This game is amazing, a fantastic experience with tons of variety in both story and gameplay. Greatly encouraging replays to make different choices, see how different events play out and use different units. I only played one playthrough, so I haven't experienced even half of everything this game can offer yet. But I'll write about my first playthrough, as there's enough there by itself.
Story
The story was amazing. The branching paths that form when you use the Scales of Conviction are interesting and always fun to try to get the path you think best. But even aside from the decision points, all the consistent content is great too, great world building that's conveyed in the overworld map and the lore you find throughout the game. It is dialogue heavy, but the story being delivered in multiple different ways makes it more digestible I feel. From main story cutscenes, to side story events and individual character stories. As well as having interesting ways to acquire lore and information.
Those being exploration in the free roam sections, where you can gain information by talking to certain people or interacting with certain objects. Or you can buy small lore entries and stories from a shop (very cheap it's not a big deal) to read at your leisure. This lore is all neatly organized in a dedicated information tab in the menus.
The story starts out as your classic medieval fantasy tale usually does. A young lord is suddenly thrust upon a conflict he isn't ready for. During a seemingly mundane trip for the arranged marriage of said lord, fighting breaks out, as a result of scheming from people in power of this world. Quick to react, Lord Serenoa Wolffort and his army embark to find their path through the growing conflict. And how does Serenoa and the player find their path through it? With the game's core mechanic, the Scales of Conviction.
The Scales of Conviction are an interesting way to handle route splits and character decisions. Instead of the player simply picking whatever option they want. Serenoa puts the path they take up to a vote with his seven core allies, the results of said vote using the Scales of Conviction will decide what they do next. The player gets to contribute by trying to sway Serenoa's friends into voting for their desired outcome. This element is changed by a number of factors, certain information you discover in exploration phases will unlock more convincing dialogue options when trying to sway a characters opinion. Serenoa's own convictions, which the player gets to choose through a variety of dialogue options in the main story and a number of other factors, will also factor into this. In some decisions certain characters will be easy to sway, in others they may be so thick headed you might not be able to convince them to side with you. As well as some Scales of Conviction scenes having certain characters lock in their opinion before the player can begin to choose a path. Making the player pick which trusted ally they side with most and find the most reasonable.
As alluded to in the last paragraph, Serenoa's convictions play a big role in how the story and even gameplay plays out. As certain characters will join your army depending on what decisions you've made up until that point. I found that the choices you make and convictions you hold for Serenoa affected how I picked certain options, as I did not feel the Serenoa I've been playing with would make certain decisions, based on what I've chosen previously.
But apart from all of the decision elements the story is also great. Great character focused moments, a great main cast of Characters to see the story told through. Some entertaining characters to alleviate the drama and intensity of the bigger events. A large world and history to discover and a large array of characters to learn about, all of this combined provided a fantastic story, and again, I only played through once! Many differences big and small await me in the future.
For those who know I got the Morality ending and I thought it was a great ending. The final Scales of Conviction scene was quite conflicting. Each outcome having its' share of pros and cons. And each one forcing to side with or go against certain trusted allies. My only big story complaint, I can't really comment on now, as it's a decision I did not choose, at the time of the decision, it seemed dumb and out of character (those who know probably know what I'm talking about) but that could change when I play that route. Maybe it'll make sense when given more time. I'll play the other routes eventually, but for now. Just wow. Amazing story.
Gameplay
The gameplay was amazing as well. As a fan of Strategy RPGs this game definitely delivered while making itself stand out. It having an individual unit Turn order, based on unit speed and items, instead of a traditional "player moves all units then enemy moves all units" deal made the combat a lot more intense I felt. You needed to look ahead to see what enemies are moving when to determine how you should act. And the player and enemy both having ways to affect the turn order was great. Core combat elements were cool too, crits being guaranteed when striking from behind, and units being able to do follow up attacks when attacking an enemy with an allied unit on the opposite side made the positioning and directional orientation of your units important.
Map wise it was great. Not too big, some maps are even pretty tight on space to work with, but you have the tools to make it work. The elevation factor was really interesting and helped with strategy and was aided by your units different movement type and mobility skills. What I found most interesting was that the exploration phases you played, in which you walked around the different towns and other areas you visit in the story, would most of the time be the maps you fight in that chapter. So the player can gather information and learn the lay of the land before the fighting is even close to starting. The map elements all work together to help the player stay mindful of their surroundings, terrain, ally and enemy movement, choke points etc.
