Official Review
You play as three different versions, called counterselves, of a woman named Maya: Altara, Kera, and Naira. Each comes from a different world and has different abilities. Altara has access to unique ranged weapons thanks to her prosthetic arm and a double jump. Naira can wall jump. And Kera can launch enemies into the air and perform air combos. Everything's better with air combos.
After you select your character, you'll enter their realm, complete with unique biomes and enemies. One is a failing agricultural world overrun by wildlife that has mutated out of control; another has been taken over by Machines who view humans as oppressors; and the last puts you into a post-human city taken over by cyborgs called the Ewer. Each of Maya's counterselves can only venture to their own world, at least initially, and you'll need to clear all of them to fuse the worlds. It's a really cool concept, and it means you always have something else to do if you get stuck.
So the setup's great. In practice, Trinity Fusion is a — stop us if you've heard this one before — sidescrolling Metroidvania roguelite. As you progress during each run, you'll gain Amplifiers that provide boosts for that run. One might slow down enemy projectiles when they get close to you, for instance, while another might give you a higher critical strike chance when attacking an enemy from behind or giving defeated enemies a chance to drop bombs that restore health and deal damage to their buddies when you pick them up. Stacking three of the same type of Amplifier will reward you with a Powerup, an even more powerful effect that lasts the entire run.
So, the conceit is great and the in-run upgrade systems are there, but what will keep you coming back to Trinity Fusion is the combat. Each version of Maya starts with two weapons: a Primary weapon, which builds energy when you land hits with it, and an Energy weapon, which requires energy to use but generally does more damage. Energy weapons are what make each character feel unique: Naira specializes in guns and rocket launchers; Kera has a pair of melee weapons to keep those air combos going (and get them started); and Altara is all about traps and status effects.
Generally, you'll want to build up energy with your primary weapon and then cash out with your Energy weapon for big damage, but Trinity Fusion's enemies are tricky. They're not going to just stand there and let you hit them. You'll have to dodge through their attacks (and sometimes them), avoid projectiles and status effects, get around shields, and so on. Learning each biome's enemy lineup, how they work, and what the answer is with the weapons you have (and find throughout your run) is what makes Trinity Fusion's combat fun.
What's more, you can spend currency you acquire during runs to fuse two characters together, giving you access to more weapons and abilities. Kera lacks a double jump of her own, so combining her with Altara or Naira not only gives her more movement options, it expands her air combo game. Adding Kera to Altara or Naira, on the other hand, gives them access to her increased damage potential, and so on. It's a great system that encourages you to experiment and change who you fuse depending on the Amplifiers you have.
And of course, there are bosses to fight, and beating them opens up new traversal options. Beating Altara's first boss in the Underworld, for instance, unlocks a drone that she can send out. Put it where you want, and you can teleport to its location, opening up new areas you wouldn't otherwise get to. But Trinity Fusion isn't a linear, "go here, do this"-style Metroidvania. Instead, each area has two exits: one that will take you to the next biome, and one that leads to The In-Between, a liminal space between worlds that functions a lot like Hades. Choose a path and complete its challenges, and you'll get some very strong upgrades… but you also run the risk of dying and ending your run. In a nice touch, conquering The In-Between also allows you to take the character you're playing to different worlds, opening up new options.
When you die, and you will, you'll be sent back to the Citadel, Prime's staging ground, which is where everything happens between runs. Here, you'll learn more about Maya and her heroic trio, chat with the rest of Trinity Fusion's color, interesting, and well-voiced cast, and spend special resources that carry over between runs on things like more starting health, the ability to resurrect once per run, weapon and damage buffs, and so on. And then you'll pick your protagonist, head out to her world, and do it all again.
Trinity Fusion is one of those games that just works. It's got an interesting story, great combat, an interesting visual style (though I wish characters' mouths moved when they talked), and a fantastic ambient soundtrack. Oh, and it runs great both docked and not, though the load times on Switch are a tad long and it's not running at 1080p when docked.
The only real problem we had with Trinity Fusion was how much it crashed on us, which happened often. Once, we had to restart our save file after 'dying' where we were supposed to in the tutorial because we ran into a bug where neither we nor the enemies could attack. Weird.
Conclusion
Its stability issues are minor qualms compared to everything Trinity Fusion does right. It looks good, plays well, has a great combat system, and nails the little things you need to get right to make a good, modern roguelite. And it runs well on the Switch, something nobody should take for granted given how old this hardware is, in this or any multiverse. Now if you'll excuse us, we've got to get back to it. Those enemies aren't going to air combo themselves.
