The Trine series went astray with its third title, but then found back to its root thanks to Trine 4: The Nightmare Princess in 2019, where FrozenByte focused on their strengths and tried to live up to the quality and content of the second game. Thus, Trine 4 is played as a side-scroller once more and also returns the Experience system with its learnable abilities for the three heroes.
The biggest change this time is probably the visual style, because it looks more like it was painted, which is quite apparent with the characters. Though, at least they don't look as uncanny as they did in Trine 3... But the completely realistic look of the first two games is now gone, where Trine 4 still looks very beautiful despite this or even because of this, since such styles tend to be more timeless (see The Wind Waker vs. Twilight Princess). Still, Trine 2 looked a little bit more impressive overall, even though it's eight years older, but both games are very beautiful in their own right.
The story of the fourth game is all about the impetuous Prince Selius, who is a student at the Astral Academy and whose nightmares come alive after he tampered with the wrong spell book. The three heroes now have the task to bring him back to the academy and that's really all there is to it. Of course you'll learn more about the prince's backgrounds, but you shouldn't expect too much. Aside from some hidden references, there is also no real explanation as to what happened during the rest of Trine 3, like the fate of the Trine. It's simply a new adventure with the three heroes, nothing more and nothing less, where the humorous interactions between the very different characters are always the focus. So, laugh Trine 3 off and move on.
Even though the third game's story is of no importance here, some of the game's positive aspects found their way into the sequel. The most important one is probably the map from where you can select the different levels. With the exception of a single bonus DLC level ("Toby's Dream"), they are all played in a given order again, just like in Trine and Trine 2, so this shouldn't be taken for granted and this is mainly about collecting things that you've missed the first time.
Each level got divided into checkpoints again, where for every section it tells you how much Experience there is to find in total and how much you've actually found. And you can skip right to the checkpoints where you might have missed something, so it's just like in Trine 3. It doesn't work as nicely, however, because the divisions are entirely based on coordinates and not on how you progress naturally through a level. Let's say the game shows you that you're missing something in the seventh area, but you're unable to find anything at all there, even though you've searched high and low. Then it might turn out that what you are missing is only accessible from the previous section, where it's laid out in a way that you won't notice this from where you've entered the level. And that's unfortunate.
It's still better in Trine 2, where you had to search through the entire level again if you were missing something. It's a lot more motivating when the game narrows it down for you and also gives you the option to go back right away, because then you can conveniently clear all the levels one after another, instead of doing a second search through everything later
But the Experience system and the abilities of the heroes have been streamlined in comparison to Trine 2 as well. Zoya, the thief, for example now can only attach her ropes to predefined anchors, usually in the form of metal rings, just like in Trine 3. This is unlike the first two games, where you could use your grappling hook on anything made out of wood. As a compensation, she can now tie the rope between two objects and even use it as a bridge. Also, she can use her ropes on the objects made by the wizard, Amadeus, which in the original 2D games only worked with the floating platform. This is very powerful in singleplayer mode, where you can switch freely between all three characters. And you can clearly notice how the level designers tried to build around this fact, usually with obstacles for the wizard's objects.
Learning new abilities works mostly like in the second game, but Trine 4 differentiates between two types of Experience: there are the usual bubbles and bottles, which you can find in the environment, and also the new stars, which are obtained from defeating enemies. The latter automatically unlock new abilities, which are required to proceed in the level. This can be new objects for the wizard or the elemental arrows for the thief. The latter are especially useful this time, where the Ice Arrows not only allow for platforms on the water, but you can also use them to freeze most mechanics, which helps with a majority of the puzzles. Actually, the Ice Arrows are so good in this game that the Zelda series should take notes.
The first Trine already had these type of mandatory upgrades, where there you found them in chests at certain points, like the Hammer or the Fire Arrows. This has the advantage that the developers can directly involve these items and abilities in their puzzle design, where they might create puzzles that require you to use certain skills in combination. But this also takes away from the creative freedom in puzzle solving that Trine 2 had, where you were given obstacles and could overcome them in many different ways. It's not that Trine 4 doesn't have anything like it, especially the later game has some very good brain teasers, but often there is a much clearer attempt of how to approach certain puzzles, which can be a little bit boring.
