Triangle Strategy Thread

[MagicCanonBalls]

On 2/14/2022 at 7:02 AM, Dayni said:

How does he play? Any noteworthy skills?

Asking as I wanted to keep playing with the file I had but am curious about the guy who wasn't in the first demo if I recall correctly.

He is not in the 1st demo. He is a bow unit on foot with ability to set trap, so far that's it. If enemy pass by the tile the trap is on it deals some dmg. I like his character so far but combat wise I prefer the ice mage for his ice wall skill, and magic just look fancier personally.

I stumbled upon character portraits and can't help but feel like they should have switched Roland's with his brother

This is supposed to be a guy who is adventurous.

Spoiler

 

And this is his brother who is all about pride of noble and disagree with his younger brother lifestyle.

Spoiler

 

[Punished Dayni]

6 hours ago, MagicCanonBalls said:

This is supposed to be a guy who is adventurous.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

And this is his brother who is all about pride of noble and disagree with his younger brother lifestyle.

  Reveal hidden contents

Their expressions and wear do clash with their identity huh?

Like, it's still obvious Frani is the older of the two and I'd argue his attire would still be fine, but yeah their expressions do not help and while I could buy Roland wearing that to downplay his status as prince, it's not like everyone hasn't known so far in game.

6 hours ago, MagicCanonBalls said:

He is not in the 1st demo. He is a bow unit on foot with ability to set trap, so far that's it. If enemy pass by the tile the trap is on it deals some dmg. I like his character so far but combat wise I prefer the ice mage for his ice wall skill, and magic just look fancier personally.

I could see the traps being useful in tight corridor maps, but Corentin's ice wall can have similar effect with ranged support.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Dayni

[eclipse]

I have a month and a half to finish off my games?!  Hoo boy.  Yes, I'm picking this up!

[Fabulously Olivier]

My preorder is in. Gamestop's got a cash back promotion for this game with honey today, by the way. Kinda helped me make the jump, when I would have otherwise waited for a larger discount.

Edited February 25, 2022 by Fabulously Olivier

[MagicCanonBalls]

While replaying the 1st demo I realized something, we could recruit all 3 optional characters here. But we don't know the choices the dev made in the previous chapters, does this means we could get locked out of recruiting them without knowing until later on? Like maybe 5 chapters later then only we will discovered that we don't have enough points to recruit them.

[Armchair General]

Well, the game's scenario layout has been datamined and posted on 4chan, if anyone's interested.

[Corrobin]

Game is out now!

[Etrurian emperor]

Seems Triangle Strategy hasn't exactly blown up in the Fire Emblem community. That might be a bad sign for the game's sales. 

Its quite good so far though. 

[Armchair General]

6 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Seems Triangle Strategy hasn't exactly blown up in the Fire Emblem community. That might be a bad sign for the game's sales. 

I'm not sure if this will be an accurate barometer for the game's sales. It's an lot closer to Tactics Orge than FE. But it's kind of early to tell, at this point, considering that it was released yesterday.

[joevar]

i kinda disagree also. FIre emblem community not exactly a paragon of SRPG standard. or rather its community member cant even represent the voices of FE fans, so how could it become barometer for other franchise with different gameplay. maybe there are other forum where people are excited about Triangle

[Etrurian emperor]

I'd say the interest of Fire Emblem fans is a decent enough benchmark. Its now among one of the bigger strategy games on the market so there should be a lot of overlap. I also suspect it featuring semi prominently in directs was partially to sell it to the FE audience. But its not just here. Gamefaqs, reddit, tvtropes and whatnot are so far kinda quiet on the game. 

Which is a shame because its a quality game that deserves success. I have my nitpicks but its quite good. I think the gameplay manages to set itself apart from Fire Emblem due to the lack of perma death and each unit being more personable. There's really only a single general, just as there's only a single spy, pony rider or fire mage. The importance on positioning your units and the need to flank or tag team the enemy is also a very nice, very fun gimmick, just as the ability to incorporate heights or terrain effects in your strategies. The normal difficulty seems to provide a decent amount of challenge.

