Developed by Frozenbyte, ‘Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy’ is a 2.5D action-adventure and puzzle-ridden platformer following three heroes on their fifth outing. They are pitted against villains who will stop at nothing to take control of the kingdom, but the clock is ticking to save the world of Trine!

This whole new adventure will take Armadeus the Wizard, Zoya the Thief, and Pontius the Knight on an action-packed journey in order to regain their tarnished reputation. With their loved ones in danger and magical powers at stake, the Heroes of Trine must reunite and take down the fearsome Clockwork army.

Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy is riddled with crazy story plots and twists that keep you on the edge of your seat all the way through. Not only is the story ever so engrossing, but it can also be enjoyed with a friend. Or three. With an up-to-player co-op, the fun seems endless as you all struggle together to work out puzzles.

With three ways to play, Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy definitely offers great diversity in ways to play. You can play solo, where you’ll switch between the three heroes to solve puzzles and take down foes, or you can play in one of the two co-op modes, the first being 4 players where you can all switch between the heroes freely.

The second co-op option is classic, which only allows up to 3 players where you all play as a hero each. This can also be played with 2 players allowing either one of you to switch to the third hero when needed.

I played a large portion of this with only one other person. It was both fun and frustrating but in a good way. Well, most of the time. We found ourselves trying to communicate, and instead, ended up screaming at each other or cracking up laughing when we screwed each other over by mistake, or sometimes, on purpose.

For even more playability, you can change the difficulty of the combat and puzzles. Naturally, combat difficulty will just make the enemies a little more challenging to take down. What I really liked was the puzzle difficulty option, this changes the dynamic of a lot of the puzzles you will encounter, making them a little more challenging, or easier, depending on which way you go.

Throughout your playthroughs, you will find much to collect, from experience and tidbits to hats to customize the Heroes. Experience shows up as green gems to collect, sometimes obvious and easy to grab, and others much more challenging and well hidden. Luckily, there’s an experience counter for each level, and there are checkpoints that make it easy to go back and collect them all.

Experience is used to acquire extra abilities for the heroes, whether it’s more damage from your attack to help with combat, or some extra tools to aid you in your puzzles and those hard-to-reach collectibles. You can upgrade these at any time as long as you have come across an area to bank all your found experience points.

This 2.5D adventure offers a really stunning world to venture through, and even if you are only moving sideways, the land has a lot of depth and detail that is well-designed and beautiful to gaze at. Each level feels unique thanks to the many puzzles and gorgeous settings, and it definitely keeps you interested the whole way through.

With such a great narration all the way through, and voice actors that fit their roles well, I found myself engrossed in the story and happy to sit there listening before diving head-first into each level. Each character has their own style and characteristics about them, whether they are cracking jokes or focusing down to solve any problem they face, and that’s not to mention the soundtrack that fits well with this genre, making the world feel that much more alive.

Trine 5: A Clockwork Conspiracy is an adventure like no other, offering a beautiful world, a great story, and so much diversity and replayability with its puzzles, difficult options, and cooperative mechanics. Even if you play it solo, you will still have such an amazing time if this is your kind of genre.

Written by: MrVibeAU