Another result of the Experience system in Trine 4 is that you only fight against enemies in set places, where you have to defeat them all in order to proceed, since this is the only way to guarantee that you will have collected enough Experience for the next required ability. And this is also a bit boring, because you won't find enemies everywhere any longer. You either solve puzzles or you fight, but rarely ever both.
You can also often see the enemies coming in advance, where dark clouds and walls forebode the impending dangers. So, the times of Goblin ambushes or dragons suddenly descending upon you are over. You only get the nightmare battles, which can also be rather annoying, where for example you have force fields around enemies stemming from another, who you then have to defeat first. And it all just feels too streamlined, where the fighting aspect of Trine 4 overall isn't as much fun.
Anyway, the other abilities, which you can unlock from the optional Experience, mostly serve you in battle and can be reset at any time, so you can redistribute your Experience. But because of the split this is also not as interesting as in Trine 2, where for example it was a good idea to get the Gravity Arrows early. Those don't return in Trine 4, by the way, the same with the Bomb Arrows, but this doesn't mean that the thief got nerfed badly.
Quite the opposite, actually. She now has so called "Fairy Ropes", where she can let objects levitate like a ballon and attach them to an anchor point or a grounded object. This also works with the wizard's objects, since those are a grappling hook target. And with this there are virtually no limits in the verticality, which reflects in the level design quite often. The obstacles are usually construed in the horizontal with abysses and alike, and you rarely get Experience bubbles floating high up in the air, like they often did in Trine 2, simply because collecting them is now absolutely trivial thanks to the Fairy Ropes.
The other two heroes didn't see as many changes, where the wizard is mostly the same, except that he now can summon metal balls, which withstand all sorts of hazards that would usually break his boxes or blanks. There is also a rubber ball variant for lots of nonsense. The knight lost his hammer, but he now uses the power of lightning with both sword and shield to temporarily stun foes. He can also create "Dream Shields", which remain in place, so that you can reflect beams around multiple corners. One of those Dream Shields can even be magnetized in the late game, which is as useful as the Fairy Ropes and one of the few optional puzzle solving abilities, one that also lets the characters work together in new ways.
Apropos working together, the cooperative multiplayer offers both the Classic Mode, where each hero can only be present once in the game, and the Free Mode, where every player can freely chose between all three heroes at any time. In the past the latter made things a lot easier, naturally, which is why in Trine 4 the puzzles get modified for this mode, so that they make good use of the fact that the same character can exist twice. Like, you may have to stand back to back as knights, blocking attacks coming from both sides. Or you'll need more than three chests to solve a puzzle. This was usually achieved by removing things from the environment, like anchor points for Zoya's ropes, where you then have to make good use of the extra objects from the wizards. But this is interesting and also adds some replay value, along with the different difficulty settings.
One last thing of note is the soundtrack by Ari Pulkkinen, which is overall pretty good, as usual, but might not stick with you as much as the music from the previous games. This probably has to do with the fact that Trine 4 is all about dreams and therefore creates a more faraway atmosphere. But it's certainly not as imposing as the more powerful music in the first three games, where the soundtrack is still the best thing about the otherwise disappointing Trine 3.
Trine 4: Melody of Mystery
The PC version of Trine 4 also has an expansion, called Melody of Mystery, which extends the base game by six crazy levels, much like The Goblin Menace before it. The base game has 18 levels in total, by the way, plus the aforementioned free bonus level Toby's Dream, making this the longest Trine game as of yet in terms of bare numbers.
In the expansion the three heroes enter the dreams of different academy students to free them from some sort of sleeping curse. These students were all playable characters in the "Trineverse" spin-off title, Nine Parchments, but you don't need to have played this game to understand what's going on. You will get to know all these characters by literally diving into their dreams, which offer a unique understanding of their personalities.
The DLC is already worth it for these creative ideas alone, as well as some of the best puzzles in the game. It's not as a good as The Goblin Menace, however, which has some of the best, largest, and craziest levels in the series. Also, the expansion isn't available on consoles as of yet, where FrozenByte is apparently still working on that...
Conclusion
Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince is a return to form for the Trine saga, where this is pretty much on par with the excellent second game. It does a variety of things differently, where this can be better or worse, depending on the taste of the player. But it offers the same level of quality and slightly more content, where Trine 2 and Trine 4 represent the best of what the series has to offer – a series that is rather unique with its physic-based puzzles and platforming in a fantasy-themed world. So, let's hope that a potential fifth game can follow these examples.
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