Triangle Strategy
Game Title: Triangle Strategy
Released: October 13, 2022
Game Length: 34 Hours
Grade: C-
Background
Preamble: There has been quite a few different types of turn-based strategy games recently. While I have memories of playing ones like Advance Wars and Battletech, there have been reports of others with a different feeling for the genre like X-COM and Fire Emblem. After finishing Octopath Traveler, I thought about dipping my toes in another recent game Square Enix released that might satisfy that itch. The reviews are kind of hard to decipher when they keep comparing the game to others I've never played before. So the idea of how revolutionary each unit on the board interweaves their turn with each other, how every character can survive after a few hits, or that there is no permanent death are all aspects that are lost to me. There is no way of me knowing how closely it resembles Game of Thrones either. Unfortunately, those are not the only differences the developers made into this game. There is an expectation of time spent building up your units and replaying big portions of the game.
Upgrade System
Experience: Contrary to how the system is built for other games, experience is treated as a catch-up mechanic. Instead of gaining a range of experience for how well your character performs, the amount of experience you earn depends highly on the stage level. 100 XP is required for each and every level. Those who are under the level can gain upwards to 75 XP, same level up to 15 XP, and over level up to 5 XP. In addition, experience is performed for almost any action. Using any skill regardless of what it does - things like healing, buffing, casting, hitting a target, attacking barricades, striking the ground with no enemies nearby, missing a target, countering an enemy, or creating objects - all trigger an amount gain without taking into consideration the difficulty or what happens. There are a couple of exceptions like how Piccoletta's Decoy does not contribute any experience to the user. Gaining a level will slightly increase you stats and open up more abilities. Unlocked characters will automatically be a set level when you gain them.
Spoils: Normally, the game will hand over a number of rewards after a battle is won. While this game generally provides you with something automatically after defeating one of the enemy commanders, you will need to pick up most of the items by moving one of your units directly onto that spot. Only one specific character has the ability to pick items up while moving through the spot. Enemies can pick up spoils too! Simply defeat the unit and he will drop the item again. If he was carrying one already, then you will pick up two spoils. While the game doesn't tell you what you picked up until after the battle, there will be a particular rarity glow to them on the map. If by chance you lose a match, the items you retrieved will be lost and the items used from your inventory will return to what it was before you started. Every now and then, there will be rewards obtained through special circumstances like in the case of making the right story choices or collecting chests. There are certain kinds of equipment and character abilities that can improve the chances of when spoils drop and what you earn after they are picked up.
Blacksmith: While the game doesn't necessarily provide you a crafting system to build better equipment, there is quite a bit of material you will need to increase your unit's potential. You will need badges to promote your character to the next tier of upgrades, special equipment to pay for it, and reagents for each upgrade. While you can earn these in many avenues, there is a set amount you can buy from the merchant. Stock will not replenish until after you complete a story level. There's also one blatant issue that needs to be mentioned: the amount of material required to upgrade a specific tier increases dramatically. You will need 2 for the 1st upgrade, 6 for the second, 10 for the third & fourth, and 15 for the fifth. For the last tier, you will need 2 for the 1st, 10 for the second, and 20 for the third. Did I forget to mention that you will in addition need to pay with coin? While it might be easy to obtain 4,000 coin in a single mock battle half-way through the game, 500 to 2000 for each upgrade is quite an undertaking when you are generally paying 150 for the basic material or 450 for the 2nd tier materials. These upgrades can assist in increasing your overall damage, healing, health, damage prevention, the number of turns an ability lasts, potency or cost of a skill, benefits that apply passively, or one "ultimate" skill in the bottom tier.
Kudos: The last upgrade system was probably the one that hurt me the most. In an attempt to pace the game, you will gain a type of currency for every smart tactic you utilize on the battlefield. These can include things like attacking from higher ground, exploiting an enemy's weakness, hitting their back, attacking with a unit on both sides, and striking multiple targets at once. You'll normally earn one for each enemy hit regardless of the difficulty. This means you'll obviously earn a lot less per match (around 30 kudos instead of 100) if you are shooting for a swift victory like in the case of only targeting the enemy commander or reaching an escape point. You'll need 1 for each of the lore notes, 10 for first weapon reagent, 30 for second weapon reagent, 30 for first badge promotion, 50 for second badge promotion, 100 for every card point (up to 5), and 50 to 500 for every card. It gets expensive real fast when you have 20 characters to manage.
