Topic: Triangle Strategy

@Ralizah thankyou very much!

Chapter 14 battle on the ships took me a few tries. Not that it was hard, bc I had half my squad 2 levels over the recommended, but because getting to the second ship was too clustered and I would end up having only a couple people getting swarmed by enemies.

Does the game change based on which conviction you're most closely aligned with? Like, even if I made the same big choices, would the plot itself be altered based on the smaller results of my dialogue choices? Or does it only really affect which party members join my cause?

@Ralizah
The path splits 3 or 4 times throughout the game depending on your choices, and within those paths it can split again.

The paths will eventually merge back together, but the maps you played, the story that unfolded and the characters you recruited will be different based on which path you took.

This culminates in one final path split at the end of the game where there are 4 separate endings, one of which is the Golden Route ending.

@JaxonH Right. I expect that. But your big narrative choices seem independent of your alignment. So I'm curious what that actually impacts.

@Ralizah
Remember, when making choices, you're not really the one making the choice. Your group is voting on the choice. Which means you need to persuade enough people to vote in favor of your choice.

The ability to persuade them is based on both conviction and the choices you make when trying to change their mind. I can't confirm this, but I think certain characters have an affinity for certain convictions, and your level of that same conviction affects your ability to persuade.

And yes, it also affects who joins your party (not just via split paths, but also side stories).

@JaxonH So does this mean that, at any given stage of the game, I wouldn't be able to convince my teammates to vote either way? There's only an illusion of choice that also happens to weirdly correspond with the options I chose to try and push my allies toward without prompting from the game?

I need to test this. Next time I make a choice, I'll reload my save and try both, to see if it disallows me from pursuing one outcome over another.

@Ralizah
I think you can always technically convince them if you play your cards right, but it may be more difficult. For example, maybe you need to answer all questions the right way to change their mind as opposed to just 1 or 2. And it may be a scale, where some answers persuade the most, some persuade a little, and some persuade none. Not really clear on that. It could also just be one answer is "right" for persuasion purposes and the others are not.

I haven't really thought much about it, tbh. I just play the game and try to persuade my teammates to choose what I want them to. And unlocking info when exploring just increases your options to persuade- there's no guarantee the new info is the right choice. I've come dangerously close to not persuading my team. In the chapter 7 vote, it was a tie, and it came down to the final person who, thankfully, I managed to persuade. 2 others I thought I'd persuaded actually voted against me.

So ya, it's basically just, play how you want, make the choices you want, do the best you can to persuade (no sense worrying about what your conviction level is first playthrough- there's a reason they hide it until NG+), and see where it leads you. Then, on NG+, use the revealed conviction levels to laser in on the specific choices you want to make, characters you want to recruit and ending you wish to pursue. At least, that's how I'm playing, anyways.

edit

Also, you never need to convince all your team mates to win a vote. Just some. And you can always convince them by answering their questions correctly- it's just a question of how many. So there is never a choice being blocked off to you. It's always possible to chose a certain path- it simply may be harder or easier.

@Ralizah I found after doing three of the endings and now working towards the fourth (golden) on new game plus, either it is easier to persuade the characters or I just know what the character in question would like to hear.

So I am trying to finish the game with the golden ending and wow, using the underlevelled characters did not work out for me. Anyone going for this route, I do suggest doing some mock battles with them before they get broken into teams. I'm playing on normal.

Wow, the level XIII battle on the bridge is brutal, but utterly fantastic. It's really satisfying seeing Frederica embrace her destiny and face off against the "siblings" who have tormented her all her life. I actually jeopardized my units a bit by having them deliberately hold off on delivering the final blow until Frederica could do it herself. That's how invested I was in what was happening.

Deciding what to do with that bomb was definitely the hardest choice I've had to make to date.

Triangle Strategy is easily my GOTY so far. Team Asano knocked this one out of the park. The music, storytelling, and gameplay are all fantastic.

@Ralizah The decisions and scenes just get better from there depending what you have decided so far and how you have played.

Welp, definitely not on the "good" route. Ch. XIV gets dark pretty quickly.

