Trine 2 review

Trine 2 also has more of a plot, even though it’s just window-dressing, but we’d have liked more new elements to the single-player game. Rather than the endless skeletons of Trine, this time you’re facing lots of orcs, but there’s still not much variety there – some are tougher than others and some shoot arrows, but that’s about it. However we liked the introduction of some new and vicious interacting scenery, mostly in the form of malevolent plant life, and we were once again impressed by the end of level bosses, which require intelligence to defeat, rather simple button bashing. The new puzzle elements are often clever, although some are just frustrating – balancing boxes on air columns is a particularly annoying art to master.

Gameplay is just as good as the first game, making this an obvious buy for platform puzzle fans. The two-player mode is fantastic, the physics are brilliant, the soundtrack and graphics excellent. Although there are moments when you’ll wish for better reflexes, the game doesn’t create any deliberately irritating obstacles to prevent you from getting through it at a reasonable pace and you’re never forced to replay massive areas just because you’ve died. Trine 2’s greatest weakness is that – as a sequel – it no longer benefits from the being original, but that’s no reason not to buy it when the game it succeeds and emulates is so very good.