Unit wise, man it was incredible. Every unit is unique, there's no class or role overlap. Even if two units share a movement type like horse or hawk, they had vastly different roles. The different roles units can take from your classic dps, tanks, healers, supports etc. All provided an incredibly unique array of characters to play around with. Some units have skills that change how they use consumable items, some set traps, some can provide ladders to play around with map elevation, some units have buffs or nerfs, those of which even being unique between said units. Every unit has a unique role to provide your army, some maps will benefit or hinder different units, encouraging the player to experiment with each unit instead of just sticking with the same army. I used every unit at least a few times in my playthrough.
The way this game handles exp gain is great for this too, lower level units catch up quick while higher level units exp get restricted to stay on target with the recommended level of the map you're playing so you can't have any super over leveled units easily. The mock battles used as grinding both aid getting your weaker units up, getting money or materials to upgrade and buy items, but they make it extremely difficult to level your highest level units. You technically could, and it's fine to do so to cap off a really close level up, but over leveling is extremely time consuming and not worth it.
Difficulty
This game is pretty tough, and I played on normal. Had some rough spots in the early game, but I attribute those mainly to my adjusting to the game and learning everything about it rather than map difficulty. But some maps are pretty tough. But it never felt overly unfair. It felt like my failures came more from improper planning and execution of strategies rather than the game being too hard/me being under leveled (cause I was a few levels under the recommendation during some chapters, but again this didn't feel like why I was having difficulty).
Realistically, I think only a few maps I had to wholely retry and rethink my strategy on, and I never had to do more than like, 2 or 3 attemtps before finding something that worked. Whether it was investing in some upgrades I didn't get the first time, choosing different units or just approaching the maps in different ways, I found a way that worked reasonably quickly and without headache. Now I say this, but imagining some of these maps on hard is making me shaky. Especially chapter 18. That one was definitely the hardest map in this playthrough.
I say all this but again, it's more of a fun difficulty than an unfair feeling one. This feeling is aided by the game not having a perma death mechanic. If a unit dies on a map, it sucks of course as they miss out on some experience and it makes it more difficult, but you can continue on with no problem afterwards. So you can fight tooth and nail down to where your last unit is left to win the map and that is a perfectly fine way to play it out. There are some rewards and benefits to not losing units, but none game breaking to force you to reset over and over.
Some smaller gameplay elements I liked
I like that elemental magic and items could affect the maps and enemies. Freezing tiles slowed movement, burning tiles did damage, lighting magic spread through water etc. I like the shops, you can technically grind for infinite money, but you're probably gonna be spending more than you think on items and weapon upgrades. The weapon system was cool, gaining additional skills and stat increases depending on how you choose to invest in your weapon upgrades was fun. Promotion felt well balanced, it doesn't reset your level so there's no point in waiting, promotion items themselves were limited, you definitely won't fully promote a full army in one go, so it makes you consider your promotions wisely.
Having an array of usable items to play with was fun, from healing potions with varying ranges, to items that could temporarily buff you or nerf enemies, to elemental battle items that could allow any unit to use an elemental power when needed (but much worse than a magic unit of course). And a couple units having skills that boosted how they use these consumables was cool. Equippable gear was fun, overall they were mostly stat buffs, but had some pretty unique items that made you think and rework who got what equipment each map.
Characters
I enjoyed all the characters I got, overall they were fun at minimum and each got deeper content as the game went on. This is helped ny the character stories feature, which is kind of like bonus cutscenes that primarily focus on one character to develop and tell the player more about. All the ones I saw were great, I don't know exactly how you unlock them at the moment. But I got a lot just by playing normally.
Serenoa
Serenoa is a great MC, the player choices don't feel like they overpower the core of his character, but his convictions you build still carry weight and importance. Overall he's your traditional young lord that tries to do his best, honor bound and wants peace. But I think his convictions gettong tested in a number of ways help Serenoa develop and add to the player's view of him and how they think he should act. Serenoa often gets put into situations where he must work against the wished of one of his most trusted friends. This results in powerful moments that test his resolve and convictions. The gameplay, Scales of Conviction, dialogue options all combine with the main story elements Serenoa gets to form a strong protagonist that the player views the story alongside.
