Welcome To the (Nether)Universe
From the start, players can choose to embark on either campaign, and you can also start both of them (with different save slots) simultaneously. Both stories are intertwined, sharing the same overall story and characters, but you get to play as different characters and see the story from a different perspective depending on the campaign you choose. I’ve spent about seventy-five percent of my time with the Demon Dog campaign.
In this campaign, the primary character is the Demon Dog Kanata. Historically, his ancestors have sacrificed themselves to becoming a Demon God Gem. In this state, they can protect their homeland of Empyria from objects from space, i.e., the Netheruniverse. It’s not clear why objects drift in and out of the Netheruniverse — but there are dozens of them, and the objects are completely random. From libraries to traffic cones to ghost ships, the variety is certainly bizarre.
The other campaign stars the likes of Valkyrie Rizelea and Dark Hero Lucius. It answers (and raises) other questions regarding the Netheruniverse. The jist is that Rizelea keeps peace in the Netheruniverse and discovers that a certain area of the Netheruniverse (above Empyria) is constantly in danger from space debris. She decides to figure out why this is happening. Besides the focus on Disgaea characters in the Demon Dog campaign versus the Atelier focus in the Valkyrie campaign, another notable difference exists. In the Demon Dog campaign, Kanata can create and then battle strong monsters to earn Clear Souls. In the Valkyrie campaign, players can enter the Meteorite Workshop to create meteorites from mana.
Anyway, while normally Demon Dog Kings sacrifice themselves, Kanata instead chooses to keep his form and visit these objects in orbit. By visiting them, Kanata and his faithful, smart servant Fox Spirit Tsubaki (Tsubaki for short), intend to destroy the gravity cores of these objects, forcing them safely away from Empyria. The problem is, these objects, known as dungeons when you actually go to visit them, are packed with monsters, most of which are encountered via random battles. Kanata and Tsubaki eventually get some help from Etna, the ‘beauty pirate’ who has an endless amount of Prinnies at her command. The Prinnies, which I’ve long associated as the NIS America mascot, are short blue and white penguins who are eager to serve their master Etna. They’re capable fighters and cute little guys, but they also explode when thrown, which is both funny and sad in a weird way. Prinnies also love to say the word ‘dood’ after every line, which with their particular voice acting sounds pretty funny, even hours later. The same can’t be said for some of the other voice acting, however.
Before I get into the deep combat system of Trinity Universe, let me first explain a few more of the game mechanics. For starters, there are Events and Dungeons. Events are dialogue sequences which feature two characters talking with full (English or Japanese) voice overs and subtitles. Graphically, a colorful, animated version of each character appears with slight, but very noticeable changes in their mannerisms and expressions occurring as they partake and react to the conversation at hand. These sequences can
be skipped, but if you’re interested in the story or the banter between the characters, it’s worth reading through. Much of the bizarre nature of this game is explained and expanded upon during these Events, and you’ll learn a whole lot more about the characters involved this way.
Usually, the flow of the game suggests going through each Event before hopping into a Dungeon, but the choice is yours. Before going into a dungeon, you must first locate the object in the Netheruniverse that you want to explore, or, it may be added to your dungeon list already if it’s an important location. From your list, you can view a brief description of the object and the level of monsters awaiting you inside. Dungeons also have treasures, some much more valuable than others, and a stat on this information page shows you how many treasures you have found to date.
Some dungeons are special in that they are Event Dungeons which include dialogue sequences and plot advancement. Others are just ordinary dungeons, rife with random battles and treasures for your hunting desire. Going into these other dungeons is a great way to earn extra XP and goodies to either sell or use to synthesize other objects with. It also increases your Universe Rank, which is viewable from the Menu Screen. As your Rank increases, more advanced dungeons open up. These advanced dungeons aren’t quite as interesting as they may sound, however, as they really just seem to be expansions of previously explored areas.
Whether in an Event Dungeon or a standard one, players will run around as Kanata and can at anytime (as long as you have some left), use a Search. When you press Square to search, Kanata will stand in place and lift his hand above his head, emanating a bright orb. Four colored code lines may appear from this orb, depending on where you are at in the dungeon and what is near you. These include a white line for a Gravity Core, red for a Hunting Point, yellow for Hidden Treasure, and blue for a Managraphic Image. As mentioned earlier, the Gravity Core must be destroyed to completely clear the dungeon and expel the object from the Netheruniverse. A Hunting Point is something that becomes available several hours into the game and is very useful for random-battle-weary players like me. When you enter a Hunting Point, you can initiate a series of consecutive battles. If you win them, random battles will not occur for a while. It’s worth pointing out that random battles otherwise occur about every twenty to thirty seconds — you can just about set your watch to it. Finally, Managraphics are special images that you can have an NPC use to paint onto your weapons, giving them different properties. Players can instantly switch between managraphs on their weapon (once purchased) to gain an advantage over foes.
