Triangle Strategy: A Game of Extreme Highs & Lows
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- Опубликовано: 25 июл 2024
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🕑 Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
3:10 First Impressions
4:50 The Gameplay
12:32 Playable Characters
17:36 The Quietus System
19:20 The Music
20:45 The Artwork
22:30 Voice Acting
25:09 The Main Cast
28:43 The Story
35:31 The Villains
37:37 The Theme
39:48 The Scales of Conviction
42:40 Closing Thoughts
Triangle Strategy: A Game of Extreme Highs & Lows
#trianglestrategy #nintendo #switch 
Игры
I wish chat didnt force you down the true ending route, seeing you make your own choices wouldve been more fun
Mangs, character recruitment isn't random in this game. Every dialogue choice gives you points towards one of the three ideologies (morality, freedom, utility). These points aren't visible until NG+ but for a character to join you need to have enough points to meet his/her requirements. It's similar to how you recruit students from other houses in 3H but it happens automatically.
Still feels random though because of the hidden parameters that only get revealed in the game +
It might not literally be random, but I totally understand the point he tried to make en actually agree. If only some people wanted to join you, than that's fine, but not the majority.
I would have loved people joining me because I liberated their town or something like that. Also more people should have been route specefic.
I actually really liked the artwork by the way, way more enjoyable than the over-the-top anime style of recent Fire Emblems. All in all, I would totally love Fire Emblem going back to exactly this. A good story, unique routes, and battles. Oh and I want predetermined roles for the characters, not what they did in 3H.
Will agree they really needed 10 more chapters of combat AT LEAST, 30+. That Hyzantian gate moment is a really great example. I would have loved a "don't let the guard escape" battle.
Yeah, you need to fill the hidden bars to "recruit" characters with minimal characterization and impact on the story.
*burps*
Next.
@@F_Yale "Also more people should have been route specefic."
There are only 30 playables characters in this game and 8 of them are route specific. That's almost a third of the characters !
@@germaniamelvin That would suck shit because you'd have to go through countless playthroughs.
Something to keep in mind is that the cast is young, Benedict holds a lot of the pacing because he's the "experienced" guide leading serenoa. That is why Roland is very immature in his decision and very rash, while Frederica has a moral compass that is untouched by harsh realities of the world. Serenoa is by all means born to be a leader, he's always calm and calculated while listening to his retainers to achieve the best result. I wouldn't agree the characters are unmemorable, at least not those 4. But the rest of the cast does lack a lot of presence in the story.
Erador sure isn’t forgettable
@@maxspecs honestly I think it depends on your choices, if you follow a more "honorable" path Erador doesn't really get much time in the spotlight. But if you do questionable things he has a lot of extra dialogue and inner conflict.
Everybody on this channel since forever : Mangs, play Final fantasy Tactics, you will love it!
Mangs at the end of this review: Man i did enjoy this game. I wish there was more games like this!
If only...
Mangs already had a stream trying FFT. *I* just want him to finally try Pokemon Conquest
I somewhat agree that the characters are mixed, but I love Frederica and Roland. Frederica was rlly charming and I loved her VA (especially in the Roland ending), and had amazing moments like standing up to Thalas and Erika, standing up to Hyzante to bring revenge to her ppl, fighting for her ideals in the Roland ending, etc. And Roland had a rlly cool arc with being a naive young prince that went through hardships and inner conflict to become (depending on the route) a broken king that would do anything to prove himself, pressured to the point that he gave up kingship, deciding that the best way he can use his skills is freeing an oppressed people, or overcoming everything and emerging as a great king that surpassed his father's lofty legacy.
As for the villains, I think Gustadolph actually was morally grey in the Benedict ending, as it did a great job of recontextualizing his actions, and Hyzante's Saintly Seven pretty much just being asses is a good thing imo. I loved the theme about the corruption in religion, which the evilness of the Saintly Seven helped.
The story was one of my fav parts of the game. It was intense, political, realistic, and a lot of times made me writh in agony over an incredibly tough decision. This game probably made me question my morals more than any other game I've ever played, especially the decision about whether or not I should abandon the Roselle. Speaking of, I thought the scales worked very well because of the difficulty of making hard choices. It made me feel like I was part of the story. And the fact that making right choices in persuasion doesn't always work is a good thing bc it made talking to everyone feel more necessary, and even then the vote ends up being close a lot of the time, making for nail biting votes way tenser than elections.
Overall I'd personally give the game a 9.5 or 10. It's one of my fav games ever, and while I had some issues, I don't think they were nearly as glaring as you think.
While I won't argue about the games pacing (I don't think anyone will defend the first few chapters, especially), and it does have some contrived events (The various split paths always meet back up, with... sometimes questionable justification), I do think it's unfair for you to comment on the story and characters having played only one path, skipped the optional story events, and the side stories. It's like meeting a Three Houses character, skipping their supports, and just writing them off as Fates-style gimmick characters.
Frederica is not a Mary Sue. She is a goody-two-shoes, yes, but that's also where her problems lie, as she doesn't accept the practical nature of things. When it comes to the Chapter 7 decision, she supports saving Roland. But when you do it, you get one of the most difficult missions in the game... which can be made easier only if you burn down your peoples homes. Narratively and mechanically, her choice in that mission has serious problems. And her route in the end basically amounts to, well... her own brand of racism. Or should I say, tribalism. The Roselle are all that matter, screw everyone else, including your own people, Serenoa. It's not to say that there aren't merits to her plan, but she also dislikes Benedicts plan that would also free the Roselle AND keep Serenoas domain, simply because it doesn't strongly favor the Roselle.
Second off, I really hesitate to just call Aesfrost and Hyzante evil. Aesfrost is a decent enough nation that's just currently being run by a sociopath. Dragan, Svarog and Sycrus are good people, and exactly equal in number to Gustadolph, Erika and Thalas. Factor in Frederica, and there are more good named characters from Aesfrost than bad. There's a reason why the Golden Path for Aesfrost is "Kill the evil tyrant, then ally with them."
Hyzante is definitely more evil, but the Saints are complex and interesting enough. And the fact that the game preps you to hate Aesfrost because they start the war, makes the transition over to Hyzante as the true villain feel more interesting. You do attack Hyzante in 3 out of 4 endings, after all. And their salt monopoly casts Aesfrosts actions in a more favorable light. They don't need to start wars, they already control the continent and are safe from invasion. It's easy to be an angel in paradise. Gustadolph may be evil, but the salt monopoly is causing serious harm to the Aesfrosti, and Hyzante is deliberately reducing the salt supply to improve their stranglehold. Gustadolph has good reasons to want to invade them, and there's reason for him to take over Glenbrook along the way too.
The story does have a number of flaws, but I think it's pretty strong. And multiple playthroughs aren't just about seeing events unfold different, but they let you learn more about the world and characters. I had only the minimum required interactions with Svarog on my first playthrough, so doing Golden Path on my second made things more interesting. And unlike Edelgard never explaining why she started the war in Azure Moon, the information you miss out on in TS route-splits feels much more natural. Svarog had no reason to stop by House Wolffort during the war and have a chat with me.
Definitely sit through the story on your next playthrough. On my first time through the game, I'd put the cutscenes on auto-play and listen while doing chores. There's very little non-obvious action in the cutscenes, so you can mostly just listen and be fine (do set up saves before each one though, just in case). The game is poorly paced, but if you engage with the story fully, there's a lot more to enjoy.