My biggest nitpick would ironically be the much lauded Scales of Conviction mechanic. Its never really a challenge to get the outcome you want. Normally the votes of your party members end into a neat draw with one or two party members being undecided and not particularly hard to convince. That your party is almost always split evenly in the middle also makes it feel somewhat artificial. You'd imagine that a ''suicidal'' option like not surrendering the prince would be a harder outcome to achieve but its just a choice like any other. Selling your subjects into slavery is simultaneously not particularly hard to do. Or perhaps I'm just a master at Democracy and always get the outcome I want.

The story is overall quite good with an interesting world and more nuanced and political scenarios rather than the evil cults and insane dragons FE usually goes with. My only real complaint is that like Fire Emblem the game is often a bit hesitant to really commit to your more morally shady choices. Often when taking the more ruthless ''utility'' path the story sends their versions of Hans and Iago to force the shady actions to come to pass rather than the player's hands getting too dirty. The demo for instance didn't have the Heroes fight for Aesfrost against their countrymen through grinded teeth, but instead had Aesfrost manipulate your party into fighting. That somewhat sets the theme for another utility mission. One of the trailers showcases on option about selling your subjects into slavery......

Spoiler

You'd think selling your subjects is enough cause for them to violently resist, but instead a fight ensues not because you want to sell them into slavery but because ''Iago'' starts murdering people to ensure violence is the only option. And to top it all off you still get your alliance with Hyzante and a title of Saint even if you refuse to sell your subjects which makes the utility path kinda unrewarding. If the game ask you to be such a scumbag then I don't think its quite right to leave you empty handed after doing so.

 

[Alastor15243]

10 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I'd say the interest of Fire Emblem fans is a decent enough benchmark. Its now among one of the bigger strategy games on the market so there should be a lot of overlap. I also suspect it featuring semi prominently in directs was partially to sell it to the FE audience. But its not just here. Gamefaqs, reddit, tvtropes and whatnot are so far kinda quiet on the game. 

Which is a shame because its a quality game that deserves success. I have my nitpicks but its quite good. I think the gameplay manages to set itself apart from Fire Emblem due to the lack of perma death and each unit being more personable. There's really only a single general, just as there's only a single spy, pony rider or fire mage. The importance on positioning your units and the need to flank or tag team the enemy is also a very nice, very fun gimmick, just as the ability to incorporate heights or terrain effects in your strategies. The normal difficulty seems to provide a decent amount of challenge.

My biggest nitpick would ironically be the much lauded Scales of Conviction mechanic. Its never really a challenge to get the outcome you want. Normally the votes of your party members end into a neat draw with one or two party members being undecided and not particularly hard to convince. That your party is almost always split evenly in the middle also makes it feel somewhat artificial. You'd imagine that a ''suicidal'' option like not surrendering the prince would be a harder outcome to achieve but its just a choice like any other. Selling your subjects into slavery is simultaneously not particularly hard to do. Or perhaps I'm just a master at Democracy and always get the outcome I want.

The story is overall quite good with an interesting world and more nuanced and political scenarios rather than the evil cults and insane dragons FE usually goes with. My only real complaint is that like Fire Emblem the game is often a bit hesitant to really commit to your more morally shady choices. Often when taking the more ruthless ''utility'' path the story sends their versions of Hans and Iago to force the shady actions to come to pass rather than the player's hands getting too dirty. The demo for instance didn't have the Heroes fight for Aesfrost against their countrymen through grinded teeth, but instead had Aesfrost manipulate your party into fighting. That somewhat sets the theme for another utility mission. One of the trailers showcases on option about selling your subjects into slavery......

  Reveal hidden contents

You'd think selling your subjects is enough cause for them to violently resist, but instead a fight ensues not because you want to sell them into slavery but because ''Iago'' starts murdering people to ensure violence is the only option. And to top it all off you still get your alliance with Hyzante and a title of Saint even if you refuse to sell your subjects which makes the utility path kinda unrewarding. If the game ask you to be such a scumbag then I don't think its quite right to leave you empty handed after doing so.

