Trinity Fusion maintains the veneer of hallmark roguelites by forging a path through the multiverse cacophony. Using fast-paced combat and platforming, the fun builds players create should drown out the less impressive soft spots.
As I mentioned recently in my review of Have a Nice Death, the beating heart of a great (or at least competent) roguelite often reverberates in its first run.
In the first ten minutes of Trinity Fusion, developer Angry Mob Games taught me the basics of combat and platforming, feeding new enemies to slice and dash through. I treated it casually, assuming at some point an impassable enemy or story beat would force my hand into death or one of the various alternate universes the introductory cutscene had teased. It didn’t feel like a big deal that I had lost chunks of health trying to time dodges and learn enemy patterns. Then I ran into a mini-boss.
Certain death awaited and, ultimately, I did perish. But not without a fight. A few seconds in I realized the hulking spider-legged tank with a mountain of health was healing the jerk assaulting me. Despite learning attack patterns and getting into a rhythm, my mild carelessness from before spelled downfall.
And for a few seconds while the requisite cutscene played, I thought about starting a new save file, knowing that I could probably beat that skill check and see how the game would react to a potential victory.
Such a simple moment resonates with me as a player. That tantalizing reward knowing you’re almost good enough to beat something that most shouldn’t be able to on a first try. As tempting as the endorphin rush was, I pushed through and learned that my character hadn’t really died. In fact, I was playing as Maya, a woman who is able to access three versions of herself across the multiverse.
Yes, Trinity Fusion is another property that explores the fantastical concept being used more and more for cameo and nostalgia bait than actual narrative development. Curiously, Trinity Fusion takes place in a world where various races existing across the multiverse harvest and explore different planes of existence. As it tends to happen, races of aliens, monsters, and other creatures are spelling destruction to humanity and it is up to the player to fix things.
While I found the slow crawl of cutscenes and lore drops palpable over the course of Trinity Fusion, interested players need to keep in mind that many of the developments of the narrative take place after long stretches of failure and randomization. The various kiosks that dole out history and the brief interactions with NPCs are either progressed when certain milestones are met, or merely when the player stumbles upon them during exploration. Personally, I felt that the inclusion of the multiverse concept makes for a plausible and distinct excuse to further manipulate and explore the concepts of the genre.
Trinity Fusion‘s more interesting uses of multiple dimensions emerge from the player’s ability to control and combine the abilities of Maya’s three counterparts. Altara, Kera, and Naira each exist in their own worlds, represented as a set of various biomes in the game’s randomly generated levels. Though seemingly a splinter of one person, these three women each have their own unique abilities meant to provide slightly different experiences with both combat and navigation.
Altara, like all her counterparts, uses melee attacks but can use magic-based ranged attacks like homing orbs with elemental effects. Kera is like Altara but uses guns for ranged attacks, usually meaning players need to be more deliberate in their targeting. Naira relies on melee weapons and can’t use a double jump like the other two.
It may sound confusing to delegate character types in this way but the differences aren’t drastic enough to be confusing. In reality, these are meant to shine when players are granted the ability to literally fuse Altara, Naira, or Kera with one of her other selves, granting them the combined ability pool of both. Naira’s movement set might be limited but when combined with jumping abilities of the others can access further parts of a level.
This doesn’t mean players will get stuck and be unable to progress, however. The randomly generated levels don’t prevent moving forward but some secrets and rewards merely require these fusions. Though not creating a wholly new gameplay experience, enough strategy and thought goes into these fusions that it becomes another aspect of a player’s build. That logic applies to run-specific Amplifiers which typically grant boosts with perhaps a slight cost of usefulness.
During my first several runs to become acclimated to Trinity Fusion‘s curve, I focused on Amplifiers that benefited any healing boosts and ways to focus on dealing out more damage. But there are also Amplifiers that trigger when using consumable items–which provide instant or short-term benefits–or ways to manipulate critical hits. At the onset, Amplifiers are chosen from a small pool with each one given its own color code that represents what it boosts. Choose three Amplifiers of a given color and receive a “fused” bonus. The further players progress in a run, the more colors unlock and the more dynamic Amplifiers become, often requiring various synergies for the bonus to trigger.
Augments exist as the permanent boosts players unlock over time. Collecting a specific currency during a run, players will be able to unlock base health upgrades, critical hit chance increase, and the ability to resurrect after death to name a few. But these upgrades are meant to be loaded into Maya’s collective consciousness and initially can only handle a few. To increase the amount that can be equipped, players must also upgrade the amount of active Augment slots.
While Augments are very beneficial, they are quite costly, especially in upgraded tiers. It took several hours to have enough currency to afford the base level of most Augments and just as long to have the slots to equip them all. It was disappointing partially because Augments are one of the primary means of feeling a raw boost in capability.
The actual combat in Trinity Fusion is absolutely the high point of the game. Melee attacks and their combos feel stellar to execute because of the game’s fluid animation and movement. Coupled with the ability to dash on the ground and in the air, the three multiverse warriors are a joy to control, especially when enemies pepper the screen and careful estimation of threats becomes essential.
Navigating ranged-based threats, those that fly, enemies that crawl along walls and roofs, ones that wait a few frames to properly telegraph attacks, and hulking beasts provide a large amount of enemy variety that are spread across a level or stuffed into tighter rooms that may also require smart platforming. Jumping around in Trinity Fusion and especially dashing to a platform or through a group of enemies to get to safety never lacked a buttery-smooth quality.
I was partially surprised by this fluidity because I don’t think Trinity Fusion looks as great as it feels. There was a claymation-like smooth quality to all the enemies and characters in the game. Not that the visuals were particularly bad, it’s merely something about them lacked a distinct edge or character. Perhaps it was the models appearing 3D rather than 2D? As frequent as they are appearing these days, Trinity Fusion may have felt more unique with sprites, voxels, or hand-drawn animations.
Still, those issues took a backseat the more and more I played Trinity Fusion and continued to enjoy the variety and challenge in its worlds, enemies, and bosses. Plus, the game is quite generous in the default difficulty with new weapons and abilities that begin to get weirder over time. In my first run I was randomly dropping damaging traps after getting kills, ejecting homing bullets, and more. The “loot” rewarded slowly levels up with the player, becoming stronger and incentivizing experimentation much like in Returnal.
Trinity Fusion is not another shallow roguelite that tosses players into an alien whirlwind of random levels and stale action. As one of the more exciting action-platformers in the genre, the game’s take on the multiverse generates enough creativity and excitement to fuel its fusion-based elements. Trinity Fusion is deep enough to captivate those seeking familiar fun.
