I had a section dedicated to the soundtrack in the original script, but the original script was also 40 minutes long! I felt that I could demonstrate the soundtrack's quality just by making good choices to use for the video LOL
Excellent observation re: the pace and story to battle ratio of the early chapters serving a narrative purpose. That's a neat perspective. I can see it being cold comfort for those who were put off by it, but not every design decision can create a fun outcome for all players.
That was what I was most struck by as well. I’ve consumed a number of reviews about this game, both written and video, and this is the first time I’ve heard this framing. Makes a good deal of sense!
I agree as this is one of the best JRPG in recent memories. It was my GOTY 2022 as well. Watching your review makes me want to have another go at this game.
I have to say the banner update surprised me, you tend to go with main characters so I was happy to see Ezana the best girl shaman added!! I think my favorite talking point was in defense of the story's slow burn start. I thought of it as the calm before the storm, it was needed for the pacing and pays off! Game of Thrones as a reference point, the war between the North and the Lannister's doesn't just happen, there's an entire story build up that gets you invested in what's to come. Sure this point can be made for any story, but let me add a direct comparison with Tactics Ogre. Tactics Ogre has a brief intro before being plunged into war, which was good for getting you into gameplay sure enough. For me personally I was scratching my head and referencing the world notes after each scene to figure out what was going on! Triangle Strategy's introduction to each nation and their recent history of war helped get me very invested in all the events that unfold. Then taking the time to watch each optional story gives a ton of depth. My point Im working towards is, Triangle Strategy has the best story of all SRPGs (Saying this as Fire Emblem being my all time favorite series). Character design didnt really get brought up in the review but Id like to add that this game has one of the best in terms of cohesive design. Every single character and NPC looked like they lived in this world. Even the fact they added a functional robot with Decimal but looks like a wooden barrel haha! A lot of RPGs have characters that look and feel like they where designed outside of the game then happened to get added in (not saying that's bad, just to make my point of cohesive design). Another fantastic review for the Backlog Battle!!!
Good point on the character design! They all certainly felt like they belong in the world, and maybe I got spoiled with Octopath 2, but they all certainly added so much to the game itself! And that's a very interesting comparison with Tactics Ogre! You're totally right on both accounts! I'm actually really happy so many people are thinking of going back to this game after watching this review! Just tells me that I captured the spirit of the game!
I'm glad you took your time to get this review done the way you really wanted to! 2022 was the year of Square Enix, they just dropped got after hit. I do wanna get to this one eventually! I'm also hopeful it'll get a PS/Xbox version sometime, too. Also, if you played Shining Force recently, that would make a cool review, just sayin' 👀
On the impact of war on the citizens, something I think is interesting is how a large majority of the player units are civilians, with around 10 being involved with conflict (soldiers, guardsmen, criminals, etc.) and only around 6 being familiar with warfare The war caused them to take up arms when they normally would not
Great review! I played the demo right before the launch of the game and I really liked it but didn't pick up the full game until way later and haven't gotten around to playing it yet. After watching this I have a strong urge to start it right away! Cheers from Sweden!
Absolutely loved the game, and your review as well. Also agree with the game making the battles infrequent to imply peace time. It's kind similar to XCOM for me in that sense (minus the peace time), where I wanted battles to be less frequent to show high stakes, since in those games each battle would result in perma-death of at least one of my soldiers. The story is something I really liked unlike many simply because the choices presented were hard, the first ending I received left me with a very bitter sweet feeling, but I knew each decision was my own and this was the conclusion.
I appreciate your comment! I do think that some people often don't think of the pace of storytelling as yet another way that games interact with players. I've personally struggled with seeing that myself, especially with visual novels. But I've come to learn that there can be different levels, and developers are more aware of it than they might imply.
Very nice review! Im one of the few who didnt mind the early pacing nor the english voice acting at all. The story was very interesting along with its characters. I ended up putting the game on easy cuz i wanted the story more than battles (also they become brutal near the end, even on easy). Ng+ got atrocious difficulty too 😓
The game is still my modern favorite ever, you made me want to finish my 3rd playthrough haha. Excellent game, but as it was said, it's very story driven so there's a lot of dialogue to read (no a issue for me, but it's for others).