 

Good lord, I just completed that segment of the game last night, and that entire section made my skin crawl. It felt so out of character for Serenoa to even be considering condemning the Roselle to work in an almost literal salt mine. Enduring what felt like half an hour of "I don't know what the answer is" before making the obvious decision to protect the Roselle was probably the most uncomfortable a game has ever made me. Thankfully it was followed by the most satisfying battle in the entire game so far, with really awesome music.

Also, it broke my heart that the usually-neutral Anna, my favorite character in the game, had decided that selling out the Rosellans to slavery was the hill she wanted to die on.

This also cemented my hatred of Benedict. The fact that anyone who routinely did what he told them would act barely distinguishably from Silvio Telliore speaks volumes.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Alastor15243

[Etrurian emperor]

28 minutes ago, Alastor15243 said:

Good lord, I just completed that segment of the game last night, and that entire section made my skin crawl. It felt so out of character for Serenoa to even be considering condemning the Roselle to work in an almost literal salt mine. Enduring what felt like half an hour of "I don't know what the answer is" before making the obvious decision to protect the Roselle was probably the most uncomfortable a game has ever made me. Thankfully it was followed by the most satisfying battle in the entire game so far, with really awesome music.

To be fair not completing the investigation section properly after protecting the Roselle can trigger a non standard game over where Hyzante destroys you so Serenoa struggling with either selling them or getting destroyed does have some merit to it. But I agree that not selling them off really would be the obvious decision. 

So far ''neutral'' Hyzante does seem significantly more vile than invading Aestfrost. Apparently the citizens of Glenbrook don't even have it so bad after the invasion while Hyzante has its slavery and long list of people just dying to get away from there. Also its not a spoiler since I don't know the answer yet, but if that ''goddess'' who's suspiciously always hidden behind a curtain and which suspiciously only the pope is allowed to lay eyes on doesn't turn out to be fake I'll eat my socks. Then again Hyzante does seem the be the most interesting of the three nations and it has the best character designs.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Etrurian emperor

[Alastor15243]

1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

Also its not a spoiler since I don't know the answer yet, but if that ''goddess'' who's suspiciously always hidden behind a curtain and which suspiciously only the pope is allowed to lay eyes on doesn't turn out to be fake I'll eat my socks.

Literally my exact thought when I was introduced to that whole thing in Chapter 3.

 

1 hour ago, Etrurian emperor said:

So far ''neutral'' Hyzante does seem significantly more vile than invading Aestfrost. Apparently the citizens of Glenbrook don't even have it so bad after the invasion while Hyzante has its slavery and long list of people just dying to get away from there.

Yeah honestly I'd much rather fight them than Aesfrost at this point. I wanna liberate the Rosellans from that damned salt labor camp, and I really hope I get an opportunity.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Alastor15243

[Armchair General]

4 hours ago, Etrurian emperor said:

I'd say the interest of Fire Emblem fans is a decent benchmark. Its now among one of the bigger strategy games on the market so there should be a lot of overlap.

Well, most of the great strategy games that are coming out, nowadays are on the PC; whereas there's only an handful of them for the Switch. Outside of the upcoming Rabbids crossover and Advance Wars, there really isn't an lot going on with the genre. Everything is just old stuff making an comeback.

I'm still on the fence on actually buying this game, mostly because I already know most of the plot from lurking on 4chan. I'll probably get Dark  Deity or Langrisser, at this rate.

[vanguard333]

I finally tried some of the demo for Terrible Name (I know the actual name is Triangle Strategy, but with a name like Triangle Strategy, I refuse to call it anything other than Terrible Name). I didn't get past chapter 1, so this is all just first-impressions, but I had to vent about my experience trying the game for the first time:

(By the way, feel free to tell me if I missed something or I need to 'git gud')

Gameplay:

Spoiler

First of all, the gameplay overall seems fine so far; I actually quite liked the individual character turn order system, but the controls are a massive pain. The game will show the player a million different things about the gameplay, but won't tell the player a thing about how the controls operate. I accidentally ended a character's turn twice simply because I was trying to figure out what each button does in this game; why is something like "end the character's turn with not even so much as an 'are you sure you want to end the player's turn'?" mapped to multiple buttons (+ and B); something like that shouldn't be mapped to any buttons because something like that shouldn't even be in the game; there should always be at least an "are you sure" in case of an accidental button press. Fire Emblem understands this; why not this game?

