I'm just glad they were able to put together a cohesive story given that in Octopath the characters don't even interact with each other. Feels like they were starting from behind and barely managed to get to the same baseline as other games with this one
Cohesive is a bit generous, but it does technically happen. It's fine enough for a first playthrough, but it was built around the idea of circling back to do other routes, and that's when the dead ends become suuuuuuper obvious. It's a bummer.
I had reservations about Triangle Strategy based on the premise and gimmick of the plot and the conviction system. I wanted to see what else it offered, and your video was exactly what I needed. Thanks for the in-depth commentary and for the tie-in to Fell Seal. If you are interested in a title inspired by Fire Emblem/Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen, give Symphony of War: Nephilim Saga a shot. Tactics and group composition, story-based levels that throw different elements at you, fresh mechanics even late in the game, it does a lot despite its small team and indie roots. Great video. Cheers!
Yup, I gave a pretty happy review of that one a bit back. Triangle felt like a missed opportunity, there were some solid ideas, but they just never saw it through. Oh well, we have Tactics Ogre back on top again 🙂
1. So glad I'm not the only one who had gripes with Triangle Strategy. It's good to see others have similar critiques. 2. So glad I'm not the only one who had gripes with the way Fell Seal looks. It completely turned me off to the game and I didn't give it another thought. 3. XCOM rules (love me Long War 1 and 2) 4. Ok, you convinced me to give Fell Seal a shot. Seems like it hits a lot of the things I appreciate and enjoy in an SRPG. Thanks a lot for talking about all the things you like about it!
Glad to help, and yeah, it's a game that talks about swinging big, then sort of breaks for lunch. It looked so dang promising. Give it a go, It's awesome 👍
I spent the last hour comparing Fell Seal and Triangle Strategy to steak and salad respectively with Coffee, a conversation on my other comment posted to the video, but I'll repost it as a reply here too since other people should feel as hungry as I am right now at 5 in the morning too. What it boiled down to is sometimes you just love a meal like steak because you can leave the yucky things next to the steak, or give them to the dog. You'd have a much harder time ignoring or picking out the things in a salad. Sometimes lettuce still tastes like cucumbers or tomatoes even after picking them out, and maybe a salad is ruined because of it for some people. I do want to add that, if Coffee takes only one thing from my early morning musings on salad, let it be to go to Sweetgreens. That place makes the absolute best salads from things you can find at a grocery store, but everything there is phenomenal and diet friendly. Steak is overrated.
The essay I wrote on why Triangle Strategy is a Great Salad despite okay ingredients: How Fell Seal's delicious meat is ruined by a lack of cohesion and cheap shortcuts By Bubbyboy 6/24/22 @Coffee Potato I totally appreciate the salad and steak metaphor, and I wish I elaborated on my earlier statement. If you dont mind, I'd be willing to work with it to make the point I see it very differently. TS, Triangle Strategy, as a salad would be one you'd buy at a Sweetgreens: a very well thought out, albeit expensive, medley that makes best use of everyday quality ingredients. It has the art direction and aesthetic of Octopath Traveler (OT), a gameplay engine reminiscent of Final fantasy tactics (FFT), a plot not that far off from Game of Thrones (GoT), well thought out new game plus mechanics, and, debatably, acceptable voice acting with standout performances sprinkled in. All on their own, all the 'ingredients' I described would never carry a game. In fact, that's why I understand why people would feel frustrated with TS, especially when they do value a specific element of games over another. For example, if someone really loved Final Fantasy Tactics for its gameplay and creative jobs system, and didn't give a single whit about voice acting, unit balance, or plot, they'd draw comparisons to FFT and feel incredibly disappointed. This applies to the other 'ingredients' in the salad that constitutes TS. Ill be upfront, I wanted to love OT for its art style, but the complete lack of agency and the repetitive gameplay loop absolutely made me want to avoid the game. That all said, what makes TS, a Sweetgreen salad, to keep with the metaphor, is how those acceptable ingredients all pair together beautifully to justify its price tag. The setting pairs well with the art style, the main cast contrast great with the fun side characters you discover on multiple playthroughs, the orchestral soundtrack knows when to make its moments count and hit hard, and the moral quandaries offered to Serenoa all elevate the otherwise bloated dialogue. The team understood the limitations of their ingredients, but saw their strengths too. They carefully planned out a game that allowed its parts to shine, and its the cohesion of everything together that makes TS an intense, immersive, two day excursion into Norzelia. Is it a gourmet, "god-tier garden salad"? No. Is it a gourmet salad made from what's available, and you can appreciate the ingenuity that produced said salad in TS? Absolutely. To move on from the salad, let's talk about the steak I see Fell Seal as. A steak is a delcious meal, but it's a single ingredient--a slab of meat. There might be a couple garnishes and a few sides if you're lucky, but you can choose to ignore them and leave them off your proverbial plate. The 'meat' of Fell Seal, from what I understand, is the story. Obviously a raw slab of beef isnt appetizing, so the butter that cooks it could be gameplay, the salt whatever else Im missing. To keep with the metaphor, the characters could be the potatoes and whatever vegetable suits your fancy. For me, Fell Seal is a filet mignon, with all the fixings that'd make a meal at a Michelin star restaurant. But it's served on a roof tile, the perfectly cooked filet, is chopped into cubes floating in a strange liiquid, and the otherwise delcious hassleback potato is drenched in cheap honey mustard you found at the dollar general. If we're comparing FS to TS, also knowing FS isn't some random budget indie title and sold for the same price, I'd be more inclined to give guff to Fell Star for cheapening its game with cut corners. The backgrounds look like stock assets, the promotional art and portraits promise one aesthetic, but choose to render their characters with mobile game tier vector art, and absolutely no thought was given to the setting and how they'd be able to coexist with one another. Those decisions are the strange liquid your expensive beef is in, that roof tile you never asked to be served in, and the honey mustard on your delicately prepped potatoes. But, honestly, I do see why you, and many others, could, and would, still prefer FS over TS. Im sure FS' story is so amazing, youd be willing to pick the chunks out of the strange liquid, find contentment with eating a potato drenched in honey mustard, and who cares if the filet is on a roof tile. Im sure you enjoyed Fell Star and that oddly prepped filet mignon. I'd avoid the restaurant. I appreciate your input and willingness to open a dialogue with me, a random commenter who admittedly could have sounded dismissive. You made me realize that i do care about art and aesthetics in video games, and youve given me a reason to appreciate TS. I am pursuing art right now in uni, so I'd be happy to continue discussing the point.
@@CoffeePotato i wish Fell Seal had the art style of TO/FFT and TS. Currently the art style and very stiff animations are the things that really anoy me about Fell Seal and make it almost impossible for me to play it
@@rafalst Same, though after seeing Triangle using just as many reused animations...... The mechanics more than make up for it, and you can always just change how they look.
I never got Triangle because I value customizing my army and fixed characters didn't seem to allow that. Also, love to see some Fell Seal love. That game is great, one of my favorite tactics games and the best DLC I ever purchased. It's the only tactics game that lets me make an army of monsters and not feel like I'm missing out on customization. Btw, I kinda hope you never challenge-run this game. With how frustrating it seems to be for you, that sounds like a good way of tormenting yourself.
I actually did start a challenge run, got halfway, recorded it, and have been sitting on the footage because it was just like 5 hours of being bored at the broken AI.
Wasn't that excited for funny shapes game anyways. Now, Fell Seal is one of those "on my Steam wishlist, for when I actually have time". By the way, ever tried Fae Tactics, Mr. Potato? I bought it after Regdren did some videos and found it to be quite fun.
Thanks for making this, gave me a good overview after starting the game of what's left to come after chapter 2 and that it's not worth my time it, I don't really understand why everyone mentions how Triangle is in any way similar to Game of Thrones. It's not at all, aside from superficial concept fluff, like yeah ice faction etc. But they totally hit the mark in any sensible way if you really start thinking about the story. After mission 2 I was fed up with how bad the writing is as nothing makes any sense. Tactical gameplay probably is nice in it, but given how much writing there is in the game it just is tedious to sit through all of it. I even wrote an article how nonsensical the basic setup is. There are 3 resources, iron, salt and trade. Trade is not a resource, but meh "we just need to tell the player something feeling important" it feels, but once you switch on your brain all falls apart in Triangle. I mean in chapter 2 bandits just walk into the harbor of the 2nd most important family in the kingdom, which is not at all guarded. The princess gets dumped off for marriage without any escort for her importance, and the ship doesn't need any time to turn, restock on supplies or wait for wind in the other direction. After the battle everyone gets up and it was a friendly quarrel... It's so dumb that I didn't believe it how anyone could say this even resembles any fantasy story which is thought through. Then Triangle made me so unsure, that I had to go back to FFTactics, bc. I was unsure if I was making up things in my head and maybe after all that years its just nostalgia ... but no I didn't misremember. People have their social status and motivations according to it. Conflict makes a lot of sense and their battles do. And even they got really good explanations why there are bandits etc. The big question I wonder about now is why every single review site was praising Triangle and giving good reviews, based on what pile of nonsensical garbage it is and that at a price point of 2-3times as expensive as most "indie" choices which are arguably equally good, minus some first impression polish on visuals.
It's because it came from the fairly beloved Octopath folks, and it was given primo store placement for a few months. Many folks completely unfamiliar with the genre thought they discovered something new and unique. That's fair, I mean it's not awful...I haven't even wanted to touch it in months, but it's not objectively terrible on it's own, just a complete mess in context. The GoT comparisons are due to the entire section used for the preview being an almost shot for shot remake of GoT Season 1. I can't speak for the books, but I know that as soon as these story beats were supposed to try having payoffs, it crashed and burned repeatedly, no one stayed dead, it just got worse and worse until it tried to be LUCT in the endings. Sticking with the "they made the beginning and ends....and ran out of budget" assumption.
@@CoffeePotato That's actually a good observation with the switch store. However running out of budget is something I don't believe. I mean the budget on it needed to have been significantly bigger than any other indiegame just by production value alone. And also as a company you definitely wouldn't cut the budget of devs who made a critical success. I rather think it'd have needed more time and that's what they didn't get, as the release was at the end of the Japanese tax year (like Elden Ring) and Square Enix is a stock market company, so I rather think that they just didn't get any more time.
@@thomasf2736 From what I've heard on the project, it sounded like they pitched it as a lower budget thing, since they already had much of the assets they needed from Octopath. This is backed up by several fans of the game I've talked to (I have zero interest in Octo personally). It seemed like the saw LUCT, overestimated their own resources, and then just went for it. That's why I mention the voice acting as a weird choice, since there was a lot of confirmed, but far more assumed cut routes and choices...and it seems like VO would have been the biggest limiter. They had the maps, they had the fights, (there's 50+ completed maps with gimmicks in the bar list) so I think it's safe to assume they just had to take a chainsaw to the thing halfway through, and then just tried to sew it back together. It's a real shame, because without all that, there well might have been enough story and choice variety to make it all work. For reference, TO LUCT back a decade ago had a budget of 12mil, and similarly already had the structure in place, but chose instead to expand mechanics to a degree that's downright comical. Who needed a unique effect on one armor type no one ever used to make another unit afraid of their own healers? No one, and I love it.
@@CoffeePotato That's highly likely with Triangle. Just those kind of games are more complex than classical JRPGs and assets don#t mean as much to them as the mechanics, balance and writing. That LUCT had a budget of 12 millions is new to me, do you have any good source for this? Do you know how much budget other games in the ogre series / later square quest team had?
