This review contains spoilers
My feelings on Triangle Strategy have vacillated through the 50 hours I spent with it, but it is a consistently thought-provoking work that I ultimately found very enjoyable. My main focus in this review will be the narrative content, because Triangle Strategy is a very story-driven game. It strikes a pretty good balance between a traditional strategy RPG and visual novel, but the game has a distinct focus on narrative that is central to the game's experience. This often overshadows the combat.
The game is a collaborative effort Square Enix and Artdink, which is a development team that is little-known internationally outside of the A-Train strategy game series. It uses the "HD-2D" graphical style that combines SNES-era pixel art with pre-rendered backgrounds and effects, which I find quite charming. You know it best from Octopath Traveler, but I daresay it works even better in Triangle Strategy. The graphical fidelity of the game lends well to the grid-based maps of strategy RPGs, and the pixel art is of course beautiful. I never had readability issues, and the game does a good job of visually demarcating differing heights.
Overall, I think Square Enix's art direction on this game is top-notch. The character designs by Ayako Furukawa are so excellent, they have become one of my favorite aspects of the game. I particularly like the emphasis on different body-types and facial structure. Earlier this year I had a discussion with one of my friends about the art direction of Fire Emblem: Three Houses and nu-Fire Emblem in general, in which we felt that the character renders in those games, while pretty good in some areas, were becoming increasingly standardized and "pretty." I think the art style of Triangle Strategy is absolutely refreshing in comparison- each character design feels distinctive and expressive of their unique personalities.
While the gameplay loop has far less depth than Final Fantasy Tactics, Triangle Strategy boasts solid and challenging strategy gaming fitting of its pedigree. Combat sequences are tight and streamlined, given the rather basic character statlines and skill trees. While many combat effects are limited in scope, they are extremely impactful. Since everything hits very hard and you are often surrounded, crowd control is particularly high value, and most forms of crowd control are limited to a couple specific units. Unlike in Final Fantasy Tactics, these abilities come at an extreme premium. For example, the Charm effect is limited to just two units in the game, and Stop doesn't even show up until the penultimate map. Staples like Haste and Quicken are similarly limited.
This approach is rather entertaining from a teambuilding perspective and really helps to differentiate many of the playable units, making most of them have specific use cases that you might find very valuable for a given map. You might like Geela specifically because she can grant Revive when nobody else can, or you might prefer Medina as a healer because she can refill your "TP" to cast more skills. There is very little overlap in the cast outside of base archetypes and this is a major enhancement to the gameplay.
Even on "Normal" difficulty, the enemies have extremely challenging AI- always pathing to set up devastating combos and targeting weak links. Toward the mid to endgame, enemies become excessively damage sponge-y as well. With the exception of two tank-oriented characters, most of your units are also very frail. This means a slight misplay on your turn can result in an instantly dead unit (there is thankfully no permadeath system in this games.) Triangle Strategy was notably difficult for me, and I would imagine many casual players would have trouble with it. There is a difficulty toggle oriented towards people more interested in completing the story though, so it is not mandatory to have to struggle through the harder maps to experience the narrative.
In fact, considering the multiple endings and brancing paths of this game, that difficulty toggle feels nearly essential for people not interested in slogging through several dozens of hours of New Game+ playthroughs to recruit all the characters and get 100% completion. I know some people would have the time to devote to such a herculean effort, but I didn't feel that devoted to the game's combat systems that I would enjoy multiple high-difficulty playthroughs. This is actually another source of annoyance I had with the overall presentation of the game- the need for multiple playthroughs to unlock characters that are contingent upon specific story routes. I would hazard to say that this structure asks you to have a level of devotion to the game that might be unreasonable for many players. It is hardly a unique phenomena among tactical RPGs, but it is probably one of my least favorite aspects of the game.
Considering the truly stellar cast of playable units and the lengths you must take to get some of them, many don't get any screentime outside of the combat sequences. As I will discuss in the story section, the game is mainly concerned with the philosophies of the main characters and how they choose to act upon them. There are about 8 or 9 main characters in the game that receive this close focus, and there is excellent development of these characters' backstories and personalities. Unfortunately, no such care is given to the rest of the recruitable cast. They are given sufficient backstory and characterization, and none of them are truly one-note, but they have no bearing on the main narrative outside their individual appearances. Even some important NPCs within the story suffer this fate after you recruit them- their relationships with other characters never further explored once they join your army.
