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Project Triangle Strategy demo - review and feedback thread


Thane
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Hello chaps.

Last Direct, what really caught my eye was Project Triangle Strategy. Being a big tactics and strategy game fan, as well as someone who really values a good story, I was hoping for something to scratch that itch while I roll my thumbs waiting for the next scrap of Fire Emblem news.

Presentation

Triangle Attack's sprite work may be good, but I don't think it services the story it tries to tell, at least not when it comes to the cast. Every character seems to have official art - which is pretty damn good - but you have to click a button to see it, otherwise you're just watching these pixly chibi humans emote. The problem is that the sprites simply can't convey enough emotion or even individuality - one of the best things of Fire Emblem is that every character in your army is unique, and Project Triangle Strategem seems to opt for a similar approach, but the sprites don't look distinct enough for you to be able to tell what each character is about. You can press X when a character is speaking to get a picture of them, but it never changes expression or anything to fit the current situation. Some sprites also look vastlydifferent to their official art.

This would could easily be fixed by just including character portraits when they speak. Square Enix could use the official art they already have, and just draw some three or four expressions per character, with more for the main ones of course. I'm honestly baffled they didn't learn this after Octopath Traveler, which suffered from the same problem. This is something games haven't done for decades, so it's so weird seeing this in a modern game from a prominent studio.

So, you've got chibi sprites which don't really fit the tone of the game and can't convey the individuality of the characters, but I'm afraid there's one more issue: the voice acting. The English voice acting is...uneven, to say the best. Some actors sound like they're really trying, but some - especially the main character - sound like they had to memorize their lines and don't have the script in front of them. If the chibis don't take you out of it, the voice acting definitely will. The quality is so uneven and the delivery of some characters change seemingly mid-sentence. This is particularly bad since, like I just mentioned, the protagonist's performance is the worst. When Roland mourns his dead father, Serenoa is supposed to convey his sympathy, but he sighs in what sounds like annoyance. It made me laugh during what was supposed to be a serious moment.

Gameplay and writing may be king in a game like this, but when you just can't get into it and buy what the characters themselves are saying, you'll feel emotionally disconnected. Three Houses and Shadows of Valentia, regardless of whatever other problems they may have had, consistently managed to sell what was happening on-screen. So far, Triangle Shmiangle has not.

Story and writing

Triangle Circumference seemed like it had a lot of potential. A mixture of Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, and with the setting similar to Three Houses, I was hoping for some sweet sweet drama and tales of political intrigue. While this may come later, there are some major red flags and inconsistent writing in the demo.

The game all but starts with one massive issue which seems unlikely they'll address satisfactorily in the first chapters we haven't seen: Aesfrost's forces manage to seemingly teleport to the Glenbrook capital without anyone being able to tell. Aesfrost is located far to the north, surrounded by mountains with seemingly only one easy way in and out, and that goes through two Glenbrook High Houses territories. Even if they managed to convince House Tellior, whose leader is a coward, they'd also have to pass through or close to House Wolffort's territory, which is the domain of the protagonist. The logistics behind the attack which seems to set off the real beginning of the plot make absolutely no sense. I realize this might be addressed somehow, but this is a red flag for logistics being completely ignored. This wouldn't be the first military strategy game to basically ignore things like these, but it is very egregious here.

The villains thus far seem to be mustache twirling Saturday morning cartoon characters or the usual anime take on cowardly nobles. Maybe Gustadolph, who is portrayed as the main antagonist, has some kind of weird reason for what he's doing, but he doesn't have the charisma to sell it. The game pretends like he does, however, which is a problem.

Gustadolph keeps the "kind and benevolent king" prisoner, holds a speech about how Glenbrook betrayed Aesfrost during the opening of a joint mining operation. The fact we know this to be false doesn't matter, but what does matter is the people of Glenbrook cheering when Gustadolph speaks for some reason. Gustadolph makes king Regna confess to a crime he didn't commit under the threat of medieval gunpoint, and yet people seem to buy it? And yet in the very next scene, the narrator says the people are confused by Regna's death - why is the game including loud cheers during the pre-execution speech? There's a reason people don't trust people speaking in videos sent by kidnappers.

