So, Trine then. It touts itself as being a physics-based action game, but it ultimately doesn't manage to do anything really special with either physics or action. A more accurate description would've been "a very pretty platformer with all the interesting ideas in the physics department", but that presumably was too long for a tag line.

It's not that I didn't like Trine. I did. A good platform game is hard not to, in many ways. The simplicity of the concept seems to have an appeal that hasn't diminished over time and, while what typifies the genre has changed over the years, things are still going strong with the likes of Shadow Complex, Braid and Bionic Commando: Rearmed going on to sterling success recently. Trine is as technically accomplished as any of its peers, and for my money is the most gorgeous looking game (of any genre) that I’ve seen in a long while, but it comes up agonizingly short on almost any other point of comparison.

The core idea is that you actually control three characters, bound into a single body, which you can switch between at will for different tasks. The Knight is the combat character, the Thief with her grappling hook is for platforming and the Wizard is there to help with the puzzle solving using his powers of telekinesis and object summoning. It’s a novel system that works well right up until you get one of the characters killed. When you do you can select another and carry on playing the level until you reach the next checkpoint, whereupon any dead characters are revived at reduced health, but doing so seriously handicaps your ability to play effectively. Lose the Knight in a combat-heavy section and you’ll be stuck with the Thief and her bow, useless up close, or the Wizard who can’t fight at all, for example.

The checkpoint spacing is only problematic on a few occasions and if you preserve your characters the difficulty curve is a gentle upward trundle until the last level (more on that in a moment). The physics puzzles work well and are satisfying to solve, never once becoming frustrating. The mechanics of the combat never change: fixed, pre-determined numbers of spawning skeletons make up the majority of your enemies and they make neither an interesting nor challenging foe. Except when the Knight’s shield block fails to work as it randomly did at times for me. Other enemies, like the blasted bats, are simply infuriating. Trine’s biggest failing is that, as you play through its length (a shockingly short four hours for me), the puzzles become fewer and the combat more plentiful. And the experience and item system feels underdeveloped and vestigial, a shame given the potential of a good, light character development system.

It’s all a pleasant enough ride of beautiful visuals, solid platforming and missed opportunities, right up until the final level. It’s simply rubbish; a sudden, panicked ramping of the difficulty level that reduces what should be a challenging climax to abject drudgery. Coupled with the last boss pseudo-level, it too a staggering misjudgement, and the game ends on a serious bum note. But at the end I suppose it's a testament to how good parts of Trine are that I ended up desperately wanting to like it much more than I actually did. It’s a beautiful game with some good ideas that aren’t as well executed as they could have been. Seriously overpriced at the initial tag of €30 on Steam, it’s a much more reasonable consideration now it’s been permanently marked down to €20. Even if it’s still too short.

7/10