@@thomasf2736 True, but there wasn't exactly an ocean of unit variety either. I mean you hear about the reds and their birds a lot... but they don't even show up outside of a couple fights..and they're just more basic sword guys. I want to say it was on one of their IMDB page variants or one of the interviews. I'll look it up and link it if I remember to do so.
I love your vids but could you make them shorter? Or just split them in two parts. Not 10 minutes short but... I mean, this one is slightly better but the previous one was a little hard to watch in one go, especially after work.
Fair, I really should do more short ones. Just every time I do I sit there like "ok, there's like 80 more things I wanted to cover....trash ". Will attempt to do so.
After 320 hours of Wildermyth I think I'm finally ready to give Fell Seal a real shot, just picked it up on the Switch after putting it off for a while on PC. In the end, Triangle has all the same issues I had with Octopath. It wants to be character-based, but it was too wordy where it shouldn't be, with not enough words where it actually matters. The lack of generics sealed the deal for me, especially after Wildermyth let me go nuts with my randos. I'm still glad Triangle's kept SRPGs on people's minds though, the more big releases we get the more likely Matsuno and Yoshi-P will be able to bully SE into another TO. And it was interesting to see an isometric SRPG go the no generics route like Fire Emblem, even if that's not my preferred type of SRPG.
Solidly put (Not sure why YT had this under Pending for 9 days, but that's just it's logic), and funnily enough I've been looking forward to Wildermyth coming to the ol fun brick this year.
Soooo I like Fell seal. I actually bought it and beat it. Loved how you have jobs and itd basically FFT. Did you mention how you cant rotate maps? Also the graphics , & story are really not good at all. Luckily the gameplay is fantastic. Maybe people have played all of the games you’ve suggested ? Idk lol. I thought your take on this was interesting but saying to buy other old games most of your supports have already played just seems a little off putting especially because a strong point of why we arr srpg fans is because we love the game play which in all the games you mentioned is really fun. Also theirs a new tactic game that seems to be happening because of the sucess of triangle strategy sales doing great amongst other reasons but the people really showef them they want SPRG games. We should be encouraging people to buy the game im sorry you really dont even think it should be recommended it but i do thank you for giving the game your almost 100 hours & $60. I look forward to the challenge runs thought because it seems like they are gonna be fun to watch you navigate hardship while struggling with even wanting to play the game because you cant stop thinking of fell seal haha. I do wish for a Fell seal sequel but the devs already said they rather spend resources on a different kind of game. A triangle strategy sequel that has improved on everything done here would be a real joy though. I do like this video though. & if you havent played fell seal people you are missing out. I love FFT FFTA&A2 Tactics Orge Knight of lodis & LUCT. Fell seal & Triangle Strategy. I love the variety of playing all these games because none are completely the same. & i Look fwd to your response. I had to delete because of course you cant edit here sorry lol.
As of yesterday, Triangle is on PC, and I would bet folks will probably mod the extensive plot holes and chainsaw levels of cut content pretty short order. Fun game, but wow does it drop the ball a lot, especially at full price. If you mean Fell Seal, definitely Switch, it feels great on the thing.
Some of the stuff you took criticized I saw as boons. I loved the lack of monster enemies, but I wish they had just removed the fantasy elements entirely and made it purely a historical fiction. Fell Seal was a good effort, but ultimately, I have no desire to return to it. The game was just too homogenized. It is among my least favorite SRPGs, only above unmodded NuXCOM and Disgaea. The game got actively worse the more I played. That said, I would love to see a new entry in the franchise, because the potential is there!
A- True, I completely agree on that one, but that's what made the lack of monsters that much more noticable. It acted like an Ogre game, but didn't include the world. Where were these hawks I kept hearing about, just on that boat for the most part? 2- Fair, though did you mess with the difficulty? On Higher difficulties it's anything but. Unshackle the AI and it'll surprise you with the chaotic counterplay circus.
@@CoffeePotato 1. Yeah the game was mostly focused on historicism, and it would have been cool if they went mostly all the way. Something like Battle Brothers. 2. Yup, I played with a hacked permadeath setting. So that even 1 KO puts a character out for good. Enemies were also buffed to be noticably stronger than my own guys. The homogenization was caused primarily by class design, where instead of the FFT model where every job is specialized into a certain niche. Most jobs were all rounders. The Archer's 32 MP DELETE button got a lot less special when the templars, and more classes ended up with a near identical skill. The Duelist could resurrect for some reason, the dark mage, was almost identical to the previous mage, except they used the dark element instead, and could cast from their HP (which could be inherited by every other class so that barely mattered). And I am not even sure what the Witch Doctor is supposed to be. It could have been fun as a Mesmer type, which specializes on manipulating status effects. But yeah, each job blurred too much into eachother, and that made the whole multiclassing thing feel mostly pointless. The best class, as in the most interesting, is the mercenary, as they could actually play well into positioning. Made the best use of the game's more unique mechanics. I think I would have a lot of fun with Fell Seal if someone remade the jobs to stand out more from eachother.
Yeah, Fell Seal's artstyle really isnt doing it for me at all. Id be the last person to prioritize graphics in games, but I suppose aesthetics matter way more for me than I realized...
Looking at it some more, it's not that the graphics themselves are the issue, to be honest. I'll give you that there is quality to it. What's bugging me is the complete lack of art direction and cohesion to everything in Fell Seal. It has realistic portraits next to stylized characters and stark backgrounds that clash with said characters. You could argue that the color choices are meant to make the units pop out, and I can respect that to a point. However, the world all ends up looking empty and unlived, and it breaks immersion harder than anything Triangle Strategy's story can. What people gloss over about Triangle Strategy is how immersive the character designs are with the world of Nozelia, and how every background is equally unique and facinating. That, for me, is what draws me in as someone who never played a strategy oriented rpg. As far as art direction and vision goes, props to the developers.
@@BubbyBoy See, I'd disagree, but that's a fair point. TS's characters lack any sort of logical cohesion to me, far more than any visual element of FS, personally. Like when two cops stop to chat about cop stuff in FS, I don't see the portraits, I see two people trying to figure out their situation. When 8 cutscenes of generic anime "and then they saved the babies" flavor cutscenes barrage me in TS for the second time, I literally found myself grumbling "you've got to be kidding me with this shit.". The plot is just the garnish of inedible allegedly good lettuce on FS on top of a mechanical fillet mignon. TS is a salad made of that lettuce trying to pass itself off as the God Tier garden salad with steak and fresh fruits of TO. It has some chicken in there, so there's some meat, but it's not as fresh and satisfying on multiple layers as TO, it's not as chunky as FS, and it's like....who the hell out iceberg in here, when There's Spinach and banana pepper mix right over there? It's a McDonald's salad dreaming of greatness in my eyes, but that's largely due to context. I can't take most of its scenes seriously when they've been done so much better by it's inspiration. It might get people into salads, but it doesn't compare once you've tried both. You maybe get in the mood for it every now and then, but like...you know that guilty feeling from a fast food salad? That feeling of "this was neither wholesome nor cheap?". That's the feeling it gives me personally. Sorry to tear into it. It's just that especially with likely TO and TS costing the same soon, it's...not going to be a choice.
@@CoffeePotato I totally appreciate the salad and steak metaphor, and I wish I elaborated on my earlier statement. If you dont mind, I'd be willing to work with it to make the point I see it very differently. Im also a bit lost on your use of abbreviations, but I'll try my best to guess. TS, Triangle Strategy, as a salad would be one you'd buy at a Sweetgreens: a very well thought out, albeit expensive, medley that makes best use of everyday quality ingredients. It has the art direction and aesthetic of Octopath Traveler (OT), a gameplay engine reminiscent of Final fantasy tactics (FFT), a plot not that far off from Game of Thrones (GoT), well thought out new game plus mechanics, and, debatably, acceptable voice acting with standout performances sprinkled in. All on their own, all the 'ingredients' I described would never carry a game. In fact, that's why I understand why people would feel frustrated with TS, especially when they do value a specific element of games over another. For example, if someone really loved Final Fantasy Tactics for its gameplay and creative jobs system, and didn't give a single whit about voice acting, unit balance, or plot, they'd draw comparisons to FFT and feel incredibly disappointed. This applies to the other 'ingredients' in the salad that constitutes TS. Ill be upfront, I wanted to love OT for its art style, but the complete lack of agency and the repetitive gameplay loop absolutely made me want to avoid the game. That all said, what makes TS, a Sweetgreen salad, to keep with the metaphor, is how those acceptable ingredients all pair together beautifully to justify its price tag. The setting pairs well with the art style, the main cast contrast great with the fun side characters you discover on multiple playthroughs, the orchestral soundtrack knows when to make its moments count and hit hard, and the moral quandaries offered to Serenoa all elevate the otherwise bloated dialogue. The team understood the limitations of their ingredients, but saw their strengths too. They carefully planned out a game that allowed its parts to shine, and its the cohesion of everything together that makes TS an intense, immersive, two day excursion into Norzelia. Is it a gourmet, "god-tier garden salad"? No. Is it a gourmet salad made from what's available, and you can appreciate the ingenuity that produced said salad in TS? Absolutely. To move on from the salad, let's talk about the steak I see Fell Star as. A steak is a delcious meal, but it's a single ingredient--a slab of meat. There might be a couple garnishes and a few sides if you're lucky, but you can choose to ignore them and leave them off your proverbial plate. The 'meat' of Fell Star, from what I understand, is the story. Obviously a raw slab of beef isnt appetizing, so the butter that cooks it could be gameplay, the salt whatever else Im missing. To keep with the metaphor, the characters could be the potatoes and whatever vegetable suits your fancy. For me, Fell Seal is a filet mignon, with all the fixings that'd make a meal at a Michelin star restaurant. But it's served on a roof tile, the perfectly cooked filet, is chopped into cubes floating in a strange liiquid, and the otherwise delcious hassleback potato is drenched in cheap honey mustard you found at the dollar general. If we're comparing FS to TS, also knowing FS isn't some random budget indie title and sold for the same price, I'd be more inclined to give guff to Fell Star for cheapening its game with cut corners. The backgrounds look like stock assets, the promotional art and portraits promise one aesthetic, but choose to render their characters with mobile game tier vector art, and absolutely no thought was given to the setting and how they'd be able to coexist with one another. Those decisions are the strange liquid your expensive beef is in, that roof tile you never asked to be served in, and the honey mustard on your delicately prepped potatoes. But, honestly, I do see why you, and many others, could, and would, still prefer FS over TS. Im sure FS' story is so amazing, youd be willing to pick the chunks out of the strange liquid, find contentment with eating a potato drenched in honey mustard, and who cares if the filet is on a roof tile. Im sure you enjoyed Fell Star and that oddly prepped filet mignon. I'd avoid the restaurant. I appreciate your input and willingness to open a dialogue with me, a random commenter who admittedly could have sounded dismissive. You made me realize that i do care about art and aesthetics in video games, and youve given me a reason to appreciate TS. I am pursuing art right now in uni, so I'd be happy to continue discussing the point.
