LogFAQs > #970165955

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pictured: the writers trying to come up with good names

Want to Try Strategy? Try Triangle Strategy's Strategic Angle-based Strategy!

Look, the title isn't that bad, and here's why. Back in the days of Atari, you would have games named Pong, Tank, Rebound, Tank II, Basic Math, Combat, Tank III, Fire Truck, Ultra Tank.... It's minimalist. It's like how Advance Wars is the sequel to Wars... it's fine! Is Triangle Strategy really all that worse than The Saltiron Wars?

Anyway, the actual strategy part of this game is probably the closest we've come to replicating Final Fantasy Tactics in terms of challenging isometric battles. Throw Disgaea right in the toilet. Leave Fire Emblem to the weebs. This game is punishing in the way the first half of the original tactics was, particularly if you're like me and you self-impose "no death" on yourselves. (There is no perma-death in this game).

The main mechanic here - the titular "triangle" - is actually quite sophisticated in execution, more so than just back attacks/ team attacks. The main thing to keep in mind is that the rules apply to you just as much as they do the enemies. So your opponents can and will abuse this tactic to wreck you if you're not careful. The game also prevents overleveling pretty strictly, so you can't just grind. (You can of course just turn the difficulty down to easy).

Story-wise this is a mixed bag. It's both ambitious and derivative. The first time you play the game you'll be locked into an opaque choice/morality system that doesn't really keep track of your score at all. This is reflected in your ability to cast votes/persuade your party members to think one way or the other at given moments of the game. This is sort of a compromise on the "choices matter" aspect of Tactics Ogre, where you have some degree over how the plot plays out. However, if you're like me, and you find yourself surprised that you're "locked in" on a route you can't vote yourself out of due to not knowing how many "valor" points you have, you end up quitting the game for six months out of frustration.

The voice acting for this game is truly terrible. It's not even bad in a "so bad it's good" type way, which might've saved it. No, it's just amateurish. You can't turn it off technically, but you can turn the volume of voices down to zero, which is effectively the same I suppose. The narrative also has "generic fantasy name" disease, which seems to be plaguing Square Enix lately. This gives us gems like "Serenoa Wolfort," "Hughette Buckler" and "Gustadolph Aesfrost."

So yeah, I ended up liking this one quite a bit. The Tactics Ogre remake is probably better than this, but I'm glad they're still attempting to make these.