Square Enix’s latest game-in-progress, Project Triangle Strategy (a working title), is available as a demo on Nintendo’s eShop. Can we call it Octopath-meets-Tactics?
Fans of Square’s Octopath Traveler aesthetic should keep watch. Triangle Strategy is the developer’s second game employing a “HD-2D” art style (a term they recently trademarked). Fans of strategy RPG series Fire Emblem might also take note. Though it doesn’t feature a romance/friendship system, Triangle Strategy is a story-driven SRPG with a large cast of characters.
It’s looking like a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy Tactics, though there doesn’t seem to be a changeable-class system. This upcoming title may have more in common with the classic SRPG Tactics Ogre, which featured choices with real consequences, branching story-lines, and different ethical paths to align with.
Choices, Consequences, Voting
Voting, you say? This feature is indeed unique. In the Triangle Strategy demo, you are presented with a crossroads in the plot: surrender Prince Roland to the invading Kingdom of Aesfrost (a big bully), or protect him at the cost of your own people.
Your party members will put the decision to a vote, but not before you are given the chance to persuade each voter towards your own opinion. The right dialogue options can change their minds, and certain dialogue options can only be unlocked by talking to the right folks beforehand.
A manual save system allows you to return to earlier choices, so I was able to see that surrendering Roland or protecting Roland leads to diverging outcomes: battle with a different enemy, on a different battlefield with different terrain features (one battlefield had a fire defense system; the other had a pulley transport system).
The game also promises some kind of alignment system (called “convictions”) with three paths: liberty, utility, and morality. We’ve yet to see how these will play out. But so far, the demo shows that your chosen convictions will affect which “companions” join your party.
The most promising element of this demo is its choice system. But what will combat, the meat of the game, be like?
Combat, TP, Special Abilities
The demo’s combat system doesn’t introduce major new mechanics, but familiar features can still be enjoyable.
Combat takes place on a 3D isometric, rotatable battlefield. Units standing on higher ground deal more damage to units standing on lower ground. Turn order depends on units’ Speed value; therefore, enemy units with high Speed will move before your allies with lower Speed. Lastly, wind and other weather conditions can affect combat. In these features, Triangle Strategy is closer to Final Fantasy Tactics than Fire Emblem.
Triangle Strategy uses an action-point system similar to Octopath‘s. You can save up action points (called TP) for future turns. Some characters can even grant TP to their allies. Standard weapon attacks cost no TP, while most special abilities cost 1 or 2 TP.
Some of these abilities are super handy. I enjoyed using Anna the spy, whose ability “Take Cover” sends her into stealth mode for 2 turns, while her “Slumber Stab” can potentially make enemies sleep and miss a turn.
There’s also Erador the shieldbearer who can “Provoke” enemies into attacking him instead of your other units. There’s Benedict the strategist, who when leveled up, can move an ally’s turn earlier. Meanwhile, Corentin the scholar’s “Wall of Ice” blocks enemy movement, and his other freezing abilities alter terrain characteristics. So far, I’ve seen mention of three magic elements: fire, ice, and lightning. Terrain can be affected by the elements and vice versa; for instance, water terrain can amplify lightning attacks.
I like that these abilities can be performed before movement. So, your flying scout can jab a nearby enemy, then make a quick escape.
Positioning matters in two important ways: First, units suffer more damage when backstabbed, i.e. struck from behind. Second, being sandwiched between two enemies can mean between hit by an extra attack.
At the end of battles, a “kudos” system awards kudos points for performing moves like backstabs. It’ll be fun to see what you can redeem kudos points for. So far, in the demo you can trade kudos for a Quietus cards—such as “TP Injection,” which grants 2 TP.
Overall, combat difficulty is challenging but manageable. My units died pretty fast when I wasn’t careful. No permadeath here but, still, I found myself frequently using Benedict’s “Bulwark” spell to raise allies’ defense. I don’t often use such buffs when playing most games, so that speaks to the level of challenge that Triangle Strategy might offer. That remains to be seen, since the demo says it has intentionally raised the difficulty level.
No problem with controls or UI. There are three camera angles—zoom-in isometric, zoom-out isometric, and top-down—and it was nice having those options.
My only concern about combat is how long each battle might take. Thankfully, though, you can quicksave mid-battle!
Art, Sound, Writing
There are lovely sets in Triangle Strategy with impressive special effects, but occasionally there was an unattractive blurring or muddying effect over characters or parts of the screen. The music, so far, doesn’t stand out the way it did with Octopath‘s soundtrack.
The story is of kingdom-against-kingdom—hardly original but still servicable. While I love that optional “Side Stories” on the map will expand on minor characters, these cutscenes are mostly boring and inconsequential so far.
Dialogue wasn’t impressive, but at least the writing kept to a consistent style and didn’t mix in anachronistic expressions. The voice-acting is something to look forward to, since it’s key to bringing characters to life. While the voice-acting for some major characters was stale, good performances from side characters might make up for it.
Pacing
The sluggish pace of this game might be a deal-breaker for me. Not because it’s particularly slow, but because I don’t have much space in my life now for many thirty-plus-hour games. If the demo hadn’t included a fast-forward button, it might have soured the deal already.
Despite the presence of a fast-forward button, Triangle Strategy‘s combat and story sections still feel lengthy. With combat, it can’t be helped when there are over 15 units on the battlefield. Large battles will probably take over an hour. But story sections feel unnecessarily slow, compounded by the fact that they’re broken up into shorter cutscenes with loading screens in between.
Summing Up
I’ve said quite a lot for a demo, but it’s a very substantial demo of 4 to 5 hours. And a clever one, because you’re plonked right into Chapters 6 and 7, giving access to a large party of characters, each with different classes and cool abilities.
Tutorials are succinct, and I could sample a wide variety of characters in combat. Being dumped mid-way into the plot wasn’t too confusing, and it’s clear who the good guys and baddies are if you look at their character art! An overly long cutscene than opens the demo (10 minutes) and the pace is slow, but otherwise, this demo ís a good showcase of Triangle Strategy’s features.
A single quicksave slot during combat, plus many manual slots for saving outside combat, have eased my fears that Triangle Strategy can’t be played on the go.
I’m still on the fence about whether this game is for me. But if you enjoy strategy RPGs like Fire Emblem, do keep an eye on this one!
Project Triangle Strategy is rated Teen (US) and PEGI (UK). The full release is planned for 2022.