@@BubbyBoy Out of curiosity, why Fell Star? I'm not sure if I'm missing something. Also, for the record, I absolutely made some top tier steak with diet protein mashed potatoes and bargain honey mustard, it was pretty legit 🤣👌. Ok, jokes aside, I hear you, though a couple of tweaks. FS's thing isn't the story, for this metaphor it would be the overused ceramic diner plate it was served on. It's setting would be the cozy diner booth it was served at. It's not fancy, but for FFTA/A2 fans, it feels like home. That one's hard to quantify. I like to think the actual meat there, to torpedo the metaphor I started here, might better be explained as unlimited soup and bread sticks. You can swap between options on the fly for whatever you're feeling, and it'll just keep serving it up. Counterplay is it's strength. The story exists, but the fights are fresh every time. They have new options, new tricks, and it just feels nice to see the AI being a true challenge without any stat shenanigans. They do entirely different things, but unfortunately share the same market, often exclusively due to the price. I think part of the frustration, to elaborate on what you were saying on priorities, lies in that TS could have done so much more with such a slight difference in them. They didn't have a huge budget. Yet they still placed voice acting up there as a necessary thing. A year before release, people didn't like the voices ...and allegedly they doubled down, though I don't know what this entailed exactly. I only mention this because TO had the same situation, with 5 different outcomes, bizarrely. So when the SNES version came out, they sacrificed some technical stability and a lot of flashiness, plus the mechanics were . .dubious. It was all story and immersion. Cult classic, and appreciated for it's mature approach at the time. Ok, fine. Then it got a Saturn port. It was given full voice acting. They could only do one language, and it was considered a cool novelty, despite basically increasing the game's size by about 11x, and still had a lot of the technical issues with iffy balance. They did the same with MOTBQ, giving it a full colorization, adding voices, and some new angles. It ran a little better, but got 5 new zones because of less voices than TO. Ok, that was a lot of time and money... we'll call that an artistic tax write off. At the same time, another team had the PS1 versions. They added a waypoint system to MOTBQ, have uniques unique pallettes, added new camera angles, reduced lag, and added a bunch of quality of life help tips. For TO, they made the most stable version of the original, added more than 2 save slots, redid the music (for better or worse), and seemingly improved the AI for both games. Solid improvements, and held up a lot better than the still decent voice acting. Anyway, then FFT came. No voices, but really punchy sound effects, better camera work, and while still dubious, better balance. WoTL comes in with that other approach again. New cutscenes, though I think it's jarring to see your PC name forgotten for those, plus how they jump around, not even counting the insane lag spikes. But a multiplayer feature almost no one asked for...some new characters to sell other games...took modders almost no time to fix the bugs, they could have done it with a shift in priorities. Then we get to the TO remake. Started as just a basic remake, but then they started trying to address issues people had. Total rebalance, twice as many chapters, probably 100+ new maps, more than double the classes, a full orchestral soundtrack, multiple versions of each map, a skill system combining elements from FFT, TO, A/A2, and KoL, new story beats and stories altogether, and technically voice acting....but only for the chapter transitions. My point is, this can be said for other series, but this particular thread of consciousness was already explored with a much bigger budget, and taking the more expensive approach didn't ever result in anything better. Reading over the confirmed cut content for TS, seeing how quickly they bailed on it to go do anything else, and assuming a similar situation for all other moments similar to the confirmed cut areas...this could have been so much more, and truly one of the greats if they just focussed on what made the game good, instead of VO. How many lines did they have to cut for it? How many choices? How many skills were cut because of needing lines? How many moments of choice that had near identical results did we get? My frustration with TS is what it could have been. I'm largely leaving out the visual element because it's something they already had, it was a solid choice. I think it's kinda hard to see detail in 2DHD, but that's a whole other discussion. Anyway, I appreciate the discussion, this stuff is fun!
FF7 had counter steal... didn't it? It's been decades since I last played it so I might be wrong. OH and BTW, Xcom2 is on android now too so there's that.
It might've, I'm not sure. Still pretty rare. Counter Steal doesn't do it, but I love the main Steal skill actually stealing consumable stock items back and forth. It's surprising how much damage can be mitigated just stealing one of the Rocks from the Patented Usage/Item Expert units. It's so simple of a thing, and it never gets done. Also, about time! The iPad port was excellent. The switch port is...iffy.
XCOM2’s Long War mods and LUCT’s One Vision are two games I always come back to because nothing scratches that itch. Have to admit I haven’t tried Fell Seal just because of the art style but I might give it a go if you say it stacks up to the other games mentioned.
View it as the game it is, and you'll have a blast. The story is whatever, but the mechanics are easily among the best in the genre. Especially when you crank up the difficulty, and see the galaxy brain macguyvering on both sides to get an edge. It feels so satisfying.
@@jkytest1 From what I can tell, they were considering it as a Game+DLC release, but ended up going onto their next project instead. As I understand, it may still happen, but it's not a priority. I'll ask on their discord, forgot to do that. It's a pretty small file size, though.
So far i didnt buy Triangle yet Seem its leans towards player that like ff t and tactic ogre I think super robot war series players probably harder to get into it But still triangle got pretty good graphic and design overall
Eh....it's got a decent engine that can do a lot of things. I'd argue the actual art style is pretty generic. TO definitely blows it out of the water visually when I compare the two. Not because of particles, but because of the effort to actually put different effects in.
Bold of you to claim that Fell Seal is your favorite when you haven't done a challenge run of all catfish. The infamous mer-man-sort-of? run. Actually, if we're talking Fell Seal challenge runs, I love the idea of how OB64 has the all-demon run and doing a Fell Seal version. You'd need two runs to get six demons since they aren't tameable except the special ones via missions. That'd get you the harvester/succubus/archafflictor X 2. If you wanted to do, say, an all succubus run, you'd need to go through six play throughs to get enough demons. So if you're planning some challenge runs, it might be worth saving your demons for future runs.
What you say in your videos is really hard to follow. Like from 13:20 to 14:00 you reference a bunch of characters and plot events in very general terms that makes it very, very difficult for someone who lacks a lot of background knowledge to know what you are talking about. I lack that background knowledge and was very confused. The various interstitial phrases -- "umm" and so on -- exacerbate this problem, because they add a bunch of space in between information that, if it was presented together, might be easier to draw inferences from. I'm very interested in the subject matter of your videos but cannot really get anything out of them because of this structure. I would like to suggest that you maybe should maybe spend more time writing scripts and practicing them until you can more capably extemporaneously present ideas in a more understandable way.
True. But on the other hand, I'm even worse at staying on script. Also being utterly exhausted these last few months hasn't helped. I'm working on better things, this one was fairly off the cuff. 3 kiddos, holidays, family chaos, and a new house don't make for a calm moment.
@@CoffeePotato the 2 fights I did were cool but yeh I think imma pass. I got Fell Seal in the mail the other day and that's going to be next on the docket once I wrap up Tactics Ogre
disagree. the only good thing about fell seal is the job system and some of the monsters look interesting i think fans of fell seal are fans of character building games tbh (like in disgaea and MMORPGs where you end up trying to make the most OP character as possible), not the strategy aspect of SRPGs
Hard disagree there, but it's kind of a long story as to why. While FS may have that appeal to some, it's why I always tell folks to play it on the highest difficulty, or a custom variant. You can't over level something with infinite levels, and the strategy aspect becomes unavoidable. Actually, recently I tested this out of curiosity. See...the DLC has something I viewed as an exploit. You can infinitely gain Ability points, which means job levels, which beans bonus stats, without actually moving your level anywhere. Figuring I'd test if it holds up, and having a week of yard work, diapers, and moving furniture in my figure, I went to sending units on these side missions every hour for several days, acquiring insane amounts of masteries in the early part of the game. Didn't matter. My core team could now tag team combo snipe across the map, constantly heal, and had armor stacks for days. The AI, however, switched to armor piercing moves, many had ranged avoidance, and even more had insane combos out the ears. The levels didn't matter. The access didn't matter. All that mattered was finding a way to adapt to ridiculous scenarios where meta means nothing. I appreciate Fell Seal for it's counter play. It gives me new surprises every time, and brings back those days growing up when my brother and I would play chess at the Y every day. The story is whatever, the presentation is low budget, but clearly someone cared. The high level stuff is a 4d fustercluck of on the fly adaptation to things you can't ever prepare for.
Mmmm, interesting points with most of which I sadly disagree. And I'm barely 20 minutes into the video at the moment of writing this. I feel this analysis is slightly unfair. Only after doing two runs does one get clear proofs that there was no choice in the end. You do start getting that feeling by the endgame even on the blind playthrough, but nowhere near the definitive answer you get after looking at the events tree. Only after a couple playthroughs do you see how no matter the choice you end up on same path. Except true ending, of course, which is pretty strict about choices to take. So blasting the story from that point is unfair I feel. It could've been better, true. Tactics Ogre style. Where the routes really differ and merge only at the end. It's still a good attempt I think. Choices really made me think. Think of who is Serenoa and what line of action would be best. Do I give up childhood friend who is de facto my king? Or do I fight unwinnable battle and drown my land in blood with best possible outcome being not losing? Do I hand over my people or do I stand for them? Considering my choice was to hand over the prince to save my own land and people I felt compelled to protect the village no matter what. Otherwise why did I give up childhood friend who was my lord at the time? Things like that. That automatically meant no way could I follow Roland and give everything to Highsand. It would contradict my earlier actions. Deciding to stay behind and help with capital showed me how Roland got to that conclusion though. So it was believable enough. Story was quite decent in that sense. Also about characters not talking for 40 hours till the ending... I dunno. I watched all (probably not 100% all but I did get plenty) the extra interactions and kept talking to them in the tent each chapter. So I never felt like they were just there. So it's just the playstyle thing. Someone in comments was lamenting lack of generics. I don't like generics. Those characters would truly be just there to be used solely for battle and have 0 impact on story and lore. The grandkid mage gave me certain image of Highsand too. As did the archer geezer. So I was not surprised when they offered a very high rank. Because even that rank was disposable. Just a nice way to use people. Made sense. As for people being dumb... I felt that. Took too long for them to figure out Esfrost's strategy even though all the clues were in plain sight. Irritated me since I had no problem with that northern state and constantly seeked ways to get them on same side. Cuz clearly the kingdom and the religious autocracy were the menace for me. Even though I was supposed to be part of the kingdom history showed it was a recent addition and house Wallfort used to be a major player anyway. Till the peace treaty 30 years ago. Which is nothing in terms of time. Not even a generation ago as plenty of people are alive from those times. Voice acting was quite decent I think. Though I have no idea what it was in English and frankly do think it could be very weird. As a jap I don't play games in English if they originated in Japan. Things like Baldur's Gate, sure, I prefer it in English. In original, so to speak. Map gimmicks... There were plenty to my untrained eye. I frankly don't care about mechanics and gimmicks. Those would be least important things I look for in a strategy game. Or RPG. I'm after the story and characters. In that sense I absolutely cannot agree that Fell Seal is leagues above Tringle Strategy. The only thing they did better is customization of characters. Which I really don't care about. Growing up on Fire Emblem, Front Mission, Der Langrisser and Tactics Ogre I never felt any desire to have fun with builds. I still don't. Maybe that's why FFT is so hard for me to play. I just don't get interested enough to keep going. Like Fell Seal. I'm probably around starting point of middlegame there, and I honestly don't remember the story or characters. At all. I got a bunch of people going on some journey for some reason. That's all I remember. Unlike Triangle Strategy where I remember spending an extra day trying to figure out what choice to make. That alone puts TS leagues above Fell Seal for me. Characters got depth to them in TS. Compared to Fell Seal at least. So basically people who enjoy mechanics and builds would prefer Fell Seal, and people who don't care about mechanics, gimmics and builds would lean towards TS. That's my overall impression. Oh, and calling Svarog "some border patrol guy" is too diminishing for my taste. A very important character in the story and lore. It just shows difference in what one is looking for in a strategy game.