Moreover, the game is so cluttered with indicators for various things that should probably be mapped to toggles, but then it won't show stuff like enemy movement range; it'll only show movement-&-attack range as all one thing (where Fire Emblem at least differentiates movement and attack by color). I spent what I played of the first chapter largely confused.

Finally, the save system: I'm someone who much prefers to be able to save at any point in a tactical RPG. This game tells the player that you can save at any point outside of battle, there's an auto-save system, and that there's a suspend-save during combat. All fine, I guess, except it doesn't say where the suspend-save is in the menu, or even how to access the menu during combat! Who thought this was a good idea?! I didn't finish the chapter, as I was having a rough time due to all of this, so, because I couldn't find the suspend-save, I have made literally zero progress.

 

The Moral Choice System:

Spoiler

The trailers could not stop going on about how unique and innovative the Morality, Utility & Liberty scale system would be among moral choice systems and how it would avoid all the usual problems with moral choice systems in games... and I watched those trailers and was skeptical, and so far, I was right to be skeptical.

For one thing, hiding the numbers from the player doesn't mean anything; you present them with a non-diegetic and numerical moral choice system, they will naturally be thinking about the numbers; all hiding those numbers does is create guesswork as to which options do what. That would be fine if it were intuitive which options would lean toward what values; at least initially in order to ease the player into the system. But this game doesn't do that; literally the first dialogue option was Serenoa telling the bandits either, "It doesn't matter who I am; I know you're bandits", "I give you a chance to surrender peacefully", or "Are the two of you father and daughter?" My first thought, naturally, was that the first option was utility, the second was morality, and the third was liberty. I looked online, and it turns out I couldn't have been more wrong: "I know you're bandits" is somehow the liberty one, "I give you a chance to surrender peacefully" is somehow the utility option, and the father & daughter one is the morality one. How?!

This reminds me of another problem: I have yet to see a dialogue system that, 100% of the time, tells the player "this option has the character say x" and the character actually says x if the player selects it. There is inevitably a time when the player sees an option that sounds like it has the character say x, when it actually has them say y. Tying numerical values to dialogue options just makes this worse.

 

Edited March 9, 2022 by vanguard333

[Armchair General]

@vanguard333 the New Game+ mode is supposed to be relatively transparent with the conviction system, from what I've heard. But that also means that you'll be running through the game blindly farming points to "randomly" unlock characters that you have no clues about their specialties until you actually get them.

But the voting system is relatively straightforward, provided that you're adept at gathering information.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Armchair General

[vanguard333]

16 minutes ago, Armchair General said:

@vanguard333 the New Game+ mode is supposed to be relatively transparent with the conviction system, from what I've heard. But that also means that you'll be running through the game blindly farming points to "randomly" unlock characters that you have no clues about their specialties until you actually get them.

But the voting system is relatively straightforward, provided that you're adept at gathering information.

I see. Honestly, I don't really want to farm points; I just want what my choices represent to make sense. If I play the game, I will play through it relatively blind (I say "relatively" because I know about the golden ending).

Thanks for letting me know that the voting system is straightforward.

What did you think of what I said about the controls?

[Etrurian emperor]

Here are some thought about some units in no particular order.

Anna: She's not as broken as some people say. Her damage output is kinda bad even when backstabbing. However she's consistently useful. Unlike most units Anna can always do something with her high movement, easy access to backstabs, debuff skills or even just making herself invisible. Mages must occasionally restock their tp, most melee fighters have poor range and Benedict isn't really useful unless buffing but Anna always has something to do. Plus she's cute. 

Erador: He's a very valuable teammate. His high defense, ability to force other units to draw their attacks on him and being one of the few units who counterattacks when attacked makes him really useful. Its a surprise that a ''general'' is so viable. Plus he's cute. He seems the type to cry his eyes out at Seranoa's wedding and in general is just a lovable oaf. 