I think the way story's presented is also part of the interaction loop. A lot of people only think so with the game's battles, but I think that's missing a portion of the game that really gets weaponized (in the best ways) once the Scales come into the picture!
@@BacklogBattle I agree. I remember i had an argument with a Tactics ogre fan that said the game really doesn't have replayability because it's core gameplay isn't as customizable as the aforementioned, and the person was ignoring the narrative stakes. I do see that the pacing is a bit heavy, but it's also a part of its charm and core of the narrative and scales. Gotta give another go using my favorite combo of mages (Narve and Corentin).
I've actually been playing on and off and experimenting with some wacky combinations! Picoletta is certainly one that I've been toying around with recently! And I do agree with you that the narrative stakes is part of the replayability. NG+ wouldn't be designed in that way had the developers not known that it was crucial to future playthroughs!
One of my favorite games last year. Think only thing I had a problem with was when I did NG+ (to see true ending) the first battle of game at the docks or whatever did not feel scaled correctly or something and lost that fight like 5 times before getting past it. Cannot remember if it was my fault or what but I thought I softlocked myself for a while there.
Loved this game. I think the unit progression could use some more expanding but other than that they did a good job trying out new concepts. I wonder what subgenre of JRPG they’re gonna tackle next in the HD2D line?
I really liked this game but did feel like it was a really good book with complex character interaction with a game system strapped to it. It felt like 2 separate things were great individually but it doesn't synergize very well, a very old school way of doing things. Games are supposed to be interactive and i feel that most games have found a really good way to combine great story with great game play.
I think it's on a case by case basis. In the case of Triangle Strategy, your feelings on the events transpiring definitely need a lot of time to gestate, and no amount of trying to be succinct about it would make it better. Then, when the time does come when you have to make the decision, the NPCs you have to convince act as a conscience, of sorts, to try and dissuade you from your decision and offering alternative perspective you wouldn't have thought of yourself. As the age old saying goes, the knowledge of many is better than the wisdom of one. Another really good example of this is the original Persona 4. The provincial setting of Yasoinaba is very different than the hustle and bustle of the other games, where they're usually set in urban areas. That first hour where you can't even save and nothing meaningful is going on was done to impute the setting upon the player, to make you feel like it's slow. Part of games interaction isn't just when you press the buttons or when battles happen. It's also how the story is conveyed, how long or short the story languishes in the details to allow for a specific mood to drape the player.
Good call on the typeface used in the game. I'm not a fan of the english translated voices and prefer to use the japanese voices to add their better capturing of the correct emotion for each line as I read the text, but you really have to concentrate to read it (playing the Switch version here).
I feel like gamers are like that, you know? A good game comes around, and very rarely does one last for a long time. Especially since last year was packed with a lot of stuff.
@@BacklogBattle There wasn't much publicity about it. This is why perhaps this great game was missed. The title 'Triangle strategy' doesn't do the game justice, Square Enix should have come up with a much better title in order to catch the attention of players.
I really want to play this game lol. Just very torn between switch or Steam version. Mostly because I am going to play it in Japanese and will need to be looking up words frequently, but I still have to balance that out with needing most gaming sessions to be able to be short. Does anyone know if you can do quick saves in the pc version or if you can only save in between battles/story parts? I played the beginning on switch and it seemed like I could only save in the map menu which would make a sleep mode critical for my situation.
Realizing that you’re not in the mood for a very specific thing is a very good sign of self awareness that most people don’t have, so I give you massive props on this!
im currently on my first playthrough albeit at a snails pace BUT iLove it! i love political war drama in my entertainment not my personal life tho haha
I loved this game so much I did 4 playthroughs. I only found the game hard when missions had specific actions to clear. I never felt the dialogue being to long on my first run. Picking what I felt was right had me fully invested. Still think FF tactics is my favorite in the genre, but I'm old so could be nostalgia.