Fair, though some of this might have been lost in my tendency to ramble. I'm a little confused as to the beginning there, because we seem to agree that the idea was interesting, but the execution was...sub par. I did actually go and talk to each of the characters in each and every single scene on all intial playthroughs. That's why I say they went for the Souls style, adding a small quip when an upgrade happens, and then rotating a few lines. But...it doesn't feel like more than "hey, guy, you pushed the button, good job, buddy!" From a statue to me. I'm talking about proper interactions. On the TO comparison, the Zenobians will argue with each and every single Lodissian leader they come across, for better or worse. You didn't lose anything for bringing them due to the bigger team size, and it was consistent enough that you could figure out to bring them just for fun. That's why I say they clearly ran out of time or budget for the voices. Sure, the endings have more lines, but there's a really noticable talking unit hole around the majority of the center of the game, across all routes. They were on a budget, I understand, but that's why they didn't need the voices. I personally would love to see double the lines and no voices. It increases cost exponentially for little actual benefit. I know it's an RPG, but many of us more western leaning folks get irritated by the endless quips and callouts. While it's no Star Ocean "let me yell side kick at this boss 800 times", it's still pretty grating. Sure, Svarog has more actual role in the story as the bereaved dad trying to get revenge, but he's there as the guy guarding the border. He's diminished to his role as the guy who can turn the reds in my mind because again, you can feel the cut content there. Freddy wants to talk to him....but that route was cut, so he just awkwardly yells at you to leave. Going into that scenario, I was expecting to make use of the stuff gathered at that point, mentally yelling at my screen "show him the f**king explosives journal to help him make the cannon what's wrong with you?!". There should have been a negotiation, there was not. So he's just "border control guy who gets promoted conveniently so the plot can happen." Their intentions were better, the execution was unfinished. That's really my point behind this whole rant. I know story adaptation on the level of TOPSP or FONV is unrealistic, but it felt like they bit off more than they could chew, and then tried to make it work. As for Fell Seal, yeah, it's basically 4d chess, but with a lot of love put into the details. I appreciate seeing my randos just doing their jobs. Generics can be nice for fleshing out the world. Just depends how they're handled. I just know that if I'm playing for a story, TS isn't really written well enough to call itself story first. It's got it's moments when it copies other stories, but when it comes to it's own ideas, characters start going braindead so the drama can happen. It's written like a daytime super hero show. Just like The Flash forgets to go fast because plot, no situation in TS can have an earlier prepared ideal solution...because plot. I'm hoping when it inevitably comes to PC we'll see some of the many obvious cut choices and fight avoidances restored. I think they were too focussed on making sure to follow the Explore-Fight-Vote formula. I'm sure there's more to say, and this wasn't the best written, but I'm barely awake today on account of helping a relative move till 2am, and 3 hours sleep was not enough. Hopefully this clarified some thoughts and such, have a good one!
Kinda glad to hear that this is how Triangle Strategy turned out. I realized a while ago that Squeenix has been good and dead for well over a decade. Whenever they hit a fiscal lull, they just slap together a remake, remaster, or a port to get that nostalgia sucker money, and those sales fuel the development of some half-baked new IP that falls woefully short of what everyone was expecting. And then they draw the people that they disappointed back in with another remake, remaster, or a port as an apology, and then another awful new IP, etc etc. People are ignoring what's happening because Squeenix is essentially handing the inner child in everyone's memories a tasty new cupcake every few months to keep it satisfied while not actually creating anything of value. It's "FFVII Syndrome" where mediocre products are being sold based on a reputation that hasn't been valid in years.
Seems that way, though they do seem to allegedly have some more solid products. It's weird, because the gameplay system here is good, but it feels more and more hollow. Heard good things about their MMO...not about to touch that. The Legend of Mana remake was unexpected, but apparently pretty solid...though basically a straight port of the original hidden gem with more plot cohesion. I never knew they would even remember some of these things, but sure enough, some dev waited 20 years to flesh out that talking cactus. The corporate side may be cynical, but they do still have some champs in there trying to do why they can, I think. Like you can tell that TS devs were massive Ogre fans...but had no resources to finish this game.
What difficulty did you play it on? FS is one of those where you don't play for the story, you play it for the game. It never really does anything other than what it's meant to...conveying you from fight to fight, and those fights, especially when things get crazy, and especially on higher difficulties, take what would be a slog in many other games, and elevates it to a beautiful counterplay fustercluck that you rarely see outside of high level AoE2 type situations. Creative solutions and weird builds are the game. Chess needs no story is how I see it. I don't remember why the hell we were fighting snakes flying out of caves, or why the bad guys did what they did, but I will always remember the fun I've had dealing with impossible maps in creative ways. Ultimately part of it's identity is taking these generic or normal things, and twisting them into something cool. Like the Mercenary is both the Soldier and Warrior from FFTA...on paper. But what it unlocks is one handing two handed weapons, and a health boost, if that's handy... or a suite of handy utility moves, like shoulder checking people off of roofs. Now you take that over to a reaver...you can combine that Grip ability with Dual Wield and the Reaver's health steal and some blood sickles and an MP shield to suddenly have a really resilient self healer with great pressure. It's taking those nothings and making them into something. Or you take the Lich poison spell passive and combine it with the weakening passive, use that on a class with barriers and mapwide abilities for a unit that shuts off healing and poisons everyone while being able to shrug off some long range counters. But...then at higher difficulties, the AI has these same ideas. They spawn in with as much madness as you allow in the settings...and that adaptive counterplay circus is unmatched in any game I've seen.
Gonna comment and then watch video: Triangle Strategy has almost no customization of characters and parties (equipment/classes/skills) only who you choose to bring. I was really disappointed in the game when I saw i couldn't spend half my time in party management. Fell seal's art is jarring and takes a bit to get use to.
Exactly my issue. Past the intro they used for marketing, it's a half baked skeleton of a game. Fell Seal is definitely not the prettiest, but hot dang that gameplay is so solid. I love when the AI can legitimately surprise you with crazy builds. Like that guy in the hood over there may seem like a dork, but he just combined a knife's speed with a samurai's TV long range melee nonsense, a poison on hit effect, and a counter teleport to have a dagger sniper. Or that rando over there who combined Health Expert, Sturdy Grip, Versatile, Vampire, and Boon on a Hammer Tank. Basically stealing health while critting constantly and being built like a wall. Not so threatening when his arms don't work, but still. It's just fun to have that "tough nut to crack" puzzle.
That about sums it up. Golden ending is pretty neat, but has that MGSV effect of thinking back and realizing what that means in context. Golden Ending feels like they started the part from the demo, did the golden ending, and made the rest on a drunken bender.
Finally came back to finish this review after getting through as much of Triangle Strategy as I could stomach. Can't agree more. I stopped my playthrough after finally getting sick to death of the interminable set-up to every single battle in the game. Like, I get being frustrated with the fact that in lots of SRPGs you don't necessarily have a lot of context before every fight and for a certain type of player this is frustrating to them because a contextless battle doesn't make sense to them. But when every fight has basically an entire anime episode preceding it (and it's a very mediocre anime at that) you've gone entirely too far in the other direction, and it's just not worth it. Especially when there's absolutely nothing unique to your tactical options in the game and the story is very, very dull. Good to see that even the story pathing doesn't really amount to much, so that suspicion is confirmed. And if there was a mod that made Fell Seal visually not nauseating, I'd actually play that game. I'm glad you enjoy it though.
It's certainly an odd duck of a game, and I will forever be baffled at how often it's praised as flawless for exactly all of the above...the broken AI, the clearly hacked together cut routes, it's just bizarre. FS isn't for everyone, but it's super rare to see an AI that can think ahead and plan to some degree. I'm hoping TO Reborn will be able to do that, though.
triangle strategy story is way better than fell seal. Also, Fell seal writing is pure cringe that ruins the whole game. this video feels biased towards fell seal tbh.
We're talking cringe writing and Triangle is what we're bringing to the table? The one that plain forgets genocides seconds after they happen? The one where no one can stop repeating themselves because they constantly have to beat you over the head with their motivations, because they assume you forgot? Fell Seal is about the gameplay, the story just kind of exists. The counterplay and gameplay customization is where that one shines. To be blunt, because it's that kind of day: Triangle...tried to be Tactics Ogre, but minus the meaningful choice impact, actual good writing, next to zero customization, and did have some interesting ideas they they forgot to carry on to the rest of the game. Shocking water is a fun mechanic, too bad it doesn't do more than tickle past the beginning...and every other field effect is like this too. The AI....well, it improved to an extent as of the last patch, but I wouldn't be shocked if 90%+ of the maps still can be boiled down to "Do some basic movement to break the AI, poison, and the fight wins itself". It's harsh primarily because it had a golden opportunity and ideas to do something really, really good...and they just never finished it. Also the lack of interaction from most of the cast, several of their stories getting no real ending, and general lack of remembrance from choices just kinda sucks. Once you've gotten used to the Ogre series, when you hear the team that made part of one them was making one like it, you expect something other than a couple extra maps. The epilogue, even, had only two versions. They had the budget, they had the people. They had NG+lines for impossible scenarios, but didn't finish a ton of the other stories. Something happened there.
@@MilkTankz It's fun, but they can't tell the difference between good writing and word count. Mechanically...it's got the mechanics from the demo, and a little after, but more than half of the game there's just nothing new besides the odd map gimmick coming back. Only a handful of the choices even get brought up again, and there's next to zero choice in unit building. FS got brought up by comparison because it wouldn't be even remotely fair to put it next to Tactics Ogre or Unicorn Overlord. It sold itself as the Tactics Ogre replacement. Mechanically it's more of a Vandal Hearts. Fell Seal ain't a looker, but it's got mechanics out the ears. Considering the team and budget disparity between the two, it really shouldn't be close. I give Triangle a hard time because Triangle 2 has the chance to be amazing. They had great ideas here, and almost none of them are executed well. What's the point of an exploration mechanic when it's just money piles most of the game? Why have a camp at all when no one there can interact? Why even bother with a choice when both outcomes have the same thing with a couple different lines? It's the classic comparison of good ideas being executed badly vs focused ideas being executed well. Games are more than just looks.
Игры
I struggle to get past the art style of fell seal. Give me fell seal with triangle strategy art and I’ll be so happy.
Give it a chance and it grows on you. You don't play chess because the pawns are high definition is how I see it.
Same. Can't stand how Fell Seal looks and honestly its story hooks don't do it for me.
The art is ok dude.
Gameplay over art style always, imo.
I'm just glad they were able to put together a cohesive story given that in Octopath the characters don't even interact with each other. Feels like they were starting from behind and barely managed to get to the same baseline as other games with this one
Cohesive is a bit generous, but it does technically happen. It's fine enough for a first playthrough, but it was built around the idea of circling back to do other routes, and that's when the dead ends become suuuuuuper obvious. It's a bummer.
I had reservations about Triangle Strategy based on the premise and gimmick of the plot and the conviction system. I wanted to see what else it offered, and your video was exactly what I needed. Thanks for the in-depth commentary and for the tie-in to Fell Seal.
If you are interested in a title inspired by Fire Emblem/Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen, give Symphony of War: Nephilim Saga a shot. Tactics and group composition, story-based levels that throw different elements at you, fresh mechanics even late in the game, it does a lot despite its small team and indie roots.
