Publisher: Ubisoft Developer: RedLynx Format: iOS Release: Out now
Trials’ roots may lie in cursor controls, but there’s a reason RedLynx hasn’t returned to binary inputs since Trials HD redefined the series in 2009. That game’s responsive handling model – one that underpinned two sequels – is now so inextricably tied to the spirit of the series that any game which regressed or abandoned those core controls would risk not feeling like a Trials game at all. At least Trials 2 had the tactility of sprung keys; Trials Frontier makes do with a touchscreen.
RedLynx has already proven itself on iOS with MotoHeroz, a charming distillation of the Wii game. But that game didn’t labour under the weight of expectation that the Trials name brings, and its friendlier, bouncy physics lent themselves better to less precise touchscreen inputs.
Frontier uses the same setup, with accelerate and brake buttons to the right of the screen, and buttons to lean your rider forwards or backwards on the left. You’ll instinctively squeeze your phone or tablet in a futile attempt to meter out the bike’s power or make a minor positional adjustment in midair. After a while, you learn to forget what Trials has taught you and revert to short sharp taps as a poor replacement for fine control, but you never shake the hollow feeling it leaves.
Given this lack of refinement, tracks are understandably more subdued and rarely present any kind of challenge. Many share a backdrop, too, and the combined result is a selection of tracks that fail to stick in the memory like those found in its big-screen forebears.
But it is Frontier’s ruinous implementation of free-to-play that most sticks in the craw. Entering a race requires five units of fuel. It’s a classic free-to-play energy system: you earn one unit every two minutes and your reserves are fully refilled every time you level up. Initially, this works fine as your XP meter fills quickly, but before too long the distance between each new rank increases, the cost of entering a race rises to seven units and things come clattering to an unseemly halt unless you’re prepared to pay up.
This inability to progress at your own pace is compounded by the Loot Wheel which follows each race. Essentially a randomised way of acquiring upgrade components, mission-critical items (quests are given out by characters at the shanty town which acts as your home base) and gems, which can be used to buy more fuel or speed up upgrades. Get a bad spin and you’ll have to race again (or spend your dwindling stock of gems) for another shot, costing you more fuel in the process. Worse still, the need to acquire items from the Loot Wheel rather than, say, as a reward for a particular medal or time, takes the focus of off the actual riding. In a Trials game, this is unforgivable.
Free-to-play works when you earn the trust of your players over time, but RedLynx instead prods you at every opportunity to remind you that you haven’t paid for your game yet. Even so, once dredged from beneath the cloying mass of microtransactions that suffocate it, Trials Frontier isn’t a bad game as such. It is, however, a very bad Trials game.
The post Trials Frontier review appeared first on Edge Online.
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