Shane
The trio of heroes is back in a beautifully crafted visual feast of a game with complex puzzle play, from Frozenbyte.
Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy sees our heroes; Amadeus the wizard, Pontius the Knight and Soya the Thief return and joining forces once again after having gone their separate ways from the events of Trine 4.
They have all be summoned to a Hero Awards ceremony in their honour by Lady Sunshine Crawford.
Of course – the Awards ceremony doesn’t go as the trio thought it would and there’s a bit more to Lady Sunny than you’d expect…
As with the previous games, Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy requires you to cycle between all three characters within one single Level.
Each character has a specific skill set. Soya can use rope with arrows, Amadeus is able to conjure boxes and planks and Pontius has girth, weight a shield that can aide in puzzles by way of deflecting or changing the flow and a sword for brutal melee combat.
Their individual skills can be levelled up too via a skill tree where you’re specified character will learn new abilities.
Difficulty and puzzle solving to get through each Level is very dynamic. You may feel brain sweats very early on in the game, whereas later on you’ll find yourself thinking, ‘ah that one was easy’.
The environments and obstacles within (and ones that you will conjure) are all real-world physics based. This of course can add to the complexity of finding the solution to the said physics and environmental puzzle.
Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy also has multiplayer.
Classic sees you having the three characters only where other players can jump in and join you to get through the game. This is limited to one instance of the three playables.
A new mode called Unlimited sees you having up to 4 players in one go and not limited to specific characters. No need for you and your friends to argue about who plays as which character, you can, for example, have four Soya’s on screen.
The multiplayers aspect is either co-op offline or online.
Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy is a short game in theory. Around 20 Levels, however, do not expect that you’ll whiz through it. The puzzles you’ll encounter will see you sapping countless hours, day even, in to various Levels.
A stunning platformer, Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy will test your logical thinking, frustrate you at times and reward you with satisfaction once you’ve got through those really tricky bits.
Myself a fan of the series was more than pleased to see that a fifth one was in the making. And for likeminded Trine players, be assured that it has retained all of the goodness from the previous games and then some.
Released: August 2023
Rating: PG
Platforms reviewed: PlayStation 5
Genre: Puzzle - Platformer
Developer: Frozenbyte
Publisher: THQ Nordic