I think the golden routes in these types of games do a lot of disservice to the experience. It's strange that you go the entire game sacrificing and taking measures of what you win and lose, only for there to be magically a solution to everything that makes everybody happy. I find things like destroying hyzanth and allowing gustadolph to use you to be much more impactful when you know there's no golden parachute to save you from your choices. I'm very glad that the golden route is more akin to a secret and that FE 3 houses didn't have one because there's so much tension Lost from having them
There were some interesting decitions (some dumb ones).
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One interesting one was whether be an acomplice to do a crime (and gather evidence and money), or report it immidiatly. Its full of very gritty decitions.
A dumb one imo, was, you can either destroy Haisant or free the Roselle (and some other one). But like... if you invade Haisant, you can FREE THE ROSELLE!! Is not like they would send them in droves as meat shields (which would have been interesting). So that third choice didnt matter much.
@@AProperNoun Fair. The Benedict route does reflect the real world circumptances of independences in America. As you mentioned, balck slaves in the US, but also indigenous populations in NA and SA.
I mean, is it wrong to want a happy ending to top off the 3 other endings where you spend countless hours seeing these characters suffer in a politically corrupted world?
@@xRawrC00kiex Its not wrong, but you appreciate it more if you see this struggles.
@Ica Rue you already can, the Golden route is for the most part hidden, it's hard to stumble upon it randomly. As mangs said, the chat literally guided him to the golden route, it's something you naturally are supposed to do in New game +
This is why it divides you into 3 parties etc and why he had so much trouble. The game typically wants you to do other endings, so once you enter new game + you can properly experience all the units and stuff you have to make a satisfying conclusion to the characters you saw suffer. Instead mangs went in underdeveloped, because golden route is meant as a "you stuck with us so as a reward here's all the characters having their own personal satisfying ending with all the bad guys being defeated.
Good review, thanks. I simply disagree with one point : I find it unfair to criticize the story as a a flat, manichean and obvious one when you did the Golden Route, which is precisely the flat and manichean route. I followed Benedict's suggestions a lot, and my playthrough was a lot darker and complex than the happy ending route. I enjoyed that a lot, especially the bitter ending, and I'm sure I would think the same as you about the story if I followed the boring happy ending route.
This. The golden route is easily the least interesting. It’s definitely not meant to be done first and chat did Mangs dirty by pushing him down that path.
The golden route still shows moments of betrayal and tons of twisting deaths because of the default story beats. Fire Emblem on the other hand is fucking basic by comparison. The golden path still has characters that try to shun your righteous path at every turn making it all the more satisfying to prove them wrong in the end with your strength.
Golden route feels like a second play through ending. I think the 'ideal' way is once doing whatever and then once doing the golden
It’s funny to me that so many people complain about the dialogue in this game. As a diehard Fire Emblem fan myself I WISH Fire Emblem had writing as good as Triangle Strategy. I’m so sick of hearing characters talk about cooking and shopping. I found Triangle Strategy to be a breath of fresh air.
I agree.
Triangle Strategy has so many good thing going for it that the story is A LOT better than most Fire Emblem games.
what FE does well imo, is that it has a good balance of both. it has moments where it is very serious in progressing the story and it has moments where its just not
from the little i've played of Triangle Strategy so far (im only after the second battle) it really is only war this war that, which im not a fan of to be it only that. but maybe this will lighten up later on, i honestly cant know yet
Character portraits and facial expressions would of helped elevate that, in my opinion.
Dialogue is definitely good. However, Triangle Strategy definitely has too much. It would be better to break up the dialogues a bit, or ease us up to the characters more before bombarding us with Dialogues, but putting 30 minutes of gameplay and 5 hours of Dialogue in the start of the game is a huge turn-off.
@@shaneluke327 Fact. Humans need a face to look at while someone is talking at length. It's baked into our DNA.
Magic 100% accuracy catches off guard everytime.
*_Spark mage approaching you menacingly_*
Please don’t remind of those mages, I’m still in therapy over them
Everyone gangsta until the Time Mage, Minister Lyla, enters the battle-
Just thought I'd say that I was genuinely excited when I saw the notification for this video. There's noones else's opinion I'd like to hear when it comes to strategy games. I'm in my late 20s and I've been contemplating buying this game for a while. I knew this review would help with that decision. Thanks for all of the work you put into this dude!
Hi Mangs! As someone who has completed the game at 100% with all the routes and maxed out all the characters, I'm here to add pieces of trivia and some of my thoughts about your review:
-First, about the fact that there is no Permadeath: Keep in mind that the game is not Fire Emblem, and is closer to Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre, which are both really good games overall, the first one having great gameplay and the second one a really good story.
-The recruitment of the characters is NOT random. You get them by having reached certain thresholds in your conviction points, which are shown as soon as you play New Game+. There are a total of 30 playable characters at most, and you have to play the game at least 4 times to get them all.
-The Quietus points cap is indeed 5 and does not go higher.
-I agree about the wieght of the story, especially at the start, but in my case I liked that the story was down-to-earth in terms of motivations and politics. I guess it changes depending on the player.
-I also agree about the villains, and it's even worse: One look at their portrait can tell you if they're gonna betray you or not, which is a pretty bad point in my opinion.
-Lastly, Serenoa CAN vote, however it's only when there's a tie in the votes so he can decide which option you go for. It also obviously only happens when you have 3 options characters can vote for, but it actually happened to me once.
That's all the pieces of trivia I found to inform you of the things you might have missed, and I really enjoyed your point of view!
I'm gonna comment to bump this up so Mangs see this
Tie can happen when you sold roland too.
Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics DO have permadeath, mind.
Tactics Ogre has a system wherein a unit reduced to 0 HP retreats... twice. The third time, he's worm food.
Final Fantasy Tactics on the other hand, has "KO" actually MEAN KO, rather than just meaning "dead, but we reserve the right to plotkill people". A KOed unit will bleed to death over the course of three turns (except in the PSP exclusive multiplayer modes, where he will retreat instead of dying) and if Ramza bleeds out, it's game over. (In FFT, you can revive KOed units, so it's not necessarily a hard timer.) Tactics also has units (but not Ramza) actually ABANDON you due to falling too low in Bravery or becoming too religious.
@@KopperNeoman the FFT permadeath system kinda reminds me of the system in Valkyria Chronicles.
A unit that reaches 0 HP is put into critical condition, and the only way to save them is by getting another one of your units to touch them, and then they’ll call the medic and they’ll be out of action for the rest of the map. If three turns pass without anyone touching them, or if an enemy unit touches them first, they die, and are gone forever.
Since Welkin spends most of his time in a tank, if the tank blows up, it’s Game Over. Like midway through the story, you get another tank user. If his blows up, instead of dying, he retreats.
@@KopperNeoman "Tactics Ogre has a system wherein a unit reduced to 0 HP retreats... twice. The third time, he's worm food."
That's in the remake. In the original they were dead after one kill. You could revive them will a spell, but you didn't get that spell until mid game, the class that could use the spell was basically only useful for that (so you were essentially giving up a character slot for a ability to revive), and if the battle ended before you could revive them they were gone for good.
So I know it is only at the start of the video but I think for the issue with the games name can be explained through a marketing mistake that had been seen before with edge of tomorrow. When edge of tomorrow came out all of its marketing had live, die, repeat in big letters which made movie goers search for that rather than the movie itself(at least thats how the theory goes). Triangle strategy probably kept the name because thats all people knew the game as so there was too much risk of it not being found if they changed the name.