Main Cast
I enjoyed the main cast, some more than others. You have a core of 8 characters you follow along the story events with and the 7 that aren't Serenoa, the main character, are who vote during the Scales of Conviction scenes. So you get to hear all of their opinions and points of view on each issue which I think greatly helps developing them. My favorites being Frederica, Anna and Benedict, as their stories I found most interesting and they have some fantastic scenes. But Hughette, Geela, Roland and Erador all have value as well. All of these characters are good at a bare minimum. Hughette and Geela I didn't think had too much that made them super interesting, but I enjoyed the moments they had a lot.
Other characters
The other playable characters you only get to see in their joining cutscene and individual character stories but like I said, all the ones I saw were good. My favorites being Narve, Piccoletta, Ezana, Julio, Medina and Trish. They all varied from just being fun characters to having some pretty compelling moments in their character stories. I liked how this game turned the classic NPCs of an RPG into playable characters, those being Jens the Blacksmith, Hossabara the Barkeep and Lionel the Merchant.
The non playable characters were good too, Symon was a lot of fun, though he unfortunately suffers from protagonist father disease :(, but he's still great. I liked the villains too, Thalas and Erika were great hateable pieces of shit. Gustadolph was a really cool villain. Exharme Marcial was my favorite minister, though Lyla was cool too. And characters like Dragan and Sylvio were fun too.
Other small things I liked about the game
The music was fantastic, really nails the medieval feel, my favorite track was definitely Until That Day, Frederica's main battle theme. It just felt so bountiful, hopeful and uplifting.
Voice acting was great. I played the game in English this time, I'll do Japanese next playthrough, but I loved the cast. Specially Serenoa, Frederica, Benedict, Roland, Erador, Symon, Gustadolph, Jerrom and Trish all had great performances from their VAs.
The visuals are great too, simple pixel styles come right are my weakness. The environments always felt so detailed and looked great visually, especially the water. I love the art style of the character portraits, definitely some great designs too.
New Game Plus seems very interesting and I am excited to play the other routes when I can, until then, this was an amazing experience to play. Just a fantastic game.
Story
The story was amazing. The branching paths that form when you use the Scales of Conviction are interesting and always fun to try to get the path you think best. But even aside from the decision points, all the consistent content is great too, great world building that's conveyed in the overworld map and the lore you find throughout the game. It is dialogue heavy, but the story being delivered in multiple different ways makes it more digestible I feel. From main story cutscenes, to side story events and individual character stories. As well as having interesting ways to acquire lore and information.
Those being exploration in the free roam sections, where you can gain information by talking to certain people or interacting with certain objects. Or you can buy small lore entries and stories from a shop (very cheap it's not a big deal) to read at your leisure. This lore is all neatly organized in a dedicated information tab in the menus.
The story starts out as your classic medieval fantasy tale usually does. A young lord is suddenly thrust upon a conflict he isn't ready for. During a seemingly mundane trip for the arranged marriage of said lord, fighting breaks out, as a result of scheming from people in power of this world. Quick to react, Lord Serenoa Wolffort and his army embark to find their path through the growing conflict. And how does Serenoa and the player find their path through it? With the game's core mechanic, the Scales of Conviction.
The Scales of Conviction are an interesting way to handle route splits and character decisions. Instead of the player simply picking whatever option they want. Serenoa puts the path they take up to a vote with his seven core allies, the results of said vote using the Scales of Conviction will decide what they do next. The player gets to contribute by trying to sway Serenoa's friends into voting for their desired outcome. This element is changed by a number of factors, certain information you discover in exploration phases will unlock more convincing dialogue options when trying to sway a characters opinion. Serenoa's own convictions, which the player gets to choose through a variety of dialogue options in the main story and a number of other factors, will also factor into this. In some decisions certain characters will be easy to sway, in others they may be so thick headed you might not be able to convince them to side with you. As well as some Scales of Conviction scenes having certain characters lock in their opinion before the player can begin to choose a path. Making the player pick which trusted ally they side with most and find the most reasonable.
