‘Trine 2’ performs best when you play with others

The charm in “Trine 2” doesn’t lie with its rather uninspiring story or its varying puzzles. It’s when you pair up with a friend or two and wreck havoc all over all this “Avatar”-hued land of magic and goblins.

“Trine 2” takes place not long after the events of “Trine,” and our trio of heroes quickly finds itself enmeshed in a battle against magical beings, fierce fiends and a forest so vibrant with color and alien-like plants you can’t help but think you’re on Pandora. The premise here is that the Trine, a magical floating entity, has transported our main characters — Amadeus the wizard, Zoya the thief and Pontius the knight — to our crazed forest, where the crown princess Rosabel has tasked us with saving the forest from whatever evil has befallen it. Which is really the storyline you need to know until you reach the end.

Now questing through multiple gorgeous levels ranging from tropics to beaches to tundras, the players’ goals is to make their way through, battling baddies and leveling up along the way. Lest we forget, though, “Trine 2” is a puzzle game at its core, and there are plenty of them standing in your way — some interesting, some downright infuriating.

Which is why having more than one player present comes in handy more often than not. Our heroes each have separate and distinct abilities. The wizard is capable of creating blocks and platforms out of thin air, the thief has a powerful bow and grappling hook and the knight is just a destructive brute. Each serves a purpose in aiding you get through the levels. By yourself, you can cycle through them and use them individually to advance the story. You’re never forced to stay with any particular character, though, if you’d rather be another. Speaking for myself, I mastered the wizard because it feel the most natural to me, which my friend maxed out the thief. My mission was to create paths for us while my friend just constantly shot our enemies down. (We both may have used the knight only as a tour de force, but that’s beside the point…)

Even as you’re having fun casting magics and slinging arrows, it’s quick to frustrated in “Trine 2,” especially when it comes to certain game mechanics and late-game puzzles. For those who are used to PC games, you’ll figure your way around before too long. For the rest of us, however, it does us no good when the game fails to tell us how to activate all of our abilities properly or what we’re capable of. For instance, even though I played most the game as the wizard, I didn’t realize until more than halfway through that my blocks could be adhered to spikes, which would have made certain puzzles actually make sense. Instead, we just forced our way through. (Or use magic to constantly mess with your friend, but I don’t know anyone who does that. Honest.)

The online multiplayer works smoothly, presenting almost no lag between players. And as I’ve said, this is how the game should be played as it becomes less of a chore and more of the interesting puzzle-platformer it was meant to be.

It should be said, though, that the puzzles prove more difficult than the few boss fights there are. For the most part, you just go in bow/sword a-swingin’ and you hack away. Eventually, you win. Which is a bit disappointing consider I find myself stuck in puzzles longer than it took to take down most bosses.

In the end, “Trine 2,” a 2011 sequel to puzzle platformer game “Trine,” shines in its multiplayer components because it rewards working together and division of labor. It’s fairly quick and gorgeous to boot. It’s open-ended design allows you to choose how you want to proceed, which is lacking of a lot of games. And the puzzles, for the most part, will appropriately challenge you. Just be prepared to be more distracted by the design than by the enemies.

Three “I promise it wasn’t me!” stars out of five.

Editor’s note: This version of “Trine 2” was reviewed on the Mac and PC through Steam. It also is available on PS4, PS3 and Xbox 360, and it can be purchased for $19.99.

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Above, a scene from “Trine 2.” (Photo credit: Frozenbyte, Inc.)