

There's even an optional hint system that kicks in after a few minutes of head scratching. Trine 2 keeps you moving briskly along, rather than holding you up with a real brainteaser.

The game is generously rigged to allow for the guilty pleasure of fudging a solution when the elegant answer is out of reach teetering structures of magic planks can be used to bypass clever gate mechanisms altogether, or the same planks can be jammed gracelessly into the gears. Trine 2's physics engine is robust and finetuned, and noodling about with it is engrossing in its own right.

New elements, such as moveable portals, waterwheels and lava streams, come thick and fast, in addition to memorable one-offs, such as a house-sized frog that lassoes giant fruit with its tongue.Īlthough many of the puzzles suggest single, efficient solutions right off the bat, some of the best fun is to be had experimenting with the physics and looking for less-obvious solutions. In others, you channel water onto the roots of plants that shoot up, like a magic beanstalk, to create leafy new platforms on which to hop. At its simplest, this means constructing a ramp from crates, while more complex challenges have you reroute steam jets by hovering segments of pipe into place. While the basic platforming is smooth and accessible with combat that is brisk and straightforward, the heart of the action is physics-based puzzling. The wizard's conjuring powers make him the best suited for solving a puzzle on your own. In single-player mode, only one hero appears onscreen, but you can instantly flip between them to access the powers demanded by the task at hand. The knight has a sword and shield for fighting, as well as a war hammer for smashing obstacles the thief has a grappling hook, along with a bow and arrow and the wizard can levitate items and summon boxes or planks from thin air. One level, taking in sunset on a tropical beach, is stop-and-stare beautiful.Įach hero has a simple, distinct set of powers. Gloomier levels house oversized spiders, animated with skin-crawling authenticity. The forest is home to luscious glowing foliage and glistening colossal snails. Deep, richly detailed levels pop with lively, luminous colour. Trine 2's environments could have been lifted off the screen of a latter-day Fantasia, or from the pages of a particularly lovely storybook.