The core of the demo is the decision to give up Prince Roland so that House Wolffort and its allies live another day or fight a seemingly hopeless battle to defend him. On paper, this is a decent moral dilemma. In practice and with context, this doesn't work. You know Gustadolph is a lying and manipulative bastard, and you just spent great effort trying to keep Roland safe. It makes no sense for the cast to go "whew, we just saved Roland. Anyway, should we sacrifice Roland or nah?"

The Scales of Conviction is a very strange part of the story. With the power of democracy, you can use this family heirloom to make decisions to avoid regrets, but...putting votes in a hat and then sorting them would literally accomplish the same thing. During this phase the dialogue also seems to be incredibly mismatched. I played both choices, and when I spoke to Frederica about giving up Roland, which she passionately spoke against a minute before, it said she was "indifferent to your pleas", yet her position changed and she still voted to sacrifice Roland. I could also convince one of Roland's loyal soldiers, yet she remains in the party after he leaves, which is...awkward. When I convinced others to let Roland stay with us, Anna, who I thought was Serenoa's spy, said half-threateningly "don't make me regret this", which also doesn't seem to line up with the, er, medieval hierarchy.

The "I've had Roland in my party for five minutes but if anything were to happen to him I'd set fire to people's houses and then myself" route

Probably the most mainstream choice and honestly there's not that much to say here. The traps are convenient and I dislike the fact that the game assumes you used them all. It's also pretty frustrating that you've got two separate bonus conversations with people going "all according to keikaku".

At least this choice lines up with the rest of the game, however...

The "Oh hi Roland. Oh bye Roland." route

I'm sorry but what is this? Within minutes, Roland is convinced by the man who invaded his country to order the Wolffort house to attack the other loyal house. And the Wolfforts agree to take their army to the other house's doorsteps...is Roland okay? Did we drop him on the way from the castle?

So anyway, you fight against the other loyal lord in a typical "misunderstanding battle". These are not too uncommon in strategy games, and there are bad examples of this in Fire Emblem too, but that does not make this okay. Again, due to Aesfrost apparently having an army made up entirely of teleporting ninjas, no one in the Wolffort army notices them approaching, and now you're forced to fight against the other house...apparently. One would've thought these two houses would be in constant communication with each other, especially considering how fast armies move in this universe.

This entire battle felt contrived. It was built upon contrivances and poor communication between two houses which should've been talking to each other constantly considering the circumstances. While I understand the other house leader (whose name I've obviously forgotten) would be suspicious of Wolffort, he immediately jumps to conclusions and attacks the Wolffort army. Serenoa, in his idiocy, doesn't just lay down his arms to prove his innocence or anything, but just goes "fuck it, we're killing him".

I worry that this game is so focused on giving us choices that matter that they forget to make the choices make sense.

Gameplay

Honestly? Pretty good. Lots of things to keep in mind and I like the uniqueness of the characters thus far. I also liked the variety of the map layout and the different objectives seen thus far.

There is a lot of room for improvement here, however, but unlike the story, I suspect this is much easier to fix.

1) The camera is wonky and getting it in a good position was a struggle. This also affects how easily you can move your units.

2) It's slow. Really slow. Both versions of map seven take far too long and make me nervous to think of the final maps.

3) For some reason it says "search" even when you interact with things in the world, like a ladder.

4) I don't know what it is, I can't put my finger on it, but the UI felt...bad. Really bad. Like I couldn't view all the information available to me.

5) This might just be me which is why I saved it for last, but in the "let's send the prince to his doom" route, I couldn't use the zipline. I tried standing behind it, in front of it, at the side, click on it, but I couldn't see an option to use it despite Benedict telling me to use it in case of combat.

Summary

Project Triangle Democracy has many major issues which plague the demo. This is especially bad in terms of its presentation and story, and I worry the latter in particular will be hard to fix. There are leaps in logic, ignored logistics, and character interactions that seem inconsistent in addition to lackluster bonus scenes and uncharming villains. All in all, it feels amateurish, and while I realize this is a demo, I worry it's built on a foundation the developers will be hesitant to change.

Edited by Thane
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It honestly felt like playing an early beta version of the game, not a mostly finished title that needs some polish like UI tweaks. Dismal voice acting, perplexing writing choices and the presentation which leaves something to be desired. I'm definitely going to send feedback but I don't have high hopes. It's not going to be a title that's remembered fondly for anything besides gameplay if we can expect more of this. Related to what OP said about choices not really making sense, I fear the developers will be so focused on the mechanic of your choices affecting things, that they won't care about writing a believable narrative (and yes, that does seem to be a priority, not just the gameplay.)

