Topic: Triangle Strategy

@mazzoutlaw
Hrm yea, your last point is interesting. I kind of like having named units just like in Three Houses, but hopefully classes are customizable for everyone.

I also forgot to mention how weird it is going back to a strategy game where the characters move individually based on stats, like you said. I'm used to having each team move all at once like in Three Houses and I believe Disgaea 5.

just had the survey about Project Tiangle Strategy demo .... So, other's who've played that might get theirs soon

@mazzoutlaw Yeah, selecting an icon on the map only to be given a brief cutscene is extremely weird.

@BruceCM
I’m so glad Square Enix has seen enough success on Nintendo they’ve devoted an entire studio to just making Nintendo exclusives.

Bravely Default was a smashing success on 3DS, over 1 million units sold, and Bravely Second also did really well. Then Octopath Traveler smashed 2 million units sold on Switch, and Bravely Default 2 is in the top 30 on Amazon Best Seller’s list. It’ll be an easy million sold again. And this will surely be a success. It’s already top 3 on eShop best sellers, even as a demo that’s great.

They’re successful on Nintendo and it’s allowed them to experiment confidently. Otherwise we NEVER would have seen games like Bravely Default 2, Octopath Traveler and especially Triangle Strategy. This is a game that, sure it’s not Call of Duty, but it’s also higher budget and more visually stunning and refined than most smaller attempts at the genre.

I doubt we’ll ever see a new Final Fantasy Tactics, and the original is quite dated at this point. Not really up to scratch to play by today’s standards. So it’s really nice having this new spiritual successor in the HD-2D engine. I LOVE this freakin engine so much. It looks so good. It’s like a dream art style. This game even existing it all feels like a fanboy dream that would never actually happen in reality. And yet here it is.

Heh, yeah, although PTS will probably come to Steam later, like Octopath, @JaxonH .... As for the original FFT, I only got to play the WotL version!

This game is interesting for sure. I just hope it doesn't have simplistic objectives and that the choices you make are rewarding.

Really surprised that they decided to use the Octopath engine for this.

@JaxonH I get the feeling that, before Octopath, Tokyo RPG Factory was supposed to be the Switch-focused developer for S-E. But, of course, their games suck, and Octopath took off like a rocket, so now the HD-2D games fill that role.

I doubt Triangle Strategy is particularly high budget. It just has a LOT of post-processing effects applied. But it looks good, and, presentation-wise, that's all that really matters.

I'm still hoping for a traditional Final Fantasy-style game made in this engine.

@Ralizah I feel like this might be unpopular but while Triangle Strategy and Octopath's art styles are good, the same thing applied to things like SaGa Frontier Remastered, and the first three Dragon Quest games, where they just make the sprites out of modern art (like putting manga dragon art into the battle screen), is absolutely deplorable. It lionises what's old and doesn't really make it look nice...

Agreed, I tried the demo today and didn't really enjoy it much. It wasn't too difficult to figure out how to play (though having said that, I did lose the battle and didn't really feel like trying again) but it was a bit overwhelming to start from that point with no idea what strategies to use for each character. The story scenes meant nothing to me either so I skipped most of them. I'm sure the full game will be good though.

@Ralizah
Yea definitely not super high budget. But I am surprised at all the voice acting. You can still get away with text only for a lot of these games, maybe just voice for the super important scenes.

Voice acting is one of those things that are borderline required if you're a big budget video game. And by that I mean, its obviously not required, but enough people said it is because reasons. So here we are.

I say this because please tell me they'll redo some of these lines. Some of the acting is...not good, and I hope that's because this is a quicky demo for an unreleased video game and not that they've already recorded all of the script.

I don’t think anyone was saying the game was super high budget, just much more so than typical niche Japanese SRPG spin-offs usually are. It’s about as high quality as it gets for this style of game with sprites. Look at Mercenaries Saga Chronicles, as an easy example to compare with. And it’s not just graphics. It’s sound effects, voice work, visual effects, all of it. It all affects how how quality a game feels, and this game feels high quality.

I also think the voice acting is astonishingly good given the caliber of game it is. I immediately thought wow, they must have paid for the higher tier of voice actors on this one, cause it sounds way better than Octopath or Trials of Mana, neither of which were “bad” but... definitely average, I’d say. Only one character seemed a tad under par compared to the rest (Serenoa) but even then, his voice work wasn’t cringe by any means. If that’s the worst it gets, we’ll be just fine.

Here’s the survey. Be sure to tell them the things you like and don’t like so they can improve the game and focus on what’s good!

