Trine Enchanted Edition

TRINE is an OG side-scrolling platformer that first came out in 2009 and was remastered in 2014 called Enchanted Edition, and both versions still look good more than a decade later and run without issue on modern systems, with perhaps the only shortcoming being the Enchanted Edition's slight overbloom induced blur, and its framerate still capped to 100 FPS. The story is about a kingdom falling into civil strife and a series of brief and ineffective rulers after the death of its original and powerful, but heirless king, and being taken over by darkness and the undead in the ensuing chaos. Three heroes, a thief, a knight and a wizard, all make their way to the now abandoned Astral Academy for different reasons; one to steal, one to guard and one because he lives there, and come across the Shrine to Ancient Treasure previously protected by wards that had made it inaccessible, but which are now gone, and containing an artifact that looks like a blue goblet, which each of them touches and then can’t let go of. By doing so, their souls get sucked into the artifact, known as the Trine, and bound to one another. The three heroes then embark on a journey to undo the magic by finding the tomb of the Guardian deeper in the Astral Academy’s basement. So while playing this game, you can switch between characters whenever you wish to, and each plays differently. The thief can fire a grappling hook and swing from it, able to do jumps the other two can only dream of, as long as there is an object protruding from the ceiling. She is also initially the only character that can deal ranged damage with her bow by firing arrows that can also knock vials containing experience or mana down from lofty pedestals. The knight is a melee monster and can block incoming projectiles and blows by raising his shield in any direction (including things falling from the top). The wizard can manipulate objects like boxes by moving them with his telekinetic powers, or even conjure a box out of thin air by drawing a square shape in the air, although he is initially limited to only one such created box at a time. While he may give the impression of being unarmed as he cant cast any spells to fight enemies, he can drop boxes on enemies and thus kill them and also use the floating box as a shield, but can’t move while he is manipulating an object. As you make your way through the beautiful fantasy world with impressive backdrops and vibrant colors, your characters pick up green vials that contain experience and blue vials that contain mana. Initially, only the wizard uses up his mana each time he creates a box, but as you gain experience, they are eventually able to improve their abilities by leveling them up, like conjuring two boxes or shooting two arrows, or even unlock new abilities (they need to find and learn first), like fire arrows or a magnetic shield that can attract and then launch objects. Another type of collectible is the Treasure chest which is harder to get to, but contains an artifact that any one of the three characters can equip (you can transfer them between inventories by opening up the appropriate menu), and blue orbs are checkpoints that also restore some health. If a character is killed, you are forced to continue the level without them using only the abilities of your remaining character(s), but they respawn with some health restored at the next checkpoint. Each level is 20 to 30 minutes in length, depending on how long you take to figure out how to jump the platforms to get across and whether you spend extra time trying to get to the hard to reach areas that contain more experience bottles or not, and there are around 15 levels in total. The game only uses still images instead of pre-rendered cutscenes during narration, but the narrator and also the characters themselves have good voice acting and remind me of another narrator-driven platformer classic called The Cave that came out 4 years later. So in a sense, you can call TRINE as the game that started it all, namely popularizing the platformer genre for PCs, when before 2009 it was mostly only associated with nintendo and sony. TRINE has a decent story that lasts 6 hours, so it feels more fleshed out than later entries to the genre like Little Nightmares or DARQ that were over in about 3 hours. Over the past 15 years, TRINE has evolved into a series with several numbered sequels with crisper, better graphics and even more beautiful and varied locations. But instead of blindly diving into the latest (and most expensive) installment, for those seeking to start the journey from the very beginning, TRINE 1 delivers a solid experience.