I think I'd rather play FF Tactics, which already has more polished gameplay and charming visuals.

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My biggest issue is that the game feels really slow. I'm new to this sort of SRPG; the ones that I've played have a player phase and an enemy phase, but the active speed counter isn't doing it for me. I'll try to get past the "Burn down the houses" chapter, but it's rough.

I'm personally not too bothered by the presentation, but having to press a whole button to see the character portraits is pretty jarring. Games like this have just had the art show up when the character speaks for years. If anything there should just be a toggle to hide or display it when they are talking. The voice acting definitely felt mediocre at best, this is pretty early into the game so maybe it will improve. It was like that in Xenoblade 2 too, but hopefully things aren't too finalized and some revisions are made.

I didn't think too hard about some of logistics of the story and setting, but it's pretty nonsensical having seen it pointed out. I was taking everything with a grain of salt since you are thrown in a couple of chapters in, so there is a bunch of missing information that could help.

Generally you can tell that this game has a "Gameplay first" approach. Even the name Triangle Strategy (Working Title) gave me that impression from the Nintendo Direct. The whole "Let's hand over this important character to the villain we just saw unjustly kill said character's father, even after we risked our lives to protect him," bit made no sense. I wanted to explore the other option, but with how slow the current map is for me I probably won't get around to it.

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I’m not really one for writing huge blocks of text so I will be lazy and quote from elsewhere.

On 2/18/2021 at 1:22 PM, Sooks said:

Sooo Triangle Strategy thoughts in no particular order: 

• The music was really good.

• Battles took too long, adjustable game speed would be very very very appreciated.

• The UI in general was kinda bad. I’m not quite sure why but it was just... bad.

• The voice acting... good lord the voice acting.... it’s so bad... Frederica, Hughette, and Benedict were the only characters with good VAs, everyone else was just so... dull!

• The voting system is really cool.

• The game is overall fun.

• I liked the backstab feature.

• I think a lot of the skills were interesting.

• The story impacting stats being invisible to the player is not a good idea at all.

• Like Octopath before it, I really like the art.

Although now that I’ve finished the sacrifice the prince map, I have to say that I really don’t like it. It’s how you don’t do increased elevation in tactics games, don’t load the high up cliff with archers who can attack you but the only unit who can fight back easily is weak to arrows and will die if you send her in there, leaving your only choice to be to just climb up while magic and arrows unfairly rain down and kill half your army.

They literally had the perfect zip line thing positioned to fix this but it doesn’t work!? What was the point of that!?

I liked the other two maps though.

I see a lot of people complaining about the sacrifice the prince choice but I don’t see why for the choice itself. The characters had convincing arguments, and though they didn’t sway me, I could see why anyone would think that. I mean, the wolffort “demesne” was spared the war! I really don’t see how that’s such a bad decision...

All in all, I’m not actually that concerned about the story because this demo was clearly for gameplay purposes. They admit to just dropping us in the middle of it and saying “sorry if it doesn’t make sense”. I felt no reason to analyze all this when this is supposed to be the middle of a whole story. I don’t know everything.

Although I will say that the surrender the prince chapter is still stupid unless there are some very convenient rules. I’ve never been one for the forced/misunderstanding battle trope because they usually feel soooo unrealistic. It gives me Conquest vibes but not in a good way.

2 hours ago, Thane said:

The core of the demo is the decision to give up Prince Roland so that House Wolffort and its allies live another day or fight a seemingly hopeless battle to defend him. On paper, this is a decent moral dilemma. In practice and with context, this doesn't work. You know Gustadolph is a lying and manipulative bastard, and you just spent great effort trying to keep Roland safe. It makes no sense for the cast to go "whew, we just saved Roland. Anyway, should we sacrifice Roland or nah?"

They were just thinking to save the prince, not of the war that could now come to wolffort territory when they’re vastly outnumbered (the gameplay reflects this),

Quote

I played both choices, and when I spoke to Frederica about giving up Roland, which she passionately spoke against a minute before, it said she was "indifferent to your pleas", yet her position changed and she still voted to sacrifice Roland.