Great video. Cheers!
Yup, I gave a pretty happy review of that one a bit back. Triangle felt like a missed opportunity, there were some solid ideas, but they just never saw it through. Oh well, we have Tactics Ogre back on top again 🙂
1. So glad I'm not the only one who had gripes with Triangle Strategy. It's good to see others have similar critiques.
2. So glad I'm not the only one who had gripes with the way Fell Seal looks. It completely turned me off to the game and I didn't give it another thought.
3. XCOM rules (love me Long War 1 and 2)
4. Ok, you convinced me to give Fell Seal a shot. Seems like it hits a lot of the things I appreciate and enjoy in an SRPG. Thanks a lot for talking about all the things you like about it!
Glad to help, and yeah, it's a game that talks about swinging big, then sort of breaks for lunch. It looked so dang promising.
Give it a go, It's awesome 👍
I spent the last hour comparing Fell Seal and Triangle Strategy to steak and salad respectively with Coffee, a conversation on my other comment posted to the video, but I'll repost it as a reply here too since other people should feel as hungry as I am right now at 5 in the morning too.
What it boiled down to is sometimes you just love a meal like steak because you can leave the yucky things next to the steak, or give them to the dog. You'd have a much harder time ignoring or picking out the things in a salad. Sometimes lettuce still tastes like cucumbers or tomatoes even after picking them out, and maybe a salad is ruined because of it for some people.
I do want to add that, if Coffee takes only one thing from my early morning musings on salad, let it be to go to Sweetgreens. That place makes the absolute best salads from things you can find at a grocery store, but everything there is phenomenal and diet friendly. Steak is overrated.
The essay I wrote on why Triangle Strategy is a Great Salad despite okay ingredients: How Fell Seal's delicious meat is ruined by a lack of cohesion and cheap shortcuts
By Bubbyboy 6/24/22
@Coffee Potato I totally appreciate the salad and steak metaphor, and I wish I elaborated on my earlier statement. If you dont mind, I'd be willing to work with it to make the point I see it very differently.
TS, Triangle Strategy, as a salad would be one you'd buy at a Sweetgreens: a very well thought out, albeit expensive, medley that makes best use of everyday quality ingredients. It has the art direction and aesthetic of Octopath Traveler (OT), a gameplay engine reminiscent of Final fantasy tactics (FFT), a plot not that far off from Game of Thrones (GoT), well thought out new game plus mechanics, and, debatably, acceptable voice acting with standout performances sprinkled in.
All on their own, all the 'ingredients' I described would never carry a game. In fact, that's why I understand why people would feel frustrated with TS, especially when they do value a specific element of games over another. For example, if someone really loved Final Fantasy Tactics for its gameplay and creative jobs system, and didn't give a single whit about voice acting, unit balance, or plot, they'd draw comparisons to FFT and feel incredibly disappointed. This applies to the other 'ingredients' in the salad that constitutes TS. Ill be upfront, I wanted to love OT for its art style, but the complete lack of agency and the repetitive gameplay loop absolutely made me want to avoid the game.
That all said, what makes TS, a Sweetgreen salad, to keep with the metaphor, is how those acceptable ingredients all pair together beautifully to justify its price tag. The setting pairs well with the art style, the main cast contrast great with the fun side characters you discover on multiple playthroughs, the orchestral soundtrack knows when to make its moments count and hit hard, and the moral quandaries offered to Serenoa all elevate the otherwise bloated dialogue.
The team understood the limitations of their ingredients, but saw their strengths too. They carefully planned out a game that allowed its parts to shine, and its the cohesion of everything together that makes TS an intense, immersive, two day excursion into Norzelia.
Is it a gourmet, "god-tier garden salad"? No. Is it a gourmet salad made from what's available, and you can appreciate the ingenuity that produced said salad in TS? Absolutely.
To move on from the salad, let's talk about the steak I see Fell Seal as.
A steak is a delcious meal, but it's a single ingredient--a slab of meat. There might be a couple garnishes and a few sides if you're lucky, but you can choose to ignore them and leave them off your proverbial plate.
The 'meat' of Fell Seal, from what I understand, is the story. Obviously a raw slab of beef isnt appetizing, so the butter that cooks it could be gameplay, the salt whatever else Im missing.
To keep with the metaphor, the characters could be the potatoes and whatever vegetable suits your fancy.
For me, Fell Seal is a filet mignon, with all the fixings that'd make a meal at a Michelin star restaurant. But it's served on a roof tile, the perfectly cooked filet, is chopped into cubes floating in a strange liiquid, and the otherwise delcious hassleback potato is drenched in cheap honey mustard you found at the dollar general.
If we're comparing FS to TS, also knowing FS isn't some random budget indie title and sold for the same price, I'd be more inclined to give guff to Fell Star for cheapening its game with cut corners. The backgrounds look like stock assets, the promotional art and portraits promise one aesthetic, but choose to render their characters with mobile game tier vector art, and absolutely no thought was given to the setting and how they'd be able to coexist with one another. Those decisions are the strange liquid your expensive beef is in, that roof tile you never asked to be served in, and the honey mustard on your delicately prepped potatoes.
But, honestly, I do see why you, and many others, could, and would, still prefer FS over TS. Im sure FS' story is so amazing, youd be willing to pick the chunks out of the strange liquid, find contentment with eating a potato drenched in honey mustard, and who cares if the filet is on a roof tile. Im sure you enjoyed Fell Star and that oddly prepped filet mignon. I'd avoid the restaurant.
I appreciate your input and willingness to open a dialogue with me, a random commenter who admittedly could have sounded dismissive. You made me realize that i do care about art and aesthetics in video games, and youve given me a reason to appreciate TS. I am pursuing art right now in uni, so I'd be happy to continue discussing the point.
Fell Seal is really good. Haven't played the dlc tho. Nice vid. ^^
Thank You! Also, yeah, it's really fun, and just clicks on the Switch.
@@CoffeePotato i wish Fell Seal had the art style of TO/FFT and TS. Currently the art style and very stiff animations are the things that really anoy me about Fell Seal and make it almost impossible for me to play it
@@rafalst Same, though after seeing Triangle using just as many reused animations......
The mechanics more than make up for it, and you can always just change how they look.
I never got Triangle because I value customizing my army and fixed characters didn't seem to allow that.
Also, love to see some Fell Seal love. That game is great, one of my favorite tactics games and the best DLC I ever purchased. It's the only tactics game that lets me make an army of monsters and not feel like I'm missing out on customization.
Btw, I kinda hope you never challenge-run this game. With how frustrating it seems to be for you, that sounds like a good way of tormenting yourself.
I actually did start a challenge run, got halfway, recorded it, and have been sitting on the footage because it was just like 5 hours of being bored at the broken AI.
Wasn't that excited for funny shapes game anyways. Now, Fell Seal is one of those "on my Steam wishlist, for when I actually have time".
By the way, ever tried Fae Tactics, Mr. Potato? I bought it after Regdren did some videos and found it to be quite fun.
It looked solid, but I wasn't as interested in that one for reasons I can't remember. Some day.
Thanks for making this, gave me a good overview after starting the game of what's left to come after chapter 2 and that it's not worth my time it,
I don't really understand why everyone mentions how Triangle is in any way similar to Game of Thrones. It's not at all, aside from superficial concept fluff, like yeah ice faction etc. But they totally hit the mark in any sensible way if you really start thinking about the story.
After mission 2 I was fed up with how bad the writing is as nothing makes any sense.
Tactical gameplay probably is nice in it, but given how much writing there is in the game it just is tedious to sit through all of it. I even wrote an article how nonsensical the basic setup is.
There are 3 resources, iron, salt and trade. Trade is not a resource, but meh "we just need to tell the player something feeling important" it feels, but once you switch on your brain all falls apart in Triangle.
I mean in chapter 2 bandits just walk into the harbor of the 2nd most important family in the kingdom, which is not at all guarded. The princess gets dumped off for marriage without any escort for her importance, and the ship doesn't need any time to turn, restock on supplies or wait for wind in the other direction.
After the battle everyone gets up and it was a friendly quarrel...
It's so dumb that I didn't believe it how anyone could say this even resembles any fantasy story which is thought through.
Then Triangle made me so unsure, that I had to go back to FFTactics, bc. I was unsure if I was making up things in my head and maybe after all that years its just nostalgia ... but no I didn't misremember. People have their social status and motivations according to it. Conflict makes a lot of sense and their battles do. And even they got really good explanations why there are bandits etc.
The big question I wonder about now is why every single review site was praising Triangle and giving good reviews, based on what pile of nonsensical garbage it is and that at a price point of 2-3times as expensive as most "indie" choices which are arguably equally good, minus some first impression polish on visuals.
It's because it came from the fairly beloved Octopath folks, and it was given primo store placement for a few months. Many folks completely unfamiliar with the genre thought they discovered something new and unique.
That's fair, I mean it's not awful...I haven't even wanted to touch it in months, but it's not objectively terrible on it's own, just a complete mess in context.
The GoT comparisons are due to the entire section used for the preview being an almost shot for shot remake of GoT Season 1. I can't speak for the books, but I know that as soon as these story beats were supposed to try having payoffs, it crashed and burned repeatedly, no one stayed dead, it just got worse and worse until it tried to be LUCT in the endings. Sticking with the "they made the beginning and ends....and ran out of budget" assumption.
@@CoffeePotato That's actually a good observation with the switch store.
However running out of budget is something I don't believe. I mean the budget on it needed to have been significantly bigger than any other indiegame just by production value alone. And also as a company you definitely wouldn't cut the budget of devs who made a critical success. I rather think it'd have needed more time and that's what they didn't get, as the release was at the end of the Japanese tax year (like Elden Ring) and Square Enix is a stock market company, so I rather think that they just didn't get any more time.
@@thomasf2736 From what I've heard on the project, it sounded like they pitched it as a lower budget thing, since they already had much of the assets they needed from Octopath. This is backed up by several fans of the game I've talked to (I have zero interest in Octo personally). It seemed like the saw LUCT, overestimated their own resources, and then just went for it. That's why I mention the voice acting as a weird choice, since there was a lot of confirmed, but far more assumed cut routes and choices...and it seems like VO would have been the biggest limiter. They had the maps, they had the fights, (there's 50+ completed maps with gimmicks in the bar list) so I think it's safe to assume they just had to take a chainsaw to the thing halfway through, and then just tried to sew it back together. It's a real shame, because without all that, there well might have been enough story and choice variety to make it all work.
For reference, TO LUCT back a decade ago had a budget of 12mil, and similarly already had the structure in place, but chose instead to expand mechanics to a degree that's downright comical. Who needed a unique effect on one armor type no one ever used to make another unit afraid of their own healers? No one, and I love it.
@@CoffeePotato That's highly likely with Triangle. Just those kind of games are more complex than classical JRPGs and assets don#t mean as much to them as the mechanics, balance and writing.
That LUCT had a budget of 12 millions is new to me, do you have any good source for this? Do you know how much budget other games in the ogre series / later square quest team had?
@@thomasf2736 True, but there wasn't exactly an ocean of unit variety either. I mean you hear about the reds and their birds a lot... but they don't even show up outside of a couple fights..and they're just more basic sword guys.
I want to say it was on one of their IMDB page variants or one of the interviews. I'll look it up and link it if I remember to do so.