This is frustrating given how compelling many of these characters are, and the massive narrative potential some of their relationships entail. For example, you recruit two former generals who once fought on opposing armies in the previous war. Their optional story segments each explore their fascination with one another, and their desire to reconnect... and that is it. You recruit both of them, you can have them right next to eachother in combat, but it is never further explored. This sidelining of characters may somewhat be out of neccesity due to the structure of the game, but it nonetheless is missed potential for some very compelling character interaction. Granted, I know there is only so much time and resources that could be devoted to a game, and perhaps it is unrealistic to expect every character to get the same amount of love as Serenoa's inner circle. Yet some of the other characters ultimately feel like afterthoughts and just a few lines of dialogue could easily fix this. Compared to the extended character interactions in the Super Robot Wars series or even the support conversation system in Fire Emblem, this felt like a missed opportunity for a character-driven SRPG from Square Enix. There was no such opportunity in Final Fantasy Tactics, after all.
Story Discussion
"Your actions have meaning only if they hold true to your ideals."
― Ramza Beoulve, Final Fantasy Tactics
“What matters is not to know the world but to change it.”
― Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
It is impossible to appraise the story of Triangle Strategy without discussing the normative commitment to political ideology it asks us to consider. We're not asked what specifically the politics of House Wolffort are and to what ends they seek to accomplish, but rather what should those politics be? The central mechanic of Triangle Strategy's dense, branching narrative sections is the "Conviction" system, of which there are three different types of values: Morality, Liberty and Utility. Different actions will raise your conviction values, chiefly dialogue sections in which you speak to people and answer their questions on your viewpoints. These Conviction Values ultimately decide the path that Serenoa Wolffort takes as he navigates the complex political landscape of three opposing nations.
While it is easy to think of Morality, Liberty and Utility as competing ideologies within Triangle Strategy, they are in fact not so clear cut. Specific routes are associated with your three main allies; Frederica (morality), Benedict (liberty) and Roland (utility); but none of these characters are one-dimensional. They are spurred to action by nuanced belief systems and biases and ultimately follow their hearts more than their heads. The overall totality of their actions throughout the game do not fit so neatly into three distinctive categories, nor will yours.
In fact, Triangle Strategy's "Golden Ending" calls for a synthesis of actions and a rebuke of the idea that there is a rigid demarcation of solutions. The Golden Ending is a utopian fantasy when viewed within the context of the real world, as it espouses the idealist notion being that there is a way forward in which "no one is left behind." Yet, this same idealism colors the ultimate solutions of Frederica, Benedict and Roland. Each of their goals are strictly in service of their ideals, and they choose to disregard the consequences as a means to an end. Notably, these three characters are not simply pragmatic, cold or unfeeling. All three of them are shown to be good-hearted individuals who try to do the right thing. The stratification of their outcomes is instead owed to the consequences of their actions, and in the end, your allies will want a solution that best fits their ideals given the resources they have. The choices you make will paint each of them into a respective corner, in which their only chance of success lies in all-or-nothing gambits. They have to make sacrifices in order to get their resolution and they choose to do so, with Serenoa in tow. They stay true to themselves no matter what, and this is what makes each of them so compelling as characters.
All routes have to deal with the question of the Roselle, some in far more rephrensible ways than others- but the Morality/Frederica route cuts to the heart of the issue as Frederica herself is one of the Roselle. Once she has realized the full brunt of Hyzante's deception of the people of Norzelia and the true plight of the Roselle, Frederica's main goal is the liberation of her people. If you are to go down the Utility or Liberty path, Frederica remains steadfast in her desire to free her people from their repression, but the series of sacrifices you make in service of your ideals leaves you with little room to accomplish this. Roland and Benedict are thusly content to sideline (or even completely disregard) the plight of the Rosellans in order to achieve peace between the nations and achieve their goals. In the morality route, Frederica (with Serenoa's support) leverages whatever power she can to free them, and disregards the greater power struggle of Norzelia in order to do so. The Rosellan question is presented as sort of a trolley problem, particularly when filtered through Roland's perspective. Roland believes that Glenbrook should acquiesce to Hyzante, and in order to do so the Roselle must be kept enslaved and disenfranchised. In the eyes of the Utility route, this is presented as "sacrifice the few for the many." The game thusly seeks to portray Frederica's desires as moral and good, but myopic (save a few at the cost of many.)
The Golden Ending reconciles the idealism with the political realities faced by the other three story routes. The most helpful takeaway is that you can't effectuate your ideals without the necessary power to do so- whether that power is backed by popular support, political alliance or military strength. The Golden Ending certainly isn't perfect, because plenty of frankly implausible decisions needed to be made to get to the utopia it wants. On top of that, the "utopia" it speaks of is still beholden to issues of things like social class- in the end, a status quo is maintained with the specter of fair rule by characters who aren't portrayed as autocratic dictators. Roland is still a king, Glenbrook still has its nobles and those nobles still rule over peasants. In the end, the normative commitment that Triangle Strategy espouses does not go so far as to address this, but it at lest opens up the conversation and lets us think about these concepts a little deeper.
