Worth it?

[Jean Dias]

I played trine 1 and 2 on consoles, but this third world complains that the end is incomplete and I particularly hate games with incomplete endings.

This is true?

[Infinite Fury]

Give it a shot, If you played for under 2 hours/owned the game for less than 2 weeks and if you don't enjoy it, give em' a refund

[I have quit gaming]

The devs admitted that they couldn't finish the game the way they wanted due to financial problems and wrong use of the budget they had. Kinda sad story.

I did enjoy it though, even though it ends kinda abruptly i kinda like the devs because of the previous Trine games, which are part of my favorite series.

I would wait for a sale and then buy it.

[Leo]

true is incomplete + short

[FallenG0D]

The story and visuals are there but for everything else...
The level design, progression, collectibles, challange for exploration and combat and duration of the game; i got the game yesterday and completed it in 6 hours (and got all the achievement in the first run).
It's a shame that this game as way less content than it's predecessors and costs more, and by the way this is trine 3 "part 1" cause it ends with a really bad cliffhanger.

[Alcator]

Well, you will get some 4 - 8 hours of fun from this, if you finish all the challenge levels etc.

The thing that I personally miss the most is the growth of the characters. In the first game, we had a skill tree and items. In the second game, we had a Re-spec'able ability tree, and only mood-collectibles (paintings and poems). In the third game, you have all the skills right from the start, many skills from the past are gone, controls have been simplified to be usable in 3D, and there is no improving your characters.

A second serious problem is GATING. As insane as it may sound, this level-progressing game actually features very strict gating. You will not be allowed to progress to the next STORY level unless (a) you pick every single trinangle in all the previous levels, or (b) you complete some of the optional side challenges. In the past, once you finished Level X, you were immediately sent to Level X+1. In Trine 3, this is no longer the case - you go to an overworld map and you have to pick your next level.

There are 3 rather large tutorial levels, and then 5 actual story levels. Yes, you read that right - 3 tutorial and 5 story levels. Just for comparison, Trine 1 had 1 tutorial level and 14 story levels, and Trine 2 had 1 tutorial and 12 story levels (eventually upgrades by DLC to 19 non-tutorial levels).

Trine 3 isn't bad, but after the Magnum Opus of Trine 2, it's a bit of let down.

[JLarja]

Just because you are sent to map between tutorial levels doesn't actually mean that they should be considered any more different levels than tutorial levels in previous games. The decision to split the tutorial level was done relatively late in development. It was originally a single level.

That said, your main point about 5 actual levels is correct, though comparing them to Trine 2 levels isn't quite straight forward. I actually tested how long it took to finish Trine 2 (original 1 + 12 levels) compared to Trine 3. Times were pretty similar (I don't remember which was longer), but I collected quite a bit less than half of the experience in T2. I also didn't need to think which skills to pick, or to even test most of the skills. So compared to T3, there would have been much more reason for another round.

-JLarja

[FallenG0D]

Originally posted by JLarja:

I actually tested how long it took to finish Trine 2 (original 1 + 12 levels) compared to Trine 3. Times were pretty similar (I don't remember which was longer), but I collected quite a bit less than half of the experience in T2.

Ok, i like both games too, but this is completely wrong, this is false, you can't say that both of them have the same duration, the developer themself said that they had to cut content and that this is only a part of the game.
This is a good game and it's only problem is that it's too short (and completely lacks progression).

[Alcator]

Originally posted by FallenG0D:

Ok, i like both games too, but this is completely wrong, this is false, you can't say that both of them have the same duration, the developer themself said that they had to cut content and that this is only a part of the game.

Care to quote? Because I followed the post-release issues quite carefully and I don't remember them mentioning they CUT content - rather, they ran out of money sooner than they expected, and simply had to release the first "third" of the game.

Originally posted by FallenG0D:

This is a good game and it's only problem is that it's too short (and completely lacks progression).

[FallenG0D]

Originally posted by Alcator:

Care to quote? Because I followed the post-release issues quite carefully and I don't remember them mentioning they CUT content - rather, they ran out of money sooner than they expected, and simply had to release the first "third" of the game.

I meant that as cut content, sorry for the misunderstanding.

