In some ways, Threefold Recital does an excellent job in telling a thoughtful tale of beastlings bound to Daoist philosophy. In other ways, I was a smidge disappointed in the driving forces behind that storytelling and the simplicity of the platforming. It’s not the most memorable platformer outright, but if you’re in the mood for a compelling narrative with some light platforming and other minigames, look no further than Threefold Recital.
Everscape Games’ Threefold Recital is beautifully drawn 2D-platformer featuring an excellent assortment of background tracks that not only set the mood, but also connects with the ambiance of the title’s overarching aesthetic. In its few trailers I have seen over the past few weeks, I had the impression that that Threefold Recital would feature a healthy mixture of platforming, exposition, and some minigames. What transpired during my 12-hour playthrough was a wealth of dialogue with a smattering of minigames, most of which ended up being tests of logic.
I don’t have a problem with exposition-heavy games, mind you. Narratives have the potential to be compelling when they connect with players’ emotions, teach them a lesson, or inspire a thoughtful internal dialogue. Some of the best stories I’ve encountered in games have led me to question characters’ motives, whether the ends justify the means, and the definition of righteousness in a morally grey world. Blending another game genre with narrative, such as Threefold Recital’s 2D-platforming-meets-storytelling, lets the secondary genre act as the vehicle that pushes the narrative along the tracks while breaking up large blocks of text. Threefold Recital utilizes minigames and light platforming, but does so in a handholdy fashion with jarring interruptions.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
Threefold Recital follows the story of three beastlings known as Triratna, Taiqing, and Transia. The beastling’s journey takes them through their own individual journeys before culminating in a singular storyline where the player is to switch through the characters’ perspectives and challenge a mysterious crisis. The Daoist-inspired tale lightly touches on philosophical tenets with a larger plot twist at the 11th hour, but it’s presented in such a way that is approachable for Western audiences.
The initial tutorial gave me a glimpse of the protagonists’ abilities and personalities, teaching me the simple controls of jumping and interacting with the world. After that quick tutorial, each character was given their own individual chapter so they could shine in their own right. I appreciated how Threefold Recital had me get to know each of the beastling in these chapters, especially since the stories were disparate enough to act as their own entities instead of piecemeal short stories that culminated in a fateful reunion of the trio.
Oddly enough, though, the final two chapters culminated in a reunion and assumed how each character got to that seemingly-fateful location. The trio’s initial backstories aren’t made evident in the first three chapters, merely relying on hints and the occasional one-liner that signaled to me that these characters were related at all. If anything, their reunion seemed sudden despite the characters having a similar origin. While the ending lays out the characters’ relationships and backstories in the most clear fashion, I needed a reminder as to how the characters’ reunited in the first place. Threefold Recital’s method of breaking up the story into three discrete chapters before bringing it all together needed a throughline and some consistency to push me forward to the final two chapters.
Each of the characters had their own strengths and unique minigames in their chapters. Transia, the snake artist, was to shapeshift as other NPCs and travel through paintings to get to unexplored areas. Taiqing, the fox priest, had to gather ingredients and make new objects to push the story forward. The minigames were just as simple as the game’s platforming, often tasking me with dragging, dropping, or clicking. There was one minigame towards the end that ended up being a virtual underwater ring toss – you know that handheld game with two buttons where you had to get plastic rings on two poles? That kind of simple.
The few secondary objectives and side quests weren’t too far off the beaten path, merely adding 10-15 minutes of additional exploration to each chapter’s playtime. Threefold Recital respected my time in that sense while also rewarding me for taking the time to probe and pry at each hand-drawn environment’s interactibles to ensure that I had turned over every stone before ending the chapter. Once I had returned to the level hub in-between chapter, I was rewarded in the form of currency that I could use on an in-game gachapon machine to obtain lore entries and music tracks.
I appreciated how pop culture and present-day technology was fluidly interwoven into the names of the tertiary characters and punny dialogue. Some of it was in-your-face, such as the Among Us references in the penultimate chapter, but others were outright silly and nostalgic. Seeing Triratna take on the role of Phoenix Wright from the Ace Attorney series made me chuckle, especially since I had to emulate Wright’s OBJECTION! as a feline monk. It’s clear that the folks at Everscape Games were fans of classic gaming and wanted to include good, old-fashioned memes to lighten the story.
Deduction ended up being the biggest skill I needed in Threefold Recital. Even though Triratna’s chapter was the most up-front about testing my ability to deduce cause-and-effect, Taiqing’s transmutation and Transia’s shapeshifting required me to pay attention to what had just transpired and make educated guesses about what to do next.
I won’t lie, though, Threefold Recital is very heavy on the dialogue and none of it is skippable on the first go-round. If I wanted to replay a chapter, there was a way to speed things up, but it was frustrating to accidentally repeat a dialogue chain upon interacting with an object/NPC and not be able to skip through it. Gameplay sluggishness would also emerge when I was finally able to break out of a large exposition dump and move around, only to encounter another waterfall of text. There needed to be greater consistency in letting the player go and explore and utilize the break in-between blocks of text.
Again, I liked Threefold Recital’s story. Now that I have the fuller picture of its fantasy-meets-technology world and the backstories of the protagonists, I appreciate how well it captures philosophical tenets without being preachy. I personally wanted the rate at which the story was told to have been adjusted to be more consistent.
Before I wrap this review, I want to commend Everscape Games’ decision to include so much excellent music in Threefold Recital’s soundtrack. There are so many excellent tracks that fit the mood of each and every scene. In between chapters, I would occasionally sit in the hub and just vibe to the music (once I had unlocked my favorite tracks, mind you). The OST truly sets the stage in all the right ways.
In some ways, Threefold Recital does an excellent job in telling a thoughtful tale of beastlings bound to Daoist philosophy. In other ways, I was a smidge disappointed in the driving forces behind that storytelling and the simplicity of the platforming. It’s not the most memorable platformer outright, but if you’re in the mood for a compelling narrative with some light platforming and other minigames, look no further than Threefold Recital.
