Spell slingers.

I was actually a pretty big fan of Trine. I enjoyed the whimsical nature of the look and story and had a fun time both with the puzzles and challenge the games posed. I even enjoyed Trine 3 despite what many others had to say. When I heard Frozenbyte had a new game out set in the Trine universe, I was totally down for it. While Nine Parchments has the look and style of Trine, the gameplay and story lack the depth of a real successor to the Trine series.

Players take on the role of apprentice wizards that are about to flunk out of their magic school. Before that can happen their professor’s magic tome gets blown away and to prove their worthiness, they embark on a quest to find all the parchments for their professor. It’s a simple story and it never gets more complex than that really.

Platforms: XB1, PS4, Switch, PC
MSRP: $19.99
Price I’d pay: $15

The gameplay is pretty simple. Think of it like playing Diablo III as the Wizard class in a much more simplified version. Players move their characters around isometric areas as they use twin stick mechanics to move and attack. Each character begins with three spells, all of which have their own mode of attack and element. Hitting enemies that are weak to fire with fire spells will do more damage while hitting enemies with ice while they have an ice shield will do nothing. Simple. It gets more complex later one when there are multiple enemies on screen with different colored shields and types. When things get hairy, all mages have a blink ability that allows them to teleport in a short range to a different part of the arena, and they also have a melee attack that, while not powerful, can help finish off enemies with low health.

The game has some minor RPG elements with a simple loot system where players can pick up hats and new staffs. The hats are purely cosmetic, but the staffs can buff certain attributes in minor ways, many revolving around the blink mechanic. Characters also level up and gain attribute points that can be used to upgrade abilities as well. One big thing is the unlocking of new mages. This can be done by meeting certain requirements like finding a certain staff and then completing a quest. There are even variations of the mages that can be unlocked that offer up new skill trees and abilities.

Nine Parchments was really built with co-op in mind. Combining spell powers together can result in some rather devastating damage to enemies, and with four players channeling attacks together, can melt even the biggest of bosses. Solo play is here, but after about five or six levels, it can get both tedious and difficult, the reason being that when playing solo, I would run into enemies that had either a type or elemental shield that I couldn’t do much damage to. Drop in three more of the same enemies with even more different types and I was stuck in a perpetual loop of doing little damage, blinking away, keeping my distance while my mana/energy recharged, and trying it again. Teaming up with some other mages could make short work of something that was almost impossible while playing solo. I found the difficulty to be either too hard in solo play, or too easy in co-op – especially with four players running around. There was no happy medium for me.

One design choice I found puzzling was that it seemed like the developers want the players to go through the game multiple times. Especially when it came to playing as a different character. I understand that each new character begins at level 1 and has to become more powerful in order to progress properly, but having to start over from the beginning was a bit of a chore. This also carries over to the online multiplayer. I originally started playing solo, got about four levels in, then decided to jump online to find some other players. I was able to find some people, but ended up losing my progress in the story due to my not choosing to “resume” game. Why not just have the game resume by default? If I were farther along in the game and that had happened, I would have been pretty annoyed.

Visually, the game is vibrant, colorful, and just very charming. It runs smooth as butter too. I never had any frame rate dips, even when I had multiple spells and enemies flying over the map. The story is simple for the most part, but the look and presentation still had the whimsical Trine feel to it and it always made me crack a smile.

Nine Parchments is a pretty game with some wonderful presentation. While it may lack much depth in the combat and story department, I still had some fun times while playing co-op. Playing solo is not really recommended for both the difficulty and tedious nature, and some may still find the co-op to be too much of a cake walk. Some design choices are also questionable, but in the end, I found the overall package contained a decent amount of content and had some fun collecting new spells and unlocks with some people online.

Review copy of game provided by publisher.