I love your vids but could you make them shorter? Or just split them in two parts. Not 10 minutes short but... I mean, this one is slightly better but the previous one was a little hard to watch in one go, especially after work.
Fair, I really should do more short ones. Just every time I do I sit there like "ok, there's like 80 more things I wanted to cover....trash ". Will attempt to do so.
After 320 hours of Wildermyth I think I'm finally ready to give Fell Seal a real shot, just picked it up on the Switch after putting it off for a while on PC.
In the end, Triangle has all the same issues I had with Octopath. It wants to be character-based, but it was too wordy where it shouldn't be, with not enough words where it actually matters. The lack of generics sealed the deal for me, especially after Wildermyth let me go nuts with my randos.
I'm still glad Triangle's kept SRPGs on people's minds though, the more big releases we get the more likely Matsuno and Yoshi-P will be able to bully SE into another TO. And it was interesting to see an isometric SRPG go the no generics route like Fire Emblem, even if that's not my preferred type of SRPG.
Solidly put (Not sure why YT had this under Pending for 9 days, but that's just it's logic), and funnily enough I've been looking forward to Wildermyth coming to the ol fun brick this year.
Soooo I like Fell seal. I actually bought it and beat it. Loved how you have jobs and itd basically FFT. Did you mention how you cant rotate maps? Also the graphics , & story are really not good at all. Luckily the gameplay is fantastic. Maybe people have played all of the games you’ve suggested ? Idk lol. I thought your take on this was interesting but saying to buy other old games most of your supports have already played just seems a little off putting especially because a strong point of why we arr srpg fans is because we love the game play which in all the games you mentioned is really fun. Also theirs a new tactic game that seems to be happening because of the sucess of triangle strategy sales doing great amongst other reasons but the people really showef them they want SPRG games. We should be encouraging people to buy the game im sorry you really dont even think it should be recommended it but i do thank you for giving the game your almost 100 hours & $60. I look forward to the challenge runs thought because it seems like they are gonna be fun to watch you navigate hardship while struggling with even wanting to play the game because you cant stop thinking of fell seal haha. I do wish for a Fell seal sequel but the devs already said they rather spend resources on a different kind of game. A triangle strategy sequel that has improved on everything done here would be a real joy though. I do like this video though. & if you havent played fell seal people you are missing out. I love FFT FFTA&A2 Tactics Orge Knight of lodis & LUCT. Fell seal & Triangle Strategy. I love the variety of playing all these games because none are completely the same. & i Look fwd to your response. I had to delete because of course you cant edit here sorry lol.
What console to play this game bro
As of yesterday, Triangle is on PC, and I would bet folks will probably mod the extensive plot holes and chainsaw levels of cut content pretty short order. Fun game, but wow does it drop the ball a lot, especially at full price.
If you mean Fell Seal, definitely Switch, it feels great on the thing.
Some of the stuff you took criticized I saw as boons. I loved the lack of monster enemies, but I wish they had just removed the fantasy elements entirely and made it purely a historical fiction.
Fell Seal was a good effort, but ultimately, I have no desire to return to it. The game was just too homogenized. It is among my least favorite SRPGs, only above unmodded NuXCOM and Disgaea. The game got actively worse the more I played. That said, I would love to see a new entry in the franchise, because the potential is there!
A- True, I completely agree on that one, but that's what made the lack of monsters that much more noticable. It acted like an Ogre game, but didn't include the world. Where were these hawks I kept hearing about, just on that boat for the most part?
2- Fair, though did you mess with the difficulty? On Higher difficulties it's anything but. Unshackle the AI and it'll surprise you with the chaotic counterplay circus.
@@CoffeePotato 1. Yeah the game was mostly focused on historicism, and it would have been cool if they went mostly all the way. Something like Battle Brothers.
2. Yup, I played with a hacked permadeath setting. So that even 1 KO puts a character out for good. Enemies were also buffed to be noticably stronger than my own guys. The homogenization was caused primarily by class design, where instead of the FFT model where every job is specialized into a certain niche. Most jobs were all rounders. The Archer's 32 MP DELETE button got a lot less special when the templars, and more classes ended up with a near identical skill. The Duelist could resurrect for some reason, the dark mage, was almost identical to the previous mage, except they used the dark element instead, and could cast from their HP (which could be inherited by every other class so that barely mattered). And I am not even sure what the Witch Doctor is supposed to be. It could have been fun as a Mesmer type, which specializes on manipulating status effects.
But yeah, each job blurred too much into eachother, and that made the whole multiclassing thing feel mostly pointless.
The best class, as in the most interesting, is the mercenary, as they could actually play well into positioning. Made the best use of the game's more unique mechanics.
I think I would have a lot of fun with Fell Seal if someone remade the jobs to stand out more from eachother.
Yeah, Fell Seal's artstyle really isnt doing it for me at all.
Id be the last person to prioritize graphics in games, but I suppose aesthetics matter way more for me than I realized...
Give it a minute. It's one of those that grows on you
Looking at it some more, it's not that the graphics themselves are the issue, to be honest. I'll give you that there is quality to it.
What's bugging me is the complete lack of art direction and cohesion to everything in Fell Seal. It has realistic portraits next to stylized characters and stark backgrounds that clash with said characters.
You could argue that the color choices are meant to make the units pop out, and I can respect that to a point. However, the world all ends up looking empty and unlived, and it breaks immersion harder than anything Triangle Strategy's story can.
What people gloss over about Triangle Strategy is how immersive the character designs are with the world of Nozelia, and how every background is equally unique and facinating. That, for me, is what draws me in as someone who never played a strategy oriented rpg. As far as art direction and vision goes, props to the developers.
@@BubbyBoy See, I'd disagree, but that's a fair point. TS's characters lack any sort of logical cohesion to me, far more than any visual element of FS, personally. Like when two cops stop to chat about cop stuff in FS, I don't see the portraits, I see two people trying to figure out their situation. When 8 cutscenes of generic anime "and then they saved the babies" flavor cutscenes barrage me in TS for the second time, I literally found myself grumbling "you've got to be kidding me with this shit.".
The plot is just the garnish of inedible allegedly good lettuce on FS on top of a mechanical fillet mignon. TS is a salad made of that lettuce trying to pass itself off as the God Tier garden salad with steak and fresh fruits of TO. It has some chicken in there, so there's some meat, but it's not as fresh and satisfying on multiple layers as TO, it's not as chunky as FS, and it's like....who the hell out iceberg in here, when There's Spinach and banana pepper mix right over there? It's a McDonald's salad dreaming of greatness in my eyes, but that's largely due to context. I can't take most of its scenes seriously when they've been done so much better by it's inspiration. It might get people into salads, but it doesn't compare once you've tried both. You maybe get in the mood for it every now and then, but like...you know that guilty feeling from a fast food salad? That feeling of "this was neither wholesome nor cheap?". That's the feeling it gives me personally.
Sorry to tear into it. It's just that especially with likely TO and TS costing the same soon, it's...not going to be a choice.
@@CoffeePotato I totally appreciate the salad and steak metaphor, and I wish I elaborated on my earlier statement. If you dont mind, I'd be willing to work with it to make the point I see it very differently. Im also a bit lost on your use of abbreviations, but I'll try my best to guess.
TS, Triangle Strategy, as a salad would be one you'd buy at a Sweetgreens: a very well thought out, albeit expensive, medley that makes best use of everyday quality ingredients. It has the art direction and aesthetic of Octopath Traveler (OT), a gameplay engine reminiscent of Final fantasy tactics (FFT), a plot not that far off from Game of Thrones (GoT), well thought out new game plus mechanics, and, debatably, acceptable voice acting with standout performances sprinkled in.
All on their own, all the 'ingredients' I described would never carry a game. In fact, that's why I understand why people would feel frustrated with TS, especially when they do value a specific element of games over another. For example, if someone really loved Final Fantasy Tactics for its gameplay and creative jobs system, and didn't give a single whit about voice acting, unit balance, or plot, they'd draw comparisons to FFT and feel incredibly disappointed. This applies to the other 'ingredients' in the salad that constitutes TS. Ill be upfront, I wanted to love OT for its art style, but the complete lack of agency and the repetitive gameplay loop absolutely made me want to avoid the game.
That all said, what makes TS, a Sweetgreen salad, to keep with the metaphor, is how those acceptable ingredients all pair together beautifully to justify its price tag. The setting pairs well with the art style, the main cast contrast great with the fun side characters you discover on multiple playthroughs, the orchestral soundtrack knows when to make its moments count and hit hard, and the moral quandaries offered to Serenoa all elevate the otherwise bloated dialogue.
The team understood the limitations of their ingredients, but saw their strengths too. They carefully planned out a game that allowed its parts to shine, and its the cohesion of everything together that makes TS an intense, immersive, two day excursion into Norzelia.
Is it a gourmet, "god-tier garden salad"? No. Is it a gourmet salad made from what's available, and you can appreciate the ingenuity that produced said salad in TS? Absolutely.
To move on from the salad, let's talk about the steak I see Fell Star as.
A steak is a delcious meal, but it's a single ingredient--a slab of meat. There might be a couple garnishes and a few sides if you're lucky, but you can choose to ignore them and leave them off your proverbial plate.
The 'meat' of Fell Star, from what I understand, is the story. Obviously a raw slab of beef isnt appetizing, so the butter that cooks it could be gameplay, the salt whatever else Im missing.
To keep with the metaphor, the characters could be the potatoes and whatever vegetable suits your fancy.
For me, Fell Seal is a filet mignon, with all the fixings that'd make a meal at a Michelin star restaurant. But it's served on a roof tile, the perfectly cooked filet, is chopped into cubes floating in a strange liiquid, and the otherwise delcious hassleback potato is drenched in cheap honey mustard you found at the dollar general.
If we're comparing FS to TS, also knowing FS isn't some random budget indie title and sold for the same price, I'd be more inclined to give guff to Fell Star for cheapening its game with cut corners. The backgrounds look like stock assets, the promotional art and portraits promise one aesthetic, but choose to render their characters with mobile game tier vector art, and absolutely no thought was given to the setting and how they'd be able to coexist with one another. Those decisions are the strange liquid your expensive beef is in, that roof tile you never asked to be served in, and the honey mustard on your delicately prepped potatoes.
But, honestly, I do see why you, and many others, could, and would, still prefer FS over TS. Im sure FS' story is so amazing, youd be willing to pick the chunks out of the strange liquid, find contentment with eating a potato drenched in honey mustard, and who cares if the filet is on a roof tile. Im sure you enjoyed Fell Star and that oddly prepped filet mignon. I'd avoid the restaurant.
I appreciate your input and willingness to open a dialogue with me, a random commenter who admittedly could have sounded dismissive. You made me realize that i do care about art and aesthetics in video games, and youve given me a reason to appreciate TS. I am pursuing art right now in uni, so I'd be happy to continue discussing the point.
@@BubbyBoy Out of curiosity, why Fell Star? I'm not sure if I'm missing something. Also, for the record, I absolutely made some top tier steak with diet protein mashed potatoes and bargain honey mustard, it was pretty legit 🤣👌.
Ok, jokes aside, I hear you, though a couple of tweaks. FS's thing isn't the story, for this metaphor it would be the overused ceramic diner plate it was served on. It's setting would be the cozy diner booth it was served at. It's not fancy, but for FFTA/A2 fans, it feels like home. That one's hard to quantify. I like to think the actual meat there, to torpedo the metaphor I started here, might better be explained as unlimited soup and bread sticks. You can swap between options on the fly for whatever you're feeling, and it'll just keep serving it up. Counterplay is it's strength. The story exists, but the fights are fresh every time. They have new options, new tricks, and it just feels nice to see the AI being a true challenge without any stat shenanigans.