Ezana: The Shaman girl from the demo. She's probably my favorite mage. Lightning is easily the best element due to (possibly) paralyzing the enemy and depriving them of a turn. With her rain dance she can create puddles which allows her to zap several enemies at once. The puddles are created randomly though so its not always reliable and it does friendly fire damage too

Ricken...um I mean Narve:  He's a very versatile red mage. He's the only character able to use all types of magic and he can even heal too. It makes him rather useful. Plus he has a cute hat. 

Benedict: He's only really useful when buffing others but his buffs are handy to have around. He's especially handy when allowing a unit to move immediately or attack twice. For a support unit he's also kinda tanky

Hughette: She's easily one of your most reliably units. She has high mobility, high range and being able to blind or immobilize your enemy is always useful. 

Frederica: She's a really basic mage. Not as versatile as Ezana or Ricken. Mostly she's just a pure damage orientated mage and she does that very well. She has a lot of firepower and some attacks hit multiple characters at once. She's not a vital member of the team but she'll be useful if you take her along.

Roland: He fell off kinda early. He's surprisingly frail and doesn't do all that much damage. 

Jens: He's a really gimmicky situational unit but he's great fun. Having a catapult trap shoot your enemies far away is funny, and depending on the map him creating ladders is very useful. He can also delay enemy turns for some time. 

Edited March 9, 2022 by Etrurian emperor

[Armchair General]

14 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

What did you think of what I said about the controls?

Can't say much about them, given that I never played the demo. But the UI feels an little bit cluttered.

[Alastor15243]

Once I unlocked Frederica's weapon ability that gives TP on a successful kill and gave her the red anklet that gives her attack buffs on a kill, it became crazy easy to steamroll with her. And it freed Mr. Strategist to buff and TP boost Narve.

[Etrurian emperor]

Some character and story thoughts. 

Gustadolph: The grand villain of the game. He's a rather interesting case study since the same aspects that make him a strong antagonist also makes him a rather weak one. He's no doubt ruthless, imposing and effective but his plans would be so much easier to achieve if he didn't go out of his way to be the biggest prick possible. He's essentially his own worst enemy. His takeover of the Kingdom is swift and as early in the demo he's shown to be clever in how he's incorporating Glenbrook into his realm. Later events explaining the logic behind the invasion and his true goals also show him as forward thinking and very strategic. On the other hand....

Spoiler

In the end all his grand plans unravel before the final act and he's pretty much left with nothing. His conquest of Grenbrook is undone, his siblings are dead and his kingdom is on the verge of civil war. And its all his own fault. Gustadolph is not around to protect his holdings in Glenbrook because his uncle is plotting against him, but the bad relation with his uncle is entirely his own doing. The family feud also delays the creation of his super weapon which gives Hyzante vital time to chase him out of Grenbrook. His siblings bitterly note that the super weapon would have been done already if Gustadolph hadn't murdered his cousin on a whim. In the route I took the archduke is left becoming the junior partner of house Wolfford and as Gustadolph notes all the cards Sereneoa and Benedict use against him would have been his own cards if he hadn't gone out of his way to murder his cousin for fun. Him being such a prick will likely also drive general Avlora away in other routes. 

Thalas and Erika: They're not particularly interesting since all they do is go around being irredeemably evil all the time. Though its at least to their credit that despite being depicted as slimy, spoiled suck ups they do not seem to be incompetent. Thalas is often asked by his brother to prepare things and its never suggested that he does so poorly. So that's something I guess. 

Roland: The longer the story goes on the less sympathetic he becomes. To the point I actually find him to come off remarkably cruel at one point. Still he's a good character since its easy to see why he behaves like he does, and its easy to feel for him since as early as the demo the story has been making his life miserable. 

Spoiler

But in the end him just wanting to abandon his kingdom to Hyzante reflects poorly on him. Its particularly vile that he wants to keep the Roselle enslaved and that he tells Frederica to her face that he finds her people acceptable sacrifices for his goals. Still its understandably why he just wants to get away from it all. The previous chapters showed that his stint of kingship has been a complete disaster. His subjects fear and resent him and he feels stiffled by his new position. The game also takes the rather brave step by clearly spelling out Roland is completely unsuited to rule. Even Iago...um I mean Patriatte sees Roland is blinded by revenge and that he's going to drag an unwilling Grenbrook to war if left to his own devices.  