[JLarja]

Originally posted by FallenG0D:

Originally posted by JLarja:

I actually tested how long it took to finish Trine 2 (original 1 + 12 levels) compared to Trine 3. Times were pretty similar (I don't remember which was longer), but I collected quite a bit less than half of the experience in T2.

Ok, i like both games too, but this is completely wrong, this is false, you can't say that both of them have the same duration, the developer themself said that they had to cut content and that this is only a part of the game.
This is a good game and it's only problem is that it's too short (and completely lacks progression).

Note that I'm not saying that they have same length. I'm saying that if you run through Trine 2, it takes as much time as running through Trine 3, but at that point, you still have more Trine 2 to experience. Also, I didn't include the DLC. DLC levels are much harder than original game, so although there are only six of them, they are in practice more than third of the game time.

However, what I protest against is comparing T2 and T3 using number of "real levels" (5 vs. 15) and deducing that Trine 3 is only third of Trine 2. That's way too simple.

And by the way, I am one of the developers, though I don't work at Frozenbyte anymore.

-JLarja

[FallenG0D]

Originally posted by JLarja:

Note that I'm not saying that they have same length. I'm saying that if you run through Trine 2, it takes as much time as running through Trine 3

And this is the point on which we are in disagreement cause from my experience trine 3 took me 4,5 hours to complete (6 to finish everything), while trine 2 just to complete (without getting all exp and all secrets and without the dlc) took me 12-14 hours; when you say that "it takes as much time as running through Trine 3" i cannot agree since (for me at least) this game is less than half for the first playthrough (and way less if you consider everything else).

Originally posted by JLarja:

However, what I protest against is comparing T2 and T3 using number of "real levels" (5 vs. 15) and deducing that Trine 3 is only third of Trine 2. That's way too simple.

And by the way, I am one of the developers, though I don't work at Frozenbyte anymore.

-JLarja

Personally i don't think the number of levels matters the problem is the level design, i know that this is completely different from 2d to 3d, but the levels are too simple and linear without hidden secrets or any reward for exploration while in Trine 2 the levels were more complex.

[JLarja]

Originally posted by FallenG0D:

Originally posted by JLarja:

Note that I'm not saying that they have same length. I'm saying that if you run through Trine 2, it takes as much time as running through Trine 3

And this is the point on which we are in disagreement cause from my experience trine 3 took me 4,5 hours to complete (6 to finish everything), while trine 2 just to complete (without getting all exp and all secrets and without the dlc) took me 12-14 hours; when you say that "it takes as much time as running through Trine 3" i cannot agree since (for me at least) this game is less than half for the first playthrough (and way less if you consider everything else).

For me the times were around 2 h each. My very first time through Trine 1 took maybe something like an hour per level, but I've improved somewhat since then. I don't think there's any way for either of us to compare how long T3 would take for someone never trying any Trine before.

(Mind you, speed runners (like say, Frozenbyte's QA) probably get trough the levels at least twice as fast as I do.)

Originally posted by FallenG0D:

Originally posted by JLarja:

However, what I protest against is comparing T2 and T3 using number of "real levels" (5 vs. 15) and deducing that Trine 3 is only third of Trine 2. That's way too simple.

And by the way, I am one of the developers, though I don't work at Frozenbyte anymore.

-JLarja

Personally i don't think the number of levels matters the problem is the level design, i know that this is completely different from 2d to 3d, but the levels are too simple and linear without hidden secrets or any reward for exploration while in Trine 2 the levels were more complex.

I'm not sure I'd call T2 levels much more complex. There are few hidden secrets, but most are clearly visible. Compared to T3, many of the experience vials are in hard to reach places though. I agree that Trine 3 is much easier than Trine 2.

I think the design princible in Trine 3 was that any of the characters should be able to proceed alone (without heroic effort on player's part). In Trine 2, an average player will have hard time pretty much constantly, if limited to one character (checking the achivement stats is pretty telling).

So all in all I think we mostly agree, but I just don't like the "by the numbers" comparison, even if the end result is pretty much the same.

-JLarja

[FallenG0D]

Originally posted by JLarja:

So all in all I think we mostly agree, but I just don't like the "by the numbers" comparison, even if the end result is pretty much the same.

Agreed.