Project Triangle Strategy Survey

FYI, here’s what I put:

Like

• Story
• Gameplay
• Artstyle
• Seeing character portraits during dialog

Dislike

• Ability details menu blends in
• Toggle map screens cursor speed
• Toggle unit info box in battle
• Selected tiles hard to see
• Character direction hard to see
• Text auto advance needed
• FF speed option half as fast as current FF
• Serenoa voice lines not as well delivered as rest

Had to limit what I said because they only give you 250 characters and then you have to narrow it down with 150 characters. But hopefully some of the things I have listed will resonate with others here and they can mention the ones they feel are the most important in their survey response

Part of me really disagrees with this, but part of me thinks you might be right actually. The overly serious tone of it all and the acting within that is kinda hard for me to judge, especially out of context of the full narrative.

Did the survey. Mainly pointed out that some UI elements were unclear/didn't pop for me, that the game needed an auto-advance option for the text, and that the gameplay needed to be snappier and sped up a bit.

@kkslider5552000
It all sounded so down to earth, like how normal people really talk (Serenoa aside, who sounded like he was reading off a script and the conversation sometimes felt out of place with him), but I did notice the volume levels were low in some parts, such as when the king is beheaded and is saying is final words.

All in all though, pretty good I thought. I doubt they’re going to re-record any character voice lines though, especially the main protagonist which is the only one I feel needs it. Oh well. Tackle the rest of the bullet point list and I’ll be happy.

Honestly though, there isn’t any major glaring issue. Like, sure, there’s a lot of small complaints and things I think could be done better but none of it is too big a deal. I was thinking about that earlier, like, even if they released it as is, none of it would really stop it from being an excellent game. It seems like they are at least improving with each game. That’s good to see.

Though they’re pretty consistently bad with menus and naming their games. At this point, they have to name it Triangle Strategy. It’s their trademark. I expect nothing less 🙂

@JaxonH I’m late to the party but I wanted to play a little more before I responded. I really think Squeenix has a new franchise on their hands with this one. Octopath and Bravely are really anchored in their worlds (if not timelines) but I feel like the mechanics of TS could be lifted and applied FE style to new stories.

Getting ahead of myself though. At this point aside from my UI issues I just need them to lock down the tile cursor and offer Japanese voices (or as my preference, put the JPN version the same cart) and I am ready for release day. The cursor needs a nail though. The battle on the bridge, I kept accidentally diving off the bridge with the cursor.

@1000tomatoes The "marker" you are referring to is called an "em dash" (not to be confused with an "en dash"). An "en dash" separates ranges (as in 1900-2000) while an "em dash" separates information in a sentence--usually used to make a portion stand-out in a sentence--for noticeability (and importance). There's nothing grammatically incorrect about these markers. Rather, they actually add to the meaning of the sentence when understood by the reader--otherwise, it's just "noise" and "style" added to a sentence.

I think the em dashes in the dialogue were placed for effect, honestly. But that's just my opinion. Sorry for the grammar lesson! Just wanted to let you (and everyone else) know something interesting about the dialogue (since it was commented on).

Here's something simple is like them to improve, to help immersion:

In the first chapter, on the bridge, there's a portcullis gate separating your faction from the enemy. Your army act like they don't know what's on the other side of the gate when, if it was a portcullis, they would be able to see for themselves by looking through the gaps. So either change the dialogue to reflect that it's a see-through partition, or make it a solid gate.

It's late, so I'll just paste in what I typed for the article regarding the survey on the main site:

Overall I enjoyed the demo. The visuals are awesome, the music is decent and MOST of the voice acting ranges from decent to passable. (Not too fond of Serenoa's VA though) The player is dropped in the middle of the story, which can be confusing, but the text CAN be skipped through with the right shoulder button. So I feel like the "too much dialogue" quippers (Editor's Note: This was a common complaint I noticed in the comments) have an easy answer there.

The combat takes some getting used to; the only SRPG series I've played are Fire Emblem and a bit of Shining Force, so I'm definitely not used to mixed up unit movement based on speed. I did pretty well in the first battle and managed not to lose any units, but the second...was a dumpster fire. It'll be a big planning adjustment should I get this game. Backstabbing is a neat mechanic, and this game takes FE's terrain alterations literally to a different level.

I've received the survey but haven't filled it out yet. For now, my complaints are small; auto-dialogue would be nice, as well as a way to auto-enable cutscenes. Speeding up enemy battle speed would also be nice, though you can speed up the turns of your own units. Menus could use a bit of work too, but they're certainly navigable. Unit movement could use a bit of fine-tuning as it feels a bit clunky at times. And I do agree, the diorama battlefields look nice but do feel a bit cluttered.