Story System
Conviction: One of the mechanics that happen outside the battle system is hidden until after completing the end of the game and continuing it into a new one. All throughout the game, you'll be constantly be bombarded with a message telling you that your convictions have been strengthened without any indication on what it means. In truth, it is essentially an incentive to participate in various activities in order to unlock new characters and to better your chances during the persuasion phase. There are three different types of convictions. There are 15 characters you can unlock when you reach a set amount of points only revealed by the scout that appears after reaching Chapter 5 in New Game Plus. There is a good chance you'll unlock 9 of them half-way through the game. 3 are too high to obtain in your first playthrough.
Scales of Conviction: A huge aspect of the game is how your story will unfold. There are a number of splits, sometimes with their own branches, that is dependent on the choice your friends make. If you missed it, I'll rephrase: you don't get a vote in where your team goes. Between your seven friends, you will need to persuade them to vote your way. This is where it is essential to obtain information from the people in the area before conversing with your friends. You don't want to be stuck "having better luck talking to a stone wall." In most cases, you can talk with a guard at the door to step outside and hear what people have to say on the matter. Make sure to pick-up any glimmering items on the ground. There's also another thing to note: the unlocked phrase isn't always the best option. It kind of makes you question on why they would show which option unlocked if it doesn't always sway your friend's opinion. Where you go, what you discover, and which characters you pick up on the way all depend on these choices. There might be 21 chapters, but there are around 65 scenarios available to choose from. Unfortunately, there is very little satisfaction knowing that you will need to replay the game a total of 4 times to see everything.
Cutscenes: There are a lot of options when it comes to watching cutscenes. They do not last more than five minutes and you have the options to automatically play, fast forward, or skip through any of them. Instead of showing a character's portrait with their associated dialogue at the bottom of the page, you will see speech bubbles along with an option to press Y to bring up their profile page. The description and even their picture are dependent on the current circumstances. For example, it is possible to see a younger version of Benedict during a specific flashback. You can access the log to revisit what was said and even replay the voice-over for a specific line of text. Red dots indicate main story sections while green dots indicate side stories. While the tutorial does inform you that character stories are dependent on the number of times they are deployed in battle, there is nothing about how many scenes they have, when you can access them, or how often they are shown. At least you can see how many times characters have been deployed inside the encampment.
Problems
Difficulty: Choosing to play the very first level on Hard Mode might have been a mistake, but somehow I managed to survive with one character left standing. When it came time for the second level, I found how insane the game can be with commanders having three times your health and enemies using advanced versions of your skills (like how they can delay three characters in a row when Serenoa is limited to one). You can pretty much change the difficulty at any time since it modifies the amount of damage the enemy does and receives. The only other thing that seems to change is how the mock battles display a crown instead of a check mark. It is no wonder that these mock battles are easier than the stage levels since they are used to ultimately improve your characters for battle. You can still find quality goods inside them (2nd tier) while using the Golden Ring at the Very Easy difficulty setting. Without maximizing your potential, you'll find your characters missing the enemy more often and not being to outlast the numbers the enemy throws at you. I once attempted Hard Mode on Chapter 15 and shook my head in disbelief when my average amount of damage was 40 compared to the enemy's 120. A fire arrow from the enemy commander dealt on my fire mage with 30% fire reduction still did 149 damage.
The Arena Story: For the most part, the AI is pretty decent. They will find ways to outflank you and exploit weaknesses in your position. However, there is one example in mind that shows how dumb it can really be. In Chapter 10 Part II, you are allowed 7 characters in a gladiator arena. I wanted to attempt Hard Mode despite how lacking my team was with their upgrades. The one that was supposed to be the most sturdy immediately fell in the first round when the enemy dealt 120 "spark" damage twice to him. Serenoa soon followed. I ordered the other five to retreat to the steps and was flabbergasted to discover that the enemy did nothing to pursue. Not a single enemy crossed over to attack or strike from a distance. So I was left spending the next hour summoning a decoy at the corner of the platform to taunt, laying down spring traps that would launch them over the edge, and a single archer shooting down arrows while they were in the pit. Using this tactic for an hour made me realize how futile it was to keep upgrading my characters to counter the harder difficulty settings.
