It’s always pleasing to see a developer associated with licensed games gain the opportunity to work on their own IP, giving the chance to flex creative muscle and work outside of a licensed property’s confines. High Voltage Software dabbled with The Conduit and Tournament of Legends in the Wii era, Eurocom created 40 Winks and Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy, and now Italian outfit 3DClouds has taken a break from licensed racers to give us a swashbuckling, seafaring, pirate adventure. A welcome change from Paw Patrol tie-ins, we’re sure you’ll agree.
We’re introduced to the fearless female adventurer Ocean – a name causing only mild confusion when first browsing the ocean map screen. During what’s essentially the traversal tutorial, Ocean discovers a mystical amulet in her uncle’s tool shed. Reawakening the amulet conjures a motley crew of pirate skeletons, keen to locate Ocean’s whereabouts. The only way to stop their scheme is to gather the shattered remains of a powerful trident. Link has the Triforce; Ocean has the Storm Trident. A few other comparisons with Zelda can be made, with each trident shard stashed in a temple. It soon transpires that Ocean’s plans have also stirred the ancient Sea Spirits, who are strongly against the almighty trident being reassembled. Should it fall into the wrong hands, this oceanic world could be left in peril.
What ensues is a 10-15 hour adventure involving travelling to islands of varying hostility, exploring the unusually calm seas, recruiting a diverse group of crew members – each of which grants Ocean a new elemental attack – and sending numerous vessels to Davey Jones’ locker.
The opening sequence is swift, setting the pace for what’s to come by outlining the plot and wrapping up the traversal, combat and seafaring tutorials in less than thirty minutes. Although the colourful visuals (think Sea of Thieves, only even more angular), jovial cut-scenes, and twee dialogue gives the impression that this is aimed towards younger gamers, there’s a degree of depth to both the melee and naval combat systems, along with the need to craft new weapons, fuse potions, and upgrade the ship.
Button bashing won’t get you far during combat. Skeletal soldiers are quick to dash and swing their swords, and so there’s a need to constantly dodge attacks. Ocean can only withstand 3-4 hits, and most confrontations involve taking a hit or two, be it from accidentally becoming surrounded, getting caught in a bomb blast, or from off-screen ranged attackers. It’s vital to keep a supply of health potions readily available, either by visiting vendors or gathering crafting resources so they can be brewed on the fly. Enter a boss fight without a means to restore health, and you’ll soon find yourself backtracking to the nearest item shop.
Naval combat meanwhile involves adjusting speeds by raising and lowering sails to alter turning circles, helping to get into position to retaliate. The ship’s front and centre cannons can be fired almost constantly, each manually aimed while taking cannonball trajectory into account. Oddly, health potions also ‘heal’ the ship – and so you’ll also need to keep some aside should you choose to attack allied vessels for booty or become entangled with a sea creature. Crew member’s unique skills can be used in naval combat too, and are hugely beneficial when fully upgraded, even able to sink a handful of ships at once. I poured all my upgrade tokens into a single character (Nik, a young inventor) making them delightfully overpowered very early on.
Trident’s Tale doesn’t represent a huge stretch of the imagination, taking inspiration from other seafaring adventures before it. After setting sail from her own hometown, Ocean must head to different islands and locate their spirit temples, all of which need a key to open. Each island has a loose theme (regal, technically advanced, academic, etc) and often you need to find the right person to talk to before running an errand or two in return for the key. This may even involve heading to sea to battle sharks or mercenaries. Spirit temples contain a handful of puzzles along with hazardous obstacles to overcome. Nothing complex mechanically, being a mixture of switch flicking puzzles, spiked floors to navigate, riddles to solve, and mazes to escape. The floor spike avoidance puzzles are the most challenging of all, as one mistimed jump will result in a ‘Game Over’. Thankfully Trident’s Tale auto-saves regularly, and you can also manually save before tackling tricky hazard-fill platforming sections. Cast aside expectations of Zelda-like multi-floored labyrinths though – generally, after entering a temple you’ll emerge with a newfound trident piece around 10 minutes later.
Boss battles are another diversion, becoming more complex over time. Early fights are straightforward while later boss fights can require a few attempts to beat. One trident shard quest also has multiple steps, taking a couple of hours to conclude. There’s a need to keep on top of upgrades, as said bosses can give you grief if you’re ill-prepared. This involves searching for rarer resources, gathered by defeating scarcer seen golems and primitive robot adversaries – the only two other enemy types present. Most item vendors stock unique items, and thankfully it’s possible to fast-travel around the map to acquire what you need.
In addition to completing equipment sets, there are optional quests too, along with the ability to stop off at unmarked islands in search of treasure. Even one of the additional crew members can be missed if you choose to ignore a particular side mission. The sense of freedom is certainly appreciated, as there isn’t much in the way of gradually evolving gameplay mechanics. Ocean can jump, swim, sword swing and shoot a pistol; her skill set never expands beyond this. Naval battles don’t change a great deal from start to finish either, with most won simply by circling rival vessels while opening fire. Where combat is involved, this solely leaves the gradually rising difficulty of the boss battles to keep things interesting.
Indeed, it does have a slight ‘licensed game’ feel when it comes to how mechanically lean it is, not even featuring a fishing mini-game. If I wanted to be particularly mean, I could say that the need to sail the ocean is merely a means to pad out the runtime, but that wouldn’t be entirely fair. Islands are quite close to one another, plus there’s the ability to fast travel to discovered locations.
I was surprised by how invested in Trident’s Tale I was by the time the ending credits rolled. Over the course of around ten hours it went from being a casual adventure with straightforward quests, to something a bit darker and more challenging, with later quests requiring a spot of preparation. Gathering resources to create better weapons turned out to be quite compelling in the end. I still had more of the map to explore before reaching the ‘point of no return’ so there’s definitely scope to go off course and have your own mini adventures.
Trident’s Tale gets quite a bit right, but at the same time feels trapped in the past. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had experienced several similar games over the years, such as Ary and the Secret of Seasons, Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, and of course Sea of Thieves. I’d recommend all three of these over Trident’s Tale, but that’s not say that it doesn’t have something to offer, from its sense of freedom to its well-paced storyline. You’ll have to dig a little deeper than usual to find its hidden treasures, but rest assured that they’re present if you look hard enough.
3DClouds’ Trident’s Tale is out 22nd May on all formats.