Is it just me, or is anyone else feeling pretty worn out by all the multiverses in movies these days? From the MCU to the DCU, from ‘Oscar-worthy-cinema’ to Spider-Verses, it really does look like the concept has been done to death. Though that hasn’t stopped multiverses from creeping into video gamedom too, we’ve seen the introduction – or perhaps continuation? – of the Remedy-verse in Alan Wake II, and now there’s Trinity Fusion; a rogue-lite that tasks its hero and her parallel selves with saving the multiverse.
To just call Trinity Fusion a rogue-lite is doing it a disservice, this game is a 2D action-platforming Metroidvania-lite rogue-lite – I hope that clears things up. Your three player characters – both different versions of the same person, Maya – are tasked with romping around a series of planets in different universes. They’ll be doing exactly what you would expect; gathering power-ups, beating up bizarre alien creatures, taking on vast bosses, and – as this is a rogue-lite – going back to the very beginning, losing almost all the progress they’ve made, when they inevitably die.
Combat in Trinity Fusion is admirably feisty; Maya and her alternate selves each have various weapon types and attack combos to call upon. Indeed, it’s impressive how effortlessly the game integrates so many combat options, the player can easily switch between close and ranged attacks, mixing up their strikes to devastating effect. Controls are tight and phenomenally responsive, with the assorted Mayas slickly dodging, flipping, and dashing with verve. Gameplay then, is a delight, with the player feeling like an absolute ninja badass from the very beginning.
This is no doubt helped by the fact that Trinity Fusion doesn’t scrimp on the power-ups, you are regaled with awesome abilities from the offset of each run. The abilities and their possible combinations are astonishingly varied too, in one run, when I slayed an enemy, their demise spawned a spike trap, an explosion, a fwoosh of flames, and a health drop for little old me. The resulting on-screen chaos was just plain fun. It’s a shame that taking on the bosses doesn’t match up to the fun that can be had from battling their henchman, as you’ll have experienced very similar climatic face-offs in numerous games before.
Returning to the Multiverse concept, it adds greatly to the rogue-lite experience, primarily by preventing the player from running into a brick wall of difficulty that they cannot smash through. Fed up battling a certain boss? No problem, just switch to a different version of yourself and do a different run instead. Developers Angry Mob Games smartly lean into this idea by offering the playing different starting points on each run to unlock, easing some of the grinding difficulty levels that can so often plague games in the rogue-lite genre.
Visually Trinity Fusion may well be a little bland and generic but don’t let that fool you, the gameplay in this engaging rogue-lite is anything but.