They do entirely different things, but unfortunately share the same market, often exclusively due to the price.
I think part of the frustration, to elaborate on what you were saying on priorities, lies in that TS could have done so much more with such a slight difference in them. They didn't have a huge budget. Yet they still placed voice acting up there as a necessary thing. A year before release, people didn't like the voices ...and allegedly they doubled down, though I don't know what this entailed exactly.
I only mention this because TO had the same situation, with 5 different outcomes, bizarrely. So when the SNES version came out, they sacrificed some technical stability and a lot of flashiness, plus the mechanics were . .dubious. It was all story and immersion. Cult classic, and appreciated for it's mature approach at the time.
Ok, fine.
Then it got a Saturn port. It was given full voice acting. They could only do one language, and it was considered a cool novelty, despite basically increasing the game's size by about 11x, and still had a lot of the technical issues with iffy balance.
They did the same with MOTBQ, giving it a full colorization, adding voices, and some new angles. It ran a little better, but got 5 new zones because of less voices than TO.
Ok, that was a lot of time and money... we'll call that an artistic tax write off.
At the same time, another team had the PS1 versions. They added a waypoint system to MOTBQ, have uniques unique pallettes, added new camera angles, reduced lag, and added a bunch of quality of life help tips. For TO, they made the most stable version of the original, added more than 2 save slots, redid the music (for better or worse), and seemingly improved the AI for both games.
Solid improvements, and held up a lot better than the still decent voice acting.
Anyway, then FFT came. No voices, but really punchy sound effects, better camera work, and while still dubious, better balance.
WoTL comes in with that other approach again. New cutscenes, though I think it's jarring to see your PC name forgotten for those, plus how they jump around, not even counting the insane lag spikes. But a multiplayer feature almost no one asked for...some new characters to sell other games...took modders almost no time to fix the bugs, they could have done it with a shift in priorities.
Then we get to the TO remake. Started as just a basic remake, but then they started trying to address issues people had. Total rebalance, twice as many chapters, probably 100+ new maps, more than double the classes, a full orchestral soundtrack, multiple versions of each map, a skill system combining elements from FFT, TO, A/A2, and KoL, new story beats and stories altogether, and technically voice acting....but only for the chapter transitions.
My point is, this can be said for other series, but this particular thread of consciousness was already explored with a much bigger budget, and taking the more expensive approach didn't ever result in anything better.
Reading over the confirmed cut content for TS, seeing how quickly they bailed on it to go do anything else, and assuming a similar situation for all other moments similar to the confirmed cut areas...this could have been so much more, and truly one of the greats if they just focussed on what made the game good, instead of VO. How many lines did they have to cut for it? How many choices? How many skills were cut because of needing lines? How many moments of choice that had near identical results did we get?
My frustration with TS is what it could have been. I'm largely leaving out the visual element because it's something they already had, it was a solid choice. I think it's kinda hard to see detail in 2DHD, but that's a whole other discussion.
Anyway, I appreciate the discussion, this stuff is fun!
FF7 had counter steal... didn't it? It's been decades since I last played it so I might be wrong.
OH and BTW, Xcom2 is on android now too so there's that.
It might've, I'm not sure. Still pretty rare. Counter Steal doesn't do it, but I love the main Steal skill actually stealing consumable stock items back and forth. It's surprising how much damage can be mitigated just stealing one of the Rocks from the Patented Usage/Item Expert units. It's so simple of a thing, and it never gets done.
Also, about time! The iPad port was excellent. The switch port is...iffy.
XCOM2’s Long War mods and LUCT’s One Vision are two games I always come back to because nothing scratches that itch.
Have to admit I haven’t tried Fell Seal just because of the art style but I might give it a go if you say it stacks up to the other games mentioned.
View it as the game it is, and you'll have a blast. The story is whatever, but the mechanics are easily among the best in the genre. Especially when you crank up the difficulty, and see the galaxy brain macguyvering on both sides to get an edge. It feels so satisfying.
LUCT is still the best game for me. I need to get my hands on Fell Seal tho.
Do it, it's incredible.
@@CoffeePotato is there a hard copy of the game or digital only
@@jkytest1 For which thing?
@@CoffeePotato Fell Seal. Sorry. I remember looking for hard copy of the game and not having any luck, given I didn't really research >
@@jkytest1 From what I can tell, they were considering it as a Game+DLC release, but ended up going onto their next project instead. As I understand, it may still happen, but it's not a priority. I'll ask on their discord, forgot to do that. It's a pretty small file size, though.
So far i didnt buy Triangle yet
Seem its leans towards player that like ff t and tactic ogre
I think super robot war series players probably harder to get into it
But still triangle got pretty good graphic and design overall
Eh....it's got a decent engine that can do a lot of things. I'd argue the actual art style is pretty generic. TO definitely blows it out of the water visually when I compare the two. Not because of particles, but because of the effort to actually put different effects in.
Bold of you to claim that Fell Seal is your favorite when you haven't done a challenge run of all catfish. The infamous mer-man-sort-of? run. Actually, if we're talking Fell Seal challenge runs, I love the idea of how OB64 has the all-demon run and doing a Fell Seal version. You'd need two runs to get six demons since they aren't tameable except the special ones via missions. That'd get you the harvester/succubus/archafflictor X 2. If you wanted to do, say, an all succubus run, you'd need to go through six play throughs to get enough demons.
So if you're planning some challenge runs, it might be worth saving your demons for future runs.
Rodger that. Now that I have a more portable version, challenges are a bit more realistic to see up and test finally.
What you say in your videos is really hard to follow. Like from 13:20 to 14:00 you reference a bunch of characters and plot events in very general terms that makes it very, very difficult for someone who lacks a lot of background knowledge to know what you are talking about. I lack that background knowledge and was very confused. The various interstitial phrases -- "umm" and so on -- exacerbate this problem, because they add a bunch of space in between information that, if it was presented together, might be easier to draw inferences from. I'm very interested in the subject matter of your videos but cannot really get anything out of them because of this structure. I would like to suggest that you maybe should maybe spend more time writing scripts and practicing them until you can more capably extemporaneously present ideas in a more understandable way.
True. But on the other hand, I'm even worse at staying on script. Also being utterly exhausted these last few months hasn't helped. I'm working on better things, this one was fairly off the cuff. 3 kiddos, holidays, family chaos, and a new house don't make for a calm moment.
What a shame..
I couldn't make it through the first 2 hours, the story bored me to tears
It doesn't get better. Just repeat "this is such a big deal you guys! ....anyways, next location, what were we doing again?"
@@CoffeePotato the 2 fights I did were cool but yeh I think imma pass. I got Fell Seal in the mail the other day and that's going to be next on the docket once I wrap up Tactics Ogre
@@procyonia3654 Sounds like a great lineup
disagree. the only good thing about fell seal is the job system and some of the monsters look interesting
i think fans of fell seal are fans of character building games tbh (like in disgaea and MMORPGs where you end up trying to make the most OP character as possible), not the strategy aspect of SRPGs
but i do agree that tristrat lacks the replayability aspect because of its lack of job system, different equipments, and enemy variety
Hard disagree there, but it's kind of a long story as to why. While FS may have that appeal to some, it's why I always tell folks to play it on the highest difficulty, or a custom variant. You can't over level something with infinite levels, and the strategy aspect becomes unavoidable.
Actually, recently I tested this out of curiosity. See...the DLC has something I viewed as an exploit. You can infinitely gain Ability points, which means job levels, which beans bonus stats, without actually moving your level anywhere. Figuring I'd test if it holds up, and having a week of yard work, diapers, and moving furniture in my figure, I went to sending units on these side missions every hour for several days, acquiring insane amounts of masteries in the early part of the game.
Didn't matter.
My core team could now tag team combo snipe across the map, constantly heal, and had armor stacks for days.
The AI, however, switched to armor piercing moves, many had ranged avoidance, and even more had insane combos out the ears.
The levels didn't matter. The access didn't matter. All that mattered was finding a way to adapt to ridiculous scenarios where meta means nothing.
I appreciate Fell Seal for it's counter play. It gives me new surprises every time, and brings back those days growing up when my brother and I would play chess at the Y every day.
The story is whatever, the presentation is low budget, but clearly someone cared. The high level stuff is a 4d fustercluck of on the fly adaptation to things you can't ever prepare for.
Mmmm, interesting points with most of which I sadly disagree. And I'm barely 20 minutes into the video at the moment of writing this. I feel this analysis is slightly unfair. Only after doing two runs does one get clear proofs that there was no choice in the end. You do start getting that feeling by the endgame even on the blind playthrough, but nowhere near the definitive answer you get after looking at the events tree. Only after a couple playthroughs do you see how no matter the choice you end up on same path. Except true ending, of course, which is pretty strict about choices to take. So blasting the story from that point is unfair I feel. It could've been better, true. Tactics Ogre style. Where the routes really differ and merge only at the end. It's still a good attempt I think. Choices really made me think. Think of who is Serenoa and what line of action would be best. Do I give up childhood friend who is de facto my king? Or do I fight unwinnable battle and drown my land in blood with best possible outcome being not losing? Do I hand over my people or do I stand for them? Considering my choice was to hand over the prince to save my own land and people I felt compelled to protect the village no matter what. Otherwise why did I give up childhood friend who was my lord at the time? Things like that. That automatically meant no way could I follow Roland and give everything to Highsand. It would contradict my earlier actions. Deciding to stay behind and help with capital showed me how Roland got to that conclusion though. So it was believable enough. Story was quite decent in that sense.
Also about characters not talking for 40 hours till the ending... I dunno. I watched all (probably not 100% all but I did get plenty) the extra interactions and kept talking to them in the tent each chapter. So I never felt like they were just there. So it's just the playstyle thing. Someone in comments was lamenting lack of generics. I don't like generics. Those characters would truly be just there to be used solely for battle and have 0 impact on story and lore. The grandkid mage gave me certain image of Highsand too. As did the archer geezer. So I was not surprised when they offered a very high rank. Because even that rank was disposable. Just a nice way to use people. Made sense.
As for people being dumb... I felt that. Took too long for them to figure out Esfrost's strategy even though all the clues were in plain sight. Irritated me since I had no problem with that northern state and constantly seeked ways to get them on same side. Cuz clearly the kingdom and the religious autocracy were the menace for me. Even though I was supposed to be part of the kingdom history showed it was a recent addition and house Wallfort used to be a major player anyway. Till the peace treaty 30 years ago. Which is nothing in terms of time. Not even a generation ago as plenty of people are alive from those times.
Voice acting was quite decent I think. Though I have no idea what it was in English and frankly do think it could be very weird. As a jap I don't play games in English if they originated in Japan. Things like Baldur's Gate, sure, I prefer it in English. In original, so to speak.
Map gimmicks... There were plenty to my untrained eye. I frankly don't care about mechanics and gimmicks. Those would be least important things I look for in a strategy game. Or RPG. I'm after the story and characters. In that sense I absolutely cannot agree that Fell Seal is leagues above Tringle Strategy. The only thing they did better is customization of characters. Which I really don't care about. Growing up on Fire Emblem, Front Mission, Der Langrisser and Tactics Ogre I never felt any desire to have fun with builds. I still don't. Maybe that's why FFT is so hard for me to play. I just don't get interested enough to keep going. Like Fell Seal. I'm probably around starting point of middlegame there, and I honestly don't remember the story or characters. At all. I got a bunch of people going on some journey for some reason. That's all I remember. Unlike Triangle Strategy where I remember spending an extra day trying to figure out what choice to make. That alone puts TS leagues above Fell Seal for me. Characters got depth to them in TS. Compared to Fell Seal at least.
