Topic: Triangle Strategy

Let us know how you get on with it, please, @Ralizah ....

Played the demo on a whim (SRPGs aren't always my thing), got sucked in and a weekend of non stop play later i'm at my final battle in the morality route. Loved the stomach-churning choices I had to make; this was the first game ever to have me blankly staring at the screen completely unsure of what to do. The writing was very good in the sense that I could at all times follow all lines of reasoning, making it so that your own convictions as a player were the ultimate deciding factor.

I decided to play on easy after almost getting routed in chapter 4, somehow wish I hadn't done that, since only the battle with Avlora posed a real challenge at that difficulty. However, I still had a blast making my favourite characters shine in each battle. I especially enjoyed late recruit Milo, who's moon jump was my favourite ability. And the archers, loved them all.

I am absolutely smitten with the 2DHD art style, a sort of idealized nostalgia. I found Octopath prettier though, due to the variety of locales and maybe because it was the first to employ the art style. Octopath had a lot of different issues though, this game is so tight: everything works; it really feels masterful.

Anyway, enough gushing. Let it be known to developers that if your game is really good, you have absolutely nothing to lose and everything to gain by providing a lengthy demo.

Game is pretty easy so far on Normal difficulty so far. Does this game have any difficulty spikes? Might bump it up to hard if this keeps up.

Just reached the point where the initial demo takes place. No idea what they were thinking with that, as I had no context for understanding the significance of what was happening before.

A little mixed on the art-style still. While I like HD-2D in theory, the resulting image is very... soft.

So far, the winners are still the story and music. Almost every track in this game is great, and I'm a sucker for a good human drama.

Kinda surprised AW was delayed but this was given the green light, though, considering its much more realistic and brutal treatment of similar themes.

@CactusMan OK, cool. I guess I'll keep it on the normal difficulty if the next two chapters feel like a challenge at all, then.

Maybe it was literally just the word wars in AW, @Ralizah .... Combined with being modern & sort of real world where this is the medieval fantasy sort of thing?
You're definitely getting into the more difficult stuff now in comparison to the early stuff & there's a few potentially tricky battles particularly ahead

I'm already into the second half of chapter seven. How long is this game? These chapters seem to go by at lightspeed.

@Ralizah
Think there's 19 chapters? Or 21 if you do Golden Route. Something like that.

So it's about like Fire Emblem in terms of length, but instead of hour long sessions of side activities between battles, it's story and mock mental battles, which probably does go quicker than FE (some would say that's a good thing, though I don't see it as either good or bad, just different).

But ya, I think it's 20-30 hrs for a playthrough, then again, I always see 50-100% longer playtimes than most. I already have 15 hrs in the game (5 hrs in demo, 10 hrs in full release) and I'm only now wrapping up Chapter 8 pt.II

Jesus, the particle effects in this game really tank the framerate. It's a little shocking on a system that can run something like Monster Hunter Rise so smoothly. A pixel art game with some post-processing effects shouldn't be choppy.

Just finished the climactic ch. 7 battle (I chose not to sacrifice Roland; a fine option once you realize the cost is a few people losing their homes), and it was definitely way more of a challenge than in previous chapters. Still got it second try, though. My healer ended up eating it early in the battle, so unfortunately I depleted my store of HP recovery pellets in the process of keeping my core units alive. I guess I could've restarted the battle again and made sure my healer was further away from the enemy spawn point, but I figure I'll probably be able to build up my store of items again anyway.

I don't have a mage who can cast electric magic yet, and when I did the whole 'burning ice to create water, and then electrifying the water' thing with a lightning stone, it barely did any damage. This aspect of the game doesn't feel worthwhile to me.

@JaxonH I'm guessing you can tack on 10 - 20 hours if you play through and find different endings.

About 20-30, @Ralizah .... Battles do tend to take longer as you go through & there's longer chapters! How are you liking it overall, then?

Wow, Ezana is broke! Definitely keeping her on my team.

