Trinity Universe
Late last week we gave you our
early hands-on impressions of Trinity Universe, the latest NIS America PS3 offering. Co-developed by Gust, Idea Factory, and NIS, Trinity Universe takes characters from each companies expansive franchise history and throws them into one neat little package -- the most recognizable characters will be Etna and Prinny from the Disgaea franchise. Trinity Universe is over-the-top in many ways, but the gameplay will keep you playing for long hours and have you collecting tons of miscellaneous item and tools so you can craft new weapons and level-up your characters.
When developers attempt franchise cross-over titles, it often creates a strange feeling as the characters never seem to interact properly. For the most part, the characters from the Disgaea and Atelier series perform and act just as they would in their own respective series. Etna is on a journey with the Prinny to discover the ultimate dessert of the universe; Flonne just wants to spread love and justice to everyone she meets, and Alchemist Viola's main concern is to create new items. They all have their motivations and goals, but they all find some reason to follow the main characters of the game and protect the city of Empyria from drifting items that come and go through space. Demon Dog King Kanata was supposed to become a Demon God Gem to stop such events from occurring, but instead of choosing a life of servitude, Kanata decides he wants to live for adventure and will repel any object that poses a threat to Empyria by vanquishing the items gravity core, thus sending it out to space for eternity. On the flipside, the valkyrie Rizelia is hunting Kanata down so he will return to his post and become a God Gem to bring balance to the Netheruniverse.
Trinity Universe
Many of the drifting objects will be dungeons for you to explore, plunder, and then send back to the stars by destroying the gravity core that is kept guarded by a boss. The make up of the dungeons will range from schools, spaceships, gardens, ruins, or haunted boats. While a dungeon will have several paths and locations to explore, it's a bit disappointing that you'll end up exploring the same dungeons a rather large number of times throughout the adventure -- the only difference will be the hallways are longer or there will be a few extra paths available for you to walk through. With the main focus to find the two hidden treasures and gravity core, it feels repetitive when you perform the same basic actions in the same environment numerous times.
The battle system is somewhat deep and intimidating at first, but the excellent tutorial system will ward off any fears you may have. Utilizing a turn-based game style, battles are quite fast thanks to the action game element it features. There are no menus to select moves from here; everything is done on the fly by using the square, X, triangle, or circle buttons, with each action taking some of the character's AP. Characters can attack as long as they have AP available, but the second it runs dry their turn is over. You can skip a character's turn at any point and save the AP for their next turn in that battle, and it doesn't transfer from battle to battle.
Trinity Universe
You can chain your characters’ turns together so all four attacks will count as one massive blow, and if you meet certain conditions, you can also trigger team-based combos and executing these will help build your EX gauge up at a much faster pace. To perform powerful combo attacks such as these, it’ll take a long time and you won’t be able to perform these types of moves until later in the game. You’ll need to acquire special equipment and be at a high-level in order to have sufficient AP to execute such attacks. Due to this reason, when you are given the tutorial on how to use such abilities, you won’t be able to get a firm understanding or time to try them out until several hours later. For the early portion of the game you’ll be doing basic attacks, but the true heart and soul of the battle system is just lurking ahead of you, waiting for you to be ready.
Aside from battling and leveling up your characters the traditional way, there are several more options to tinker with to gain more abilities, equipment, and AP. Once you add Violet to your party you’ll be able to create more powerful weapons, equipment, and armor with the items you find in your dungeon exploration. Rizelia can make meteorites, which in turn can help increase character stats like attack, speed, HP, and defense. Personally, the most fun and entertaining method of increasing my character’s skill would be through Kanata’s monster creation method. By crafting monsters, you can battle them for experience, skill enhancements, and special items. You can easily spend hours training via this method when in control of Kanata. Lastly, there are the Managraphics and they are used to collect mana from your opponents, that in turn can be used to create items, and they give the equipped character special bonuses when you unleash the mana from them – like 400 HP added at the end of each turn. Since everything in the game is based on the items found in the dungeons you explore, you can waste hours visiting dungeons to get the necessary items to increase or craft a new item and, thus, creating your posse of untouchables. If you are a trophy hunter, you’ll end up doing this so you can reach the coveted 100 level mark with all your characters and unlock a lovely gold trophy.
Trinity Universe
Since the heart of the game is the exploration and excavation of dungeons, it’s remarkably fun and pleasant to go through. It may take some time to reach a high enough level or have the needed equipment to reach the enjoyable aspect of the game, but it’s worth the few hour investment to get there because the exploring, character customization, battle system, and hours of collecting items is something that the game does really well.
The main knock against the game comes from the story and dialogue. The dialogue is conveyed with highly detailed character art that’ll show emotions and make minor gestures as they give a story about the events that took place prior or will be taking place immediately following the conversation. These events are usually tied to the main story, but there are a few off branching segments that’ll show the cast doing their own thing. Since the story isn’t too compelling to listen to, there is an exuberant amount of humor in the title; some of it will be hit-or-miss depending on your personal taste and knowledge of anime and gaming sub-culture. If you don’t want to listen to the main story, which many may not, and you want to get back into the dungeon crawling, you can skip the dialogue and story sections fairly easily by hitting the square button.
Trinity Universe
Visually the game is solid, though nothing amazing. The 3D character models are basic in concept and design, but they look appealing and clean enough you won’t really mind. The monster display will range from dull and boring to truly terrifying. Each attack has a certain sense of flash partnering them and the managraphics will display various images based on the nature of the graphics inscribed on them, so you may see stars, UFOs, or chemistry vials appear during attacks.
With two playable main roles present, you can feasibly complete one story in about 25-30hrs if you focus on the main story events and move forward in that fashion. If you explore the dungeons and take both character storylines, you’ll see the game double in length ranging from 50-60+hrs. Taking in both storylines is essential for the true ending of the game, otherwise you’ll be left wondering why the game ended like it did with one specific character never revealing his intentions. Exploring dungeons and reaching level 100 will take many long hours, but it’ll be a fun trip.
Trinity Universe
Trinity Universe is a game that lets you control the flow and style of what’s going on. If you don’t want to move onto the next chapter, you don’t have to because you have the freedom of completing the said event in your own time. The story may be weak and the long dialogue sections will make some cringe, but the heart and soul of the game births from the dungeon exploration and the game delivers a fun experience there. If you want a game that you can take your time with, level up your characters, and love exploring areas for treasures, then this will be a very worthwhile investment. Trinity Universe is by far the best NIS PS3 RPG.
Overall: 7.5/10(Editor’s Note: Kanata’s entire story arc was completed in 32hrs. Several additional hours were put into Rizelia’s to note the difference in gameplay and content. 10/27 trophies were collected.) ![[tomaaa]](/images/smilies/nuevos2/tomaa.gif "toma")
![[360º]](/images/smilies/nuevos/vueltas.gif "como la niña del exorcista")
![[carcajad]](/images/smilies/nuevos/risa_ani2.gif "carcajada")
![[+risas]](/images/smilies/nuevos/risa_ani3.gif "más risas")
![[looco]](/images/smilies/nuevos2/borracho.gif "loco")
a ver que hago entonces =/ 