So basically people who enjoy mechanics and builds would prefer Fell Seal, and people who don't care about mechanics, gimmics and builds would lean towards TS. That's my overall impression.
Oh, and calling Svarog "some border patrol guy" is too diminishing for my taste. A very important character in the story and lore. It just shows difference in what one is looking for in a strategy game.
Fair, though some of this might have been lost in my tendency to ramble. I'm a little confused as to the beginning there, because we seem to agree that the idea was interesting, but the execution was...sub par.
I did actually go and talk to each of the characters in each and every single scene on all intial playthroughs. That's why I say they went for the Souls style, adding a small quip when an upgrade happens, and then rotating a few lines. But...it doesn't feel like more than "hey, guy, you pushed the button, good job, buddy!" From a statue to me. I'm talking about proper interactions.
On the TO comparison, the Zenobians will argue with each and every single Lodissian leader they come across, for better or worse. You didn't lose anything for bringing them due to the bigger team size, and it was consistent enough that you could figure out to bring them just for fun. That's why I say they clearly ran out of time or budget for the voices. Sure, the endings have more lines, but there's a really noticable talking unit hole around the majority of the center of the game, across all routes. They were on a budget, I understand, but that's why they didn't need the voices. I personally would love to see double the lines and no voices. It increases cost exponentially for little actual benefit. I know it's an RPG, but many of us more western leaning folks get irritated by the endless quips and callouts. While it's no Star Ocean "let me yell side kick at this boss 800 times", it's still pretty grating.
Sure, Svarog has more actual role in the story as the bereaved dad trying to get revenge, but he's there as the guy guarding the border. He's diminished to his role as the guy who can turn the reds in my mind because again, you can feel the cut content there. Freddy wants to talk to him....but that route was cut, so he just awkwardly yells at you to leave. Going into that scenario, I was expecting to make use of the stuff gathered at that point, mentally yelling at my screen "show him the f**king explosives journal to help him make the cannon what's wrong with you?!". There should have been a negotiation, there was not. So he's just "border control guy who gets promoted conveniently so the plot can happen." Their intentions were better, the execution was unfinished.
That's really my point behind this whole rant. I know story adaptation on the level of TOPSP or FONV is unrealistic, but it felt like they bit off more than they could chew, and then tried to make it work.
As for Fell Seal, yeah, it's basically 4d chess, but with a lot of love put into the details. I appreciate seeing my randos just doing their jobs. Generics can be nice for fleshing out the world. Just depends how they're handled. I just know that if I'm playing for a story, TS isn't really written well enough to call itself story first. It's got it's moments when it copies other stories, but when it comes to it's own ideas, characters start going braindead so the drama can happen. It's written like a daytime super hero show. Just like The Flash forgets to go fast because plot, no situation in TS can have an earlier prepared ideal solution...because plot.
I'm hoping when it inevitably comes to PC we'll see some of the many obvious cut choices and fight avoidances restored. I think they were too focussed on making sure to follow the Explore-Fight-Vote formula.
I'm sure there's more to say, and this wasn't the best written, but I'm barely awake today on account of helping a relative move till 2am, and 3 hours sleep was not enough. Hopefully this clarified some thoughts and such, have a good one!
I could never play Fell seal because I hate the art style (not cute at all).
Kinda glad to hear that this is how Triangle Strategy turned out. I realized a while ago that Squeenix has been good and dead for well over a decade.
Whenever they hit a fiscal lull, they just slap together a remake, remaster, or a port to get that nostalgia sucker money, and those sales fuel the development of some half-baked new IP that falls woefully short of what everyone was expecting. And then they draw the people that they disappointed back in with another remake, remaster, or a port as an apology, and then another awful new IP, etc etc.
People are ignoring what's happening because Squeenix is essentially handing the inner child in everyone's memories a tasty new cupcake every few months to keep it satisfied while not actually creating anything of value. It's "FFVII Syndrome" where mediocre products are being sold based on a reputation that hasn't been valid in years.
Seems that way, though they do seem to allegedly have some more solid products. It's weird, because the gameplay system here is good, but it feels more and more hollow. Heard good things about their MMO...not about to touch that. The Legend of Mana remake was unexpected, but apparently pretty solid...though basically a straight port of the original hidden gem with more plot cohesion. I never knew they would even remember some of these things, but sure enough, some dev waited 20 years to flesh out that talking cactus. The corporate side may be cynical, but they do still have some champs in there trying to do why they can, I think. Like you can tell that TS devs were massive Ogre fans...but had no resources to finish this game.
Fell Seal felt very generic to me. But at the end of the day, yes , Tactics Ogre is still king....now imagine Tactics ogre with 2D/3D graphics.
What difficulty did you play it on? FS is one of those where you don't play for the story, you play it for the game. It never really does anything other than what it's meant to...conveying you from fight to fight, and those fights, especially when things get crazy, and especially on higher difficulties, take what would be a slog in many other games, and elevates it to a beautiful counterplay fustercluck that you rarely see outside of high level AoE2 type situations. Creative solutions and weird builds are the game. Chess needs no story is how I see it. I don't remember why the hell we were fighting snakes flying out of caves, or why the bad guys did what they did, but I will always remember the fun I've had dealing with impossible maps in creative ways.
Ultimately part of it's identity is taking these generic or normal things, and twisting them into something cool. Like the Mercenary is both the Soldier and Warrior from FFTA...on paper. But what it unlocks is one handing two handed weapons, and a health boost, if that's handy... or a suite of handy utility moves, like shoulder checking people off of roofs. Now you take that over to a reaver...you can combine that Grip ability with Dual Wield and the Reaver's health steal and some blood sickles and an MP shield to suddenly have a really resilient self healer with great pressure. It's taking those nothings and making them into something. Or you take the Lich poison spell passive and combine it with the weakening passive, use that on a class with barriers and mapwide abilities for a unit that shuts off healing and poisons everyone while being able to shrug off some long range counters.
But...then at higher difficulties, the AI has these same ideas. They spawn in with as much madness as you allow in the settings...and that adaptive counterplay circus is unmatched in any game I've seen.
Gonna comment and then watch video: Triangle Strategy has almost no customization of characters and parties (equipment/classes/skills) only who you choose to bring. I was really disappointed in the game when I saw i couldn't spend half my time in party management. Fell seal's art is jarring and takes a bit to get use to.
Exactly my issue. Past the intro they used for marketing, it's a half baked skeleton of a game. Fell Seal is definitely not the prettiest, but hot dang that gameplay is so solid. I love when the AI can legitimately surprise you with crazy builds. Like that guy in the hood over there may seem like a dork, but he just combined a knife's speed with a samurai's TV long range melee nonsense, a poison on hit effect, and a counter teleport to have a dagger sniper. Or that rando over there who combined Health Expert, Sturdy Grip, Versatile, Vampire, and Boon on a Hammer Tank. Basically stealing health while critting constantly and being built like a wall. Not so threatening when his arms don't work, but still. It's just fun to have that "tough nut to crack" puzzle.
i played it and i have to say is ugly. I loved the strategical part but everything else is really cringy
That about sums it up. Golden ending is pretty neat, but has that MGSV effect of thinking back and realizing what that means in context. Golden Ending feels like they started the part from the demo, did the golden ending, and made the rest on a drunken bender.
Finally came back to finish this review after getting through as much of Triangle Strategy as I could stomach. Can't agree more. I stopped my playthrough after finally getting sick to death of the interminable set-up to every single battle in the game.
Like, I get being frustrated with the fact that in lots of SRPGs you don't necessarily have a lot of context before every fight and for a certain type of player this is frustrating to them because a contextless battle doesn't make sense to them. But when every fight has basically an entire anime episode preceding it (and it's a very mediocre anime at that) you've gone entirely too far in the other direction, and it's just not worth it. Especially when there's absolutely nothing unique to your tactical options in the game and the story is very, very dull. Good to see that even the story pathing doesn't really amount to much, so that suspicion is confirmed.
And if there was a mod that made Fell Seal visually not nauseating, I'd actually play that game. I'm glad you enjoy it though.
It's certainly an odd duck of a game, and I will forever be baffled at how often it's praised as flawless for exactly all of the above...the broken AI, the clearly hacked together cut routes, it's just bizarre.
FS isn't for everyone, but it's super rare to see an AI that can think ahead and plan to some degree. I'm hoping TO Reborn will be able to do that, though.
@@CoffeePotato Hopefully. Personally I can't wait. This last month is kind of painful with anticipation tbh.
triangle strategy story is way better than fell seal. Also, Fell seal writing is pure cringe that ruins the whole game. this video feels biased towards fell seal tbh.
We're talking cringe writing and Triangle is what we're bringing to the table? The one that plain forgets genocides seconds after they happen? The one where no one can stop repeating themselves because they constantly have to beat you over the head with their motivations, because they assume you forgot?
Fell Seal is about the gameplay, the story just kind of exists. The counterplay and gameplay customization is where that one shines.
To be blunt, because it's that kind of day: Triangle...tried to be Tactics Ogre, but minus the meaningful choice impact, actual good writing, next to zero customization, and did have some interesting ideas they they forgot to carry on to the rest of the game. Shocking water is a fun mechanic, too bad it doesn't do more than tickle past the beginning...and every other field effect is like this too. The AI....well, it improved to an extent as of the last patch, but I wouldn't be shocked if 90%+ of the maps still can be boiled down to "Do some basic movement to break the AI, poison, and the fight wins itself".
It's harsh primarily because it had a golden opportunity and ideas to do something really, really good...and they just never finished it. Also the lack of interaction from most of the cast, several of their stories getting no real ending, and general lack of remembrance from choices just kinda sucks. Once you've gotten used to the Ogre series, when you hear the team that made part of one them was making one like it, you expect something other than a couple extra maps. The epilogue, even, had only two versions. They had the budget, they had the people. They had NG+lines for impossible scenarios, but didn't finish a ton of the other stories. Something happened there.
Triangle Strategy is leagues better than fell seal it’s a great game these are very childish takes
@@MilkTankz
It's fun, but they can't tell the difference between good writing and word count. Mechanically...it's got the mechanics from the demo, and a little after, but more than half of the game there's just nothing new besides the odd map gimmick coming back.
Only a handful of the choices even get brought up again, and there's next to zero choice in unit building.
FS got brought up by comparison because it wouldn't be even remotely fair to put it next to Tactics Ogre or Unicorn Overlord. It sold itself as the Tactics Ogre replacement. Mechanically it's more of a Vandal Hearts.
Fell Seal ain't a looker, but it's got mechanics out the ears. Considering the team and budget disparity between the two, it really shouldn't be close.
I give Triangle a hard time because Triangle 2 has the chance to be amazing. They had great ideas here, and almost none of them are executed well.
What's the point of an exploration mechanic when it's just money piles most of the game?
Why have a camp at all when no one there can interact?
Why even bother with a choice when both outcomes have the same thing with a couple different lines?
It's the classic comparison of good ideas being executed badly vs focused ideas being executed well. Games are more than just looks.