This is so you still get the suspense of seeing who votes what way, I think.

Quote

5) This might just be me which is why I saved it for last, but in the "let's send the prince to his doom" route, I couldn't use the zipline. I tried standing behind it, in front of it, at the side, click on it, but I couldn't see an option to use it despite Benedict telling me to use it in case of combat.

If it was the one on the right, that one doesn’t work.

39 minutes ago, LoneStar said:

I'll try to get past the "Burn down the houses" chapter, but it's rough.

As in hard or bad?

I made it through without using any traps, if you want help.

2 hours ago, Thane said:

The traps are convenient and I dislike the fact that the game assumes you used them all.

I didn’t use any of them and the dialogue reflected that.

Quote

It's also pretty frustrating that you've got two separate bonus conversations with people going "all according to keikaku".

What..?

Edited by Sooks
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it looks like some people ignored that part where they specifically said "don't worry if you can't undestand everything that happens in the story since these are mid-game chapters", and that you can speed animations up and skip dialogues by pressing and holding R

anyway, i really, really liked this demo, and while i agree they should polish the game a bit, it looks and plays very good imo, and the game's release is due for 2022, so they have all the time they need to fix what needs to be fixed
also, the game's main purpose, which is giving players multiple story choices and experiences, is already much better executed than both Fates and 3H, so there's that

4 hours ago, Thane said:

5) This might just be me which is why I saved it for last, but in the "let's send the prince to his doom" route, I couldn't use the zipline. I tried standing behind it, in front of it, at the side, click on it, but I couldn't see an option to use it despite Benedict telling me to use it in case of combat.

yes, it's you
if you tried using the right one, that's broken and you just can't (you figure that out by exploring the map prior)
if you went for the left one, then you didn't have to press any button nor select any specific command: quite simply, if a character is close to the zipline, it'll automatically extend that character's movement

4 hours ago, Thane said:

This entire battle felt contrived. It was built upon contrivances and poor communication between two houses which should've been talking to each other constantly considering the circumstances. While I understand the other house leader (whose name I've obviously forgotten) would be suspicious of Wolffort, he immediately jumps to conclusions and attacks the Wolffort army.

Wolffort surrended to Aesfrost, the very same country that invaded Glenbrook, killed its firstborn prince and beheaded its king, towards whom Falkes felt very deep trust and loyalty
though he was doubtful, Falkes accepted Wolffort's proposal for a meeting, except Aesfrost takes this as a chance to invade Falkes as well, while Wolffort had no idea Aesfrost would've done that, and this led Falkes to believe Wolffort's proposal was a lie and that they were already under Aesfrost's control
tl;dr Aesfrost left Wolffort no time to peacefully speak with Falkes, basically tricking them both

4 hours ago, Thane said:

Within minutes, Roland is convinced by the man who invaded his country to order the Wolffort house to attack the other loyal house. And the Wolfforts agree to take their army to the other house's doorsteps

Wolffort surrendered to Aesfrost, and Roland was literally in Gustadoph's hands, what were they even supposed to do?
if Wolffort refused to attack Falkes, then handing Roland over to keep Wolffort's citizens safe would've been completely useless, because Aesfrost would've 100% managed to "persuade" them 
if Roland refused, Gustadolph would've probably ordered to have Roland's sister killed or worse, so it's not like he had much room for choice
 

this is not Fire Emblem, you don't stop conflicts just because your heart is pure and your intentions are good
that's what i liked about Triangle Strategy the most, aside from gameplay

so yeah, while this demo certainly shows some flaws, the game's core is very good and i can only hope the final product can be just as good

Edited by Yexin
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1 hour ago, Sooks said:

They literally had the perfect zip line thing positioned to fix this but it doesn’t work!? What was the point of that!?

 

...you can actually fix it during the exploration part....

Then you use it to get the high ground on everyone after you kill the boss squad

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1 minute ago, Shrimperor said:

...you can actually fix it during the exploration part....

Then you use it to get the high ground on everyone after you kill the boss squad

But if you don’t fix it, like me going everywhere, then...

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3 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

But why wouldn't you fix it xD

Unless you ignore the exploration part...

I tried.

I talked to everyone, looked around (including interacting with it on both sides) and went in every building. It’s not like it was a forced dialogue choice.

Edited by Sooks
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Just now, Sooks said:

I tried.

