Curiosity killed the cat... or in this case the fox. I picked this game up years ago for that curiosity, and at first saw the promise remain. But as I played and got deeper, it became more and more clear that something was horribly wrong with the game itself and not just in it's world.
Story: Welcome acolyte. Here at the fox temple, we need you're help. You see, one of the foxes this building is dedicated to has gone missing in the realm it's a portal to, and the guardian needs your help to find him. So it's time to delve into the realm of the Odd Gods. There is a little bit more to the story as you are told in drips why the fox is missing and who the guardian is, but not really a lot more. Still it gives you enough reason to be there, so it fits.
6/10
Graphics: This is not a game that tries to go for anything remotely like realism, leaning headlong into a much more surreal look, and to be honest it works for it. Floating majestic structures, large rooms with runes scattered about, statues which suggest a meaning just behind the facade, and a general feel of a temple... it all works for a supernatural world.
Nor does the look of this place get old, as each and every level has it's own feel. It all fits together very well as all the themes are made of pretty much the same parts but is actually clever in how it uses them to make each place truly it's own. I actually have to give the devs a lot of credit for this, well aside from liquids, anyway. Thankfully they are rarely used, but they definitely remind you how bad such effects can be and as such stick out like a sore thumb.
Sadly I can not say the same for the few cut-scenes the game uses. These look like they are trying to be stylized like you might see in a story book, but they come off as a bit childish and overly simplistic to me.
7/10
Sound: While I can give a lot of credit to the feel of the graphics and how slick it really is, I can not give the same level of credit to the sound of the game. Due to you being one of only three characters in the entire game and the other two being ghostly in nature, there is almost no sound effects in the entire game. Basically what you get is the sounds you make when interacting with the environment, and you don't even get footsteps for yourself! As a result most of the time you have either silence or the sound of you bringing triangles into and out of existence, which is the main mechanic the game is built around.
What this leaves is voice work and music, and I would not count on either to improve how this game sounds. The voice work can be few and far between since only one character talks at all, and honestly, their work doesn't really impress me. It works for the scenario, but I don't get a strong vibe of good or bad from it... just there.
And the music also follows this tone. Looking up the OST so I can listen while I review this, I was amazed to see the video goes for over an hour... because it felt like the entire game had 2 tracks to it... and one is for title screen. It's all very tribal sounding, which could be cool, but I have a feeling one of the tracks was overused at the worst times, standing out on it's own as THE song of the game due to this. It's nothing you would want to listen to on it's own, though.
6/10
Gameplay: This right here is where Tri falls apart completely. When you first open the game, you are put through an obstacle course made from purely earthly means to prove yourself before being transferred to the other realm. From this point on, your goal in each level will be to find and place 3 fox statues as keys to unlock the gate to the next level. This will all be done from a first person view, and while you are doing jumps, crawls, runs, and climbing, the game is not bad. It gets better and even pretty good when it introduces the main mechanic of the game, the power to create triangles at will in the world. At this time, provided you can anchor them to physical spots (like walls or other triangles) you can make them as you see fit, allowing you to create walls and steps and be clever with the game, coming up with fun ways to use the mechanic.
And then the cracks begin to form as it opens up second part of this power: the ability to use these triangles to build gravity-defying paths. Your limits to this are based on angles: as long as the angle of the triangle you are trying to walk on isnt too steep to your possitin right now, you can step on any of them (and the color of the triangle will let you know before you try). This sounds like a great and fun mechanic on paper. In practice, it feels almost like you are an ant making and following a trail that you better not step off or you will fall and lose all your progress. It's equal parts cool and annoying, because let's face it, walking on the walls and ceiling is fun and cool, but the execution is finicky and can lead to some points that feel like they work only cause you are breaking some part of the mechanics involved.
But up until this point the game has been forgiving in that the game doesn't rely on those mechanic-crunching moments and there is no fall damage so if you mess up, you can come back and figure out what went wrong. This all changes just shy of the halfway mark of the game when you are introduced to acid pits and the potential to have to build paths on the outside of shapes to progress. Until this time, you had room to build those slopes you might need to go from say a wall to a ceiling of a room, but now you might have to go around the outside of a cube and when you do, pray the path will carry you or you will "hop" right to the nest spot lest you fall off the map... every time you pass that point. Add to that places where falling is now lethal and require you to load a saved game and slight annoyance increases pretty quickly.
But we are not done, for around this time you also start hitting bullshit mechanics like an elevator that if you don't know to catch it, you might as well restart the level because you just lost the one reasonable way to get one of those three necessary fox statues. We also begin hitting puzzles like block moving where getting things to go where they need to is tedious as you basically build triangle webs in a plea to get a position you can complete the task from... and finally you gain the ability to use these triangles like mirrors for light beams to point them where you want... only even the developers realized how next to impossible this was to do accurately so they included a half-assed "target mode" where you stop moving your view but only the cursor. The idea is to make it easier to plant the corners of a triangle where you want, but it only shows you how terrible this idea is since when aiming, two spots are set so you are only angling in one direction, not with total control.
In short, there was a lot of promise here. But the devs really need to clean up both their core mechanics to work more consistently and level design in general since the second half of the game becomes a dumpster fire between the two of them.
3/10
Bugs: For the most part, this game ran great. There was a little bit of a clipping issue here and there, but that is to be expected with the way the mechanic this game is based on.
Score: When I set the standards for the site that requires you to complete a game to rate it well, but not to be poorly, this is the kind of game I was thinking of. When you start, it's alright... a little bit dull in play, but an interesting idea to pull you forward. Before the first half is over, it starts to get pretty good... and then the sewage pipe bursts and shit flies everywhere at about the half-way point. You don't need to finish the game to see the shit-stain it becomes and remains and I don't recommend anyone try to.
3/10
System Requirements:
- Intel i3 running at 2.5 Ghz
- 2 GB RAM
- Any graphic card with shader model 3 support
- 449 MB hard drive space
- Windows 7/8/10
- Ryzen 7 (2700) 3.2 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Nvidia Geforce 1660 (6GB VRAM)
- Windows 10 (64 Bit)
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