TL;DR: they kept the name triangle strategy because thats what people remembered/searched.
In that case, they could have left Triangle Strategy as a subtitle and give the main brand a more unique and memorable name
@@PokemonaMoni yeah, thats something theaters did with the day after tomorrow.
I'm so glad you played this game and enjoyed it! I definitely think you would like the other endings where it's not all wrapped up in a happy bow. All of the other endings have happy moments, but also huge consequences for the choice you made. Your chat pushed you to see the ending without any downsides at all, and seeing the realism that every decision you make has its own consequences would have probably increased your overall enjoyment of the game. Even if you didn't want to replay the whole game again, you could always reload an older save to get the other endings. I hope we get a sequel someday!
22:14 I think is a matter of personal taste, I actually really like the artstyle and the color being more bland
Hey Mangs! Great review. I really enjoyed watching it. Not sure if it helps change your mind, but I believe Quietus is named that because it’s Latin for “the final blow”. I think the game designers intended it to be the extra little push you need to end a map. Anyway, keep up the great content. Looking forward to seeing more from you!
This is a really good review, it’s a first run take on the game. Very in depth too, the game itself surprises you in (usually) a good way
Glad you enjoyed the game! To add to the unit balance discussion while not every unit is incredibly good every unit is undoubtedly unique! There’s never a character I dislike the thought of deploying to the field, and it makes playing through the game multiple times a joy despite the inevitable repetition! “What if I tackle the upcoming battle with this crew this time?” Is a question I kept asking and being excited to find the answer to!
I hate using the two characters who specialize in using items. Just having a character whose basic abilities cost money is a great way to make me never want to train them up.
yeah, the golden route is supposed to be that shining ray of hope after you see how bleak the other 3 endings are
@@billvolk4236 To be fair towards Medina, most people probably end up buying tons of healing items anyway, so having a character that makes using them way easier isn’t really that egregious.
Picoletta is barely useful though, and the design philosophy of making characters like this is flawed
"...It's way too soft on the player..." Keeping your xp after loses and resets is the velvet palm of a steel gauntlet. It's a deliberately soft to give your face a nice comforting pat... right after punching you in the gut and right before backhanding you.
The velvet palm should be something like 2RN - a system that favours the player.
Things like this just rob you of the ability to conquer the intended challenge if you fail.
4:00 True, but if they changed the name the ending song would be much worse without the Japanese 'Triangu Strategee' singing
My first playthrough of triangle strategy was pretty magical. I'll admit I almost considered putting it down for good during the first 3 hours because mother of god too much exposition. If I can watch a full length movie in the time it takes to get to the plot there's a problem... Anyways. Yes my first time was great. I went in completely blind so every decision felt meaningful. I didn't know where or how things would end and seeing all the divergences in the plot made me wonder in awe how much the game would branch out and ripple because of my choices. Obviously it was a bit unrealistic, but the game was presented in a way that feels antithetical to what the route splits actually are. Once you play your second time and realize the plot always reconects no matter what you did it kind of puts a damper on things. I wish there were more endings. I wish there were endings where you just lost and died barely halfway into the game, I know it might be discouraging to some people but the fact that the only thing that changes what ending you get (excluding golden route) is one decision. All the other ones are just flavor text. No matter what you choose in your approach to reclaim the capital the city still gets destroyed. When replayed it a second time I was delighted to find that they had preserved the city thanks to this decision only to be greeted one cutscene later with them destroying the city offscreen so that they didn't have to make a second version of the cutscene.
I feel like the only event that really felt meaningful was following Fredericka to the village. If you spare the rossele its full of life and the boss is weary to steal because the people have been through so much. But if you gave away the rossele its desolate and the daughter wont fight because theres no challenge in it. It's small and only effects one chapter but its a legitimate ripple that actually has a meaningful event on the story (including a new character depending on your choice)
Overall, I just wish choices actually mattered in games like these. I'm getting so sick and tired of these games where they say your choices matter but they really really dont except for one choice at the end. I was really hoping triangle strategy would be the light to break this mold but sadly it just failed to be that. It's still a great game but man was the route split feature underutilized
Great review!
I wanted to talk about the ending I got, so spoilers.
I picked the Frederica ending, seeing lasting peace as impossible and wanting to build my own peace somewhere else. It ended up exactly how I expected, except that Serenoa died. It seemed really unnecessary, especially since Erador said he could take Serenoa's place, and he didn't get to marry Frederica, which is one reason I picked that ending. Normally, I like when a character sacrifices themselves to save others, but Serenoa just didn't come across as a strong and decisive enough character to make it work.
I really liked it, fun game and lots of agency with the plot diversions are great.
I will say, if you are planning on streaming NG+, be ready for an annoying first battle. The enemies will scale to your level, so to Serenoa's level, and bc you didnt use Roland too much he will just get destroyed right away.
NG+ and NG++ is a real game changer to how this game, for better or worse. When everyone maxes out or has all their tools, the balance is much more apparent and how varied successful party comps can get depending on the map. Medina does render a lot of healers and Julio irrelevant, but you outside of her the roster is rather balanced and I remember enjoying NG+ a lot, since I could go for radically different party compositions than I did in my initial playthrough in different maps. I also cannot understate the game changer that the ultimate unlockable skill is for most of them, as characters like Hossabara and Flannagan make their niche or are the extra edge to make them very usable, such as the case with Groma getting a decently ranged uppercut that is a good nuke against mages.
The downside is that you'll be overeleveled over a lot of the optional battles, which is a shame as they are composed with a lot more varied fail-states and enemy compositions than the campaign and being worthwhile fights in their own right. I think the reason they were a lot of talking segments split is because you can always go to the encampment to do an mock battle, as they're always scaled to be an inbetween for two story maps bar the ones unlocked for NG++.
Narratively and mechanically you see how the plot is funneled at certain points and how gameplay mechanics actually tick and nowhere is this more apparent than the Scales and it's choices. After a lot of thought in my 4 playthroughs of it I think the Scales as less of a challenge to get the choice you want and more of it being a "flavorful" of stat check accompanied with choice and attention to detail. To an extent that stat check for convincing characters is realistic, if you constantly say one thing yet suddenly flop to another, they have less reason to believe you based on your history and with less time on that "track" of decisions you're going to have a harder time coming off as confident in that argument. I think a lot of the character from everyone of the main cast comes from their decisions and reasoning for their choices in the voting segments.
The one issue with the voting segments that's definitely missed potential is how it takes a bit too long for there to be 3 choices, however this runs the risk of "coding" decisions in a relatively open ended game and making you feel there's an "intended route". There's also the idea of overwhelming the player with choices before making sure they are familiar with them.
Onto the theme, with the other endings in mind and how they're structured, I think it's more about convictions and how neglecting values for propping up others can lead to flawed outcomes, this goes along with the non-golden endings having a sense of bitter-sweetness with upsides and downsides for the characters and setting rather than what's right or wrong.
I think in doing the Golden ending first, it kind of gets devalued both gameplay and narratively as it is an ending that lifts elements from all endings while having some of it's own and is best balanced by having all 30 characters to split equally between the regiments and an understanding of the game in both the maps that followed and party compositions.
Still, interesting review and I do look forward to you doing another playthough if it ever happens, as with the gameplay options open and map variety and with less reason to see cutscenes you've seen before you get to fights quicker and the gameplay-to-story ratio rounds out to something more balanced.
