Trinity Trigger was provided by XSEED Games for review. Thank you!
It's time to set out to defy the gods and save the world in this top-down action JRPG. As Cyan, you will gather your allies and run across the world of Trinitia with your trusty Trigger, a partner creature that can transform into weapons! Utilizing your trigger, you will upgrade and master 8 different weapons against the enemies, unlocking them as you conquer dungeons across the biomes with real-time combat and some slight strategy. Will you be ready for the inevitable clash against the warriors of order and come out on top?
I am a big fan of JRPGs with real-time combat, so when I saw Trinity Trigger initially, I was hooked on the idea. Luckily, I was not disappointed. The strategic elements, which include swapping to certain weapons to do the most damage or switching characters to allow others to recover stamina, are a nice addition. The game overall is more on the simple side in comparison to other games in the genre, but fortunately, it doesn't hurt the game.
I enjoy that it is less complex and even though the later part of the game can feel a bit underwhelming, I was still captivated by the story and world. While it has a couple quirks, the game performs extremely well on the Steam Deck without any compromises needed!
Right out of the box, Trinity Trigger performs significantly well on the Steam Deck, hitting 60 FPS while keeping a battery drain of 11W and lower. This allows for over an average 3.5 hours battery life without needing to change a thing!
The settings in Trinity Trigger are a bit sparse, but I did test them and found minimal differences overall. There is one setting for overall graphics and has a "High", "Medium", and "Low" setting. Comparing High to Low, there is some visual difference, but the battery savings are significant (around 2W - 3W) and will bring in an extra 1 - 1.5 hours of battery.
Comparing High and Medium, which has little to no change in both visual quality and battery drain. In some small areas, I did see a slight increase in performance using Medium, but it wasn't enough overall to justify.
With that in mind, I actually preferred keeping the game at default settings. On medium graphics, we still had a lot of the detail high has, but keeps the battery always below 11.5W and averaging around 9W - 10W most of the time. I kept anti-aliasing on 2X due to not seeing a big enough difference higher, but it being a bit too sharp when turned off.
If you want to save on battery or push to higher graphics, just change the graphics setting to Low or High respectively. Going to Low will save on battery by around 8W - 9W average, while staying on High will push the average up to 10W - 11W. Since these are the only two settings I would change, I won't create other builds, but its dealer's choice here!
Trinity Trigger offers full controller support and cloud saves through Steam, but there are a few quirks I would like to mention.
Trinity Trigger doesn't support 16:10 resolution, but the game actually started off in it. It did stretch the entire screen, so some of the notifications and mini map did go off, but changing the in-game resolution to 1280x720 fixed this. Something I found odd, the game seemed to run a little bit better when it was stretched. I couldn't bring the 1280x800 resolution back no matter what I tried though, so I had to stick with 720p in the end.
With that in mind, I noticed 720p started having a slight framerate dip. I can't be too sure what caused this and I couldn't get rid of the drop from 60 to 58-59 no matter what I tried in-game and through SteamOS. I did notice forcing Proton 8.0-1 did fix some of these drops and help stabilize the rate further. I did think to reduce the refresh rate/framerate cap, but the game uses 60 FPS as its base, so turning the framerate lower will slow the game down to a crawl. I would still say Trinity Trigger is playable without forcing compatibility, but the slight savings from going to Proton 8 are nice to have.
While Trinity Trigger is a bit on the simple side, I really enjoyed the game. The story is one I ended up loving, even with a bit of a rushed ending, and I liked the mechanics that were in the game. The simplicity complemented the experience way more than I would have expected, For those getting into JRPGs and need an entry level for it, or just want a less complicated experience without compromising the lore and story, this is the game for you. And you will be able to enjoy it on the Steam Deck without much issue, even with a couple of weird quirks! I had a blast playing and if you enjoy these kinds of games, I am sure you would too.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Trinity Trigger is a simple, yet effective JRPG that is a ton of fun to play with a great story and enjoyable real-time combat. Although there are some oddities, the game shines on the Steam Deck and will be a great experience for portable play!
