Developer: Everscape Games
Platform: PC (Reviewed)
Genre: Advenure
Publisher: indienova
Threefold Recital is a narrative-driven adventure game. This game was developed by Everscape Games and published by indienova. Threefold Recital is currently only available for Windows, with an upcoming release on other platforms.
The game takes inspiration from folklore and strange tales set in ancient China. The game revolves around a fantasy realm that has been inhabited by humans, dragons, beastlings and more. After several years pass, the town of Bluescales faces chaotic times. In relation to Chinese myth and history, the game features three heroes, a fox, a snake and a wolf, who have helped create a world where humans and beastlings live among themselves. The world that everyone had harmoniously lived together in is facing hardships where arguments and fights are breaking out. The game is filled with an underlying mystery that you need to solve to better understand what is going on.Â
The controls for Threefold Recital are simple and straightforward. The game allows you to play on your preferred control device. That may be a keyboard (arrow keys/WASD keys, and mouse or a controller. You can freely switch between your preferred devices through the game, and the controls work seamlessly. The tutorial is explained in a nice manner, where you get to test out the controls in real-time and understand mechanics. The game itself does not have many controls that you need to worry about.
The game begins with a nice tutorial that introduces the players to the playable characters. You are able to cycle between the three heroes, who each possess a unique power. The three heroes: Triratna has powers that you can use to break roadblocks. Transia has the ability to travel through paintings. Taiqing can initiate the rite of transmutation by interacting with cauldrons to make stuff.
Threefold Recital features beautifully hand-drawn visuals with outstanding animations. The art style for this game is fantastic as it blends 3D and 2D elements effortlessly. Personally, the design for the characters is so well detailed, which I enjoyed as you see cute versions of them whilst you naturally play, and through interactions, you get nicely depicted detailed portraits. The game pays good attention to expressing emotions and tone of the dialogue through the characters’ drawn expressions and body language. It was a bit underwhelming when some characters did not have portraits of their interactions, but nonetheless, the ones that had portraits were drawn beautifully. Each character you encounter embodies a humanoid version of animals that are designed with elegant styles and have unique personalities. Besides the character design in Threefold Recital, the environmental art is so nice to look at, as you can see a variety of background/foreground details to liven up each location. You could go between areas that looked like a shabby house to a cyberpunk futuristic world that was filled with vibrant lights and colour. With the incredible visuals, the soundtrack is mellow, which does not take away from the experience whatsoever. Instrumental music fills the background as you explore areas that have a nice chime and upbeat vibe to them. Varying locations will have different music playing, which matches the atmosphere. Additionally, if a sad story was being told, then the music would change to a soft piano tune. I really enjoyed the implementation of sound effects that brought the game to life, especially through the footsteps, the opening doors/cabinets and much more.
In the Threefold Recital, you mainly play in rotation between the three protagonists. You start the first chapter by playing as the Buddhist wolf-monk named Triratna. He finds himself in a locked cell, not remembering what happened, and it is up to the player to help him out. Most of the game consists of a puzzle platformer. You are placed in a location where there is some sort of story behind what happened, and using the powers that the beastlings possess, you can solve such puzzles. Interacting with your surroundings is highly important as you can connect piece to piece in order to figure out the items needed to progress. Specifically for Triratna, he is able to see karma lines. This was an interesting mechanic where you have to break the karma lines. Karma lines were presented in several stages, almost like a mini-puzzle, where the main objective is to hold the line to sever them. Rather than making it entirely simple, additional karma lines such as an orange line or the ticking ‘bomb’ line make it so players pay close attention.
Taiqing, the priest-alchemist fox, has scenarios where he pretty much acts like the next Sherlock Holmes. You have situations where Taiqing is able to cook up poisons and potions and has another ability which came by surprise. Lastly, Transia, the artist, snake has the ability to travel through paintings, which makes for interesting gameplay. I really enjoyed how the puzzles in Threefold Recital had a great variety of mini-puzzles, which kept the game interesting, especially with quite a compelling storyline.Â
Overall, in the Threefold Recital, I did not find myself being extremely challenged by the puzzles. It roughly takes 10-13 hours to complete the game and is extremely accessible to all players. I did like the fact that you have the option to skip hard puzzles if you want, but the puzzles all seemed to make good sense and were not entirely difficult. Also, after each chapter, you receive a recap that highlights role-playing (where your responses accurately embody the character), completion of quests, detective, score and most importantly, the karmarines.Â
The game itself is heavily focused on dialogues and interactions, and the dialogue log is very useful as you can easily look back at previous conversations to notice if anything was missed. It is also quite important to know that the game was, in fact, translated, and there may be some instances where the translation may be lost, which has slight gaps in the dialogue, but this does not take away from the experience of the game whatsoever. The story is intriguing, and the gameplay does not get boring as you get to take on a new perspective every chapter.
Threefold Recital is an artistically captivating adventure game where you are able to play three heroes who possess unique powers. The game has witty humour with unique personalities and a story that will keep the player playing. Threefold Recital features a beautifully hand-drawn world with an accompanying soothing soundtrack. Be sure to check out Threefold Recital!
Overall: 8.5/10
This is S & S. We are world game explorers. We play games. We have played over 10,000+ games! We travel, we write reviews AND we play more games!!!!