That ship battle (on the route I'm on anyway) was interesting, but a fair deal easier than the last few as long as you abuse long-range attacks and the chokepoint around the area where you board the enemy ship. Oh, and knock out the enemy hawkriders first, which is easy considering they brazenly board your own vessel.

Serenoa has turned into kind of a glass cannon. He's powerful, but goes down in a few hits, and has died early in the last few battles.

@Ralizah
I think part of what impressed me most about Triangle Strategy is how much better it is that I expected. Octopath was a good game. Bravely Default 2 was a good game. But neither were, "oh my gosh this is incredible!".

So for Triangle Strategy, my expectations were aligned accordingly. And yet, the game is so much better than the developer's pedigree would lead you to believe. It has the art style, it has the soundtrack, it has the gameplay, it has the story, it has the characters, it has meaningful choices... it just nails it in nearly every respect. Whereas previous games all fell short in one area or another (usually story and characters, not to mention JRPG gameplay just doesn't feel as deep and satisfying as grid based SRPG gameplay where position and orientation factor in).

@Ralizah yea, I've noticed the same for serenoa and Roland. Both can deal great damage but take a great deal themselves, even with Me making it a point to upgrade their defenses and HP.

@JaxonH Old-school tactical RPGs aren't generally my bag. I tend to prefer the dungeon-crawling, exploration, and faster-paced battles of traditional JRPGs. That, along with my dislike of FF Tactics, made me initially somewhat disappointed that we weren't getting a more traditional JRPG out of Team Asano in the HD-2D style (which we still need, btw; Octopath is bogged down by the same experimental approach to structure and narrative development that plagues series like SaGa, and Bravely 2 doesn't make use of sprites).

I also generally tend to prefer one strong narrative over a branching storyline that tends to fragment the experience. Choices in games don't usually matter too much, and I'm someone who tends to play most games only once, even though I keep them with the intent of replaying them at some point (that has happened, but rarely).

On top of all that, I'm very much a 'gameplay first' sort of person, and tend to get annoyed when a game overloads me with storytelling.

On paper, Triangle Strategy is a game I should dislike. But the various components of the game come together in ways that make it a truly gripping experience.

@NintendoByNature Serenoa at least makes up for his horrible defense stats with some great techniques and damage output. Roland is just a waste, and I've benched him semi-permanently alongside Erador and a bunch of weird side characters who I've never bothered developing. I do drag him out occasionally when I have no more characters I want to use so he can take a few hits as a meat-shield. I suppose Erador would be better at that, but he's honestly too much trouble to powerlevel. I'll work with him on my second playthrough or something.

@Ralizah I get it. Everyone has thier own style. I've been using erador quite often for his defense and power strikes off cliffs. I love benedicts dialogue and voice acting but he isn't that great in battle. Kinda wish I shelved him a while ago but it's a little too late for that. Archibald has been a nice addition to the team for me to have two ranged archers. Roland is great for his ability to hit multiple people in a row.

@NintendoByNature I love benedicts dragon shield move. Erador's King's Shield is quite nice too.

@NintendoByNature "Now!" and the skill that enables a unit to move twice are both supremely useful, but I haven't found Benedict's other buffs to be particularly impressive. But he does just enough right to be worth keeping on my team.

I keep Archibald on since it's nice to have more ranged damage, but he's wildly inferior to Hughette in every way. Also really like his side stories.

Julio is probably my favorite side character mechanically, even if his primary use is to act as a TP battery for my mages. His strength isn't bad, either.

Anna is another top-tier character. Being able to turn invisible, sneak up behind enemies, and inflict status conditions with her dagger is supremely useful.

Ezana, Frederica, and Corentin always come along on my battles, when possible, as magic is pretty OP in this game.

@komodo182 not sure I unlocked that move just yet. Must be coming up soon though.

@Ralizah love Anna as well. She's been very useful. Julio I haven't used as much as I've been using narve(sp?) And Archibald in place of him. I use him in mock battles alot just in case I want to toss him out.

Corentin is great for the Magic as is Frederica. Narve is the best of geela, Frederica and corentin, so its nice to use them too.

There's one other character I don't think you've been introduced to yet that's been useful but it's a main story character. I'll probably shelve them though for one of the mages once I get a chance.

I've yet to use ezana honestly. Maybe ill try her out in a mock.