Admittedly, the Normal difficulty of Three Houses, for example, has the resetting a battle keeps your exp (at least, when you retreat), but it's not really needed at that difficulty level and one of Maddening difficulty's main mechanics is limiting exp gain. It's doubly not as good of a mechanic in Fire Emblem because of the randomized level ups. The fact that Triangle Strategy's characters have set stat gains is the only way keeping exp when resetting a battle can be balanced.
Yeah, XCOM does have a very satisfying combat-to-base management loop ratio. Another strategy game I think handles its loop between gameplay styles well is Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. There it's a loop of puzzle solving exploration between battles (and freely assignable skill trees for trying out different approaches to combat challenges). Neither part of the loop overstays its welcome before the next comes back, and the difficulty balancing is beautiful. Somehow still a fun challenge for a tactical game veteran after only a few battles in, but still not so punishing that someone newer to the genre couldn't pick it up. Even if you normally find the "Rabbids" characters/games unbearable, the team that made this particular game found a way to make them enduing in this particular instance. ...Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle would definitely would be worth a play for anyone that hasn't yet, and there's a sequel, Sparks of Hope, currently set to come out sometime this year or early next year.
...You drawing attention to potentially being criticized for only doing one playthrough so far when making this review was nearly as heavy-handed as the plot of the game. I can pretty much agree with a lot of the issues you brought up, Triangle Strategy is a good baseline for what they wanted to create, but has so much room for improvement and refinement that it's hard to ignore the flaws no matter how much you enjoy it for what it is. (Personally, I'll reiterate that if they just had the character head shots beside the dialogue boxes it would have made the reading/voice acting so much easier to digest. Humans are hardwired to be looking at a face when someone is speaking, it doesn't feel good to be denied that on an instinctual level.)
Probably should have timestamped these responses, but too late now, sorry.
I'd like to add that X-Com UFO Defence (the original game) has the best of these loops. Enemy Within and War of the Chosen (admittedly, the Chosen themselves are brilliant and a mod to add similar enemies to UFO would be great) are a bit too scripted for my liking - and too unreasonable on Impossible - whereas the original is freeform in moat things, has certain events happen on a timer OR player progress, and gives you the tools you need to win on Superhuman just so long as you're tactically and strategically sensible.
good review Mangs! I really want to check this game out myself but I'm holding out for a PC port
Thanks for the review Mangs.
I didn't watch your livestreams because I was playing at the same time and didn't want to spoil myself. I'll give it a try later.
Hope this comes to Steam this or next year like the rest of the Square Enix JRPG titles before it. I do like that you kept this relatively spoiler-free and informative, and was quite surprised to see DOS2 and BG3, which I consider to be some of the greatest games ever made! (at least DOS2, cause fuck knows if BG3 can stand up to the hype) Also, I think that a JRPG without over-the-top comically bad writing at times isn't a real JRPG lmao. Great, actual high effort video!
I found the story to be the best I've played in a long time, perhaps since Mass Effect 2.
Symon's and Benedict's secret really threw me for a loop.
Even though I was frustrated by your lack of attention and you skipping scenes and dialogues I did enjoy your streams and I definetly look forward to watch you playing other games like Triangle Strategy (Octopath Traveler or Bravely Default II maybe ?).
What I liked about this game is that the entire plot was political and was runned by humans.
There was no divine entity nor demon nor monster behind, like almost every FE or rpg games.
The only thing I really did not like was the villains were far too obvious (just looking at their protraits was enough to understand which ones were bad). If there were more "grey" characters like Benedict this game would have been MUCH MUCH better.
I felt the zealots were less obvious (not so much gray) as villains. They dont SEEM racist and bigots. And a society where everyone is equal sounds good (on paper). On paper, Aesfrost also sounds good. A society not bound by class, but by merit SOUNDS good, but generally people will be inherited the merit. Or merit will be more often given to you by genetics (aka strong). Haisant also sounds good on paper... but reminds me of animal farm (some animals are more equal than others).
He skipped over dialogue and cutscenes? Not watching this review then.
Benedict is the biggest monster in this game.
@@rpgfanatic9719 He did not skip all of them to be fair but he did skip a lot yes.
@@icarue993 By obvious I meant some characters regardless of their allegeance who were obviously "bad" just by looking at their portraits (Patriatte, Silvio, Erika and Thalas, Sorsley...).
But yeah I agree on your point.
17:30 I disagree, its something that you can solve, and honestly its quite easy
All you have to do is make that all the recruits comes with their main ability unlocked by default, then compare the level of your party and make their starting level somewhere around it, TS level ups seems very consinstent and not-RNG dependent, so I think that is a good way to solving this problem
When a caracter join it has the recommended level for the chapter you recruit it. It's really clear on NG+ when you get most the character at level 50.
@@GDKsan so the problem is the characters themvselves?
@@thebrazillianguytm2186 Nah the problem is just you have a summary of the character ability, but you don't get to try it, and don't know everything they do ( medina for instance is good only when she heal TP but it's not written in her description).
Not to mention some characters get abilities mentioned in their summary that aren’t available until 10 levels later, or until you max out their weapon!
I DIDNT KNEW ABOUT THE MUSIC THEME
*REPLAYS GAME INTENSIVELY*
Just started playing this. OMG, the story and characters are REALLY good! And I really like how they made exploration and talking to NPC’s actually fun because you open up side stories and get items in addition to the exposition that’s normally all you get. I didn’t enjoy the reset function that lets your units keep all exp at first. But now, it’s a GREAT idea! Saves time on grinding and allows you to learn the map, enemies, and experiment with strategies you normally wouldn’t attempt. But I think the game looks good for what it is, but I really, really don’t like the character portraits. They’re most ugly! Or the person pictured looks like a possible child molester. I hope they correct this with DLC. I don’t mind all the dialogue and reading. I love to read, but there is a fast-forward button and conversation Log. (Why can’t more games have that? So many times I accidentally hit a button or miss something in a cut scene and then have to go on RUclips to see what I missed.
I'll add my own though to this game here:
3:10 I agree they should have reworked the title and found a box art that would have conveyed the theme better.
At least the art tries to convey its aesthetics.
4:00 I almost feel like this would have been a better box art title in terms of conveying it's themes.
I think the biggest issue is how to convey that this is a war game with democracy element in-between battles.
4:50 The gameplay is fun and addicting because it gives the player a lot of options when it comes to AOE spells and crowd control. This is something Fire Emblem doesn't have and this is also why I like Langrisser despite being inferior to Fire Emblem, for the simple reason that it has AOE spells and it's immensely satisfying to land an devastating spell that wipes out an entire squad of enemies.
While I have mixed feeling about keeping the level-ups when you lose a battle, but it does mean you can use all your units and train everyone with little penalty and you don't have to grind beforehand. And they did seem to balance it by making harsh exp penalties when your units have caught up.
The height mechanic is also really and it is proof the Fire Emblem needs to bring letges back!!!
14:40 Mangs: "I love how not all units are good in FE6"
Also Mangs: "I don't like the massive power difference between the units"
19:20 Music matter a lot to me when I play a game and this game delivers! 🔥🔥🔥
20:45 I really like the artwork. The only thing you could criticize it for would be increasing the saturation of the colors. GBA games naturally have high saturation because you have to be able to tell thing apart on a gameboy screen with no backlight. (30 year old boomers remember)
Voice acting is decent to me and it's only Benedict I outright dislike.
25:10 Frederica would have been a decent character if Hyzante would had been better written. (Not good, but decent.)
