TRIANGLE STRATEGY

It's a shame that Triangle Strategy is so often compared to Final Fantasy Tactics [ファイナルファンタジータクティクス] when they are fundamentally quite different games. Unfortunately, with the tactical RPG genre being sparse as it is, some people don't have any other reference points for the TRPG/SRPG landscape, and this can lead to some false expectations.

In contrast with Final Fantasy Tactics where teambuilding and endless customization is much of the game's appeal, Triangle Strategy features no class system and very little unit customization. Annoyingly, some people knock that as a down side, but in reality, heavy unit customization is not an objectively good or bad feature, but just a completely different style of game with its own set of trade-offs, almost a different sub-genre entirely.

The core of Triangle Strategy's gameplay comes from its combat, strategy, and puzzle-solving element, and I say with complete confidence that Triangle Strategy wouldn't have had as smart, well-balanced, and wonderfully challenging combat as it had if there was the same level of complex, messy customization that FFT had. I see it as very analogous to the trade-off from open world games vs. more linear games with very handcrafted, intricate level design. While FFT is a blast (and a separate personal favorite of mine), the combat in the game is rarely ever challenging or "smart", largely because the job system is a combinatorial explosion of unbalanced customization options. And let's be honest: the fun of Final Fantasy Tactics is much less about the 'tactics' as much as it is grinding out the most comically busted job synergies and proceeding to steamroll the game with them. (Not to say that isn't also a hell of a lot of fun.)

But Triangle Strategy's narrower focus on intelligently designed maps, diverse units, and fine-tuned game mechanics results in combat with so much more depth than most TRPGs, making it a joy to play. In particular, the game has one of the most brilliant Hard Modes I've played in a turn-based game: Hard battles are designed to take several retries for every battle, forcing you to experiment and choreograph specific strategies for each new battle (and notably, almost every chapter features a completely unique map as well. I'd loosely say its difficulty curve is similar to Shin Megami Tensei [真・女神転生]'s balancing, where the game has very high expectations of you, yet provides you such a deep pool of tactical options and resources in a way that makes every single battle feel immensely creative and rewarding.

Despite the lack of a class system, the strategic element of the game is instead tied to which units you use, and TS has over 20+ characters you can recruit in a playthrough (30 across all routes), each unit with completely bespoke abilities and traits. And what truly makes the combat amazing is just how well-balanced all these different units are. Throughout my playthrough, I found myself viably using each and every character at some point or another. Some units may thrive more on maps with high vertical terrain, maybe some in complex alleyways, or some better in open fields, but everyone has scenarios where they get a chance to shine. This is all because the amount of different abilities and mechanics in the game is just staggering: you can use attacks, magic, meaningful buffs and debuffs, a dozen different forms of crowd control, tanks, manipulation of the action economy, you can conjure temporary walls to make chokepoints on the fly, erect ladders to retreat up buildings, create decoys to divide enemy forces, change enemy directions with wind magic to set up backstabs, deploy spring traps that can shove units into a canyon Wile E. Coyote style, set flammable grass tiles on fire, forcibly taunt enemies into said fires, there's units that can teleport, even units that can stop or turn back time. There is also no permadeath, which some people will also naively cry as a "dumbed down" feature, yet in reality, I really like in the game's context: it further encourages this kind of experimentation and adds yet another strategic layer of deciding when to sac certain units, feeling in a way much more like chess than Fire Emblem [ファイアーエムブレム].

The end result is that even with the high level of difficulty, there's so many options available to you that no battle ever feels the same, and there's so many different ways you can solve the same problem. I would not hesitate to describe Triangle Strategy as having the most refined gameplay in the whole tactical RPG canon to date, successfully iterating on decades of the genre's history.

With all that said, my biggest pushback on the game: while the gameplay was incredible, the story was much less remarkable. And unlike some games where you can power through a couple scattered cutscenes and ignore the story, the dialogue in TS is long. Although not to the point of being a visual novel (these claims probably come from the annoyingly long and dry three demo chapters, where the cutscene length is by far at its most egregious, although picks up in excitement after Chapter 4), it is still clearly designed to be a rather story-heavy TRPG. And it's an exposition-heavy one at that, with a bigger focus on worldbuilding and political setpieces rather than being character-driven.

While I liked the grounded writing approach and found the (largely) mature characters to be really refreshing, I honestly found the overall dialogue and plot to be just average. There's some cool story beats and neat political intrigue and a couple twists and all, and I'd rarely call any parts of the story "bad", but generally, I felt it just wasn't enough to merit the overall dialogue length and attention that the game demands of you.

I will highlight one of the really cool and notable aspects is the game's multiple branching routes, driven by decisions you can "vote" on with your party members. These choices really can substantially alter the direction of the plot. The game is rather intentionally designed for multiply plays, and I found it to be have one of the better implementations of NG+. There's enough branches that you can easily do a second playthrough and have almost half of your chapters be completely new content. At the end of it all, I ended up logging about 100 hours between two playthroughs that was needed to exhaust most the content.