Skills: The tutorial does a decent job explaining some parts of the game. It explains how you receive an inaction bonus that shortens the time it takes to act again by 10% when not moving and another 10% when not using an ability. Experience, kudos, and conviction are all kept on defeat. It even has a page highlighting each and every character you unlock. However, there are always going to be things you find that it doesn't explain. For example, it informs you that Jens has the ability to create automatic turrets but doesn't tell you that it is only available when you unlock their ultimate weapon skill. The ability provoke doesn't always work on all targets. Ice shield will shoot an ice shard back at the enemy even if your character is hit with an arrow. Piccoletta's decoy ability moves, attacks, and definitely has a hidden taunt value that causes enemies to chase after it over other potential targets. You do not hurt your allies or heal your enemies when casting spells within their area... unless an enemy "tempts" your characters and makes use of their many skills. You cannot "wake" those afflicted with tempt by striking them, but you are able to remove the ailment with "What Ails You". Of course, that ability does not remove movement impairments. Follow-up attacks still occur even if the enemy falls after the first blow, thereby triggering benefits for both characters. You cannot Aerial Bash in the same spot you occupy. You can walk over or stand on one of Jen's spring traps but he cannot lay one on top of someone. Corentin's Wall of Ice can be placed adjacent to a unit but you cannot rotate it. Took me awhile to figure out that Flame Eater's description to "absorb" fire damage meant that you could absorb small amounts of health when running through flame patches. It is too bad Serenoa's Hawk Dive doesn't leave you in the enemy's position when they fall from your strike. While it is made clear a unit will counter within striking distance from any melee strike from the other side, it is less clear that the same happens when firing an arrow but not with magic.
Targeting: One thing that drove me crazy was how the battle system laid down your attack range before acknowledging whether you can physically strike an opponent. This means that you could plan your character to move to a spot, choose a skill to strike, but then be shown an "interference" marker that prevents you from performing such an action. All red squares where my line of sight ends should be removed for visual confirmation. This goes one further where the game also prompts you with a back attack or counter when such a move is impossible. Because of this, gauging whether enemies could shoot arrows or perform magic attacks from certain locales was rather difficult. I didn't even realize Ice Wall would break line of sight until doing a bit of research online. While there could have been additional improvements in the battle system, this one was the most obvious.
Inconsistencies: The game has this way of establishing scenarios with some questionable choices. I caught myself writing short summaries of events in attempt to make sense of it: "Sir, I caught you embezzling. Do you have a logical explanation?", "Although my family is out to kill me, I'm choosing not to let my rescuers know why", and "We have scouted the area and identified it as a terrible place to fight but we are going to anyways." Because of some my decisions, you'll be introduced to some interesting fellows one moment and watch them suddenly die the next without learning anything more about them. Although our group was having "a discussion", the game diverted my playthrough after initially choosing "the wrong answer" despite having three topics available to me. You might be able to discover objects in the environment, but you will not be able to interact with it without obtaining "the quest" from someone first. The game purposely veered me into the "bad ending" when it didn't allow me to go back to find more items or add a dialogue prompt when I conversed with one character before chatting with another.
True Ending: There are many moments in my playthrough that left me in a bit of rage but nothing could compare to how the game ended. To reflect upon the three different types of convictions (that are still hidden at this time), the game suddenly has your friends go mad and refuse any compromises in their actions. In one final voting session, they all decided to ally with the very faction that ravaged our lands. The main protagonist, Serenoa, had no say in the matter and didn't have the luxury to simply leave the party like another member. I was in shock as the only rightful course of action was to stop playing. It appears that there is a very particular way to make this option available. From the conversations online, all other endings are pretty terrible.
Summary
Review: The developers made quite the list of unusual choices in designing this game. We send out "heroes" into battle with specific skill sets without any sort of infantry support. Instead of allowing us to play every perspective of the war, they diverted huge chunks of the story in the expectation we play through the whole thing again to discover the other routes. With how the system rewards you with time invested, you'll either find yourself replaying failed story levels or selecting the repeatable mock battles that wouldn't normally be possible in your current situation. Having an actual skirmish system between the factions would have probably been a better choice. While the tactics are pretty solid, the battle system has room for improvement. Perhaps the only redeeming quality of the game is watching how the factions react when it comes to the simple aspect of supply and demand. I do not recommend this game.
5-8-2023