Combat
Battle sequences are a huge part of Trinity Universe and there are a lot of elements in the combat or battle system. These are briefly explained one time at different points throughout the first six or eight hours of the campaign. Fortunately, and you are reminded of this several times, from the Menu Screen, players can re-read any and all gameplay tips and tutorials in the Encyclopedia.
I’m not going to try to and explain the entire battle system, but suffice it to say it’s multi-faceted. I’m not sure that any of it is necessarily completely original — but it’s a rather good combination of several different techniques and optional tweaks that can be performed by the astute player. The combat system gets ‘unlocked’ or revealed to you over time in the story, which is probably a wise approach considering the breadth of it. For starters, combat is turned based, with the player almost always getting the first strike. Each character has a certain level of AP, Attack Power. It’s based on a number that starts at say, 30, and counts down after you start pressing Square, Triangle, and X for attacks. X are mighty blow attacks that are slower but powerful. Rush Attacks, Square, are fast, while Magical Attacks, Triangle, allow the character to inflict at least some damage on every enemy character in the battle (which is sometimes one of course). It’s very important to note that players can save their AP
by just pressing R2 during their turn, which gives them 2x their default amount (with up to 3x possible), or you can use up some of your AP and save the remaining amount for the next turn. AP is of course upgraded as you level up and get new weapons.
For the first several hours, unless you force your character to wait a turn, you cannot execute the more interesting combo maneuvers that each character has. This is because your AP runs out before you can execute these combos. Each character has at least one combo that allows them to go into an automated, extra-hit combo that deals more damage. In battle, players can pause the action and pull up the Menu Screen to review combos, too.
In addition to standard attacks and combos, each player can equip the ability to perform certain actions, like Escape and healing magic. These are configurable at anytime and are executed by pressing Circle. You have to decide how you want to ‘stack’ these powers, however. Up to four abilities can be stacked but you have to earn enough AP to be able to actually cast into your third and fourth abilities. Reason being, you have to hold Circle for several seconds to ‘eclipse’ the first (second, third) ability to be able to use the second. All the while, your AP counter is going down, so mostly likely you won’t have enough AP to use more than one of these special skills at a time. Characters can only equip what powers other characters aren’t using, but any character can use any of these powers. Unfortunately, Use Item is one of these powers, which makes healing a challenge during boss fights because only one character can use standard healing items at a time.
But wait, there’s more. Players can also string together combos with other characters in what’s known as a Fury Chain by pressing R1 during one character’s turn. Doing so brings up a circle with icons for other characters in your party who have yet to use their turn. A meter moves past each character’s icon quickly, so you have time the press of the corresponding face button accurately to be able to successfully bring in the next character. Depending on which one you select, and when, that character
attacks with increased power. A small graphic cue tells you if you activated the Fury Chain successfully or not. There are also special Ex moves that can either unleash massive Curing or Skills powers. Using these depends on filling up the Image Gauge in the bottom of the HUD.
Obviously, lots of emphasis was put into the combat system in Trinity Universe and I think the developers did a nice job. It’s a bit overwhelming until you get used to it, even with certain aspects being unveiled long after others, but it makes for an ultimately satisfying and engaging combat system once you get comfortable with it.
Additionally…
Combat is certainly a major part of this adventure, but so is treasure — buying, selling, and synthesizing goods with objects found in dungeons and taken from fallen enemies. It’s not uncommon to pick up over a dozen items from a thirty second battle, so expect to have quite an inventory of goods at your disposal. Many of these are healing items or chunks of silver you can sell in for gold coinage or a variety of other intermediates that are used in item creation. To create items, you need to purchase books
from shop keepers all throughout the NetherUniverse. Interestingly, these shops come and go with the objects that they are on, and some are only open during certain times of day. You can actually go to an Inn, for free, and sleep (healing all party members) to help pass the time if you need to get to a certain shop at a certain time of day. Fortunately, that type of dedication and timing isn’t required in Trinity Universe. You can loot and horde objects to you heart’s content and synthesize items all day long, or just get by with what you earn in battle and buy from the shops (how I chose to play). It’s nice that players have the option to level grind and loot as much as they want or work their way through the campaign quicker.
From a presentation perspective, Trinity Universe isn’t a bad looking game, but I don’t consider it outstanding, either. The graphics are anime style and fluid, very colorful for the characters and much of the environments, and all-in-all decently detailed, although not particularly captivating. The voice acting was less pleasant — I didn’t like the sound of some of the voices and much of the dialogue, especially during and immediately after battle, gets replayed far too much.
So if you’re scouring the PS3 universe for a deep and creative JRPG/Strategy title, Trinity Universe should definitely make your list. It’s not the most robust or complete game in the genre but it will keep fans of said genre busy for many hours.
To the summary…