I wouldn’t say I’m a massive Tactical RPG fan but what I would say is that I LOVED Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and I’ve been hunting down TRPGs looking for something to be as good as FFTA was. While looking down the sites of my TRiflePG, I spotted a little something called “Project Triangle Strategy”, a placeholder name for a new TRPG being released by Square Enix, and it came with a little appetiser of a demo, I had to give it a lick. It was hard! But it was good. I’ll admit I wasn’t able to beat the level on the standard difficulty, but the demo gave me enough to think that whatever this game was going to be, it was at least going to be a game where you had to really be, well, tactical about your placement and play in the fights. I was excited!
When they finally released the full game, now called Triangle Strategy (I know, it’s weird and not at all different from the “placeholder”), I had to pull the trigger. I did. Obviously, otherwise, I wouldn’t be writing this review.
Pumped to experience a game that could potentially be my new favourite TRPG, I started it up. It was beautiful. I’m pretty sure I say this in every review I do on a Switch game, but the amazing pixel art that the devs are putting out on this console really get me right in the nostalgias. Yes, yes you can get the same pixel art on PC or other consoles, but for me, it just fits perfectly on the Switch, especially in handheld. Ahem, anyway, it was beautiful, but then it kind of dragged on for a bit, it became a visual novel in a sense, lots of chitting and chatting and meeting a few new characters, which I didn’t mind it too much as it felt like it was setting up the story.
The story is actually, kinda sorta, relatable in a real-world kind of way. The game pits three dominions against each other but focuses on them in more of a political way and how each dominion tricks, trades, spies and, in some cases, battles its way to gain control over the lands. Not very far-fetched from the world we live in today, where countries are fighting over resources and using whatever they have in their arsenal, be it religion, be it warriors, or be it tradition. In the same vein, I’d be remiss to say it didn’t give off major Game of Thrones vibes. I enjoyed it, and this time around, Square has added in the Scales of Conviction to their story. It’s a voting system where each member of your party casts a vote which then guides the story along its path. Reading this, you’d think this means that there is a bunch of replayability, and many a time throughout the game I wondered what would have happened if our party had picked a different path. You can persuade your party members to vote for a path that you would like to go on, but this requires you to be paying attention to the – getting even longer now – story parts where you learn each character’s convictions and how best to convince them that your path is the right path. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, which is great, I was always on edge waiting to see what the outcome would be.
The more time I spent in the game, however, the more time I found myself drifting off to sleep. There were parts where the storytelling felt way too long, I mean WAY too long. And this is why I’m only managing to get my review out 3 months later. I struggled through these bits, the only thing keeping me going were the thoughts of the awesome battles I had already overcome to get here, and what other awesome battles may come my way after all this story telling. I fully understand that they needed these story bits to get the player to see and decide what sort of path they wanted the game to follow, but they could’ve cut it down, like a lot. And that’s how Triangle Strategy almost got me, it almost got me hooked, it almost got me to not put it down, almost. This game really has the potential to be great, the strategy needed in the battles is thrilling, the Scales of Conviction allowing you to pick your path is a clever touch, and every character is voice acted, although some are a little monotonous, added so much to each character. Every character felt unique in battle, and they really hit the difficulty right on the nail. Triangle Strategy has the perfect setup, but it just draaaaaaags, and I’m so sad that it does because there’s a good game here. A great game.