Trident's Tale
Review
Hoist The Sails!
by Camrin Santchi
reviewed on PC
A Shattered Sea
Seafaring, swashbuckling adventures might just be this reviewer's bread and butter. With Black Flag being my favorite Assassin's Creed, and Pirate Yakuza being a delightfully mad side story in the Like A Dragon franchise, something about the high seas tends to call to me.
Trident's Tale is another adventure where the high seas are calling - this time in search of an ancient relic, the titular and legendary Storm Trident, that is said to be able to control the very sea itself. With its fragmentation, the Trident was lost to the ages, and believed by many to be a myth. But any good pirate knows there is a degree of truth to almost any rumor when it comes to good old fashioned treasure. And with the promise of controlling the seas and weather, the Storm Trident may well be the ultimate treasure in this world.
The protagonist of Trident's Tale, Ocean, is an idealist that had long dreamed of taking to the seas, though never anticipated her journey might begin when she finds a hidden portion of the shattered trident, which leads to her home island becoming beset by a skeleton army that seeks its power. Fleeing into the vast sea of Hoctal, Ocean quickly sets about on her journey to become a legendary pirate in her own right.
Don't Get Board(ed)
Combat in Trident’s Tale takes two forms, naval combat and fighting on land. Both styles of combat are simple but quite enjoyable, and make adventuring in Hoctal quite the enjoyable experience. By foraging for items across the islands or looting items on the seas, Ocean can craft upgrades for both herself and her ship, some with totally different passive effects.
Onboard her ship, Ocean has three different sailing speeds with different turning radiuses to allow for positioning her vessel, which has both port and starboard cannons as well as chain shot that can be fired from the bow or stern - chain shot does less damage but stuns a vessel in place, allowing for a more powerful volley to be lined up. Ocean's ship is not equipped with a ram, which meant a bit of unlearning compared to some other games in the genre.
When an enemy vessel had enough health removed it can be 'boarded' - which in practice means if the player is close enough to the ship they can hold down a button and accumulate extra resources, there is no proper boarding action in Trident's Tale, or a way to take the fight to the deck of your enemy's ship, which might disappoint those players who might want a more cinematic feel to their skullduggery.
Meanwhile on the islands of Hoctal, Ocean wields a pirate cutlass and pistol in tandem. Ocean's swordplay is broken into light and heavy attacks, and rather than keeping a supply of gunpowder her pistol is powered by Divinium, a magical resource that is accumulated during combat thanks to an artifact that Ocean had gotten her hands on early in the game. The pistol stuns Ocean's foes for a short time, allowing Ocean to wail on them with consecutive follow-up attacks, or to leave them stunned for a brief time so she can focus on a different foe without being overwhelmed by numbers.
Divinium is also how Ocean uses the spells and techniques that she unlocks as she accumulates new crew members, so players have to decide how best to use it during combat- do they use the relatively quick stuns of the pistol, or save more Divinium to use a particular spell or technique?
Stiff Like a Pegleg
Trident's Tale has a simple yet charming animation style, but it does have its flaws. Vocal delivery feels flat or out of sync at times, and animations when characters are talking tend to be stiff and canned, not always lining up with the voice acting. If there are lip movements to speak of during dialogue, they typically don't line up with the words spoken.
It isn't enough to break the game by any means, and in fact there's a certain charm to it that almost gives the image of the story of the game being told by a clumsy narrator - aided by the narrator correcting himself a few times as he began the story of Ocean and the Storm Trident. This gives Trident's Tale the energy of a story being told at a tavern or over a campfire, creating a more personal touch that the game benefits from.
Overall Trident's Tale is an enjoyable romp through a fantasy ocean, inspired by adventure stories and built around exploration. If you desire a skullduggerous journey that’s easy to sink your teeth into, Trident's Tale might be for you!
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7.7
fun score
Pros
Vibrant World, Fun Combat
Cons
Clunky Dialogue, Stiff Animations
