Troll and I is a game that has made me literally sick. With low frame rates and excessive amounts of horrendous motion blur, the technical blunders of Spiral House’s action-puzzle title almost overshadow the game’s mechanical missteps.
Set in 1950’s Scandinavia, Troll and I puts you in the shoes of a teenage boy named Otto. After a quick tutorial of scavenging and boar hunting, you’ll soon meet Troll who you immediately bond with, presumably because of your matching dreadlocks. Following on from this point, Troll and I quickly becomes a The Last Guardian wannabe without any of the charm, budget or skill of the latter game’s director, Fumito Ueda.
After a few minutes of play, the game’s narrative is immediately shoved all the way into the background. The basis of the story revolves around a man named Nico who is tasked with hunting down a troll for some old fat cat who couldn’t care less if he’s delivered dead or alive. After this cutscene, the rest of the game’s story is hinted at only through poor environmental design and the occasional line from Otto before the next awful cutscene plays.
Whether it be slapping goblins as a troll or lobbing spears at a hunter, every gameplay mechanic that Troll and I attempts results in either boredom or frustration. Both Otto and Troll move stiffly with narrow turning angles and sluggish responses to the player’s input. Playing as Troll is even more infuriating as you end up struggling to wrestle the game’s camera anywhere that isn’t your back.
Each of the two playable characters have their own unique form of gameplay. Playing as Otto revolved more around stealth. Items in the environment such as spearheads or weapon bindings allow you to create different, more powerful spears to launch at enemies from inside long grass. Sneaking up to an unknowing enemy or just one that isn’t looking at you allows you to quickly and quietly dispatch an enemy with the Y button. These executions are Otto’s most useful method of dispatching an enemy foe whether it be a sniper-wielding hunter who for some reason will shoot the teenage boy on sight or a poorly-rendered goblin.
Troll’s gameplay is a bit more varied. As Troll you are able to lift heavy objects such as hut-roof-shields, attack enemies with either a swipe or an inaccurate ground punch, throw rocks and use powers such as invisibility or healing. Most areas will require you to go in as him first to throw a boulder at a magical crack in the ground that spawns goblins before smashing them to a pulp, switching to Otto and wiping out the enemies too fast for him.
Puzzles are extremely simplistic. You’re either creeping through small places as Otto or moving a large object—such as a plane wing—as Troll to further progress through the environment. The ability to directly control your larger partner definitely negates the majority of frustration caused by Trico’s AI in The Last Guardian. While this increased level of control should allow for puzzles to be more enjoyable, every situation ends up feeling bland without any feeling of creativity.
Outside of the monotonous gameplay, there is the near-unbelievable level of technical incompetence. Troll and I isn’t a graphically demanding game. In fact, without any hyperbole at all, its graphical fidelity is very reminiscent of an Xbox 360 launch title. Textures are low quality, models are simplistic, lighting is very simple and shaders are flat.
Despite its low level of graphical prowess, Troll and I manages to stay far below thirty frames-per-second with constant screen tearing to boot. Coupled with some of the fiercest motion blur I’ve seen, Troll and I managed to bring me to actual sickness. For those with any history of motion sickness, stay far away from this game.
Bugs are also a common occurrence when traveling through the Scandinavian caves and forest of Troll and I. Clipping, repeating sound effects, crashes, getting stuck in the environment and unloaded models or environments are sprinkled throughout the experience leaving an even sourer taste in my mouth than the vomit left behind.
Troll and I’s only real feature worthy of redemption lies in its co-op mode. While the game does run even worse and will subject you to the same bog-standard gameplay of before, this time you can suffer with a friend by your side. With one person playing as Otto and the other as Troll, the game becomes an even bigger mess, but this time one you can laugh about with a mate.
Summary
Troll and I is a mess of an experience all the way through. With bare-bones gameplay, Xbox 360-era graphics and an atrocious frame rate, Troll and I is not worthy of anyone’s time at its $50 price tag. It’s obviously an incomplete and unpolished experience which shipped too early on Xbox One.
Lewis is a games journalist, freelance gaming and consumer-tech journalist. They contributed 344 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: has since served as Editor-in-Chief at StealthOptional and Gaming Editor at MSPoweruser, with bylines at Gfinity Esports and FRVR.