28:43 I think this a game where the gameplay is really good, but is held back by the story that takes up 70% of the play time. This wouldn't be a problem if the game had a few more months in development to flesh out certain aspects of the story (Especially the Hyzante part). If you don't pay close attention to the story on multiple routes you get the impression that Hyzante just enslaved the Rosellians for the lulz, and I feel like all the components to fixing this part of story is present in the game, it's just that some of it is not emphasized enough, because the game would have to explain in greater detail why losing their monopoly on salt would destroy their nation and they would have to explain that their entire belief system isn't merely a lie, but is actually a heretical interpretation of the true Goddess of Norzelia. (Again, they should also have fleshed out the true faith of this game.)
35:31 Gustadolph is lucifarian through and through and I think he works well enough as a villian, but I think they could have done more with him as a character if they made him actually believe his own ideals. (Senator Armstrong.) I still think his manipulative antics are entertaining to see, so I still like him as a villian and hope to see him again in a sequel or in a spin-off.
37:03 this statement by Mangs right here is the reason why Hyzante chose to maintain the lie. It just further illustrates that they have a good (although twisted) reason to keep up appearances. It really needed to be properly addressed by the characters in the game.
39:48 The scales are good because of 42:15
Change my mind.
For the record, I still really like the story even if I have some criticisms myself.
This fleshing out would take a lot of time to fix in development and if something has to suffer from rushed development, it should be the story and not the gameplay.
All in all, I'll still give this game an 9/10. Love it.
Thanks you for coming to my TedTalk.
If I wanna roll in Langrisser, where is best entry point? Is it like with FE, where if you'll start with first ones, you'll suffer from very stiff gameplay? Do all games follow single plot or, like in FE, every game for itself?
I have decidedly skipped all ped talks.
@@Artemas_16 Personally I just started with the Langrisser 1&2 remake, there is a free demo if you want to try it out before buying it.
@@Hone_mor2525 sadly, I have a potato instead of PC.
@@Artemas_16 you can also get it on the Switch if you have one
Really good review. You made solid arrangements both for and against the game 👏
Ive only just started Triangle Strategy, and completely agree with the SUPER heavy amount of cut-scenes, i wish there was a better balance with gameplay.
That card system is basically straight from the Shining Force Remake. That's wild. Cool throwback.
Another example of a Quietus like system that not fully works is Valkyria Chronicles.
As "Commands" are bound to the same points as your character turns and you can move character more than once.
This leads to some extremely broken Command + Character combos that can quickly beat any map.
they kind of fixed it somewhat by making enemie stats stronger to actually make this combos more nessesary in VK3 and partly VK4 to achieve S ranks.
Yet i think Tria. Strad. handles it way better by giving you a limited amount of this "Reverse" options.
Also pink hair guys are basically Darcsens. Though VC handles it tiny bit better.
@@Artemas_16 Much more better as we actual see the allmighty Valkyrias in action. So if the Darcian are suposedly blamed for destroying their culture and building super weapons. It makes sense people see them as a blight that are at foult they not life in a utopia.
But seeing the destructive power of valkyrias it would make more sense to despise the valkyrias. Because we not have seen many "good" examples of this "super humans"
As someone who loves final fantasy tactics, it sounds like this game was made for me. Thanks for the review.
Speaking of which if you haven't yet give final fantasy tactics a go mangs
Thanks for the review, i was thinking on buying this game!
23:30 Serenoa was recast during development that's probably the reason
Pretty good video Mangs, but I do wish you released an earlier video, like a "first/early impressions" video back when the game was still buzzing, would've probably generated more attention and interest; by now it feels almost stale to be talking about this game so much later.
Though that's kind of the way things are nowadays I guess, short attention spans on the internet and all.
Anyways I agree with pretty much all your criticisms of the game based on what I saw on your streams, its a shame because I felt like this game could've been so much better, but I will say the gameplay and your sheer enjoyment of it does make me consider getting the game despite my misgivings (and the fact that I'll probably enjoy the JP dub way more than the english dub, assuming they didn't make the same mistakes).
I play RPGs in equal parts for the gameplay and story usually, if I'm not enjoying one aspect, the other needs to be *really* good to compensate, but unless that's the case, why not just play games with both great gameplay and story, y'know? That's part of the reason why I have no interest in playing Conquest after I beat Birthright, and *really* disliked it, like if the story was *worse* for Conquest like people said; at that point I'd be better of with just playing most other Fire emblem games, because the story is at least decent/okay for most of them.
I've been spoiled for legendary games, and this... is not one of them, that's for sure lol, but maybe it might still be worth my time at least.
FWIW with the dub version, supposedly the translators did some fanfic-tier changes to the dialogue, changing the tone and context of scenes drastically so that might've affected things further.
The Quintus rant was especially on point.
I am surprised at how similar my opinion is to yours Mangs. I avoided your playthrough to play this game blind but now I'm here to see the review I have to admit that I share pretty much the same opinion. This game takes too much time on lore and world building and not enough on gameplay. Ultimately...after beating most of the game's many paths and choices and seeing all the endings? I agree completely. Glad someone felt the same instead of just defending blindly or hating blindly.
I haven't finished the game yet so I skipped the story and villain points, but I'll come back once I finish. Very detailed review though Mangs, I hope you play it again on stream for the other routes. I will disagree with you on the art tho, I absolutely love it
i think a good way to summerize it is that its the best game you will play that will also try to go into sleep mode all the time (i do like the game its good but it can be very slow if you listen to its story)
I totally agree with you on the story/dialogues, Mangs. I bought the game day 1 and after a long day of work, I boot up the game to play for a few hours and I only did a total of like 2 battles for 4 hours of gameplay. Ok fine, a slow start no problem. NOPE, next day came and same thing happen. 4 hours of dialogue and 1-2 stages of battle.
It was super frustrating that I sold the game to exchange for another game.
I don't mind a slow game, but damn I might as well play a Visual Novel.
poor child
What difficulty setting did Mangs play on?
I love long RUclips videos from you, Mangs! I can hardly catch your streams and I feel like the Let's Play era is dead since twitch took over. Nowadays well made on demand videos that are deliberately made for asynchronous consumption are a rarity in the gaming sphere, especially when the creator also streams.
Couldn't catch your streams! I'm interested what you think about the game! :D
The thing that annoyed me the most in the parts that I did see was how they used someone just tapping on the microphone every time a character would be thinking and they showed the "..." speech bubble.
That was just really getting on my nerves even with the first time I heard it.
I hated the unskippable ellipsis in Final Fantasy Tactics, and in that game it was at least silent! Fun fact, in Triangle Strategy you lose your ability to fast-forward a cutscene once an ellipsis has started. You can skip over them if you start skipping first, but if you allow one to begin, R1 does nothing until it's over.
Totally agree re: the Roselians. Would’ve been much better had the Roselians been guilty in the past. Instead, the “hard choices” weren’t too tough because I didn’t want to side with the obvious bad guys.
Yeah, I just took a break from this game when I saw I had to protect a green unit, and then never picked it back up. May do soon, but hearing it was about as bad as I expected it to be for that mission doesn't exactly excite me.
Great review. I find these sorts of genuine "first playthrough impressions" to be more useful to me, the dumb consumer, than would someone who's put a billion hours into the game.
Thx for the video, I tried the first Demo but never ended up buying it. I think it's time to change that^^
After beating the game on hard around 7 times and doing fresh save hard deathless (nothing can die including green units) - I agree with a lot of your criticisms of the game.