Also, Frederica was right.
The game is a collaborative effort Square Enix and Artdink, which is a development team that is little-known internationally outside of the A-Train strategy game series. It uses the "HD-2D" graphical style that combines SNES-era pixel art with pre-rendered backgrounds and effects, which I find quite charming. You know it best from Octopath Traveler, but I daresay it works even better in Triangle Strategy. The graphical fidelity of the game lends well to the grid-based maps of strategy RPGs, and the pixel art is of course beautiful. I never had readability issues, and the game does a good job of visually demarcating differing heights.
Overall, I think Square Enix's art direction on this game is top-notch. The character designs by Ayako Furukawa are so excellent, they have become one of my favorite aspects of the game. I particularly like the emphasis on different body-types and facial structure. Earlier this year I had a discussion with one of my friends about the art direction of Fire Emblem: Three Houses and nu-Fire Emblem in general, in which we felt that the character renders in those games, while pretty good in some areas, were becoming increasingly standardized and "pretty." I think the art style of Triangle Strategy is absolutely refreshing in comparison- each character design feels distinctive and expressive of their unique personalities.
While the gameplay loop has far less depth than Final Fantasy Tactics, Triangle Strategy boasts solid and challenging strategy gaming fitting of its pedigree. Combat sequences are tight and streamlined, given the rather basic character statlines and skill trees. While many combat effects are limited in scope, they are extremely impactful. Since everything hits very hard and you are often surrounded, crowd control is particularly high value, and most forms of crowd control are limited to a couple specific units. Unlike in Final Fantasy Tactics, these abilities come at an extreme premium. For example, the Charm effect is limited to just two units in the game, and Stop doesn't even show up until the penultimate map. Staples like Haste and Quicken are similarly limited.
This approach is rather entertaining from a teambuilding perspective and really helps to differentiate many of the playable units, making most of them have specific use cases that you might find very valuable for a given map. You might like Geela specifically because she can grant Revive when nobody else can, or you might prefer Medina as a healer because she can refill your "TP" to cast more skills. There is very little overlap in the cast outside of base archetypes and this is a major enhancement to the gameplay.
Even on "Normal" difficulty, the enemies have extremely challenging AI- always pathing to set up devastating combos and targeting weak links. Toward the mid to endgame, enemies become excessively damage sponge-y as well. With the exception of two tank-oriented characters, most of your units are also very frail. This means a slight misplay on your turn can result in an instantly dead unit (there is thankfully no permadeath system in this games.) Triangle Strategy was notably difficult for me, and I would imagine many casual players would have trouble with it. There is a difficulty toggle oriented towards people more interested in completing the story though, so it is not mandatory to have to struggle through the harder maps to experience the narrative.
In fact, considering the multiple endings and brancing paths of this game, that difficulty toggle feels nearly essential for people not interested in slogging through several dozens of hours of New Game+ playthroughs to recruit all the characters and get 100% completion. I know some people would have the time to devote to such a herculean effort, but I didn't feel that devoted to the game's combat systems that I would enjoy multiple high-difficulty playthroughs. This is actually another source of annoyance I had with the overall presentation of the game- the need for multiple playthroughs to unlock characters that are contingent upon specific story routes. I would hazard to say that this structure asks you to have a level of devotion to the game that might be unreasonable for many players. It is hardly a unique phenomena among tactical RPGs, but it is probably one of my least favorite aspects of the game.
Considering the truly stellar cast of playable units and the lengths you must take to get some of them, many don't get any screentime outside of the combat sequences. As I will discuss in the story section, the game is mainly concerned with the philosophies of the main characters and how they choose to act upon them. There are about 8 or 9 main characters in the game that receive this close focus, and there is excellent development of these characters' backstories and personalities. Unfortunately, no such care is given to the rest of the recruitable cast. They are given sufficient backstory and characterization, and none of them are truly one-note, but they have no bearing on the main narrative outside their individual appearances. Even some important NPCs within the story suffer this fate after you recruit them- their relationships with other characters never further explored once they join your army.