I talked to everyone, looked around (including interacting with it) and went in every building. It’s not like it was a forced dialogue choice.

huh

Maybe you missed someone?

You just had to talk to someone, then their father, then them again and they will fix it

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3 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

huh

Maybe you missed someone?

You just had to talk to someone, then their father, then them again and they will fix it

Which one was his son? I only talked to everyone once, I remember the father saying something about repairs (I mean I tried to talk to the windmill guy twice because I guessed that he was his son but I guess not).

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5 minutes ago, Sooks said:

Which one was his son? I only talked to everyone once, I remember the father saying something about repairs (I mean I tried to talk to the windmill guy twice because I guessed that he was his son but I guess not).

Windmill guy
Then father in house

then windmill guy again

Maybe you had to check the broken zip before?

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3 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Windmill guy
Then father in house

then windmill guy again

Yep, I did that then.

3 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Maybe you had to check the broken zip before?

I did that too.

Inb4 you need one of the three invisible conviction stats high enough to do it.

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Not a fan of the overall combat. It feels like the combat of Divinity 2, but on a grid with worse controls. (I assume there´s a Water Puddle + Lightning Strike synergy? It never became relevant for me)

And the three maps they´ve shown aren´t that great either - though admittetly, reading through this thread so far seems I managed to miss the zipline fix.

I like how the mages just bonk the enemy with their staff and how ineffective it is.

AI is really passive. I just walked up Archer Wheat Field and the enemies that weren´t in range just stood there and did nothing.

 

The Thief and the Chicken Rider were fun to use though.

 

Ice Wall good.

Edited by Imuabicus
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2 hours ago, Yexin said:

yes, it's you
if you tried using the right one, that's broken and you just can't (you figure that out by exploring the map prior)
if you went for the left one, then you didn't have to press any button nor select any specific command: quite simply, if a character is close to the zipline, it'll automatically extend that character's movement

Yeah, I was informed of that later. That's pretty cool. I completely missed it because I only used the zipline on the higher platform. 

2 hours ago, Yexin said:

tl;dr Aesfrost left Wolffort no time to peacefully speak with Falkes, basically tricking them both

I'm aware of this, and I don't buy it. I don't buy that the Wolfforts wouldn't notice the Aesfrost army (same thing with the initial invasion), I don't buy that they wouldn't be exchanging letters before then, and I don't buy Wolffort not having any other option but to fight. 

2 hours ago, Yexin said:

Wolffort surrendered to Aesfrost, and Roland was literally in Gustadoph's hands, what were they even supposed to do?
if Wolffort refused to attack Falkes, then handing Roland over to keep Wolffort's citizens safe would've been completely useless, because Aesfrost would've 100% managed to "persuade" them 
if Roland refused, Gustadolph would've probably ordered to have Roland's sister killed or worse, so it's not like he had much room for choice

This all ties back to the decision to hand Roland away. It's beyond ridiculous - the characters don't have the slightest reason to believe Aesfrost wouldn't attack them after getting what they want anyway. They've literally already executed the king and conquered the capital.

It's also worth pointing out that Gustadolph does not threaten Cordelia or Roland or anyone else. He seems to be convincing Roland, which is something else entirely. Would he threaten Cordelia if Roland didn't fall for it? Maybe, but that isn't what we saw.

And I don't buy that there was no option for any kind of maneuvering. If the cast is this easily manipulated and spineless, then it won't be fun following them, that's for sure.

2 hours ago, Yexin said:

this is not Fire Emblem, you don't stop conflicts just because your heart is pure and your intentions are good

That's what you take out of both Fire Emblem and this demo of two chapters, one version of which has you pull off a seemingly impossible victory because you're doing the right thing?

4 hours ago, Sooks said:

They were just thinking to save the prince, not of the war that could now come to wolffort territory when they’re vastly outnumbered (the gameplay reflects this),

 

Sure, but you go to an extreme length to save the prince only to ditch him before next chapter even begins, for a conqueror who you know is not telling the truth. The fact that this causes a route split has me concerned for the game and its ability to give us reasonable choices.

4 hours ago, Sooks said:

this is not Fire Emblem, you don't stop conflicts just because your heart is pure and your intentions are good

What I mean is, if a character is holding a passionate speech about doing what's right, and you fail to convince her with the game saying "she remains indifferent to your pleas" or whatever it was, then her vote probably shouldn't change, right? The text didn't match what was happening in the game. 