Groma is actually a bad unit, Flanagan breaks that game once he gets ramparts so he's more of an endgame unit/NG+ unit.
The starting units are generally very strong overall and tend to be some of the best so you are accurate with this opinion in terms of relative strength.
NG+ is a different story but I wouldn't expect most players to play NG+ or NG++ (Level 50 Hard Mode) as that is a huge time investment.
Fresh Save has a ton of issues, and IMO most of the unlocks are NG+ units.
Glad i was not the only one with this POV, Mangs. I might revisit with JP dub because the EN dub was an abysmally slow experience for me.
I got the Benedict ending but only after i reset multiple times in the voting session in the later half. I didn't know the game was playing me, instead of me playing the game. Democracy in a nutshell, i guess.
The funny part is, if you didn't sway anyone, the majority would've defaulted to Benedict's ending.
Kudos on a fantastic review of this amazing game. I'm on my second playthrough after a long hiatus, and stumbled upon your review. Your critiques of the game's verbose dialogue and idiotic plotting were spot on, as well as the world-building flaws (eg Hyzante and the Roselle).
Though I disagree with you on the character design. I think they look great, and fit in with the themes of the game and art design as a whole. Anime designs wouldn't work, in my opinion. The game is not fantastical. Outside of their being magic, the game is very gritty and realistic. The plot is all around human problems and human designs, and gives off a very medieval feel. The art work adds to that in its design where I think anime art would conflict.
It sounds like you really liked the game play on the whole. I hope you got to circle back for a New Game+ replay, as the game really shines as the characters level up (the optional recruits in particular). Cheers!
I wonder if they would change the title for the next installment. 🤔
Looking forward to the sequel: “Parallelogram Strategy.”
FE-style mangs avatar is real
Great review. Haven't played the game yet, but as a fan of Final Fantasy Tactics and Fire Emblem, may give it a try at some point. Sorta wish it was 70% combat and 30% story as opposed to it seemingly being 70% story and 30% combat.
One thing you have not been exposed to is the translations.
And, I do not know about the other languages but the french one is to be avoided at all costs.
Some character names are a bit changed (Serenor, Ayxhame, and maybe other I did not notice), but are still listed with their english names in the credit.
The word "any" in the description of abilities like the Lightwave quietus or Picoletta's ball toss is translated as if it was "random".
Julio's weapon skill to reduce by one the cost of his 2-costed buff, instead says it reduce the cost of his 3-costed one.
And those are only the ones I could pick up simply by playing the game, without cross-referencing the english or japanese texts.
🥚
How do you do it?
@@kiwi_inc2843 If your on your smartphone, just search "egg" under your emoji list and tap the emoji.
@@privategallade9120 No, I mean how are you able to get the first comment under every single video?
@@kiwi_inc2843 Ah, I have the notification bell set to all and the timezones work in my favor most of the time.
@@privategallade9120 Your dedication is commendable.
My utility was through the roof during my first playthrough because of the mock battles I had done
I think the story is one of the greater aspects of this game. And forgive me for saying this but it tackles themes that are so much more mature and controversial than the ones Fire Emblem would ever dare to address. The only time that has been close to happening are the Tellius games. And I think they still restrain themselves a lot there. Also you are a little mistaken about Glenbrook. It's not a kingom of goody two shoes. It's rotten to the core with corruption and nepotism. That being said, Yeah this studio needs more experionce on conveying their story and characters, when they try to show characters having a good time or just showing chemestry between peers they fail misserably and Fire Emblem is years ahead of them on that. Among the stuff that it's great and stupid in equal parts it's the whole Roselle affair. It teaches how people have being regarded as inferior or even justify slavery with religious excuses, which sadly is closer to reallity in human history than we would like to admit. And yet the game is very obsucure in the amount of time Hyzante has subdued the Roselle. It could be eons or it could be just three generations. And sadly it appears to be the later. Which makes all the more stupid that the Roselle where brainwashed into believe they are sinners, when not that much time has passed for everyone to have forgotten the reason they came to Norzelia in the first place.
I really want to give this game a try as I love strategy games like it and the studio behind it.
But the ridiculous amount of dialogue just really put me off ever since the demo dropped. And yet I can't really bring myself to just skip through the cutscenes either.
Maybe sometime when I have a lot of time on my hands I'll give it a shot.
If they make a sequel to this game I really hope they manage to keep the narrative more compact, at least at the beginning.
I DEFINATELY understand the dialogue being off-putting, I generally find long winded cutscenes and alot of dialogue tedious and boring. Surprisngly though, this game made me feel actually challenged when choosing a path and kept me REALLY invested for once. I genuinely had a lot of fun thinking about what path I should choose when the time came for it.
This video made me remember the other part of the dialogue I didn't like...which was just the walking around talking to randos. I forgot how much I didn't like that part.
This all said though, I've not played a turn-based strategy as entertaining as this in awhile(maybe in my life, but I don't think I'm ready to make that claim). If you play it, I hope you enjoy the combat. And hopefully if you do, I hope you can get as invested as I was in this game.
If you want a strategy game on the Switch that respects the time you put into it (and doesn't cost too much), try the 2017 game Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. Mangs' mention of XCOM in this review got me feeling nostalgic for how M+R:KB was a way better than it had any right to be. Had high review scores, and sold better than the developers had hoped for, but still far too few people know about how good of a strategy game it really is.
This. I enjoy a complex and detailed story, but the story presented in the Triangle Strategy Demo seems cliched and too long winded. There were only a couple of interesting political points presented in the demo, and most characters seemed a bit two dimensional. I loved the strategic depth of the combat, but if the game is only 30% combat, I'm not sure if it justifies the current retail price for me...
I did find the demo became more bearable when I turned off the character voicing, as it allowed me to read Serenoa's lines without hearing the English voice actor.
@@reptile5167 I'd be fine with really long cutscenes towards the end of the game when you're (hopefully) more invested in the story and world. But at the beginning I feel you should be more eased into it instead of being overwhelmed.
Do you have footage of Divinity Original Sin 2? I appreciate the comparisons you brought up.
One thing I don't understand with a couple of your reviews. You seem to not like long dialogue segments, but also want side characters to spill out their entire backstory and all the reasons you should like them mid mission or something. Would you not hate a side character coming in and adding in extra dialogue where you already say there's too much? I think thats why games like fire emblem and triangle have optional supports in the first place.
Another game that I'm really surprised you've never brought up is Valkyria chronicles. It's really good and it sounds like a game that's perfect for you. I think Valkyria Chronicles 4 is the best tactics RPG on the Switch, surpassing Three houses.
He already played a bit of it in one of his birthday streams. He liked it but never kept playing.
@@Posby95 Really? I think it's every bit on par with Fire Emblem.
I actually like the setting more since it's not as common as the medieval fantasy setting of fire emblem.
Great review, Mangs!
Actually very close how i felt about it myself. For me, as a strategy/tactics game fan and someone who prefers Advance Wars to Fire Emblem, Triangle Strategy is, like, the best tactical game i've played in a long, long time. I absolutely adore its unforgiving difficulty and map design, where every battle requires you to improvise and plan, and not just rely on the levels and its RPG system to carry you through, as it is really hard to outlevel the story stage to make it trivial (hello Three Houses, i wish it had Maddening on release and not when i already beaten the game twice).
