It takes a lot to get me to play an action roguelite these days. For starters, it’s rare that a studio even comes close to the high bar set by classics of the genre like Dead Cells or Hades. Beyond that, I’ve just played too many — don’t get me wrong, I still let Steam trick me into buying them on sale, but I rarely put more than a few hours in. Yet every once and awhile, one manages to grab me, either because it does something new and different, or because it nails the fundamental aspects of what makes a metroidvania great. Trinity Fusion, which releases in Early Access today, manages to do both.
Billed as a “rogue-lite action platformer”, Trinity Fusion tells a dark sci-fi story in which a human-made (or at least human-exploited) multiverse has begun to collapse. You play as three different version of Maya, one of the only people who can traverse the multiverses “fast enough” to prevent its collapse from being fatal to all life.
This isn’t just set-dressing, however: each of the three playable characters plays fairly differently, both in the weapons they start with and in the traversal abilities they pick up (one of the characters even has an extra-high jump instead of the double jump the other two have). Picking a character will start your run in that character’s specific home biome — although in most levels it’s possible to find a device that lets you swap to one of the different versions of yourself — and these biomes are designed to provide a balanced challenge for the character in question.
The 3D backgrounds are vivid and alive, but remain easy to tell apart from the stuff you can actually interact with
As you progress through the game and gain power via inter-run upgrades to your character, the various multiversus will begin to fuse together. This in turn will cause the game’s disparate biomes to meld, creating new levels with a mishmash of aesthetics and enemies. It’s a clever way to blend plot with gameplay, and I’m super excited to see how it impacts runs in practice (the current build stops before any multiverse fusion occurs).
I was fortunate enough to be able to first check out the game at PAX East, where the devs impressed me both with their passion for the game and with their understanding of how to make a side-scroller fun — but neither came as a surprise given how great Trinity Fusion felt to play. Nine times out of ten, I can tell if I’m going to like an action game right after fighting the first real enemy; if the game feels good and doesn’t look awful, it’ll at least be fun. With Trinity Fusion, I didn’t even have to fight an enemy — the moment I picked up the controller and moved my character, I knew.
The boss fights were a highlight of the preview build — challenging, but fair
That’s because Angry Mob Games has absolutely nailed Trinity Fusion’s feel. Your character is responsive, and attacks are smooth and satisfying. The same is true of enemies, which not only look awesome, but are animated with incredible attention to detail. This allows their attacks to be clearly telegraphed — every time I took damage, it was because I was too greedy or too slow.
The game already has decent weapon and spell variety, although there did seem to be some options that were far stronger (or at least easier to use) than others. Your secondary weapon (which can be melee or ranged depending on your character) runs on energy, which you regain by dealing damage with your primary weapon. It’s a very effective system, and one that encourages using the full range of tools at your disposal.
Teleporters are common, and make for convenient backtracking
Despite being a roguelite, the groups of enemies you encounter are anything but random. According to the devs, within the game logic are rules that dictate what kinds of enemies spawn together, and where: you’ll always see the support-style enemy that casts a protective shield in tandem with more aggressive foes, for example; ranged enemies will usually spawn on high ground, or with a melee partner screening for them. The ultimate goal with this system is to make each encounter a test of strategy as well as skill — different groups of enemies require different approaches, and the hope is that players will take a moment to inspect each room before diving into combat. I usually didn’t, but it ended up not mattering too much.
Which actually brings us to my only real critique of Trinity Fusion: some of the roguelike mechanics don’t feel particularly well balanced. One almost universal principle in these sorts of games is that taking damage from regular enemies matter, with how well you navigate the run’s initial fights playing a large role in how far you can get. Yet Trinity Fusion gives you full health before each boss fight, making the pre-boss sections feel incredibly low-stakes (especially given how easy it is to full clear a level once you’ve encountered the enemies a few times).
Trinity Fusion also suffers from having some of the equippable buffs being far stronger than others
But that’s OK, because the game isn’t finished yet. Given how rock-solid the game’s base already is, I have a lot of faith that any issues with balance and other easily-fixable elements will be ironed out by the time it leaves early access in 12-18 months. Angrymob have set themselves up for success with Trinity Fusion, and I fully expect it to blow people away when 1.0 lands.
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DanielD
Unabashed FromSoftware fanboy still learning to take his time with games (and everything else, really). The time he doesn't spend on games is spent on music, books, or occasionally going outside.
