A conversation between a monk and a priest bore a miracle like no other, as three lucky little animals gathered ’round to watch the two spar in a war of words. No, it’s not as violent as I made it seem—rather, it was a series of pleasant exchanges that always seemed to gather an audience of animals. And those three I singled out: a fox, snake, and wolf, would later take the knowledge they’ve gained from these talks and share them with other animal folk. Before the world knew, moons would pass, the priest and monk would move on, ages change, and now we have Beastling folk wandering the world. They share the same customs as humans, do what humans do, and live alongside humans as regular people in the metropolis Bluescales—and it’s here where our ‘Threefold Recital’ begins, developed by Everscape Games and published by indienova.
Make no mistake, this is a unique world of ancient magic and strange technology that still seems to confuse the current populace. Our three heroes, Triratna the wolf monk, Taiqing the fox priest, and Transia the painter snake will learn more about their world and quite a few life lessons along the way as they investigate a series of odd occurrences in their line of work. Threefold Recital is a unique 2D adventure game that I enjoyed quite a bit thanks to its cultural influences, storytelling, and pacing that breaks up story and gameplay quite well.
No instruments needed for this recital—hop on into a grand adventure involving theft, personal pursuits, and maybe the meaning of life.
Two to Tango, Three for a Recital
As a 2D adventure slash platformer, Threefold Recital is first-and-foremost a narrative-focused game. Most of your time will be spent reading dialogue that is then broken up by simple platforming challenges and other unique gameplay experiences that are relative to the situation at hand. Our three heroes are capable of specific feats: the monk being able to channel and tear the very strings that hold together matter, the priest can hop through dimensions, and the painter can traverse murals to explore and cross chasms. And while these will come in handy, you’ll be doing plenty of other things as you progress through the story—some of which are outright one-time events.
We’re talking brief combat encounters, sliding puzzles, cutting up strings, simple 2D platforming challenges, simple math problems, and so on and so forth. These gameplay mechanics wedge themselves in once the story begins getting a bit slow or wordy and it helps keep the player’s interest from waning. The game will even incorporate these mechanics into its story and even visual gags, grounding the capabilities of our trio into the game’s world in a way that doesn’t involve shoehorning gameplay for the sake of gameplay. And if something gets too tough, you’ll almost always have the chance to skip that section.
The world of “Bluescales” as the game calls it is incredibly unique in its presentation and functionality. We have Chinese architecture intertwined with magic and an ancient “modern” technology called Nutek that is all-powerful and yet in short supply and poorly understood by the current generation of life. A society split up into Zones, governed by Nine (or Ten) Emperors, and as you’ll likely notice: is full of furry bipedal creatures. Threefold Recital does a great job of laying out the foundation of its world and the laws that govern it and they’re not just laid out to the player through text dumps of narrator narration but through natural character conversations and materials left out in the game world. This is all wrapped up in a warm, colourful art style that does an excellent job of painting a struggling but vibrant landscape.
Despite the few gameplay mechanics Threefold Recital has, it is very much a story-driven game. Naturally, your enjoyment of this title will be tied to just how well you enjoy the characters, the world, and the overarching narrative progression. When the game begins, you’ll start off as Triratna finding himself holed away in a wine cellar, being accused of a crime he didn’t commit. He’ll break free thanks to the son of the estate and will eventually find himself investigating a strange crime ring involving a supply of premium ink—Taiqing and Transia will also find themselves wrapped into this conspiracy in their own separate chapters before all three come together through the whims of fate to uncover quite a few surprises.
Something I really enjoyed about this game was how well it handled gameplay mechanics in-between storytelling. The storytelling itself was quite good, aided in part to strong character dynamics, development, and theme exploration. I especially enjoyed Transia’s chapter as it delved into the foundation of life and meaning, aided by fun character banter. Going into details would spoil the fun, so if concepts of life and justice pique your interest, I don’t think there’s a better story to check out than Threefold Recital. The accompanying score is also quite enjoyable but occasionally veers into cheesy film score territory, particularly for any scene that involves “realisation”.
Now there are times where the story pacing does fall into a lull (some sequences will have you walk back and forth a bit too much for my liking) and the translation occasionally has hitches that sometimes makes following some conversations a little difficult. Occasionally, the game dabbles into a bit of reference humour mostly related to games, which I’m (sort of) all for except for that one blatant Among Us reference which caused me to groan just a bit and a bit of acronym usage that didn’t fit a character. But more importantly, the game does use a storytelling device that isn’t too obvious up until the final three hours or so of the game.
Without going into details, just know that normally it’s a plot device that is almost always a guaranteed turn off for me—the fact that Threefold Recital kept me interested up until its finale is a testament to how well the writer was able to execute said narrative device, that of which I can only applaud.
Threefold Recital is a great 2D narrative adventure title, no thanks to its unique setting and enjoyable characters. The team has done an excellent job between balancing story delivery and breaking up the eventual monotony with distinctive minigames that are both repeated and one-off. Behind all this lies themes of living and identity that resonate not only for the three leads but for the player as well. ∎
Threefold Recital
Played on
Windows 11 PC
PROS
- Pleasant visuals, music, and sound effects.
- Good and frequent use of minigames to pace progression.
- Interesting story told well.
CONS
- Some narrative devices may not jive with the reader. And information presented can occasionally be confusing.
- There is no real reason to hang around the Main Hub.
