While I tend to enjoy well-made Metroidvania titles, I must admit that since I’ve played so many over time it’s a bit easier to get jaded with them, since even well-made ones can be constrained by the predictability of their general formula. Bless this generation and the emergence of games with some roguelike flavor thrown in though, because for me they’ve consistently used the power to surprise (and often frustrate) to great advantage when done right.

With that in mind, enter Trinity Fusion, a futuristic roguelike Metroidvania with solid combat, a reasonably-interesting sci-fi story, and a trio of characters who mix things up just enough to keep you engaged for a while. Deviating from what has felt like a string of more exploration-oriented games in the genre more recently, Fusion also places its emphasis more on combat, and if you’re a fan of variety there’s plenty to be found here.

Since the stages have procedurally-generated elements, and the weapons and upgrades you’ll encounter are very much going to be random, you’ll generally need to be willing to adapt. The variety of both melee and ranged weapons you’ll encounter feels quite extensive, but that’s mostly because from weapon to weapon their attacks, potential combos, and ranges can vary pretty wildly. This creates a classic roguelike conundrum where you’re happy with the weapon you have, but as you level up and run into more powerful ones, you may need to buck up and deal with changing up your flow in the name of keeping up with the difficulty curve.

That isn’t to say everything is ideal though. My main concern, and I’d assume this is tied to the Switch specifically, is that the game’s response feels just a tad on the sluggish side. It isn’t enough to regularly kill you, but I did feel like I was needing to stay just a little ahead of what I was seeing to be effective, and that can be a challenge, especially when trying to dodge or otherwise deal with enemy attacks. Another issue I bumped into periodically was that I didn’t always fully understand how some of my perks worked or were triggered early on, so sometimes it felt like some upgrades were wasted as they didn’t work quite as I’d expected. This wasn’t as critical an issue, but it added to my frustrations here and there, especially when getting started.

What that leaves you with is a game with quite a unique feel that absolutely delivers a challenge, plenty of tense combat, and some surprises. It has adopted some roguelike elements to add flavor, but doesn’t go all in either, leaving out others to retain more of a Metroidvania feel in the balance of things. If you’re a fan of either genre, it should deliver, though if you have access to another platform it may look and perform better elsewhere.