Trinity Trigger

This old-school action RPG doesn't take long to learn and master, but it should keep most players interested for its duration, thanks to a grand narrative revolving around gods, war, and destiny. Trinity Trigger isn't about fancy graphics or combat. Its anime-inspired aesthetic effectively conveys setting, atmosphere, and the personalities of main characters, but's too basic to prove memorable. And the combat, while fast-paced, brings little in the way of novelty or serious strategy, encouraging players to simply run around and attack. Even world exploration, which tends to take place in labyrinthine environments full of secrets waiting to be discovered (don't hesitate to try to break suspicious looking walls or squeeze through narrow stands of trees), relies more on well-known design tricks that will be familiar to regular gamers than trying to come up with something original or unexpected.

What's likely to keep players happily exploring this fantasy world are the characters and their problems. They fall into familiar roles -- the young man slowly drawn to his fate, the mysterious woman who tries to show him another way, the battle-hardened warrior with a soft spot for his magical companion -- but they're invested with a kind of charm, wit, and intrinsic goodness that make them instantly likable. And as players slowly reveal more of the lore and history of the world they inhabit, it becomes hard not to root for them and see them through to their journey's end. Trinity Trigger is a welcome throwback to an era of role-playing games when fun wasn't measured in polygon counts or play innovations, but rather by the quality of the story and the characters who inhabit it.