Serenoa Wolffort, the main character of Triangle Strategy, appears to be nothing less than a prince from a storybook when you first encounter him. He rides in to save his fiancée from robbers. The lady in issue, Frederica, is being married to Serenoa on a political level as part of a new peace agreement between the three nations of Glenbrook, Hyzante, and Aesfrost.
Even though salt is still fiercely guarded, the pact aims to restore diplomatic ties and commerce between the areas thirty years after a conflict for salt, a resource that Hyzante owned fully. It all transpires quite differently, of course. The unwavering Serenoa, devoted to both his throne and the people of the Wolffort area, quickly reveals himself to be flawed and ill-prepared for the several tough choices he must make.
Triangle Strategy borrows heavily on Yasumi Matsuno, the man behind Final Fantasy Tactics and the Ogre Battle series, in its approach to warfare. Triangle Strategy, like Tactics, examines the reasons for a medieval society’s struggle for resources as well as the results of it, along with all the political intrigue akin to that in Game of Thrones.
The fight scenes themselves are a pleasure, but they’re also fairly uncommon, so there’s a strange disparity between them and the dense narrative. Although it makes sense to not have a battle every few minutes, I could have used more of it because fighting is frequently far more interesting than merely seeing Triangle Strategy’s numerous cutscenes of diplomatic talks.
Nevertheless, they function effectively. The combat takes place on an isometric grid and is turn-based. A character has the ability to move and act during each round. At the conclusion of every round, you must also choose which way a character should face. This is because strikes from behind result in an immediate critical hit, while attacks from the flanks allow for follow-up attacks that can have disastrous results.
In the meanwhile, some activities require TP, including magic and special attacks. Characters have fixed movement ranges and qualities. For example, heavy-set knight Erador can absorb more blows than most and drives opponents away with his shield, while Prince Roland of Glenbrook, mounted on his horse, can go rather far and strike multiple adversaries in a straight line with his lance.
Because of the combination of each character’s special abilities, the constantly scarce TP points, and some excellent map design, the maps also frequently feature obstacles and elevation that, while not offering cover the way they do in the XCOM games, for example, can still be used to your advantage. As a result, combat is excellent, often taking me a good hour per encounter. RPGS tactics work best when they make you stand back and consider things like: can I get my healer near enough to a wounded party member in time? Is it better to use my TP to attack more adversaries in the future round or to fire a ranged spell now? Triangle Strategy succeeds splendidly in that regard.
It’s also consistently hard; in fact, so hard that Square Enix and Artdink decided to eliminate permadeath and offer many difficulty settings after hearing comments from the initial trial. Even yet, you will still receive experience points and the opportunity to try again if you lose a combat.
Since there aren’t many encounters in the campaign, mentally practicing simulated fights that are accessible in your encampment can also help your characters reach the necessary level. Here, you can gain more experience and try out a couple scenarios that aren’t available as part of the tale elsewhere. Because just the characters in your current party get experience, it’s a terrific method to level characters you may not have utilized enough. It’s also a great opportunity to just test out new skills for your characters.
Triangle Strategy offers a large number of playable characters, therefore this is important. There are really so many that I haven’t been able to unlock them all in one game, which is probably on purpose (the system determines who you unlock and when discreetly). I must admit that I find the amount of variation in the abilities each character possesses to be fascinating. Having said that, managing it gets challenging beyond a certain roster size. Although I’ll agree that several characters I didn’t utilize in the first playing were difficult to level up, Triangle Strategy isn’t much different from Fire Emblem in that aspect.
Range is good, but Triangle Strategy’s characters might have benefited from stronger personality definition. As it is, they frequently feel more like placeholders for debates or groups of people than like unique people. Despite having unlocked various optional side tales, I know very little about some of them. My main issues with Triangle Strategy are this, the erratic English voice-over (a Japanese version is available), and the fact that its lovely character graphics is limited to menus. I would have appreciated something a little more involved.
