Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll – Review – PS3

I don’t generally play RPGs. I like them, but once I start playing, I tend to get overwhelmed with the depth of character customization and the amount of hours you can put into completing the game. When given the chance to check out Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll, I was excited to see what different elements this game brought to the RPG genre and whether or not it would hold my attention for long. Surprisingly, in some way it did, but not without many glaring issues.

Story: The story in any RPG is generally a big part of the game. However, in Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll, I found the story to be really confusing. The game immediately opens with you playing the future – the end of the game. Your party is assembled and you are full strength. It essentially acts as a teaser and tutorial. Then just as you are about to fight the main villain, it cuts to 1 year earlier and you are in an arena which features a quick battle with the same tutorial points but now you are weak. Then there is a flashy intro similar to that of a movie or television show where it shows highlights of the game, battles, bosses, and introduces the characters. Then a flashback of sorts outlining the story and introducing the main character. In a movie, this way of presenting the story would have worked, but as it is in this game, it’s just all over the place. Eventually, once you start doing quests, you start to understand what is going on because you progress through the game at your own pace, but at the same time, it’s slow and random.

From what I gathered, the story is as follows: Emperor Balor is foretold of a shocking prophecy – his grandson will kill him. To make sure this won’t happen, he kills his only pregnant daughter. However, his son recovers the unborn baby and raises him. Balor then kills his son. 21 years later, Areus, who I’m assuming is the grandson that escaped the fight, prepares in an arena under the mentorship of a great warrior in hopes of being strong enough to fight Balor. But before he can do that, he must become an adventurer and form a party.

Gameplay: As an action RPG, Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll isn’t bad. The combat is simple and responsive. You can attack and defeat enemies with just your normal skills or, for some enemies, you can wait for the circle that indicates the enemy can be stunned or slowed with a weakening attack. Knowing what attack to use is all about trial and error in this state. With the ability to switch characters on the fly, you can experiment with different attacks and see what is stronger against each enemy. The thing I disliked the most about the weak points is that you are often given very little time to attack the enemy because they tend to be available when they are attacking or just finishing an attack. It makes sense to be available during that time because they are vulnerable, but that is when you are dodging an attack so you can’t always get to the enemy on time.

Character progression, such as levels and stats are very simple as well. In most RPGs, you can increase individual stats such as strength, defense, magic, etc. but in Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll, you only level up your “skills” such as your basic attack and other magic attacks. These skills are mapped to the three face buttons, square, triangle and circle while X is reserved for jump. The neat thing about these skills is that you can create two sets for the option to have up to six different skills to be used in battle.

In most RPGs, you are given the ability to free roam around the world as you complete quests and explore the rich and vast world. In Trinity, you will spend a lot of time navigating menus while in town, shops, and the map. The only time you run around is while on a quest and visiting an adventure area. This is actually quite nice because it saves a lot of time between buying new items and starting new quests but it takes away the ability to talk to random NPC’s and free roam. You can visit the Tavern in most towns and talk to people and find out more information about an area or gain extra quests, but just like the combat and character progression, it’s very basic.

The adventure areas are linear, filled with combat and the only place you complete quests. They are linear because you can only follow narrow paths which are usually made of stone walls, dungeons, or trees that keep the action confined. I don’t mind the linearity, but the locations are boring and the quests are repetitive and are essentially just fetch quests. Quests are given at the adventurer’s guild and randomly appear. Sometimes you have to do one thing whether it is a quest or arena battle before an unrelated story quest shows up. Quests can progress story or just act as an opportunity to level up characters, find treasure but there doesn’t really seem to be an order or sense of linearity to the story. I would have liked if you were able to always see story quests and progress the story as quickly as you wanted while mixing it side quests when you wanted to.

Apart from the adventure areas, you can also visit the arena where you can complete task to level up your character and also fight monsters that you see out in the field in an arena setting. I’d like to say it’s a nice change from adventure, but the combat is the same and since it is an arena, you are still confined.

Through the course of the game, you make a party with two other companions. If you die, it automatically switches to one other party member that is still alive and you continue fighting. The other character slowly recovers health, but only partial health. Once restored, you can choose them to fight with again. Full health can then be recovered with an item. Switching between party members can be done at any time and is quick and responsive.

Since it is a 3D game, the game relies a lot on the camera. I found that the camera doesn’t really follow the action very well. When attacking an enemy for instance, you could be attacking forward, but have a side few of your character. You can lock the view with L1 (also used to block) but it just locks onto the location the character is facing. To lock onto an enemy you have to press R3 (right analog) which works well but also confuses the camera at times especially when close to a wall or the enemy makes a huge attack.

Graphics/Audio: The pre-rendered cut-scenes are decent and a great way to see the story progress. There are times when the graphics and characters look realistic, but other times they look rough and low quality. Environments tend to appear stale and lackluster. Some objects in the environment can be destroyed. Dagda, the heavyweight in your party can pick up columns and use them as weapons, and water, for instance, can be frozen with Aerus. It’s neat and provides variety. Models and locations can appear stunning at times, while other times they look subpar at best. Any dialog between characters is through text and still/static images of characters and background. Other times, such as through the cut-scenes, there is voice acting.

The voice acting is subpar and almost monotone at times. They always sound tired or bored even when they should be excited. Sure, the main character is depressed, but what about the other characters? Occasionally there is some good music in the background, especially in the menu and at the climatic end of a battle. Other times, the music can be annoying while it is on an annoying loop but the music is decent enough to listen to while completing a quest.

Overall: Trinity: Souls of Zill O’ll had a strong, exciting opening, showing the future and flashbacks, but I feel it just resulted in confusion of the story overall. Some linearity and proper progression would have helped. I enjoyed the simple combat and basic leveling of skills, but for hardcore RPG players, there isn’t enough character customization or progression.

While playing, I felt like I didn’t want to continue playing anymore, but at the same time, I wanted to see how the character progressed and how the story continued so I couldn’t stop. With that said, it was also hard to because of the repetition and randomness of combat, environments, and quest types. So for players like myself who want a simple RPG this is actually a great game, but for hardcore players, which is generally where you hear negativity, it will likely be a pass.

Pros:
-Simple and responsive combat
-Basic character progression
-Cutscenes and occasional models/environments can look stunning

Cons:
-Confusing story
-Subpar graphics and voice over
- Environments tend to appear stale, lackluster and not very lively
-Random and repetitive quests
-Camera doesn’t follow the action very well

Overall score: 6/10

A PS3 copy of this game was provided from the publisher for reviewing purposes.

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