4 hours ago, Sooks said:

What..?

Where's the confusion coming from? What bothered me was how you got multiple extra scenes of nobles twirling their mustaches and going "this may benefit us in the end!". Scheming nobles are fine and all, but getting four scenes split between two areas of people greedily rubbing their hands felt less like political intrigue and more like Saturday morning cartoon villainy.

Edited by Thane
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1 hour ago, Imuabicus said:

Not a fan of the overall combat. It feels like the combat of Divinity 2, but on a grid with worse controls. (I assume there´s a Water Puddle + Lightning Strike synergy? It never became relevant for me)

Yes, they showed it in the trailer.

Quote

Ice Wall good.

Oh yeah, this too.

17 minutes ago, Thane said:
Sure, but you go to an extreme length to save the prince only to ditch him before next chapter even begins, for a conqueror who you know is not telling the truth. The fact that this causes a route split has me concerned for the game and its ability to give us reasonable choices.

It’s not for a conqueror, the characters all make very clear that they think this is for the wolffort territory’s own good.

I wouldn’t say you go to an extreme length, you fight a couple of soldiers and Maxwell will handle some of them for you. And even then they all talk about how they had no idea what Aesfrost wants, but now they do and a lot of people could die, the choice seems very reasonable to me. Back when you were putting in all the effort, Aesfrost wasn’t threatening the land half the characters are in charge of or in power at.

19 minutes ago, Thane said:
What I mean is, if a character is holding a passionate speech about doing what's right, and you fail to convince her with the game saying "she remains indifferent to your pleas" or whatever it was, then her vote probably shouldn't change, right? The text didn't match what was happening in the game.

Fair enough. Maybe they’ll come up with something better to say instead like they should do with the name.

20 minutes ago, Thane said:
Where's the confusion coming from? What bothered me was how you got multiple extra scenes of nobles twirling their mustaches and going "this may benefit us in the end!". Scheming nobles are fine and all, but getting four scenes split between two areas of people greedily rubbing their hands felt less like political intrigue and more like Saturday morning cartoon villainy.

I didn’t know what you meant by all according to keikaku.

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9 minutes ago, Sooks said:

I didn’t know what you meant by all according to keikaku.

It's anime-speak. "Keikaku" being Japanese for "plan". As a term, it refers to someone smug and insistent their mwhahaha! scheme is going to be successful. The choice leave "keikaku" untranslated, I would hazard is to reference the fact it's an anime phrase, and because everything has a certain pretentious... je ne sais quoi when you leave it untranslated.

You can use this phrase lighthearted jokingly, or you use it as criticism. I believe it tends towards the former.

Edited by Interdimensional Observer
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16 minutes ago, Sooks said:

I wouldn’t say you go to an extreme length, you fight a couple of soldiers and Maxwell will handle some of them for you. And even then they all talk about how they had no idea what Aesfrost wants, but now they do and a lot of people could die, the choice seems very reasonable to me. Back when you were putting in all the effort, Aesfrost wasn’t threatening the land half the characters are in charge of or in power at.

They perform a daring rescue mission to the capital, which is overrun with soldiers from Aesfrost. They don't know what Aesfrost wants but there is no mystery about this being an invasion. The other country is waging war on Glenbrook. There is not an ounce of ambiguity about that or that rescuing the prince is an action that will commit Wolffort to fighting Aesfrost. Why did they bother to drag the prince back to their fort just to surrender later?

Edited by NekoKnight
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9 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

They perform a daring rescue mission to the capital, which is overrun with soldiers from Aesfrost. They don't know what Aesfrost wants but there is no mystery about this being an invasion. The other country is waging war on Glenbrook. There is not an ounce of ambiguity about that or that rescuing the prince is an action that will commit Wolffort to fighting Aesfrost. Why did they bother to drag the prince back to their fort just to surrender later?

That could be one of the points in the feedback, like, instead of ''fighting'' or ''giving up prince'' choice should be a earlier where it is ''save prince'' or ''gave up on him''

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1 minute ago, Shrimperor said:

That could be one of the points in the feedback, like, instead of ''fighting'' or ''giving up prince'' choice should be a earlier where it is ''save prince'' or ''gave up on him''

Exactly. The voting thing should have happened before they even left for the capital. Just say that Roland escaped to Wolfort territory on his own and you made the decision to turn him over to Aesfrost or defend him.