Triangle Strategy might become monotonous because to the campaign’s alternating cutscenes, fights, exploration, and decision-making sections. Cutscenes lasting more than an hour frequently occur after a battle. You are frequently brought back to the global map, which is helpful if you’ve had enough of listening to the tale and would like to play a few mental mock battles. However, I’ve played visual novels that extensively involved their players, much more so than Triangle Strategy.
Interspersed with the action are exploration periods that let you to explore a small area of Serenoa. Here, you may gather materials, spend quiet time with your friends before fight, and even scout out potential battlegrounds. These sequences offer good chances to admire Triangle Strategy’s stunning 2D-HD aesthetic, which combines 16-bit and 3D components in a manner reminiscent to Octopath Traveller. Fire and lightning effects are stunning, the air is frequently thick with tiny dust particles, water pools shimmer in the sunlight, and the grass gently sways. Because you can always see the edges of the locations, they resemble little dioramas, and seeing 16-bit characters in a game like this is a simple, nostalgic joy that frequently reminds you of the game’s spiritual ancestors.
I’ve also invested a lot of work in leveling menus after combat. You level characters and weapons separately in Triangle Strategy. In general, both approaches affect the same numbers; however, character leveling is uncommon and requires a unique item (think Fire Emblem: Three Houses), whereas weapon leveling allows you to improve particular attributes, such HP, which vary depending on the character, using resources like stone and wood. Interestingly, though, since material costs and upgrade costs increase with each unlock, you will never have enough money to update everyone. It’s a system that takes some getting accustomed to, but this allows you to further distinguish characters; two spell casters with almost identical beginning stats will feel very different from one another.
Triangle Strategy is a powerful, frequently captivating story about medieval warfare that stands proudly beside the video games that influenced it.
Regarding choices, occasionally the story’s circumstances will force the reader to choose a choice. Serenoa will provide the Scales of Conviction in these situations. You must attempt to convince each of his retainers of the course of action you have selected after they make many suggestions and discussions. After that, there will be a vote, and the tale will somewhat change to reflect the outcome.
As an illustration, the first choice is whether Serenoa ought to send a diplomatic delegation to Aesfrost or Hyzante. The majority of these choices don’t immediately affect the plot, therefore they aren’t brought up again until the plot converges. Even so, they present various perspectives on the actions that transpire and provide an incentive to re-play the game in addition to the main objectives of discovering all the characters and obtaining the three endings.
They continue to be a standout in part because of some excellent writing. Though I’ve played a number of games where you have to make choices about the plot, Triangle Strategy’s interpretation of the feature is intriguing. All of the decisions are significant and obviously involve careful consideration of their implications. I’m asked whether to ally with a possible enemy in one situation, and whether to sacrifice a portion of a town to ward off the enemy in another. There are no obvious means to persuade any of your retainers to differ with you; they are all opinionated.
Gaining more knowledge via investigation can sometimes be the difference between winning someone over to your point of view and sometimes not. From a narrative perspective, it is worth so much that instead of choosing between an aggressive and a polite alternative, as other games would have me do, I carefully considered each of these choices and the conversations they sparked.
Triangle Strategy does an excellent job of illustrating how complicated a subject war is, and how it affects trade, the general public, and, given the medieval setting, more ethereal ideas like honor and loyalty. It is unfortunate, though, that despite its thoughtfulness and elegance, some events are revealed far too early. Triangle Strategy even addresses slavery thoughtfully and avoids using contemporary racial allegories, which elsewhere frequently seem awkward when extrapolated back to fantastical settings.
The fact that there are no “good” endings in Triangle Strategy also intrigues me. Even while the game ends harshly for you as the player—my first playing ended after 36 hours—the task of leading a nation is never completed, and there is never a perfect way to accomplish it. This is a contentious choice for a fantasy game since, as a player who is accustomed to some degree of success, my initial thought was, to be honest, mild disappointment. Nevertheless, it improves the game. Because of all of this, Triangle Strategy is a dramatic, frequently captivating story of medieval battle that can stand proudly beside the games that inspired it, despite its frequently glacial pace.