@BruceCM It's fantastic so far, aside from the misgivings I've already expressed. I guess my one wish at this point is that the choices were more difficult. Like, gee, do I surrender the prince to an enemy force and lose one of my most powerful allies or burn the houses of a few random villagers? Should I trust Silvio, a dude has spent literally the entire game being an openly traitorous weasel, when he says he totally wants to help me, so plz send the prince over to his demense? Maybe that'll change as the game goes on. We'll see. If not, maybe it'd be funny to do a 'bad choices' run and choose the options that are obviously stupid.

Perhaps you'll be surprised by the results of some of the choices, then, @Ralizah .... I'll look forward to hearing more when you're further in! & particularly when you do get to an ending

@Ralizah you are defintively setting yourself up for a second playthrough for new game plus.

@Ralizah responding to your comment from the last page. Over the last few main story battles, I've turned down the difficulty to easy as its gotten increasingly harder I feel. Mock battles have been fine on normal though. To clarify, I always try one run on normal and if I get wiped pretty badly I turn down the difficulty. So it's not like I start out at easy 😉. Still going strong though on chapter 14.

Well you have to play through four times if you want all the characters anyway so it’s designed for that. New game plus feels way better (aside from I wish I could see the character stories again) as you feel more like a unit made up of trained or naturally powerful people (to me anyway) even though the game increases the levels. Also the amount of subtext is enjoyable.

Ch. IX spoilers

So, I chose to squeal on Sorsley instead of smuggling salt for him. Besides my distaste for being a pawn, the entire scheme felt like a trap. I wasn't prepared for that ambush near the end of the chapter, though. Aside from being tactically difficult (you're surrounded by powerful units, many of them ranged, and they have the upper ground), all of my units were 3 - 5 levels lower than the recommended one, which is weird, because I've been completing all of the mock battles, so it seems strange that my units would be so undeverleveled. This sort of thing is why I tend to prefer how Advance Wars is designed: the RPG aspect is removed completely, so it comes down to pure tactics

With that said, it didn't matter in the end. Despite being underleveled and outgunned, I eventually figured out how to keep my units from being swamped, methodically dealt with the ranged units giving me grief on the left side of the map, and eventually collected my troops on higher ground, which made completing the rest of the map fairly simple.

The levels have been well-designed so far, and I like how different chapters have unique objectives and unique gimmicks, but without going to extremes on this front like in Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest.

This game actually seems to run better undocked, and looks a fair bit sharper on my Lite. I think I'll play the rest of the game on there.

So far, deciding whether to betray Sorsley or become smugglers for him has been the only choice I've struggled with at all. There's almost no scenario where becoming the overseer of Hyzante's concentration camp salt-mining operation would be morally preferable. CERTAINLY not when it involves rounding up free Rosellans my character is supposed to be protecting and sending them back to slavery. Aesfrost sucks, but I kinda want to see them stomp Hyzante now.

@Ralizah Actually never played this on docked, which chapter are you on now? and which choice did you end up going for?

@Solaine Just started Ch. XI. While I haven't made the decision yet, there's pretty much no way in hell I'm voluntarily going to send an oppressed people into slavery.

Docked would be better if the resolution was higher, IMO. Given how soft the image is, though, it benefits from a smaller screen.

Had some absolutely insane slowdown in that chapter where you can set fire to houses in your town to wipe out Avlora's forces. Like, so bad it was hard to look at. Certain effects also seem to chug a bit.

With that said, I've seen less of that sort of thing in handheld mode.

@Ralizah well, i can only confirm that there were no slowdowns in said chapter on handheld. I am curious what chapter XV decision you will end up going for, that was one i struggled a little more with.
Also, how do you tag spoilers? I am just trying to talk around the actual parts

@Solaine

Nice. Looking forward to seeing what they throw at me. I'd love more genuinely morally grey choices. Or at least make it where the apparent price for doing the right thing is higher.

As for tagging spoilers...

[ spoiler ] insert text [ / spoiler ]

Without the spaces between the brackets, of course