Triangle strategy was a game that I was excited for a bit until I played the demo and was all I'm not really liking what I feel here. It feels like final fantasy tactics light which makes sense and none of the characters is screaming at me to want to know more about them like a fire emblem. And even then in recent times even that starting to slightly disappear in the series. Though the combat in triangle is a lot more simpler than most other SRPGs so it's easy for someone who's never played a game of this type to jump into it and maybe decide if they can play something like this. Although when it comes to heavy political intrigue and massive long wait times for the story to pick itself up and not drag itself, that's when I have a bit of an issue and why I would usually drop games like this. It's one of the main reasons why I dropped final fantasy 12 because it went so hard on the political intrigue but what made it worse in that game was it took way too long to get the ball rolling. Despite that this was a very good review of a game that was very long overdue and you did a great job in narrowing down specific aspects of it. Great work as always Alex!
@@MrDarksol Yea, so that has been patched to actually reflect the beginning of the game and not somewhere in the middle, as the old demo reflected. I didn't connect with any of those characters either in that original demo, but was pleasantly surprised when I did learn that the new demo is literally the first several hours of the game! Maybe this time you'll like it better?
@@BacklogBattle That's a very hard maybe because I am a first impressions kind of guy and usually it's either go big or go home when it comes to games selling me at things. If the 1st time didn't really do a good job of it then the 2nd time would only make me go then why didn't you do this the 1st time lol. Again at this point it's a hard maybe.
I think my main issue with the game is that the sprites are really muddy. This muddiness is even more apparent when you compare it to the renders found in Octopath Traveller. I played the game on the Switch, so maybe that's the limiting factor? The game does look a lot crisper on the PC, it seems.
I know exactly what you're talking about! I do think like what you said, the muddiness is a result of trying to really crunch the game's assets down to fit within Nintendo's size parameters. The PC version definitely still has some of that muddiness, but it's also crisper thanks to the higher resolution! The footage in the review was captured from the game running in QHD, downsampled to 1080p for the video, if you wanted to know!
Dress it up with all the pretty words you’d like… the story is what took me out of this game. Putting me to sleep several nights in a row. I couldn’t get into it and it just dragged. Which sucks because TRPG’s are my fav games. Maybe I’ll get back into it one day.
I’m of the belief that not every good game can be good for people - you have to be in a certain mood to enjoy them. It’s like that with everything else. Maybe someday you’ll see what I mean
Dude, loved this game, about 160 hours I to it, and am currently stuck on ng+2 BEGINNING mission where you first meet fire mage lady (forget her name) where you fight at the dock against the father and daughter bandit. At higher levels that shit is HARD
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I didn’t know I liked SRPGs before I tried Triangle Strategy. And let’s also not fail to praise the absolutely stellar soundtrack.
I had a section dedicated to the soundtrack in the original script, but the original script was also 40 minutes long! I felt that I could demonstrate the soundtrack's quality just by making good choices to use for the video LOL
@@BacklogBattle I agree. Part of the reason I loved watching this!
The underrated gem of all time
I literally just started this last night. Glad to hear you enjoyed it
The one we’ve all been waiting for 🙏🏾
Excellent observation re: the pace and story to battle ratio of the early chapters serving a narrative purpose. That's a neat perspective. I can see it being cold comfort for those who were put off by it, but not every design decision can create a fun outcome for all players.
"Games don't always need to be fun" - Warren Spector 😉
That was what I was most struck by as well. I’ve consumed a number of reviews about this game, both written and video, and this is the first time I’ve heard this framing. Makes a good deal of sense!
I agree as this is one of the best JRPG in recent memories. It was my GOTY 2022 as well. Watching your review makes me want to have another go at this game.
Do it! It's worth another go! Get ALL them characters!
I have to say the banner update surprised me, you tend to go with main characters so I was happy to see Ezana the best girl shaman added!!
I think my favorite talking point was in defense of the story's slow burn start. I thought of it as the calm before the storm, it was needed for the pacing and pays off! Game of Thrones as a reference point, the war between the North and the Lannister's doesn't just happen, there's an entire story build up that gets you invested in what's to come. Sure this point can be made for any story, but let me add a direct comparison with Tactics Ogre. Tactics Ogre has a brief intro before being plunged into war, which was good for getting you into gameplay sure enough. For me personally I was scratching my head and referencing the world notes after each scene to figure out what was going on! Triangle Strategy's introduction to each nation and their recent history of war helped get me very invested in all the events that unfold. Then taking the time to watch each optional story gives a ton of depth. My point Im working towards is, Triangle Strategy has the best story of all SRPGs (Saying this as Fire Emblem being my all time favorite series).