And for me, the biggest weakness of this game is the very existence of Golden route, which was the route that i happened to stumble upon randomly on my first and, yet, only playthrough as i chose whatever choices that i thought led to the toughest battles. Like, how the game tries wery hard to establish the grim atmosphere of choosing between the two bad choices so you fief can survive another day, let alone win... But still having the ability to say "Screw you, Benedict, i'm gonna ignore your every advice and be an anime protagonist who saves everyone!". I really hoped the game would've had a "bad ending" of sorts, in which you had your faction crash and burn because of your choices and how you overextended your forces. The story tone of the other endings, from what i've read, feels much more natural, considering its narrative.
On the AI, i actually find it fine in most situations, given how even a common trooper can kill most of your characters 1v1, if you play on Hard. It also does a decent job of focusing your weaker units if you expose them, with them being dumb and predictable actually being the thing that allows you to plan your own strategies around it.
I agree that abusing the AI feels satisfying when you accidentially discover the ways to do it (like that hammer trap case you mentioned, it was hilarious), yet i still think it can go a bit too far. Like that defense mission where you face Avlora and can torch your own buildings to harm the enemy, you can clear only with Hughette alone, as your enemy has no way of reaching the rooftops, which you can camp infinitely. Or that one free battle, where you defend the central platform from enemies hopping into it from a few entry points... one of which can be completely blocked by Anna in her invisibility. Or ladders. Blocking the exit point of a ladder with a character and having an enemy just stand there waiting... Was fun though.
On the point of character cast... I found, that for myself, the japanese voices have gone a long way in making me like them. It was mostly about conveying the overall mood and feelings than making out what they say, and the japanese voice actors made a good effort of conveying emotions. I agree wholeheartedly with the desire to play the game with the english voiceover though... Maybe someday, there will be a japanese game with fitting english voicecast xD
On the Quietus system, i found myself always using the same few abilities, being the Healing one (because healing), the "In tandem" one (so Geela can get an extra turn and heal another unit) and the unit teleportation one (so i can get Ana out of danger and can heal her with Geela, or so i can teleport Geela around the map to heal another group). I thought that they are poorly balanced... Until i saw your take on it, which is very reasonable! Will certainly try to overcome my love of healing everyone all the time and experiment more on my second playthrough, never thought of halting the bosses this way and now feel stupid for that xD
Well, that was a bit too long. Really appreciate your content and the thorough review, Mangs!
You mentioned at the end that Svarlog becomes in charge, i think you missed it because you werent paying attention, but the game said durning the stream even, that Svarlog was shorty after that been rejected by Aesfrost and old Gustadolph supporters, so he isnt archduke anymore
Not quite, the revolt has been addressed by the end of the golden ending, with Aesfrost's territory essentially being surrendered to Roland(due to Glenbrook essentially winning the war). It is later distributed to essentially be a republic , with Svarog leading Aesfrost's former territory and Lyla leading Hyzant's before everyone becomes more independent and Serenoa taking the middle and the Wolffort's Roselle domain.
Your assessment of the game having extreme highs and lows is spot on. However, I do have different opinions on which is which. For example, I actually enjoyed the immense world building whereas I thought the map design was not the greatest. I also wasn't bothered by the voice directing like several others are-- it's mostly just Serenoa that falls flat... and unfortunately he's in nearly every scene which is why I believe this is the cause of people criticizing the game's acting as a whole. Roland, Frederica, and others are fine and even have certain scenes with great performances. Benedict is consistently the best out of the main cast, no disagreements there!
Anyway! Glad to know you enjoyed the game overall.
I’ve played the game for about 3 hours and I still haven’t been in battle aside from the tutorial. Im wondering at what point the game lets me actually play
Playing... Well, watching this game now, and wondering the same thing.
Did you stick with it, when does it pick up 🤔
When you said never seen game like this before, i think you have not play Final fantasy tactics ever. It’s amazing, so I suggest trying it out
I never noticed the dialogue until now....now when i play i totally understand what he means it does souns like theyre just reading a script...like an audiobook lol
I wanted to agree with some points but then I realized you said the title had 7 syllables and it only has 6
Also I don't own this game but watched a few streams (not all, because my schedule is rather erratic) and the few parts I watched I enjoyed, but yeah shit like the Dragan death was dumb af lol. Triangle Strategy is like a lightbulb, sometimes its on and sometimes its off, when its on its very good but when its off its very bad.
Um divinity play through when mangs? Didn’t know you liked that game!
He mentioned the game a couple of times at the very least (once when he was talking about DnD he said that DOS2 was the closest thing to a DnD videogame, and again during a stream in which he mentioned that while he was away he was playing DOS with Jake).
I would also love to see him play DOS2 on stream, maybe either a min-max playthrough or a Ironman run would be cool.
I second this
~~now review banner of the maid~~
i don't actually need a review, since i'm already through roughly 80% of the game but i agree mangs should check it out
@@randomredshirt5274 I want to see him laugh at all the French people speaking Chinese aggressively lol
@@Short.. especcially the bavarian girl who per canon speaks bad french intermixed with german, but in chinese and then run through google translate to english
For the characters Benedict was easily the character I like the least and where the narrative tended to fall apart the most. I don't think I ever did what he suggested because his suggestions were basically always pyrrhic victories like flood a major city, burn your village to the ground etc. but everyone kept talking about him like he was some great tactician.
I think they did a pretty decent job at making the maps harder if you don't use the traps for example or don't take his route in some choices, they can't make any map suddenly impossible because you didn't follow his advice, so in hindsight it's of course overkill levels of pragmatism you didn't need to win, but from a story perspective his stance usually makes sense.
@@Abundy that's a fair point and I did avoid using the fire + oil traps in the wolfort village by cheesing the boss with hughette so I'm sure doing the fight normally would've been very difficult if I didn't do it that way. I just found it kinda silly how everyone talks up how clever and cunning he is despite the fact that we never take his suggestions
@@adamn7777 Benedict - Suspect Mind
"To this day, historians look back and question how these incomprehensible strategies ever led to victory."
Benedict is the worst. He always has the worst possible take in any given situation. And I get it, due to the nature of the voting system, someone's got to have the bad takes, but this clown is supposed to be your advisor! Roland and Erador are both characterized as impulsive, moody, and kind of stupid, and yet they both have better ideas than the one we're informed is the smart one. I wanted so badly to kick his ass out of the inner circle and replace him with Julio. Hell, I bet even Lionel would do better.
@@Artemas_16
You beat Avlora in a single hit of a trap. The general who beat the undefeated dawn spear, who also ragdolled you in the tournament so hard it skipped the cutscenes immediately.
As far as the name goes, I believe Octopath traveler had a similar thing happen where the working title became the games title. I do agree though that Triangle Strategy has a weak name especially since it doesn't really tie to any of the games themes.
I 100% agree that the story takes way too long. I appreciate that they try to break it up with investigation and the scales of conviction but it isn't enough.
I still enjoyed the game despite it's setbacks. Hopefully Square Enix takes these issues into account if they make a second game.
Game of Triangles is my favorite novel.
i really did enjoy the game
After randomly rewatching this video is reslze that Freddy and Micaiah have the same outfit.
I can't believe you didn't leave judgement of the game to Democ... I mean, the Scales of Conviction
Well final fantasy tatics is there if you want something similar people say the story is way better, maybe the gameplay is a little more clunky (and broken if you grind to much) but is overall kinda like this game maybe its because its was made by the samw team? I dunno
Sooo... yeah give a try om FFT if you want a little more of it or fft advance and A2 if you like something more casual
Benedict Ending best ending
23:30 I didnt feel like the VA was that much of an issue but I also had it in Auto mode the whole time so it might flow better that way?
