A beautiful, fun puzzle-platformer.
With this almost being the middle of December and all, I thought I'd be all done with games that could really "wow" me, but Trine 2 proves that 2011 just keeps being better and better as far as video game releases go.
So Trine 2 is the sequel to the original Trine, a 2009 platformer where the premise is going through side-scrolling stages, fighting enemies and solving environmental puzzles via the ability to freely switch between 3 types of character: a Knight who proves himself mostly in combat, a Wizard who knows a thing or two about building basic shapes, and a Thief who's all about physics based swinging and wielding a bow.
First and foremost, the game looks fantastic. Playing certain sequences in co-op, while waiting on my partner finishing up a puzzle or catching up to me, I took the time to marvel at some jaw-dropping moments. Frozenbyte have delayed the game a few times, and it seems they've spent that time making every little detail shine. The music by Ari Pulkkinen is also incredibly well done, there being 2-3 tracks that made me really glad I got the Collector's Edition on Steam which granted me the soundtrack aswell.
A big addition to this game is online co-op. Frozenbyte seem to be pretty big fans of co-op modes in their games, but unfortunantly haven't had the time nor resources in the past to build proper netcode into their game engine. Trine 2 is the first of hopefully many to include this, and it works pretty darn well. I played about 3-4 levels with a friend, clocking about 120-150 ping and the game worked pretty smooth.
There's not much to talk about the story really, as with the first game. It's mostly just a reason for you to keep moving on, not really engaging but it doesn't water down the experience as a result. It's just there because it's just one of those things that's expected from games these days.
The saddest part about Trine 2 is that for all the amazing things about it, 3 hours of playtime still seems short, mostly cause the game moves at such a great pace and is just fun to play that it's a bummer to realize that I started playing at about 9AM and had already finished before noon.
15$ might seem a bit much to some, but if the price is the only thing holding you back, wait until the eventual sale and then I have no doubt in my mind that you should get this game.
