Trine 4: The Nightmare Prince

After the misstep of [b]Trine 3[/b] - I didn't even see its unfinished plot referenced, I guess it's gone down in-universe as an unimportant quest of the heroes? - Frozenbyte arguably played it safe for the better here, dialing back to the 2.5D gameplay that made especially [b]Trine 2[/b] so great. It's good to be back to the original gameplay and overall puzzle design, sprinkled with some new features like the elemental arrows, especially the versatile ice arrows. Of course you'll often be left scratching your head, but there's also that pleasant "Eureka effect" when you crack one puzzle and move on to the next. A lot of passages don't even have a single possible solution, or at least a single way to reach it, underscoring the thought and quality behind many puzzles. The game is also fairly longer than its predecessors (especially [b]Trine 3[/b]). Combat was never [b]Trine[/b]'s forte and it's possibly even weaker here, as you get forced to fight bunches of monsters in restricted arenas. Not even the presence of some creatures that are weak to Zoya's elemental arrows, or some more offensive abilities for her and Amadeus, make it much better. I however enjoyed the few boss fights that require the player to make good use of all the abilities of each character; ironically the final boss is the easiest of them. [b]Trine[/b] has always looked pretty and this episode is no exception; in fact, I'd go as far as saying it's one of the best-looking games of 2019 by virtue of its art direction, great use of color, and many breathtaking vistas in the backgrounds, even more amazing for passages that have no bearing on the gameplay and are meant only for quick traversal. Not content, the artists even crafted a wide variety of scenarios. The magic is only broken a bit when characters are seen up close; something about the faces and their texturing doesn't sit right with me, but I'm really nitpicking here. Despite the constant brain-teasing, the combination of the visuals and the pleasant soundtrack give, at times, an almost cozy vibe to the game.