Character design didnt really get brought up in the review but Id like to add that this game has one of the best in terms of cohesive design. Every single character and NPC looked like they lived in this world. Even the fact they added a functional robot with Decimal but looks like a wooden barrel haha! A lot of RPGs have characters that look and feel like they where designed outside of the game then happened to get added in (not saying that's bad, just to make my point of cohesive design).
Another fantastic review for the Backlog Battle!!!
Good point on the character design! They all certainly felt like they belong in the world, and maybe I got spoiled with Octopath 2, but they all certainly added so much to the game itself! And that's a very interesting comparison with Tactics Ogre! You're totally right on both accounts!
I'm actually really happy so many people are thinking of going back to this game after watching this review! Just tells me that I captured the spirit of the game!
youre soo right! i put the triangle strategy artbook on my amazon wishlist!. . .tactics ogre too
After I get through Citizen Sleeper, I'm definitely jumping back into Triangle Strategy!
Heck yea! I noticed a bunch of people watched the review and are now considering going back and replaying the game!
I'm glad you took your time to get this review done the way you really wanted to! 2022 was the year of Square Enix, they just dropped got after hit. I do wanna get to this one eventually!
I'm also hopeful it'll get a PS/Xbox version sometime, too.
Also, if you played Shining Force recently, that would make a cool review, just sayin' 👀
I’ve considered it! I’ll have to be in the mood to do it though!
@@BacklogBattle Ye, I totally understand. I'm excited in advance for any retro or classic reviews you decide to do!
I was expecting this game to be great, but it exceeded those expectations. Glad you also enjoyed it.
I just picked this game up and I'm super excited to give it a go. The art style alone makes it worth it to me even without starting it.
to me the game felt like playing an interactive game of thrones show on my switch. absolute gem of a game!
I loved Triangle Strategy. Such a great game.
On the impact of war on the citizens, something I think is interesting is how a large majority of the player units are civilians, with around 10 being involved with conflict (soldiers, guardsmen, criminals, etc.) and only around 6 being familiar with warfare
The war caused them to take up arms when they normally would not
Exactly what I was alluding to in the script without being too pointed! Glad you got it 😉
Great review! Very thoughtful and informative!
Thanks for your review 😊
My pleasure! And thank you for letting me use your FFVI footage!
@@BacklogBattle You're welcome
I played it at release. It's such a great game!🎉
Another awesome review! I always look forward to them!
Great review!
I played the demo right before the launch of the game and I really liked it but didn't pick up the full game until way later and haven't gotten around to playing it yet.
After watching this I have a strong urge to start it right away!
Cheers from Sweden!
Picked this up when it went on sale on Steam. Started to play it now after finishing Octopath Traveler 2
Amazing review! This is hands down one of the top 5 game on the switch and one of the best games I’ve played thru in the last year or so
I only not long bought the game :) can't wait to play it! Awesome review!!!
Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy it!
Absolutely loved the game, and your review as well. Also agree with the game making the battles infrequent to imply peace time.
It's kind similar to XCOM for me in that sense (minus the peace time), where I wanted battles to be less frequent to show high stakes, since in those games each battle would result in perma-death of at least one of my soldiers.
The story is something I really liked unlike many simply because the choices presented were hard, the first ending I received left me with a very bitter sweet feeling, but I knew each decision was my own and this was the conclusion.
I appreciate your comment! I do think that some people often don't think of the pace of storytelling as yet another way that games interact with players. I've personally struggled with seeing that myself, especially with visual novels. But I've come to learn that there can be different levels, and developers are more aware of it than they might imply.
Very nice review!
Im one of the few who didnt mind the early pacing nor the english voice acting at all.
The story was very interesting along with its characters.
I ended up putting the game on easy cuz i wanted the story more than battles (also they become brutal near the end, even on easy).