This is frustrating given how compelling many of these characters are, and the massive narrative potential some of their relationships entail. For example, you recruit two former generals who once fought on opposing armies in the previous war. Their optional story segments each explore their fascination with one another, and their desire to reconnect... and that is it. You recruit both of them, you can have them right next to eachother in combat, but it is never further explored. This sidelining of characters may somewhat be out of neccesity due to the structure of the game, but it nonetheless is missed potential for some very compelling character interaction. Granted, I know there is only so much time and resources that could be devoted to a game, and perhaps it is unrealistic to expect every character to get the same amount of love as Serenoa's inner circle. Yet some of the other characters ultimately feel like afterthoughts and just a few lines of dialogue could easily fix this. Compared to the extended character interactions in the Super Robot Wars series or even the support conversation system in Fire Emblem, this felt like a missed opportunity for a character-driven SRPG from Square Enix. There was no such opportunity in Final Fantasy Tactics, after all.
Story Discussion
"Your actions have meaning only if they hold true to your ideals."
― Ramza Beoulve, Final Fantasy Tactics
“What matters is not to know the world but to change it.”
― Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
It is impossible to appraise the story of Triangle Strategy without discussing the normative commitment to political ideology it asks us to consider. We're not asked what specifically the politics of House Wolffort are and to what ends they seek to accomplish, but rather what should those politics be? The central mechanic of Triangle Strategy's dense, branching narrative sections is the "Conviction" system, of which there are three different types of values: Morality, Liberty and Utility. Different actions will raise your conviction values, chiefly dialogue sections in which you speak to people and answer their questions on your viewpoints. These Conviction Values ultimately decide the path that Serenoa Wolffort takes as he navigates the complex political landscape of three opposing nations.
While it is easy to think of Morality, Liberty and Utility as competing ideologies within Triangle Strategy, they are in fact not so clear cut. Specific routes are associated with your three main allies; Frederica (morality), Benedict (liberty) and Roland (utility); but none of these characters are one-dimensional. They are spurred to action by nuanced belief systems and biases and ultimately follow their hearts more than their heads. The overall totality of their actions throughout the game do not fit so neatly into three distinctive categories, nor will yours.
In fact, Triangle Strategy's "Golden Ending" calls for a synthesis of actions and a rebuke of the idea that there is a rigid demarcation of solutions. The Golden Ending is a utopian fantasy when viewed within the context of the real world, as it espouses the idealist notion being that there is a way forward in which "no one is left behind." Yet, this same idealism colors the ultimate solutions of Frederica, Benedict and Roland. Each of their goals are strictly in service of their ideals, and they choose to disregard the consequences as a means to an end. Notably, these three characters are not simply pragmatic, cold or unfeeling. All three of them are shown to be good-hearted individuals who try to do the right thing. The stratification of their outcomes is instead owed to the consequences of their actions, and in the end, your allies will want a solution that best fits their ideals given the resources they have. The choices you make will paint each of them into a respective corner, in which their only chance of success lies in all-or-nothing gambits. They have to make sacrifices in order to get their resolution and they choose to do so, with Serenoa in tow. They stay true to themselves no matter what, and this is what makes each of them so compelling as characters.
All routes have to deal with the question of the Roselle, some in far more rephrensible ways than others- but the Morality/Frederica route cuts to the heart of the issue as Frederica herself is one of the Roselle. Once she has realized the full brunt of Hyzante's deception of the people of Norzelia and the true plight of the Roselle, Frederica's main goal is the liberation of her people. If you are to go down the Utility or Liberty path, Frederica remains steadfast in her desire to free her people from their repression, but the series of sacrifices you make in service of your ideals leaves you with little room to accomplish this. Roland and Benedict are thusly content to sideline (or even completely disregard) the plight of the Rosellans in order to achieve peace between the nations and achieve their goals. In the morality route, Frederica (with Serenoa's support) leverages whatever power she can to free them, and disregards the greater power struggle of Norzelia in order to do so. The Rosellan question is presented as sort of a trolley problem, particularly when filtered through Roland's perspective. Roland believes that Glenbrook should acquiesce to Hyzante, and in order to do so the Roselle must be kept enslaved and disenfranchised. In the eyes of the Utility route, this is presented as "sacrifice the few for the many." The game thusly seeks to portray Frederica's desires as moral and good, but myopic (save a few at the cost of many.)
The Golden Ending reconciles the idealism with the political realities faced by the other three story routes. The most helpful takeaway is that you can't effectuate your ideals without the necessary power to do so- whether that power is backed by popular support, political alliance or military strength. The Golden Ending certainly isn't perfect, because plenty of frankly implausible decisions needed to be made to get to the utopia it wants. On top of that, the "utopia" it speaks of is still beholden to issues of things like social class- in the end, a status quo is maintained with the specter of fair rule by characters who aren't portrayed as autocratic dictators. Roland is still a king, Glenbrook still has its nobles and those nobles still rule over peasants. In the end, the normative commitment that Triangle Strategy espouses does not go so far as to address this, but it at lest opens up the conversation and lets us think about these concepts a little deeper.
Also, Frederica was right.