The RPG Files: Triangle Strategy Review | MMORPG.com

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The RPG Files: Triangle Strategy Review | MMORPG.com

Triangle Strategy combines a compelling narrative with meaningful player choices, but does how does it hold up overall? Here is our review.

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Scot

Can I add a Con? THE GRAPHICS.

Aeander

Excellent game, excellent story, albeit a bit slow-paced and held back by poor voice acting (but if a budget game were to cut corners anywhere, I'm glad it's on voice acting and graphics). It feels like we're in a SRPG Renaissance and I'm so here for it. Fire Emblem may be my favorite franchise, but I want it to have real competition.

[Deleted User]

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Aeander

blueturtle13 said:

I think it looks great. I like this visual style and look forward to picking it up.....at some point anyway........Just.too.much.to.play.

Well, it'd probably fit well between your other games, as each playthrough is only about 30 hours and the game offers a multitude of choice-based routes for replay.

I think that's the appropriate format for the SRPG genre, as 20-30 hour campaigns are immensely replayable, whereas it's hard to make oneself replay the 70 hour campaign of a game like Fire Emblem Three Houses.

WhiteLantern

Scot said:

Can I add a Con? THE GRAPHICS.

No. Because once again, your opinion is wrong. :P

Aeander said:

It feels like we're in a SRPG Renaissance and I'm so here for it. Fire Emblem may be my favorite franchise, but I want it to have real competition.

Amen to that! Looking forward to giving this one a go.

BLNX

I've been back and forth on whether this one will be something I love or hate (implementation is everything). I'll probably check it out eventually, but no one I know has really hyped it for me either.

Aeander

Torval said:

The graphic quality looks great to me and I like the art style. It looks like they are using the same kind of strong "depth of field" effect as Octopath and I really dislike it. I hope there is a setting to disable that, but probably unlikely.

If this title is only 30 hours then that bodes well, however I see a big warning flag in the artidcle. Octopath was too long, in my opinion, for all the wrong, grindy, and extremely tedious reasons. The need to level up multiple classes sounds like they're making the same mistake they did with Octopath that really slogged down progression and undermined what could have been good pacing.

Right now I'm playing "Edge of Eternity" and it does a good job at getting these things right. It is pretty much everything I loved about early PlayStation JRPGs like FF7, Parasite Eve, and Legend of the Dragoon. I liked Octopath up to a point, but then it fizzled for me. Hopefully this does better. If it comes to GamePass then I'll check it out for sure.

So, Triangle Strategy doesn't really let you substantially out-grind levels persay. It offers mock battles, but these are to catch up units that fall behind and gain resources. 

Triangle Strategy is actually designed to keep units in equilibrium. You gain drastically increased xp if underleveled and drastically reduced xp if overleveled. This essentially fixes two of the main problems that tend to plague SRPG's - you have elective accessibility options to catch up if you fall behind, but you also can't feed everything to one overpowered unit and snowball the game.

Aeander

Torval said:

Aeander said:

Torval said:

The graphic quality looks great to me and I like the art style. It looks like they are using the same kind of strong "depth of field" effect as Octopath and I really dislike it. I hope there is a setting to disable that, but probably unlikely.

If this title is only 30 hours then that bodes well, however I see a big warning flag in the artidcle. Octopath was too long, in my opinion, for all the wrong, grindy, and extremely tedious reasons. The need to level up multiple classes sounds like they're making the same mistake they did with Octopath that really slogged down progression and undermined what could have been good pacing.

Right now I'm playing "Edge of Eternity" and it does a good job at getting these things right. It is pretty much everything I loved about early PlayStation JRPGs like FF7, Parasite Eve, and Legend of the Dragoon. I liked Octopath up to a point, but then it fizzled for me. Hopefully this does better. If it comes to GamePass then I'll check it out for sure.

So, Triangle Strategy doesn't really let you substantially out-grind levels persay. It offers mock battles, but these are to catch up units that fall behind and gain resources. 

Triangle Strategy is actually designed to keep units in equilibrium. You gain drastically increased xp if underleveled and drastically reduced xp if overleveled. This essentially fixes two of the main problems that tend to plague SRPG's - you have elective accessibility options to catch up if you fall behind, but you also can't feed everything to one overpowered unit and snowball the game.

The issue I had with Octopath wasn't about being on level, but the need to level so many sub-classes to effectively tackle some key points in the story. I had acquired all the characters and had leveled their main classes to keep them reasonably well within range of each other. A few would lag behind then I would bring them along and catch them up. I was also leveling some of the sub-classes, but this took much longer since there were so many characters and options per character.

I got to a point in the story where I needed the fighter type to battle some people in town. In order to effectively defeat these the fighter needed to use a specific secondary class which that character hadn't leveled at all. In order to move past this point I would have needed to take my fighter type along using that secondary and level it up either through grinding or by trying to take on another character's story using that character/class combo. All the other character stories were a few levels more than what my party could really handle so I would still need to grind out some levels with mobs to catch up.

It doesn't really matter to me whether they use mock battles or I go to a region and grind out mobs to catch up. It's pretty much the same thing to me. The real pain point was the excessive grinding for sub-classes with functionality with only situational practical use.

Juggling that to keep my party balanced and functional slogged down the flow of the game so I just dropped it. The story wasn't that compelling and I felt it tried to pad itself through needless grind.

There was a lot to enjoy in Octopath though, and despite the over the top depth of field, I think it sports beautiful visuals. If Triangle Strategy does come to GamePass I'll try it out for sure.

Make of it what you will, but there is no job system in this game. There is no subclass grinding. This is less Final Fantasy Tactics and more GBA/GC-era Fire Emblem in that your units are all designed to be unique and offer unique mechanics to the party. They can upgrade their class linearly to get stronger, but they are what they are. Frederica can only be a Pyromancer. Roland can only be a Spear Knight. Benedict can only be a Tactician.

This is more a strategy game than an RPG, but it's also more than made up for by the distinct narrative choices you'll be making that entirely change your narrative and stages. And if you want a different playstyle, this game wants you to bring different units rather than awkwardly shoehorning characters into roles they weren't designed for. I find that traditionalism refreshing in a modern landscape that's so plagued by the lack of unit individualism that comes from reclassing.

eoloe

WhiteLantern said:

Scot said:

Can I add a Con? THE GRAPHICS.

No. Because once again, your opinion is wrong. :P

hOW DARE you DISagree with anybody on these forums ?!!!!!

You are flagged, reported, thrown to the snake pit, and your dead body burnt in front of starved wild dogs!

*he he, that should teach him a lesson (or two)*

eoloe

worldsbestdad said:

WhiteLantern said:

Scot said:

Can I add a Con? THE GRAPHICS.

No. Because once again, your opinion is wrong. :P

Scot's opinion is everything, how dare you!

No. You're wrong!

Astropuyo

Edge of Eternity is actually a really good game completely under-rated by it's flawed voice acting.. Which is a charm to me.

You can rush this game at like 15 hours pretty easy so it makes a good mix game until you run through all your choices.

Aeander

blueturtle13 said:

I think it looks great. I like this visual style and look forward to picking it up.....at some point anyway........Just.too.much.to.play.

This year is wild, I know. I have to juggle this, Guild Wars 2's Cantha expac, and finishing Fire Emblem Warriors before its sequel comes out in late June. 

I can't imagine how busy I'd be if I cared about Horizon and Elden Ring, let alone everything else in the February Fustercluck and March Madness.

Emelly

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