Ng+ got atrocious difficulty too 😓
Excellent review of an excellent game.
Thanks man!
Ayyyye I’m currently playing this and it’s sooo good
Ooo! Hope you're enjoying it!
Definately picking this up on a decent sale
I love final fantasy tactics. I'm going to buy this
Was waiting to see if this game was added to the hall of fame
I hope you understood the animation at the end if so!
@@BacklogBattle .....another RPG that I'll have to inevitably get and not have time for
Still need to get Live A Live
Nice review!
I need to pick this one up
Game is damn good just finished it today . Top 3 maybe even number 1 but that can be recency bias talking
The game is still my modern favorite ever, you made me want to finish my 3rd playthrough haha. Excellent game, but as it was said, it's very story driven so there's a lot of dialogue to read (no a issue for me, but it's for others).
I think the way story's presented is also part of the interaction loop. A lot of people only think so with the game's battles, but I think that's missing a portion of the game that really gets weaponized (in the best ways) once the Scales come into the picture!
@@BacklogBattle I agree. I remember i had an argument with a Tactics ogre fan that said the game really doesn't have replayability because it's core gameplay isn't as customizable as the aforementioned, and the person was ignoring the narrative stakes. I do see that the pacing is a bit heavy, but it's also a part of its charm and core of the narrative and scales.
Gotta give another go using my favorite combo of mages (Narve and Corentin).
I've actually been playing on and off and experimenting with some wacky combinations! Picoletta is certainly one that I've been toying around with recently!
And I do agree with you that the narrative stakes is part of the replayability. NG+ wouldn't be designed in that way had the developers not known that it was crucial to future playthroughs!
One of my favorite games last year. Think only thing I had a problem with was when I did NG+ (to see true ending) the first battle of game at the docks or whatever did not feel scaled correctly or something and lost that fight like 5 times before getting past it. Cannot remember if it was my fault or what but I thought I softlocked myself for a while there.
The NG+ scaling can be pretty extreme, so you're not the only one!
Loved this game. I think the unit progression could use some more expanding but other than that they did a good job trying out new concepts. I wonder what subgenre of JRPG they’re gonna tackle next in the HD2D line?
I really liked this game but did feel like it was a really good book with complex character interaction with a game system strapped to it. It felt like 2 separate things were great individually but it doesn't synergize very well, a very old school way of doing things. Games are supposed to be interactive and i feel that most games have found a really good way to combine great story with great game play.
I think it's on a case by case basis. In the case of Triangle Strategy, your feelings on the events transpiring definitely need a lot of time to gestate, and no amount of trying to be succinct about it would make it better. Then, when the time does come when you have to make the decision, the NPCs you have to convince act as a conscience, of sorts, to try and dissuade you from your decision and offering alternative perspective you wouldn't have thought of yourself. As the age old saying goes, the knowledge of many is better than the wisdom of one.
Another really good example of this is the original Persona 4. The provincial setting of Yasoinaba is very different than the hustle and bustle of the other games, where they're usually set in urban areas. That first hour where you can't even save and nothing meaningful is going on was done to impute the setting upon the player, to make you feel like it's slow.
Part of games interaction isn't just when you press the buttons or when battles happen. It's also how the story is conveyed, how long or short the story languishes in the details to allow for a specific mood to drape the player.
Good call on the typeface used in the game. I'm not a fan of the english translated voices and prefer to use the japanese voices to add their better capturing of the correct emotion for each line as I read the text, but you really have to concentrate to read it (playing the Switch version here).
I hope they fix the font in the sequel, if they're making one!
@@BacklogBattle ...and a typeface update for the current game; wouldn't be too difficult.
This game big good.
I feel like this game came and went. There was more hype when it was announced and the demo released.
I feel like gamers are like that, you know? A good game comes around, and very rarely does one last for a long time. Especially since last year was packed with a lot of stuff.
@@BacklogBattle There wasn't much publicity about it. This is why perhaps this great game was missed.
The title 'Triangle strategy' doesn't do the game justice, Square Enix should have come up with a much better title in order to catch the attention of players.