As alluded to in the last paragraph, Serenoa's convictions play a big role in how the story and even gameplay plays out. As certain characters will join your army depending on what decisions you've made up until that point. I found that the choices you make and convictions you hold for Serenoa affected how I picked certain options, as I did not feel the Serenoa I've been playing with would make certain decisions, based on what I've chosen previously.
But apart from all of the decision elements the story is also great. Great character focused moments, a great main cast of Characters to see the story told through. Some entertaining characters to alleviate the drama and intensity of the bigger events. A large world and history to discover and a large array of characters to learn about, all of this combined provided a fantastic story, and again, I only played through once! Many differences big and small await me in the future.
For those who know I got the Morality ending and I thought it was a great ending. The final Scales of Conviction scene was quite conflicting. Each outcome having its' share of pros and cons. And each one forcing to side with or go against certain trusted allies. My only big story complaint, I can't really comment on now, as it's a decision I did not choose, at the time of the decision, it seemed dumb and out of character (those who know probably know what I'm talking about) but that could change when I play that route. Maybe it'll make sense when given more time. I'll play the other routes eventually, but for now. Just wow. Amazing story.
Gameplay
The gameplay was amazing as well. As a fan of Strategy RPGs this game definitely delivered while making itself stand out. It having an individual unit Turn order, based on unit speed and items, instead of a traditional "player moves all units then enemy moves all units" deal made the combat a lot more intense I felt. You needed to look ahead to see what enemies are moving when to determine how you should act. And the player and enemy both having ways to affect the turn order was great. Core combat elements were cool too, crits being guaranteed when striking from behind, and units being able to do follow up attacks when attacking an enemy with an allied unit on the opposite side made the positioning and directional orientation of your units important.
Map wise it was great. Not too big, some maps are even pretty tight on space to work with, but you have the tools to make it work. The elevation factor was really interesting and helped with strategy and was aided by your units different movement type and mobility skills. What I found most interesting was that the exploration phases you played, in which you walked around the different towns and other areas you visit in the story, would most of the time be the maps you fight in that chapter. So the player can gather information and learn the lay of the land before the fighting is even close to starting. The map elements all work together to help the player stay mindful of their surroundings, terrain, ally and enemy movement, choke points etc.
Unit wise, man it was incredible. Every unit is unique, there's no class or role overlap. Even if two units share a movement type like horse or hawk, they had vastly different roles. The different roles units can take from your classic dps, tanks, healers, supports etc. All provided an incredibly unique array of characters to play around with. Some units have skills that change how they use consumable items, some set traps, some can provide ladders to play around with map elevation, some units have buffs or nerfs, those of which even being unique between said units. Every unit has a unique role to provide your army, some maps will benefit or hinder different units, encouraging the player to experiment with each unit instead of just sticking with the same army. I used every unit at least a few times in my playthrough.
The way this game handles exp gain is great for this too, lower level units catch up quick while higher level units exp get restricted to stay on target with the recommended level of the map you're playing so you can't have any super over leveled units easily. The mock battles used as grinding both aid getting your weaker units up, getting money or materials to upgrade and buy items, but they make it extremely difficult to level your highest level units. You technically could, and it's fine to do so to cap off a really close level up, but over leveling is extremely time consuming and not worth it.
Difficulty
This game is pretty tough, and I played on normal. Had some rough spots in the early game, but I attribute those mainly to my adjusting to the game and learning everything about it rather than map difficulty. But some maps are pretty tough. But it never felt overly unfair. It felt like my failures came more from improper planning and execution of strategies rather than the game being too hard/me being under leveled (cause I was a few levels under the recommendation during some chapters, but again this didn't feel like why I was having difficulty).
Realistically, I think only a few maps I had to wholely retry and rethink my strategy on, and I never had to do more than like, 2 or 3 attemtps before finding something that worked. Whether it was investing in some upgrades I didn't get the first time, choosing different units or just approaching the maps in different ways, I found a way that worked reasonably quickly and without headache. Now I say this, but imagining some of these maps on hard is making me shaky. Especially chapter 18. That one was definitely the hardest map in this playthrough.
