Triangle Strategy - Review

“The Ink has barely dried on the treaty, and already Aesfrost prepares for war.” There are those who have not forgotten the taste of the Saltiron War, it’s only been 30 years.

Triangle Strategy is the newest Tactical RPG to come from Square Enix. It has been sometime since we’ve seen the stalwart giant of the genre enter the fray, and with the growth of popularity in Fire Emblem and X-Com, how does Triangle Strategy hold up?

From the opening scene, and the world that is built from you from the beginning, Triangle Strategy carries a very ‘Tactics Ogre’ feel and aesthetic. The low-resolution pixel art style and world blends together a Final Fantasy Tactics fantasy world with the grittier realistic feeling world of medieval kingdoms and noble houses that we see in Tactics Ogre.

Triangle Strategy doesn’t shy away from the obvious influences in its style and gameplay. It embraces the growth that the TRPG has seen and acts to embellish and improve upon these aspects. So, in a world of Fire Emblems, Banner Sagas, and X-Com how does Triangle Strategy stand out?

The pixelised almost 3D world is a great bit of nostalgia and really performs well for this Switch exclusive title. Similarly, to the beautifully crafted pixel art style of Octopath Traveller, the world is beautifully crafted and detailed. The characters are all distinguishable, and despite the low-resolution style, the faces of the characters convey emotion and feeling you would not typically expect. The world of the game is truly brought to life by the small aspects, however. The waving leaves and palms of plants. The flickering of ridiculously detailed fire in braziers. The glistening and gorgeous looking water defies the simplicity of the world being crafted around it.

The water in particular is almost mind boggling with its photo-realistic feel, and bubbling look. You’ll see a lot of small canals, water features and rivers on the world map. Taking just a moment, you can see the level of detailed care that has gone into crafting this beautifully intricate world. For a game you are going to be sitting down with for close to 30+ hours, being constantly visually pleasing on the eyes is a major positive.

Following that, in a game where you will be listening to hours upon hours of dialogue the voice acting is immeasurably important. At first, I was a little concerned, as the first few voices you hear, mainly Serenoa, Frederica, Geela and some NPC soldiers, they seemed a little phoned in on English. It was only once the game started to progress that I understood why this may be the case. Serenoa, the main protagonist, is a young man, unsure and thrust into a world that he has done everything to stop. He is frustrated, confused and ultimately, not ready. His voice actor captures this fearful young man in a perfect way, his words powerful, but his voice lacking the convincing power it needs. This transcends across a lot of the cast. Erador is loud and boisterous, yet his battle-hardened voice carries a sombre tone when it needs too. Benedict whilst seemingly like a monotonous droll, is far too deep in his own mind. Forever trying to work out the different outcomes as his role as Advisor would necessitate.

The voice acting is powerful, enjoyable and never too much. This isn’t to say that the amount of story feels a little much at times, the voice acting itself carries through some of the slower patches, and never leaves you feeling exhausted and lost because of it. Notably, almost all the main characters are incredibly unique and enjoyable too. Some getting far more screentime then they probably should, whilst others not getting enough.

Archduke Gustadolph in the earlier sections of the game is a character who I would have loved to have been seeing more regularly. Easily on the best designed characters of the game, his personality and attitude, coupled with easily the best voice acting in the game, makes it hard to want to hear more from Sorsley who sounds like a gluttonous pig. This character connection is important, because it make you want to continue through the story to discover more of these characters you enjoy and get past those that make you want to metaphorically tear your ears off, in a good way.

The music in the game is also masterfully crafted. Whilst there isn’t going to be any tracks that you will instantly recognise and want to play on repeat on spotify, like you would out of some other Square RPG games, the music never feels out of place. It’s a soft, rhythmic soundtrack, which accentuates the different nuances and feelings of the world. Hyzante has a very Middle-Eastern feeling to the music, and makes you feel incredibly safe in the area, despite being one fraught with deception and underlying hatred. Aesfrost feels hard and imperial, and you are reminded of their almost Meritocratic ideals of ‘Freedom’. Glenbrook feels like an old Feudal Medieval England would feel, and the light and ambient music matches perfectly. The melancholic tones devoid of happiness in sad scenes, the heart-warming twangs of a soft flamenco style in romantic or loving scenes feel you with emotions that I wasn’t expecting to be experiencing the entirety of the game.

Early on, the gameplay itself feels like it takes a backseat to the story. In the first two hours, I believe I had only taken part in one battle. Whilst this seems to occur throughout the game, I only found it problematic in the earlier parts of the game where the battles themselves were very straight forward and over-easy. Upon unlocking practice battles you can repeat for experience and items, this shifts. About the halfway mark, I began to experience a dramatic increase in difficulty. The number of battles seemed to be increasing in number, and the difficulty of winning them also. Much like Fire Emblem and X-Com, there is extraordinarily little room for error. Even on normal, the game is going to give you a run for your money. Enemies hit hard, they fight smart, and they will very rarely put themselves in a bad position.

Unlike in Fire Emblem, a unit dying in battle is not permanent. I much prefer this, as it encourages you to play aggressively. To risk putting a unit in an unfavourable position, so as to lure out enemies you need to take out first. Whilst the basics of combat are no different to any other TRPG, the way the battles are crafted is done well. Gimmick style encounters are only done once, maybe twice overall, so they feel special and unique, without getting overused. You get a rather large ensemble of characters, and every single character is unique. Nobody fights the same as another character, and this means that you will often find certain characters far more helpful in some battles, than others. There is a deep thought into making the encounters interesting, without making them a role stacking fiesta.

The interesting thing here, is how they have designed the game to be replayed. Throughout the game you are given dialogue choices and then in certain story segments, the ability to sway the voting of your house. There is an invisible parameters system working in the background, which influences the way that Serenoa interacts, and the future dialogue choices he will get. Depending on how Serenoa interacts normally, it seems to have a direct effect on how easy or difficult it will be to convince your teammates to change their decision when it comes to voting on the scales.

The scales themselves are always a 2-way split decision, and you can see your path in the menu. What the menu also shows, is that there is a split path that may not always end up in the same outcome. The replay level of the game encourages you to take a different pathway the next time, and perhaps experience a completely different side of the story, if not a completely different story overall. TRPG can generally struggle to get the desire to replay going, Fire Emblem being one of the better ones in recent titles to get you to play from a different story perspective. Triangle Strategy encourages you to experience the story again, but change how you interact with the story, and in turn, change the narrative. It’s an interesting system, and one that should be looked at by other TRPG titles.

Triangle Strategy is a love letter to the genre. Its story is masterfully crafted, despite its simplicity. The world is put together wonderfully and keeps the eyes fixated at all times, experiencing every small detail. The music pulls you in, and whilst the combat is a little bit simple, it is challenging enough that it doesn’t become dull. Triangle Strategy is a great re-entry into the Tactical RPG genre for Square Enix, and hopefully means that a future Tactics Ogre or Final Fantasy Tactics may see the light of day.

The Score

9.0

Review code provided by Nintendo

The Pros

+Gorgeous world design

+Unique characters with great visual design

+Impressive replay system design

+Invisible Conviction Parameters

The Cons

-Combat is nothing new

-Some characters talk too much

-Some characters are not in the story enough