I really want to play this game lol. Just very torn between switch or Steam version. Mostly because I am going to play it in Japanese and will need to be looking up words frequently, but I still have to balance that out with needing most gaming sessions to be able to be short.
Does anyone know if you can do quick saves in the pc version or if you can only save in between battles/story parts? I played the beginning on switch and it seemed like I could only save in the map menu which would make a sleep mode critical for my situation.
You can save during battle too 😉
AYOOOOO lezgoooo
I want to try it but not in the mood for reading too much dialog currently lol
Realizing that you’re not in the mood for a very specific thing is a very good sign of self awareness that most people don’t have, so I give you massive props on this!
@@BacklogBattle thank you 💙
im currently on my first playthrough albeit at a snails pace BUT iLove it! i love political war drama in my entertainment not my personal life tho haha
I loved this game so much I did 4 playthroughs. I only found the game hard when missions had specific actions to clear. I never felt the dialogue being to long on my first run. Picking what I felt was right had me fully invested. Still think FF tactics is my favorite in the genre, but I'm old so could be nostalgia.
Triangle strategy was a game that I was excited for a bit until I played the demo and was all I'm not really liking what I feel here. It feels like final fantasy tactics light which makes sense and none of the characters is screaming at me to want to know more about them like a fire emblem. And even then in recent times even that starting to slightly disappear in the series. Though the combat in triangle is a lot more simpler than most other SRPGs so it's easy for someone who's never played a game of this type to jump into it and maybe decide if they can play something like this. Although when it comes to heavy political intrigue and massive long wait times for the story to pick itself up and not drag itself, that's when I have a bit of an issue and why I would usually drop games like this. It's one of the main reasons why I dropped final fantasy 12 because it went so hard on the political intrigue but what made it worse in that game was it took way too long to get the ball rolling. Despite that this was a very good review of a game that was very long overdue and you did a great job in narrowing down specific aspects of it. Great work as always Alex!
But the big question is: which demo did you play? There were two different ones! 🤔
@@BacklogBattle I think it was the very 1st one before the game came out but it's been so long so I don't remember.
@@MrDarksol Yea, so that has been patched to actually reflect the beginning of the game and not somewhere in the middle, as the old demo reflected. I didn't connect with any of those characters either in that original demo, but was pleasantly surprised when I did learn that the new demo is literally the first several hours of the game! Maybe this time you'll like it better?
@@BacklogBattle That's a very hard maybe because I am a first impressions kind of guy and usually it's either go big or go home when it comes to games selling me at things. If the 1st time didn't really do a good job of it then the 2nd time would only make me go then why didn't you do this the 1st time lol. Again at this point it's a hard maybe.
Why you do this to me man? I have purchased the game (waiting on shipping) lol
I think my main issue with the game is that the sprites are really muddy. This muddiness is even more apparent when you compare it to the renders found in Octopath Traveller. I played the game on the Switch, so maybe that's the limiting factor? The game does look a lot crisper on the PC, it seems.
I know exactly what you're talking about! I do think like what you said, the muddiness is a result of trying to really crunch the game's assets down to fit within Nintendo's size parameters. The PC version definitely still has some of that muddiness, but it's also crisper thanks to the higher resolution! The footage in the review was captured from the game running in QHD, downsampled to 1080p for the video, if you wanted to know!
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Can anyone tell me girl name in thumbnail?
Milo, best girl 😏
@@tikus8567 thank you very much 👍
Dress it up with all the pretty words you’d like… the story is what took me out of this game. Putting me to sleep several nights in a row. I couldn’t get into it and it just dragged. Which sucks because TRPG’s are my fav games. Maybe I’ll get back into it one day.
I’m of the belief that not every good game can be good for people - you have to be in a certain mood to enjoy them. It’s like that with everything else. Maybe someday you’ll see what I mean
It's really dialogue heavy so it's understandable some people wouldn't like it.
My bf already played it and he loved it! Cant wait to try it for myself
Team asanos best game yet
Dude, loved this game, about 160 hours I to it, and am currently stuck on ng+2 BEGINNING mission where you first meet fire mage lady (forget her name) where you fight at the dock against the father and daughter bandit. At higher levels that shit is HARD