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53 minutes ago, NekoKnight said:

They perform a daring rescue mission to the capital, which is overrun with soldiers from Aesfrost. They don't know what Aesfrost wants but there is no mystery about this being an invasion. The other country is waging war on Glenbrook. There is not an ounce of ambiguity about that or that rescuing the prince is an action that will commit Wolffort to fighting Aesfrost. Why did they bother to drag the prince back to their fort just to surrender later?

I went back and looked and you’re right. I didn’t know they were performing a rescue mission, and the archduke who’s name I forgot literally offers Serenoa protection if he hands over Roland then and there, and he says no. Details are everything.

I mean yeah, he didn’t say anything about the Wolffort territory, but if Serenoa will just go along with whatever he wants the archduke really has no reason to do anything to them. So yeah, this is kinda stupid.

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I watched someone playing this and I'm not exactly sold on the plot. It feels kind of generic: 3 way war for resources, shaky truce is established, some sick shit is unearthed in the mines and corrupts the archduke, someone important gets offed, WW1 levels of accusations were made and we get the "eye for an eye" scene in the throne room of Glenbrook, the Jagen stays behind to hold off the general and might return in the future, and now we have the moral dilemma while one of your nobles is on the verge of becoming a quisling.

 

When I heard that this game was about democracy, I was hoping for some branching storylines earlier on in the game; hopefully that this is one of those scenarios.

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2 hours ago, Thane said:

I'm aware of this, and I don't buy it. I don't buy that the Wolfforts wouldn't notice the Aesfrost army (same thing with the initial invasion), I don't buy that they wouldn't be exchanging letters before then, and I don't buy Wolffort not having any other option but to fight. 

i mean, as i said, the 2 chapters we can play in this demo aren't the complete game's first 2 chapters, there's little meaning in your criticisms imho
not trying to dismiss them, mind you: i just think you're missing the point of this demo

2 hours ago, Thane said:

This all ties back to the decision to hand Roland away. It's beyond ridiculous - the characters don't have the slightest reason to believe Aesfrost wouldn't attack them after getting what they want anyway. They've literally already executed the king and conquered the capital.

It's also worth pointing out that Gustadolph does not threaten Cordelia or Roland or anyone else. He seems to be convincing Roland, which is something else entirely. Would he threaten Cordelia if Roland didn't fall for it? Maybe, but that isn't what we saw.

And I don't buy that there was no option for any kind of maneuvering. If the cast is this easily manipulated and spineless, then it won't be fun following them, that's for sure.

you see, that's the entire point of the game: it wants you to consider every possibility and then make a decision that, no matter what, will be hard to accept for someone
the game makes it pretty clear that Gustadolph wants Roland and that he wants him alive and unscathed for something we don't know and aren't expected to know, so attacking Wolffort would make no sense at all
would Gustadolph attack Wolffort no matter what Serenoa chose to do? maybe, but that isn't what we saw

i don't know what the dialogue between Roland and Gustadolph looks like in english (and i couldn't find a single playthrough on YT that follows this path), but in italian it goes like:
Gustadolph tells Roland he wants Landroy dead
Roland: "Have you gone mad?! I could never give such an order!"
Gustadolph: "If you even dare considering yourself a kingdom's prince, you must put your subjects' welfare first."
R: "And what would you mean by that?"
G: "There's no doubt that Landroy will revolt sooner or later. And when that happens, these lands will be plagued by war once again."
     "A good king must suppress a conflict in the bud. Are you, perhaps, not worried for the capital's people? For your sister?"

so yeah, while there's no clear threat hinting at Gustadolph attacking Glenbrook's people or killing Cordelia, they're strongly implied

2 hours ago, Thane said:

That's what you take out of both Fire Emblem and this demo of two chapters, one version of which has you pull off a seemingly impossible victory because you're doing the right thing?

i mean, if "burning your people's houses down with a secret mechanism because that's literally what might allow you to live another day" is the right thing for you, then by all means
the game makes it very clear: there's no correct answer, there's no right nor wrong, because no matter you decide to do, your actions will not have a 100% positive outcome

i want to make something clear as well, i don't want to start an unnecessary and unrequested discussion about a 2 chapters-long demo
i just wanted to share my opinions on some of the problems i've seen being brought up the most, that is all

Edited by Yexin
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So, finished turning triangles into squares today.

