“You make it feel like 1990-something.”
-Sub-Radio
Once upon a time in the 1990s, there was a wonderful game developer known as Squaresoft. They existed to make beautiful, charming, joyful games that players across the world would love and enjoy. One such game was Secret of Mana, which offered a thrilling quest boosted by the addition of local multiplayer. Suddenly, friends or siblings would be able to adventure together and share in such a journey through a vibrant and magical world.
Fast-forward to the year 2023 and there is a heavy nostalgia for both Squaresoft and their ’90s output. Sensing this, from the shadows stepped a gathering of veterans whose previous work included Trials of Mana and Octopath Traveler, amongst others. With such a star-studded team of developers, it is hardly surprising that Trinity Trigger echoes so many hit games from the past, in order to scratch that nostalgic itch.
Trinity Trigger tells the story of Cyan, an everyman in a small village, whose humble front door is knocked upon one day by the revelation that he is actually the Warrior of Chaos! Having lived his entire life with an inexplicable red sigil upon his eye, this makes more sense to him than it ordinarily would. Together with his new allies Elise and Zantis, Cyan steps out of his village to begin an adventure of self-discovery.
It’s not the most page-turning of video game plotlines to begin with; in fact I found myself wondering when the real story was going to begin. The answer to this is quite simple: keep playing! Around the half-way point there are some major events, and the latter stages offer some very welcome and intriguing twists. Truly, this is a game that is worth sticking with to the conclusion of its roughly 20-hour runtime.
The gameplay of Trinity Trigger is pure Mana series goodness. Each of the three playable characters has a Trigger, an adorable Pokémon-esque sidekick that is able to transform into a variety of weapons. Near each village is a dungeon in which a new Trigger transformation or weapon level-up can take place. So, much like Secret of Mana’s hunt for new elemental spells, Trinity Trigger encourages moving forward to discover more and more of these fresh power-ups.
Combat is relatively straightforward, with a simple attack combo and a beautifully effective dodge-roll. However, much in the same vein as Secret of Mana, it is more effective to attack once then back away until the character’s stamina bar has refilled. It’s an almost active-time battle format that still feels relevant and makes the combat flow evenly between offence and defence. Similarly, using items is simply done through a ring-based quick-menu, once again in much the same style as that classic series Trinity Trigger delights in paying tribute to.
Admittedly, I tended to stick to my preferred formula of sword / spear / axe for my party during most of the game, although defeating some of the bosses required a little more strategic planning. Beneath their health bar is a separate shield bar, which can only be broken efficiently by bashing them with one or more of their weapon-weaknesses. This does encourage a little variety and ensures that the player doesn’t just level-up one weapon type and leave the others behind. This is in addition to the hundreds of combinations of weapon customisation, thanks to the ability to add three unique perks to each of the eight weapon types your Trigger can eventually become.
Along the way, the party travels through various locales following the standard village / dungeon formula. However, the world-building in this game is absolutely top-notch and can, sadly, be easily missed if the player isn’t spending the time talking to villagers about the area they are visiting. There is one specific character who appears in each village to give a detailed bit of lore that is well worth seeking out and discovering. Of course, it would have been nice if the game had shown and not told these details but it’s difficult to offer a sense of awe in the environments from a strictly top-down perspective.
Propping up the main quest are a series of around 50 numbered side-quests that vary in difficulty from finding specific items to defeating certain bosses. At first, despite being massively over-levelled, I found the side-quests to be quite a spike in difficulty. The enemies certainly became spongier and, although they weren’t difficult to fight, one clumsy move meant a Game Over for me during a 15-minute-long battle against a large blue blob with one easily avoided attack. This, in addition to the AI-controlled side-characters acting like lemmings and running straight into obvious area-of-effect spells or traps, left me feeling mostly unsupported in battle – particularly when facing off against some of the rather nasty post-game super bosses.
Musically, Trinity Trigger sounds absolutely delightful. To secure the legendary Mana series composer Hiroki Kikuta was a superb move and the soundtrack definitely benefits as a result. The opening theme drifts along dreamily, the field music is suitably peppy, and the boss-battle music is appropriately thrilling without being over-the-top.
However – Trinity Trigger felt it necessary to bury these beautiful tracks under the character voices. It isn’t that the voice acting is bad – in fact, some of the characters are wonderfully acted here – but the same brief lines of battle dialogue can be heard constantly… and when I say constantly, I mean constantly. “Got it!” “Bullseye!” “Here goes!” “Bullseye!” “Got it!” “Bullseye!” It got to the point where level-grinding, as fun as it is in this game, became a torturous exercise that only the mute button on my TV remote could solve – a solution no game developer ever hopes for.
As it stands, Trinity Trigger is a game I would recommend to anyone searching for that Super Nintendo fix and ’90s style gaming. Sure, the remake of Secret of Mana is also available on the Playstation 4 and Trinity Trigger appears to have taken a number of cues from that rather divisive iteration. It’s not a perfect game by any stretch of the imagination: much like its main source of inspiration, it does hold the multiplayer options back a little too long, and some post-game quests feel a little like a slog. I do recommend it, though. It’s been a while since we’ve been on a journey quite like this, and it would be a shame to miss out on such an opportunity for recapturing those 16-bit glory days of fun and adventure!
Thank you to Three Rings, XSEED, and Marvelous Europe for providing us with a copy of Trinity Trigger for this review.
PIXEL PERFECT
