Triangle Strategy

[RPGWatch]

Three mighty powers have long waged war on the great continent of Norzelia.

This land bears a long and scarred history that includes the Saltiron War, a war that erupted over control of salt and iron resources. A balance of power has been achieved between the Holy State of Hyzante, which controls the salt, the Grand Dutchy of Aesfrost, a land of iron clad in frost and snow, and the forested Kingdom of Glenbook, which lies nestled between the other two powers.

However, a certain incident shakes the balance between these three powers, which then begins to crumble away...

The player's sense of justice will be tested in the face of convictions.
Various actions and choices within the game will build up to form your conviction, based on three sets of values - Utility, Morality, and Liberty.This will affect your path through the story and which allied units will join your cause.

Voting
Important decisions that will decide the fate of the protagonist and his allies will be determined through a vote using the Scales of Conviction.For the player to assert their own opinion, they must convince their allies. Choices with a profound impact on the destinies of the group will likewise have a major impact on the story.

Highly strategic battles
It will be crucial to use the terrain and differences in elevation to position yourself advantageously.Enjoy satisfying and challenging battles and strategy with great depth: with the ability to select from characters with uniquely different traits in your party formation, and gameplay systems that allow flanking the enemy to perform follow-up attacks or using your allies' abilities to coordinate attacks.

Converse with and strengthen your allies in the Encampment
In the Encampment, you can speak with allied characters and purchase goods from shops. You can also strengthen your characters and weapons at the Sundry Shop and the Smithy.Additionally, once you've strengthened your characters, you can put their strength to the test at the Tavern by taking part in Mental Mock Battles.
These battles range from standard combat to those with somewhat unique victory conditions, allowing you to enjoy Triangle Strategy's combat on an even deeper level.

More information.

 

[JFarrell71]

I've played this for around 7-8 hours now, and thought I'd share a few impressions.

The reputation this game has quickly garnered is that it's more of a visual novel with some battles thrown in than a tactical RPG. I don't get that vibe myself. Yes, there are plenty of story scenes, and yes, you don't get a ton of battles thrown at you right away. But the story doesn't go on and on. There are plenty of battles and other interactive sequences on a regular basis.

In fact, I consider balance of activities one of the strengths of the game. Games of this sort usually alternate between cutscenes and long fights. TS has both of those things, but it also has exploration sequences in which you can explore a small map, finding items and talking to people, and in so doing make dialogue choices (more about this later) and acquire "information" (likewise). You also have optional battles in the encampment's bar, other stuff to do in the encampment (like improving weapons), and lore notes to read. In general, the game doesn't feel as much on autopilot as games of this genre often do.

The story itself is...alright. It's standard kingdoms at war stuff. Artdink likes to use flowery, thee and thou language in its games (Octopath Traveler is the same way) and that's maybe a matter of taste. I turned off the voice acting. From the start, I didn't like some of the voices/pace of delivery, and then I got to the Dragan drunken scene... oh my god. Awful. At that point I reluctantly decided that the bad outweighed the good.

The most significant thing about the story is how much it branches. I haven't gotten far enough to know how interestingly that plays out, but I know from glancing at flowcharts that the story branches quite a bit. I made one major choice so far, and that completely changed where my part went and who they met. The thing about branching stories is that if the story isn't good to begin with, I'm not inclined to care about how many variations it has. That's like touting the many types of shit sandwich you offer. So far I would say that I am interested enough in the plot and characters that I would like to see at least some of the alternative missions and paths. The game potentially has a lot of replay value. And it's very possible to replay from specific points without having to replay the whole thing to see new content, so that's nice, though to get different endings (and the endings seem to be entire paths of multiple missions, not just a different scene or two at the end) I think you probably have to play a good chunk of it.

This brings me to the stuff I said I'd get to (and forgot to do so with my original post). The game tracks what it calls the "scales of conviction". As far as I can tell, these values of not visible to the player. They fall into three categories, and your score in these affects the side characters you can recruit and perhaps other things. Whenever you make a dialogue choice, you increase one of these three scales. It's kind of loosely like an aligment system.

When you reach a major decision, one that branches the plot, you don't simply unilaterally choose your preferred option. Your core part will have their own opinions, and you have the opportunity to sway them to the one you prefer if that's not already how they lean. Using the "information" you can gain in dialogues during the exploratory portions is more likely to sway them. Or maybe it's automatic, it's hard to tell. Even if functionally none of this matters much, I like how it ties different parts of the game together. It makes sense that, for example, trying to persuade someone to ally with a particular nation is made easier by relating something about that nation to them. So far, the only branching decision I made was a formality, since there were 3 in favor of one path, 3 in favor of the other, and an undecided person who would do whatever I chose to do. I assume that future decisions will actually require some persuasion if I'm to follow a less popular path.

The graphics are simultaneously pretty and weirdly blurry and basic. I turned off the bloom in the .ini file which helps a bit. Some things look very nice (water, fire) and I like the color palette (the world is colorful; no basic greys and browns to be found), but the sprites and spell effects not so much. Everything seems more of a stylistic choice than an unintentional failing, but for me it's a mixed bag. The music is okay. No memorable tracks yet.

The fights are enjoyable. The game makes heavy use of elevation and movement, including flanking and positioning, are very important. You do more damage if you attack someone from behind, and if an enemy is between two of your characters. Spells have persistent elemental effects on the battlefield, DOS style: things get set on fire, you can freeze tiles, evaporate ice with fire, enhance electricity with water, etc. It's not overly complicated, but just the right amount of complicated to give you things to think about every turn you take.

One of my favorite parts of the battles is how well thought out the character abilities are in relation to those battles. It's not just 10 flavors of attack or healing. For example, a wind attack that also turns the enemy around (useful for setting up those critical backstabs). Or the ability to turn invisible and move unhindered around the battlefield. One particularly mobile character soon has access to a single tile heavy stab, a two tile less powerful stab, and a rushing three tile stab. Because of abilities like this and many others, how you maneuver your party and the enemies around the battlefield becomes of paramount importance.

 

[Couchpotato]

Square Enix has removed Denuvo from TRIANGLE STRATEGY

Following the removal of Denuvo from VALKYRIE ELYSIUM, Square Enix has also removed the anti-tamper tech from TRIANGLE STRATEGY.

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