It felt ok at parts, but the "What I do know is that the people rejoice for us" line sounds kind of sketch imo
English VAs were awful
@@fangiscool1 I mean, I'm pretty sure it was more on the voice director than the voice actors, as is so often the case even after all these years with English ports of Japanese games. Seem to only care when there's lip-syncing to worry about. Kinda the same problem Hollywood movies are having with sound balancing/editing being really bad for quite some time now. Just not enough attention gets put into the more technical fields of production.
I agree that this problem is on the director and not the actors. I am not some weeb who thinks I must watch something or hear something in the original language to get it. I'd in fact rather worse quality, so my understanding could be benefited.
@@Shalakor yeah, you're likely right. It was that the entire voice acting package in english turned out bad
The thing that urked me the most, is that the writing wants to be an epic high fantasy story, but it's written in a way where it is immediately obvious, who's gonna be the bad, who's gonna betray you etc. Which itself isn't bad, but couple that with extremely slow writing, that would be somewhat of a slog without voice acting. It just becomes a pain to get trough. And that's cumming from sb that can read the worst fantasy shlock and still like it. If a game is gonna spent most it's on the story it should be written a lot better.
I can come up with a complaint regarding the quietus system: In game world it really does not make sense. Like how do you make enemy miss their turn? Is it with magic cast by mystery mage or by Serenoa asking real nicely?
Prayer, maybe?
My headcanon is that the Scales of Conviction are an artifact level magic item that grants you the use of these powers in exchange for submitting to the voting process. That's the real reason his house has that tradition.
@@Artemas_16 Prayer to who? I don't think there is a god that Good Guy Landia worships?
@@Shalakor Then why does Archebolt sell those magics and their power points when he has nothing to do with scales of conviction?
@@masaheimoi How does he accept a currency (kudos) that's generated from the actions you take instead of being made of matter like gold coins are? None of it makes logical sense or gets explained in-game, that's why it's a headcanon.
Agree with most points - in my opinion battles should have contributed more to the story development instead of having cuts cents that go on and on and on.
Also miss a decent post game similar to octopath
I think you made a mistake by going after the Golden Route right away. It’s something that really expects the other endings to get the nuance of the story. Also I think you didn’t see the nuance in the three countries because you focused on the villains rather than the countries as a whole. Morality, Freedom, and Liberty are the themes and the three countries really reflect that. There is a lot of debate in the community about the moralities of the country. The main three routes will reflect ona certain morality and the Golden Route is meant to bring everything into balance.
Its a lot of story in The Legend of Heroes - Trails in the Sky cos is JRPG also not meant for streaming but for immersing and world building !
loved the triangle strategy playthrough. Hope you return to it one day for the other routes.
review pretty much highlights it weaknesses even if a few things seem too nitpicky.
the game does dump a lot of story on you at once. It is just too much at points. And it does have it's weaknesses. How frederica as a character pretty much became "the rozelle" and it forcing things too much etc. While the villains are far from perfect. I still prefer them over recent fire emblem villains at least.
Gameplay is pretty addicting. and gives you the freedom to handle things in different ways. with different characters. And the fact you can affect the battlefield to crowd control and take enemies out.
It is true many characters need levels to show their potential but you kinda stuck with your team and few got a real chance. You were perhaps too fast in benching some.
music is great and i like the artwork.. the art even changes in flashbacks for example.
the Quietus was in interesting mechanic. prefer it over FE's turnwheel.
The VA on the other hand.... needed to better. Still. hope the game gets a sequel that builds on it.
i kniw you come from a mainly fire emblem experience side to this game, but my main question is how does it compare to final fantasy tactics since it's kinda obvious that the game wsnts it to be compared to it
The reason why they probably kept the name triangle strategy is because they probably got some advertising under that name and decided to keep it.
With the resetting part and keeping your exp for me I like to sit and plan my moves. This means I rarely even had to reset. However I do have to agree with the idea that the AI could be smarter but there were times that I made a tiny mistake or didn't expect something and I got heavily punished. (Ex. Reinforcements)
If you look at the suggested level of story battles at your first playthrough it will usually go every other level that is because there is a free battle map that has the level in-between the two story levels this I feel helps alleviate the dialog to battle ratio.
New characters aren't random. If you play new game plus you will see that your answers have value. The three part question when you answer (or when you get to the branching scale decisions) and get points towards a certain ideal puts you closer to a certain character. Every character has a point threshold you need to make with all three ideals having some requirement.
Yes characters are tiered, many are easily trivialized and some are overpowered even with or without certain maps. Personally I like when characters are bad it gives you a different way to play the game. Try playing shadow dragon with characters only designed to replace a fallen unit.
5 Points! I believe is the max and it really is a good system. Balanced and well thought out.
The soundtrack is simply amazing halfway through a game I usually get tired of a soundtrack but not this time I never was disappointed with a new track and it was simply lovely to experience.
Voice acting stinks there are times where it fits and certain people are better then others. Svarog, Gustadolph, and Benedict (whom I love as a character) are wonderful but honestly it is as a whole lackluster. Mostly after the first time I played I skipped all the cutscenes I saw already.
Frederica I feel is pushed and her ending is horrible. The optional dialog helps a bit, but doesn't do her justice enough to change what you stated about her. Also if you play other endings you will lose a character and that doesn't help those characters out except one which I've already stated I loved.
Personally I feel the storyline is well put together. I feel the ideological opinions that build one of the three nations are fleshed out and thoughtful.
However, I think that the storyline does shove a lot down your throat although if you are patient enough I do feel it pays off. If you do play all the endings there are some things that stick out and aren't as well thought out.
Hyzantian gatekeeper for triangle strategy heroes.
Gustadolph is better put together if you play benedicts route. Hyzante is a boring troped out gimmicky land I hated them. The game could have been better served with a more thought out third kingdom. The other 3 routes besides their main final ending (last battle, some scenes and some gathering spots) are mostly repeated in the golden route which was completely disappointing.
If you play all three routes when you invade "the city" all three routes have the same consequences and mostly share cutscenes (when you are standing in the ruins of said city it is the same scene regardless of which route you pick) the dialog is different but it is disappointing considering the critiques against a certain aspect of any decision.
If you look at the story branch it becomes the same and converges after all scale sessions (except the last) which undermines the impact of your decision.
I know I repeated myself a couple times but I'm just putting my feelings out there.
Wonderful review and well put together content (as usual). I do feel you will get a bit of better perspective on some things if you play the other routes. You even find out some things you don't find out on the golden route or at least i don't remember being mentioned (like the aelfric being made up of dead Roseland but I don't feel they will change your mind on some of the other major things you've pointed out in your review. In fact playing the golden route first in my opinion sets you up for a lot of disappointment if you do decide to play the other routes. Very little changes in how you go about ending the game on that route that you didn't see in the golden route and if you do play the other route there's some glaring mistakes that are just a tad aggravating. I do love this game and I'm glad you got to enjoy it too.
2:25 I'm more interested in the Google translated Fire Emblem Sacred Stones.
Where is the rest of it, hmm?
I want to know if Eirika rode his brother with force a second time, God damnit!
Me: Oh there are different endings and whole conviction and negotiation system? GREAT!
The game: True/ Golden ending.
Me: Fuck it. I am out.