[Review] Troll and I

Michael Benton

Developed By : Spiral House Published By : Maximum Games
Switch Release Date : Aug 15, 2017

When I finally ordered my Switch (I waited for the Super Mario Odyssey Edition to be released before finally jumping on the console), I decided to wander through the game stores in my area and get an idea for what things I'd like to play on the system. You know, outside of the big title Nintendo games like Mario, Zelda, and the like.

Troll and I caught my eye (hey that rhymed!) on a shelf and intrigued me enough to want to own it. The case promised flowing gameplay between the two characters through combat, some platforming, and puzzle solving.

However, what it failed to mention are the imperfections that come with these elements. First, though, lets talk about the game.

Troll and I takes you back to a post-World War II North Scandinavia. The opening cutscene introduces you to a hunter by the name of Nico. He is shown a newspaper with a headline for Joseph Stalin's death before his gaze is redirected lower on the page to a Scandinavian headline about a potential Bigfoot sighting. Nico is offered a three-million dollar reward if he can bring the troll back alive, and then the game completely switches tactics.

You then gain control of the games main character, Otto, who is out hunting boar for his family. While hunting, the group of troll-hunters end up laying waste to and burning the village down, leaving Otto to fend for himself in the wilderness that is filled with unnamely creatures until a giant troll comes along and saves you, instantly becoming your BFF. Together, Otto and the Troll must avoid being captured by the group of hunters.

Storywise, I got excited expecting some sort of connection with the Stalin headline, but as quickly as it appears, it becomes apparent that the headline only serves as a time-period reference and nothing more.

Gameplay in Troll and I centralizes around combat, crafting, and puzzle solving which are all definitely lacking.

Puzzle solving is extremely simple, you can only do certain things with one of the characters, and the game pops up with either "Otto" or "Troll" for which character needs to used, making the puzzles feel a lot less like puzzles and more like just following directions.

Combat is different for the two characters. Otto is weaker, taking multiple hits to kill a single enemy, but he moves quick, while the troll packs a heavy punch and can kill most things with a single hit. The troll feels so over-powered in combat though, that the game doesn't really offer any inspiration to use Otto for fighting unless the two are forced to be split up and he's your only option.

For me, the highlight of this game was by far the crafting system. Everything in this game needs to be crafted whether it's gear to wear, weapons to use, even your health-gaining items have to be taken from the land. As long as you obtain the right materials, you have access to a number of clubs and spears, which doesn't seem like all that deep of an arsenal, but it's made up for by the variations you can apply to the weapons. Rocks and spikes can increase the damage of your clubs, while you can carve special tips for your spears out of ores you can find in the ground.

Graphically, Troll and I didn't impress me all that much. The color palate is quite bland, lots of browns and greens, which while it makes sense in the woodsy setting, it still could have used some differentiating to make things feel so copy-and-paste. There are some points where the graphical barriers just seem to not exist anymore for the sake of completing a puzzle. Early on in the game, you must get out of a valley using Otto to climb over a bunch of rocks and small huts, while with the Troll you create a bridge between bigger gaps by holding up a wing of the plane. Except, as you can see, sometimes the plane wing defies just about everything, all for Otto being able to cross.

Immediately after being released on the Switch, Troll and I gained internet fame as being the one game to absolutely not purchase. While it's not the greatest, I don't think it deserves to be hidden under a rock, or to go the way of E.T. on Atari 2600 and be buried in a pit out in the desert. It's not an easy game to love, but I personally have enjoyed it. Just....maybe in small increments.