Presentation does need work. Sprite work's pretty good, not surprised because this is made by the Octopath Traveller people. Portraits aren't bad (though I think the Telliore guy should have been built like a reed myself), but yeah having the button to show them isn't the best, but it also causes me more issue when it pauses the spoken dialogue. A good compromise might be that X toggles portraits. I think this would be fine as the camera tends not to be moved during cutscenes and even if you can move the camera around between dialogue options I don't think that should cause any problems.

What killed it was the lack of optimisation, alongside the way scenes ended up being laid out. I had a more noticeable slowdown on the Falkelands map, which definitely hurt things as I climbed up. The load times were also bad, combined with the numerous shorter cutscenes to make things more irritating than they had to be.

We don't know much of the story for sure but it's pretty easy to intuit what we do know; there's a plot around the previous Archduke's death we know the truth of, but which need to gather evidence of. Honestly with all the NPCs we have seen very limited characterisation so far (to the point of caricature for the Archduchy royals and Hyazante's leaders so far), with the most being given to Lord Falke aside from player characters, which have been mostly alright so far, though again this is based on what we have so far. With the story itself, yeah relatively bog standard honestly. We get a pretty archetypal cast of playable characters, villains and NPCs so far, with little to really make them stand out so far. Hopefully there'll be more in the next year to help there.

On the sound, music's mostly pretty dang good, while the voice acting will probably need revision for sure.

As for gameplay, definitely the highlight so far. Yeah there are issues now, such as the handling of characters on being knocked out and the UI. I find the press X to wait thing a minor issue, but one I'd still have to get used to. What I love about the move/action system is that you can have some nice ways of handling things because you are free to do one before the other, a thing Anna absolutely loves as she can take an action, move and take the other. And the characters all have different skillsets that can be used very well actually, Anna aside I am really curious about the Shaman character's full skillset because that had some potential imo, while I got to appreciate the mages a ton on the Wolffort map with their skills working much better.

On the map gimmicks, it was frustrating to realise all too late how the pulley system worked, In case you're wondering, you just look at the elevated area if your unit's in range of the pulley, see you can move there and do so. This had no guide in the gameplay unlike the flaming statues. I also found it strange the fire didn't seem to spread in the wheat, though I didn't see as long as others might because the Shaman used her rain spell to prevent me dealing with that problem. I tried to clear the other map without using the flame statues to disastrous results as most of my units got defeated when my attempt to funnel everyone went wrong. And I still find it harsh that reinforcements came in from the part of the map you start at.

Then there's the gameplay around the Scales of Conviction. We didn't get to see much from this outside the scene between the two chapters and I felt it was a nice demonstration of the potential in it. Unlocking dialogue options by finding specific things was neat, but more than that I liked that it wasn't clear these new options would improve things or not, really encouraged trying what your felt worked in the moment you were playing. How well this will work with the story itself is an understandable concern though. The Scales of Conviction themselves might be a contrivance, but it allows for a bit of theatrics to proceedings, so I'm going to allow it for now.

In terms of characters that are unlocked on the basis of the three paths, I didn't really try to mess with this too much, but I would like to see the differences because there is. Between the two paths I ended up getting the Shaman and the Apothecary characters on the treachery route and the Shaman on the loyalist route, where I'm certain I got the shaman from a specific choice with Frederica in the talks before the big decision on the same decision.

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1 hour ago, Dayni said:

In terms of characters that are unlocked on the basis of the three paths, I didn't really try to mess with this too much, but I would like to see the differences because there is. Between the two paths I ended up getting the Shaman and the Apothecary characters on the treachery route and the Shaman on the loyalist route, where I'm certain I got the shaman from a specific choice with Frederica in the talks before the big decision on the same decision.

On my run where I didn’t even attempt to persuade Frederica because I was attempting to save the prince I got the shaman. I think it’s tied to the dialogue options that show the little scale symbol afterwards, because I changed those my second time around and instead of getting the shaman, I got the advisor and the apothecary. (I got the advisor before I even made the “big decision”.)

Edited by Sooks
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