 follows on from the first game where our favourite assortment of heroes are rammed back together to try and figure out what is causing turmoil in the kingdom and how the crown princesses are involved.

The greatest achievement of the game is that it basically took the first game and made it better in almost every way.

First and foremost, the best change over the first game is that all the character skills are simplified allowing us as players to focus less on which skills to exploit and more on the actual game and puzzles. Thankfully the developers know we all play differently so each class still has its own abilities that they can exploit to ruin the game mechanics, including but not limited to:

• Freezing shit with arrows and dealing with them later.
• Casually picking up and tossing enemies into traps with magne- …magic.
• Flaming stuff to death with a rapid-fire sword thing.
• Causing miniature nuclear explosions with a hammer.

And the list goes on…basically you play how you want to play and if you play with friends then you can combine your goofy strategies into goblin killing spectacles. Even better is that the hostile parts of the games environments are usually just as deadly to your enemies as they are to you (with a few exceptions) which means if you want to be a dick and pick up every enemy and throw them in acid…you can.

It’s also worth noting that the game no longer features a “mana” bar for Amadeus the Wizard…you can pick things up as much as you want or generate objects as fast as you want. I thought it was pretty neat.

Of course, following on from the first game we have absolutely stunning visuals. As Chatter and I played through we had to frequently stop our platform exploration and simply admire the work that had gone into this beautiful little game, it was actually breath-taking.

I guess the other side of it is that while amazing it is also incredibly showy…you cant escape the green-plastered forest backgrounds or rainbows as they seem to dominate the entire game. Personally I don’t think its a bad thing but I’d bet that some of you might hate it…I bet you’re also the people that bought one of those stupid Diablo 3 rainbows and unicorns t-shirts aren’t you…

Anyway, take it from me…the game is visually stunning…its smooth, shiny, well rounded and animated and the wild growth over everything actually looks and feels appropriate.

Once again with the “doing the same as the previous game but better” the sound stands out in its own way. The same voice actors (as far as I’m aware) reappear to perform their duties admirably however I must say that the developers seem to have cut back on the narrators work…perhaps I’m overthinking it but it sounded like they shortened the overarching story telling to allow us to stick to some good ol’ fashioned platforming action.

There is also a little problem with the evil princess and the thief…which is they sound incredibly similar. This makes it frustrating as hell to figure out who is talking when you’re smashing goblin faces in. But that’s just a little problem in the grand scheme of things because Trine 2 comes with an awesome music score.

One only needs to quickly search for “Trine 2 OST” on Youtube to listen to the soundtrack…seriously do it…I even gave you a link! The music fits the game absolutely perfectly…not much more can be said about it.

I’ve always maintained that if a game or movie has a soundtrack that you simply can’t remember, that means the soundtrack is perfect as it blended in with the actors and other sounds perfectly. In the case of Trine 2, you will hear the music and it will enhance your epic quest for…whatever it is you actually do.

What were we actually doing?

I guess I’ll have to admit that I was a little lost on the story…

As far as I know, there were two crown princesses…the younger imprisoned the older heir with a magical tree that seemed to cause no end of mischief. Our job was to kick the young tramp in the teeth and give the older sister a hand I think…

The starting of the quest was pretty vague…everyone was just chillin’ when suddenly the Trine appeared and whisked them all away to do stuff…meh…the story worked well enough I guess, its hard to jam an epic tale into a short game so the fact I know mostly what it was about is fairly impressive.

What’s even more impressive is that Trine 2 stuck to platforming roots…there are three characters with unique abilities and almost always you’ll need to combo them to achieve a goal in some way or another…its up to you how you do it. There is no real fancy shmancy crap here, just get from room A to room B however you want.

Where it all falls apart however is when you hit coop play…sure I had so much fun blasting away Christmas evening with Chatter but realistically we just skipped entire puzzle sections because I could just make a platform and lift him up where we would promptly trade characters and he would do the same.

A little more foresight would have made it a lot more challenging.

To conclude I have to say that I really enjoyed this game and I know that others will too, for the reasonable price of $15 on Steam…you really can’t go wrong.

Trine 2 is a short but sweet game, filled to the brim with charm. Each of the characters is unique and allows you to work out your own methods of puzzle solving, all the while some amazing scenery and music will gallop around you to keep everything vibrant and fresh.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:

Indie games are the saviour of the gaming world.

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