Benedict: Often the ''master strategist'' or ''frighteningly intelligent advisor'' seem to be a case of telling instead of showing. Its easy for such a character to have his praise feel unearned of have him go through the motions. All in all I'd say Benedict serves his role pretty well. Throughout the game Benedict's generally on the ball and gives very rational advise. He serves his role well but for most of the game he's also a rather standard depiction of his archetype. 

Spoiler

However in the third act Benedict really pulls out the stops and shows he's something quite special. If you take his path then both politically and tactically he genuinely has thought of everything and is already miles ahead of everyone else in Norzelia. 

Hans and Iago...uh I mean Patriatte and Silvio:

I don't like those two and feel like they're lost potential. Those two feel like they belong to a different game with an entirely different tone. Triangle strategy is a more nuanced setting where few characters are what they seem at first glance. Even the obviously evil Gheb looking character who was already obviously evil by the time the demo came out managed to come across as civil and well adjusted when you first meet him. So it feels wrong to have characters who's sole trait is that they're sniveling cowards who are cartoonishly evil, consistently wrong and who's bad reputation and incompetence is already known by the entire world. I thought Silvio was an obvious red herring who'd end up better then he seemed, but he really is just one note and unreliable. 

Saintly Seven: I think it was a mistake for Hyzante to have seven leaders because not all their leaders are created equal. The medicine saint has a good design, prominent introduction at the start and she's voiced by Christina Vee who's arguably the biggest name in the cast. But after the first three chapters she mostly disappears and even in the Hyzante arc where she's around she doesn't say or do much of note. There's also this hooded saint who so far hasn't said or done anything all game. There's some implications he's shady but so far he's a complete non entity. I like the group and the politics between them but the game probably bit off a bit more then it could chew. 

Serenoa: He's kinda basic which I guess was inevitable. He's mostly a blank slate so that the more strongly characterized Roland, Frederica and Benedict can pull him in their preferred direction. He's got a very muted low key personality which makes it easy for him to take either the Morality, utility or liberty path, or flipflop between them without it feeling out of character. His relation with Frederica is sweet but not particularly noteworthy or charismatic as far as romantic couples go. I guess its a nice touch they start addressing each other as ''my love'' more often the further you get into the game. 

Edited March 10, 2022 by Etrurian emperor

[zuibangde]

Man the English voice acting for this game is...inconsistent...

I quite like Xanthe Huynh's voice acting in general but I really don't get why they casted her as Narve. His character portrait shows him as a teenager but he sounds too much like a girl even though I can tell she's trying to sound like a really young boy. It's just not working for me. It's worse that I decided to switch to Japanese for a bit and Narve's voice acting is way better in Japanese.

The fact that Narve's is still not as bad as the voice acting for Geela's though...

Edited March 10, 2022 by zuibangde

[Alastor15243]

52 minutes ago, zuibangde said:

Man the English voice acting for this game is...inconsistent...

I quite like Xanthe Huynh's voice acting in general but I really don't get why they casted her as Narve. His character portrait shows him as a teenager but he sounds too much like a girl even though I can tell she's trying to sound like a really young boy. It's just not working for me. It's worse that I decided to switch the Japanese for a bit and Narve's voice acting is way better in Japanese.

The fact that Narve's is still not as bad as the voice acting for Geela's though...

Nothing holds a candle to Demonoa though.

[Etrurian emperor]

57 minutes ago, zuibangde said:

Man the English voice acting for this game is...inconsistent...

I quite like Xanthe Huynh's voice acting in general but I really don't get why they casted her as Narve. His character portrait shows him as a teenager but he sounds too much like a girl even though I can tell she's trying to sound like a really young boy. It's just not working for me. It's worse that I decided to switch the Japanese for a bit and Narve's voice acting is way better in Japanese.

The fact that Narve's is still not as bad as the voice acting for Geela's though...

It probably wasn't the best voice direction with Narve. He seems the youngest male character by a good margin so he should have a relatively high voice but he's not that young either and would be better served sounding boyish rather than girly.