I say all this but again, it's more of a fun difficulty than an unfair feeling one. This feeling is aided by the game not having a perma death mechanic. If a unit dies on a map, it sucks of course as they miss out on some experience and it makes it more difficult, but you can continue on with no problem afterwards. So you can fight tooth and nail down to where your last unit is left to win the map and that is a perfectly fine way to play it out. There are some rewards and benefits to not losing units, but none game breaking to force you to reset over and over.
Some smaller gameplay elements I liked
I like that elemental magic and items could affect the maps and enemies. Freezing tiles slowed movement, burning tiles did damage, lighting magic spread through water etc. I like the shops, you can technically grind for infinite money, but you're probably gonna be spending more than you think on items and weapon upgrades. The weapon system was cool, gaining additional skills and stat increases depending on how you choose to invest in your weapon upgrades was fun. Promotion felt well balanced, it doesn't reset your level so there's no point in waiting, promotion items themselves were limited, you definitely won't fully promote a full army in one go, so it makes you consider your promotions wisely.
Having an array of usable items to play with was fun, from healing potions with varying ranges, to items that could temporarily buff you or nerf enemies, to elemental battle items that could allow any unit to use an elemental power when needed (but much worse than a magic unit of course). And a couple units having skills that boosted how they use these consumables was cool. Equippable gear was fun, overall they were mostly stat buffs, but had some pretty unique items that made you think and rework who got what equipment each map.
Characters
I enjoyed all the characters I got, overall they were fun at minimum and each got deeper content as the game went on. This is helped ny the character stories feature, which is kind of like bonus cutscenes that primarily focus on one character to develop and tell the player more about. All the ones I saw were great, I don't know exactly how you unlock them at the moment. But I got a lot just by playing normally.
Serenoa
Serenoa is a great MC, the player choices don't feel like they overpower the core of his character, but his convictions you build still carry weight and importance. Overall he's your traditional young lord that tries to do his best, honor bound and wants peace. But I think his convictions gettong tested in a number of ways help Serenoa develop and add to the player's view of him and how they think he should act. Serenoa often gets put into situations where he must work against the wished of one of his most trusted friends. This results in powerful moments that test his resolve and convictions. The gameplay, Scales of Conviction, dialogue options all combine with the main story elements Serenoa gets to form a strong protagonist that the player views the story alongside.
Main Cast
I enjoyed the main cast, some more than others. You have a core of 8 characters you follow along the story events with and the 7 that aren't Serenoa, the main character, are who vote during the Scales of Conviction scenes. So you get to hear all of their opinions and points of view on each issue which I think greatly helps developing them. My favorites being Frederica, Anna and Benedict, as their stories I found most interesting and they have some fantastic scenes. But Hughette, Geela, Roland and Erador all have value as well. All of these characters are good at a bare minimum. Hughette and Geela I didn't think had too much that made them super interesting, but I enjoyed the moments they had a lot.
Other characters
The other playable characters you only get to see in their joining cutscene and individual character stories but like I said, all the ones I saw were good. My favorites being Narve, Piccoletta, Ezana, Julio, Medina and Trish. They all varied from just being fun characters to having some pretty compelling moments in their character stories. I liked how this game turned the classic NPCs of an RPG into playable characters, those being Jens the Blacksmith, Hossabara the Barkeep and Lionel the Merchant.
The non playable characters were good too, Symon was a lot of fun, though he unfortunately suffers from protagonist father disease :(, but he's still great. I liked the villains too, Thalas and Erika were great hateable pieces of shit. Gustadolph was a really cool villain. Exharme Marcial was my favorite minister, though Lyla was cool too. And characters like Dragan and Sylvio were fun too.
Other small things I liked about the game
The music was fantastic, really nails the medieval feel, my favorite track was definitely Until That Day, Frederica's main battle theme. It just felt so bountiful, hopeful and uplifting.
Voice acting was great. I played the game in English this time, I'll do Japanese next playthrough, but I loved the cast. Specially Serenoa, Frederica, Benedict, Roland, Erador, Symon, Gustadolph, Jerrom and Trish all had great performances from their VAs.
The visuals are great too, simple pixel styles come right are my weakness. The environments always felt so detailed and looked great visually, especially the water. I love the art style of the character portraits, definitely some great designs too.
New Game Plus seems very interesting and I am excited to play the other routes when I can, until then, this was an amazing experience to play. Just a fantastic game.