Trine 5

Trine 5 : A Clockwork Conspiracy is a side-scrolling fantasy adventure developed by Frozenbyte and published by THQ Nordic. Join Purpose Circus as we provide a brief introduction to the characters and gameplay followed by our review!

Available on all major consoles and Windows PC via Steam, this edition of Trine sees the three heros facing off against more villains who are out to control the kingdom. While there are only three characters (hence the tri in trine), up to four players can join in a co-op quest. The fourth player must be a duplicate character which takes away from the immersive nature of the game. The 2.5D graphics are lush, and both the scoring and sound effects are spot on.

Zoya the Thief, Pontius the Knight and Amadeus the Wizard make up the band of heroes. Skills and abilities from all three are required to progress through the game, so in 1 or 2 player situations there is a need to switch between characters. Two modes are available: Unlimited, which permits up to four players who can simultaneously be any character they choose, and Classic, which restricts up to three players to a single instance of a character at once.

Zoya is the nimble thief that jumps, rolls and flys through the air with her grappling hook and rope. She also has a bow with arrows that make her effective both in combat and with puzzle solving.

Pontius is the frontline knight that acts as the meat shield and cleaver. He batters enemies with sword, shield and hammer, and uses force to solve puzzles. A good choice for new players to acquaint themselves with the game.

What Amadeus the Wizard lacks in battle he makes up for in abilities that alllow the group to solve puzzles and clear obstacles. For the most part he is limited to conjuring and levitating objects.

Pontius does the bulk of the fighting in the game with Zoya and Amadeus supporting. For the most part this means swinging a weapon like crazy with occassional pauses to block timed enemy attacks with his shield. Boss battles are more complex with greater opportunity for the other heroes to contribute in meaningful ways.

Puzzles make up the bulk of the game. Many can be solved in more than one way when the heroes collaborate on the solution. Complexity scales with the number of active players ensuring some degree of difficulty.

Finally, classic side-scrolling challenges of timing and dexterity add another element to gameplay. This might mean jumping over bottomless pits, avoiding deadly spikes or fireballs, or landing on a moving object.

We have played through the original Trine and each of the four sequels available on the Playstation platform. While the original and first sequel were fantastic, Trine 3 was a disaster that turned many people away from the franchise. The developer attempted to use a 3D game engine that was moderately successful from a functional standpoint, but they ran out of resources and released it anyways. With Trine 4 they got back to the winning formula and further refined things with A Clockwork Conspiracy. Recommended by Purpose Circus.