Since I forgot to mention it before, let's do it now.
Trine I always thought of Trine as
the indie puzzle-platformer. When I first tried it, I wasn't impressed too much but, hey, I'm always willing to give some games a second chance.
Visually, the game looks excellent, especially when you consider that it's "just" an indie game, which was released 5 years ago. Lots of colour and a wonderful scenery help into making this game feel like a fairytale come alive. I can't say really say the same, though, for the music which bore me to tears. Sure, you could argue that it fits the fairytale atmosphere, but I can't remember a single track from it.
As for the game itself, you control one of the three characters (the knight, the thief and the wizard), which you can switch at will at the press of button and each of them has their own way of progressing through the game's enemies, traps and deadly platforms (Unlike my initial impressions, the game is lite on the puzzles). As you kill enemies and pick up the collectibles from the stage, you can also level up and enhance the characters' existing abilities (like allowing the wizard to spawn more cubes and the thief to shoot more arrows at the same time).
The knight is slow and heavy, which means that he can't jump too high and far, but he is also the only one with a shield which can also block fireballs and make it easier to navigate traps. He can also fight enemies using his sword, which, unfortunately, is weak and lackluster (among other things, he can only hit one enemy at a time, while an enemy behind the enemy he is hitting can and will hit him, forcing you to avoid attacking more than one enemies with the knight and instead run around the areas, picking them off one by one). He does get a strong hammer attack later, but he can't use his shield while equipped with a hammer, meaning that you must keep your distance from your enemies.
It is funny, then, that the thief can be better at crowd control, as she can hit with her bow from afar and deal some good damage without worrying about being hit by melee enemies. She is also faster, can jump higher and can also use her grappling hook to latch onto surfaces and jump, Indy-style, on other platforms. Unfortunately, jumping with the grappling hook can be wonky at times, especially if you latch into a platform without trying to gain momentum beforehand, as trying to gain it afterwards can be tedious. It also doesn't help that it's not always clear if one platform is grappable or not.
Finally, we have the wizard. The wizard doesn't have any way to directly defend himself, which means that if your knight or thief has died, you should run, run, run or you'll be well done. The wizard can move existing objects around and he can also summon either cubes, bridges, or floating triangles by holding the right-click and drawing the shape of the object you need, which can be used to reach otherwise difficult spots. He is so good at this that he can easily override all the fancy acrobatics that the thief might need to do to get across a chasm, merely by placing some cubes on top of each other. I did say above that the wizard can't directly defend himself. He can, however, drop objects from above, which will instantly destroy any evil skeletons. Still, trying to make a cube while being attacked by skeletons can be pretty difficult in the middle of the combat, as you must remain stationary and, thus, vulnerable to attacks. Speaking of skeletons, it's definitely disappointing that the game's enemies are limited only to skeletons and bats. The game could definitely do with more variety.
The game isn't particularly difficult, even on hard mode. Since you are always fighting either bats or skeletons, it becomes a routine, after a while. Oh sure, they might be placed on annoying locations, but thanks to the thief's broken ranged attacks, it's not really that big of a deal. Platforming is certainly harder, but not by much, as you can just upgrade the wizard to use a crapload of cubes and bridges to safely reach the other platforms. Add the generous checkpoints to the mix and you have a game that is more relaxing than demanding. Nothing wrong with that, though.
Note: I played the game's original version, not the enhanced one. I am aware that some of the problems above (like the knight's sword suckiness and the thief's wonky momentum physics) are fixed. Still, since the enhanced edition is using the sequel's engine, I'd rather play Trine 2 than replay the first one.
Full list.