It seems most reviews are unanimous on a couple of points: Trine 3 is a gorgeous game that is too short and whose ending is essentially “To Be Continued.” I was reluctant to purchase this on account of all the negative reviews, but am relieved I ended up changing my mind.

As a departure from the pure side-scrolling of Trine 1 & 2, the Frozenbyte team did an exceptional job at adding new dimensions. The automatic camera movement was rarely frustrating, and instead performed exceptionally well at highlighting the insane level of detail put into each level. It seems that the development and art teams spent a lot of time polishing the camera movement and controls, which I’d most closely compare to the excellent Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light that uses many of the same controls and mechanics. Where Trine 3 differs is by using the mouse wheel to control object positioning on the Z-axis, which worked very well with few exceptions.

Trine 3, at its heart, is a puzzle game and not a combat game. By eliminating player-selected power-ups and stat boosts, Trine 3 consciously focuses on its core element which is a huge boon to the series. Whenever power-ups are concerned, there is a persistent worry that you may not have the right tools yet to solve a given problem. Instead of having to worry whether I’ll need fire arrows or heavy lifting for a given challenge, I know that I have all the tools I need from the start. This makes all aspects of the game immediately more accessible and enables the player to focus on the situation at hand.

Two huge improvements versus previous titles in this series were to the achievement and checkpoint systems. When I first saw the faux-3D trailer, my immediate worry was that they’d abuse the mechanic to hell to hide pick-ups in obnoxious and hard-to-see locations. Instead, I can only think of a handful of instances where something was too well-hidden, and none of them because of clever camerawork. Better still was the hub level which displayed the total number of pick-ups available per section of a level, allowing the player to jump to specific sections where they might find something missed. Pick up that very last thing and exit immediately back to the hub without having to reach another checkpoint or complete the entire level again: an achievement hunter’s dream! Gone is the “Better Than Developers!” achievement, too; everything is instead based on completion and exploration. Gone are the obnoxious time-trial and acrobatic achievements (“The Leaning Tower of Pontius” comes to mind), and I was able to 100% the game comfortably without ever getting frustrated which was a big step up from the previous games in this series.

I’m not one to forget how nicely developer and publisher Frozenbyte has played with Steam in the past. Purchasers of Trine 1 or 2 received free upgrades to the “Enhanced Edition” or “Complete Story” respectively, which is worlds apart from most publishers who will nickel & dime their customers at every opportunity. In that respect, I have high hopes that subsequent Trine 3 releases will be discounted for owners of the base game, or otherwise added in a way that is fair to early adopters, especially given that one of the only legitimate criticisms of the game is that its story “ends” too abruptly, although I’d argue it’s no more abrupt than any of the countless movies that spend their last scenes setting up sequels. And let’s be honest here, who playing this game is so deeply invested in the game’s tongue-in-cheek ridiculous story as to be on the edge of their seats to find out what happens next? The entire franchise’s story is just an excuse to justify its signature character-switching mechanic in a fantasy setting.

When it comes to fans of the previous games, Frozenbyte had to take a calculated risk to mix up the format and invest heavily into this new platform. What they created will fuel fan-made levels and likely the continuation of the main story as Trine 3 expands, though I’m wary of the franchise’s prospects given the amount of backlash this particular installment has received. I can only hope they hold the course and continue with another stunning adventure.

7/10.