Developer: Everscape Games
Publisher: indienova
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Threefold Recital – Review
As soon as we heard about Threefold Recital for the first time, we were intrigued. On paper, it seemed like it would be right up our alley: a mystery game that takes direct inspiration from the Ace Attorney series, but combines it with platforming and interactive puzzles? With a gorgeous hand-drawn art style and a story based on folklore? Sign us up! Having spent some time with the game, however, we can say that it didn’t live up to our expectations. Were our hopes too high or did something else go wrong here?
Story
The threefold in the game’s title indicates that we’re not just looking at a single story here. Instead, we get three separate tales that eventually come together and flow into one another to deliver the game’s finale. The tales take inspiration from Chinese folklore and revolve around so-called beastlings, which are animals that have taken on human-like forms. There’s Triratna, a wolf-monk, Taiqing, a fox-priest, and Transia, a snake-artist. Triratna’s story involves the wolf being accused of a crime he didn’t commit, and having to prove his innocence. Meanwhile, Taiqing is approached by the police to help investigate mysterious supplements. Finally, Transia’s story involves her trying to escape from a theater owned by a family she works for. The final chapter of Threefold Recital, which deliberately mirrors the game’s prologue, reveals just how these seemingly standalone events are connected to the same conspiracy.
Graphics
While Threefold Recital definitely makes a great first impression with its hand-drawn art style, we have mixed feelings about the final product. The anime-styled anthropomorphic characters look objectively great, without falling into the “furry bait” category, which can be an issue with characters like these. However, the side-scrolling game segments look a bit oversimplified, especially when it comes to character animations. Character movement in particular comes across like it was lifted directly from early 2000s Flash games. While this is a 2D game, we also felt like the backgrounds would have benefited from more depth. Character portraits in dialogue scenes are static and not animated at all. To Threefold Recital’s credit, this does mean that the game’s performance is buttery smooth, but ultimately, the overall lack of visual movement gives the game a dated feel.
Sound
Given the importance of Threefold Recital’s narrative across the overall experience, the game missed a massive opportunity by not including voice acting. The game tries to convey a lot of emotional depth but this doesn’t always come through from the static portraits. The cinematic soundtrack does try to alleviate this somewhat, allowing Threefold Recital to create the right atmosphere at times, but never to the fullest effect.
Gameplay
The Steam page for Threefold Recital bills it as an adventure game, but that’s a blanket term that doesn’t really give you an idea as to how it works mechanically. In this case, you’re looking at what is essentially a side-scrolling puzzle platformer. A significant amount of game time is spent on fleshing out the story, to the point that the lengthy dialogue scenes can easily rival full-fledged visual novels. In fact, the game focuses so much on telling its story that the actual gameplay elements sometimes feel like a bit of an afterthought. The game never gives you any doubt or leeway of what to do or where to go next either, as characters will outright tell you what they are thinking, directly giving hints of what to do. Threefold Recital certainly would have benefited from dialing its complexity up when it comes to both platforming and puzzles, as the narrative impact of in-game events is lessened by how easily things are solved. It’s a shame too, as there are some clever ideas here, including an outright Phoenix Wright “Objection!’ parody in Triratna’s story chapter. Unfortunately, Threefold Recital’s insistence on holding players’ hands instead of letting them figure things out for themselves prevents the gameplay from reaching its full potential.
Regardless of which chapter you’re playing, the core gameplay remains largely the same. Taking control of the featured protagonist, you’ll make your way across the platform-style levels, interact with ridiculously talkative NPCs, and solve mini-game-like puzzles. The general idea is that each of the three protagonists has unique abilities, which can be used to overcome the game’s challenges. Transia, for example, can “bodypaint” herself, meaning she’ll take on the look of an NPC character. She can also blend into literal paintings. Triratna can see karma lines, allowing him to create connections between people and objects. Taiqing can jump between different dimensions. These abilities factor into the game’s different environmental challenges. Mind you, we’re not necessarily talking about the puzzles when we say this, as these are all over the place and range from math equations to slide puzzles. It would have been preferable had there been more of a connection between each character’s unique abilities and the individual puzzles.
For its €14.99 price point, Threefold Recital is a surprisingly lengthy title, clocking in at roughly 12 hours, although a good chunk of that time is spent reading rather than playing. The game also boasts a fair bit of replay value, owing to the fact that certain parts of the story can be tackled in different ways. You are rewarded with Karmarines, the in-game currency, by playing the way your chosen character would approach the situation, however. Said in-game currency can be spent on a gacha machine with which you can unlock concept art and music for the game’s gallery in the hub area. It’s a nice touch, though probably not enough to really motivate us to return to the game now that we’ve completed it.
Conclusion
There are a lot of fantastic ideas to be found in Threefold Recital, but the end product ultimately does not live up to its potential. The game is too focused on delivering its narrative. We wondered whether this would have been better as either a full-fledged visual novel instead, or perhaps an Ace Attorney-style mystery game, which it already takes direct influence from. Either way, neither the platforming segments nor the simplistic puzzles add anything meaningful or substantial to Threefold Recital.
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