CONCLUSION: It's really heartening to know that there's some teams at Square Enix that still have a brilliant and artful eye for turn-based strategy design. I'd call this a must-play for any tactics RPG fans, or for any lovers of high difficulty turn-based games in general, for whom the story would certainly be worth powering through. For the general population, I'd give a more cautious recommendation that depends on how much of an appetite you have for an overlong (although really not all that bad) story.

Triangle Strategy is an RPG + Strategy similar to the Fire Emblem gameplay. The studio has also developed the Octopath games, and regardless if they were successful or not, we are not talking about these today.

Pros:

1. I generally like the main cast, the main eight characters and the antagonistic forces to how it becomes deconstructed but in a way that makes it believable and not out of subverting out of hatred from its story material, but out of love for it (outside of 1-2 characters, but I will get to it). I also like the story with an easy route for the team and a quite easy-to-hate antagonist team that ends up having its comeuppance..

2. The gameplay, while being a dumbed-down Fire Emblem with no real punishments for downed units, is generally straightforward to understand. You can also adjust the difficulty, and there are no rewards for clearing on a greater difficulty or not (the most significant prize happens if there are no unit casualties during your one playthrough)

3. The biggest positive is that every character can be genuinely helpful in a specific situation, unlike Fire Emblem, where one capability entirely depends on the class, how said character is obtained and when, stats, special abilities/weapons, and movement, not to mention the fact that certain characters are prioritised one over the other just because of one distinction. The way to obtain these characters is either through the stats you build over the choices you make (i.e the total about of morality/liberty/utility) or through specific routes.

4. What I also like is the choice system game. Games involved choice system typically involves an over blatantly good guy with the good ending or a bad guy who acts like an irremediable asshole for no apparent reason, leading to evil endings, with only bad choices being chosen not out of interest but just seeing what it leads up to. Here, for any conversation choice, it's between three paths (Doing what is right and not wrong (Morality), Fighting regardless of consequences (Liberty), and doing what is for the greater good (Utility)). Still, you don't see which choice leads to what path, so the game encourages you to answer these questions in your own way. You only get to start seeing these choices in New Game+, which is an easy way to figure out what endings you have left.

5. The story is also quite solid; the three main deuteragonists are involved with the plot and show their characters properly, and the three main characters make these choices so that you and your team decide where the story goes. With all three endings based on the morality choices, I believe all of them were nicely developed and executed (even if one of them is the antagonist winning).

For the flaws:

1. Although a great playthrough the first time, and maybe even the second time, by the third time onwards, you do not have much reason to play the game again outside of small collectibles, getting all characters and endings.

2. The True Ending requirements, provided if you are playing without the guide, seem very random and do not make much sense in context. The fact is that these choices have to be run through a single playthrough, can be pretty frustrating and are not like specific scenarios that, once done, are unlocked forever.

3. Referring to the above, you always have to play through the game from start to finish, and there is no chapter selected to play repeated sections at a specific moment. I will understand having a chosen branch for routes only accessible if you played that route through. Still, suppose you want to play the chapter in a particular way within a path. In that case, you have to play the game at least twice to explore all variations on the route, and at least four if you want to explore all variations of all routes, along with the actual ending requirements, you might replay the game more times through 100% the game then actually experiencing the game.

4. Despite the wide cast and characters being playable on the field, only eight characters are focused on the story, and choices matter, while the recruited characters are non-existent in the plot outside of 3-part side stories for each character (I wish this was expanded on or integral in some other major plots) and boss conversations. Even across side stories, only half of the eight characters are involved with speaking to said characters (and comparatively, the characters who are not the main characters).
Ultimately, this makes sense in context and design. Theoretically, you can be so bad at making choices that you might be unable to recruit any characters (or ignore the recruitments). Also, some of the main cast will be unavailable at specific parts of the story, making some side stories inaccessible if that were to happen. Unfortunately, less than 30% of the cast is explored in-story, and you have someone like Hughette, who is somehow involved in more than half of these side stories, I swear.

5. Although there are minor issues with the story, the primary antagonist is rather boring (but at least has a contrast with the protagonist). I find Lyla completely unsympathetic (i.e, despite hating her positions and killing Roselle slaves to make them animatronic puppets.........she kept on doing it despite hiding her son away to protect him from the primary antagonist).

6. Once again, this is minor and might be personal, but I did not find the true good ending as a satisfying payoff to the other 3 "bad" endings combined (this leads to flaws 2 and 3, as replaying can lead to high burnout). The fact that a particular character survives this makes it worse, along with, once again, the side characters not even having a satisfying conclusion to the story.

Tl;dr: It was a great experience the first two times playing, but it became a slog the third time. The gameplay and units are good, but I wish the side characters were more developed and connected to the plot.

In my scores, this is a pretty good game that I recommend everyone to play, but it suffers in the long-term.