Squeenix TRIANGLE STRATEGY - tactical RPG from Octopath Traveler devs

[Sentinel]

I'm positively surprised by this game. Probably the best in its genre in 20 years.

 

[Zizka]

Current emulator of choice is Ryujinx. It's not perfect, but can be unlocked above 30 without issues. Yuzu shat itself a bit too much on Vulkan and gave bad performance on OpenGL.

Interestingly, I tried Ryujinx at first but it kept crashing. So I defaulted to Yuzu EA.
It still crashes and if I play for longer than 30 minutes the FPS start dropping. I barely manage 30 FPS with frame limit unlocked. It’s taking away from my experience.

I’ve seen a video on YouTube of a dude managing 60 FPS on yuzu. Has anyone managed to pull this off? I’ve got a decent rig (Cloud Gaming) and the game itself looks like ps1 era so I’m a bit puzzled as to what I’m doing wrong.

I’m getting *much* faster speed on Vulkan.

 

[GhostCow]

I'm enjoying it but I wouldn't put it above most of the Fire Emblem games. Especially not Three Houses.

 

[Nm6k]

I would put it above the recent Fire Emblem games but not Tactics Ogre

 

[Zizka]

It's unfortunately not as good as Final Fantasy Tactics. I was hoping it'd be the same caliber but alas I wouldn't say it's close. Good game though.

 

[Puukko]

Current emulator of choice is Ryujinx. It's not perfect, but can be unlocked above 30 without issues. Yuzu shat itself a bit too much on Vulkan and gave bad performance on OpenGL.

Interestingly, I tried Ryujinx at first but it kept crashing. So I defaulted to Yuzu EA.
It still crashes and if I play for longer than 30 minutes the FPS start dropping. I barely manage 30 FPS with frame limit unlocked. It’s taking away from my experience.

I’ve seen a video on YouTube of a dude managing 60 FPS on yuzu. Has anyone managed to pull this off? I’ve got a decent rig (Cloud Gaming) and the game itself looks like ps1 era so I’m a bit puzzled as to what I’m doing wrong.

I’m getting *much* faster speed on Vulkan.

I got more than 60 on Yuzu at 2x but the graphical issues were too much. Ryujinx also crashed mid battle so then I figured I'd put the game on the back burner for the time being since I am already swamped in new releases for the foreseeable future.

 

[Zizka]

Actually, you were right. I tried Ryujinx again and it runs much better. I think the FPS displayed in yuzu is misleading/unrepresentative.

Regarding your crash, the game auto saves every turn so you won’t lose your whole battle fortunately.

 

[Zizka]

I decided to shelve this one as well.

Final Fantasy Tactics in 1997 didn’t have voice acting. It focused on having a good variety of enemies and jobs.

This game has a total of:
1-Mage healer
2-(Black) Mage
3-Soldier
4-Heavy armour
5-archer
6-Bird rider
+some bosses with a few unique abilities. Pretty much same as chess.

How come a game which comes out more than two decades later can’t manage to have more than 6 enemy types over 20 chapters I can’t fathom.

- Not sure if it’s the voice acting eating resources. Man who cares about voice acting. Wish that budget was invested in things which matter.

- You can’t even decide to promote your units to different things like in Vandal Hearts (1996).

- There’s no gear except accessories…

- No side quests (except for those tavern challenges).

+ Story is interesting (although characters are strangely forgettable).

+ Art looks good. It’s weird because the pixel art can’t have been that expensive to make based on PA artist fees I’m familiar with. Not sure why there isn’t more of it.

+ Music sounds great, great soundtrack.

+/- there’s this gimmick where you need to vote to do stuff. You need to convince people. It’s ok but not what I play tactical games for.

I’m starting to wonder if Tomoya Asano doesn’t get things made because he asks for a pittance in production fees. Bravely Default 2 has the same issue of recycled assets to the point of absurdity. The same worm was palette swapped to all colors of the rainbow.

What’s funny is that 2D sprites with minimal animation is just fine. You don’t even need a full body like in battle brothers.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance looked great and I bet it was made for a fraction of Triangle Strategy.

I’d say it’s worth a try. How come no one has ever managed to make a tactical game anywhere close to the old Final Fantasy tactics…

I blame the voice acting.

 

[GhostCow]

This game is shit for people who are into buildporn. What it does do better than most games is C&C.

The voice acting is especially bad though. I tried switching it to Japanese and the JP acting was just as bad. I almost wonder if it's bad as a stylistic choice.

 

[Jermu]

So only customization you can do to your characters is accessory slot?

Finished first mission and there is not even friendly fire on hard difficulty

 

[Zizka]

Yes, just accessories like Strength ring, Defence ring, etc…

I think the issue is that I’ve been spoiled by FFT. Nothing has ever compared to it and it stops me from appreciating new entries in the genre. No amount of customisation has ever come close. Mixing skills and activities was so much fun.

IGN rated Triangle Strategy an 8 and Final Fantasy Tactics Lion War… a 9. As if they’re only one point apart. If FFT is a 9, than Triangle is a 6 at most. There’s no comparison here.

To be fair, Triangle Strategy does also have:
-branching paths
-interesting choices
-multiple endings

 

[Bohrain]

This game is shit for people who are into buildporn. What it does do better than most games is C&C.

The voice acting is especially bad though. I tried switching it to Japanese and the JP acting was just as bad. I almost wonder if it's bad as a stylistic choice.

Probably bad voice direction in the original and since that never improves in dubs it's just as bad in English.

 

[GhostCow]

I think the issue is that I’ve been spoiled by FFT. Nothing has ever compared to it and it stops me from appreciating new entries in the genre. No amount of customisation has ever come close. Mixing skills and activities was so much fun.

Have you played Fire Emblem: Three Houses? It beats the shit out of FFT in the build porn department. Skill based systems will beat class based systems for me every time.

 

[Zizka]

I was going to try this next actually. I’m just worried the A.I. ends up being like Front Mission where the enemies don’t aggro unless you get close enough to them. Like those bosses waiting in the castles of Fire Emblem which I didn’t like. But we’ll see, beggars can’t be choosers.

 

[flyingjohn]

-branching paths

You too can now play the same boring gameplay on a map with a different name !!!

-interesting choices

Minus the gameplay ones.

-multiple endings

The only challenge of the game,not falling asleep to actually see them.

Troubleshooter/Fft have spoiled me in terms of actual gameplay. This seems boring as fuck.
Even devil survivor has tits to keep me awake.

 

[Zizka]

I gave up at chapter 13 (out of 20) after seeing the *same* enemies again. The same soldier sprite over 13 chapters. You’d think a fantasy world would have monsters like undead, dragons, etc… but no. Bravely Default did, why not this one?

I certainly won’t be doing the branching paths to see if there are different maps, that’s for sure. The pictures I saw in the reviews were I hadn’t seen before so maybe there are unique maps.

I would be remiss not to mention the branching paths. I mean it does add some replay value. Even though I was expecting this game to be FFT 2 (and boy was I disappointed) I still need to point out the more positive points.

Turn based strategy games like Triangle are so rare, that when one does come up, there’s always hope for a good game.

I think Suikoden Tactics was pretty good. This is from memory however.

 

[lightbane]

Sad to see such comments, but it was understandable:
Games like FFT won't happen ever again (or not as frequently at least), this is the sad truth to accept.

 

[Endemic]

It feels like Artdink\SE were trying to make a more streamlined Tactics Ogre. I've only played the demo though, so I can't give a comprehensive review.

Have you played Fire Emblem: Three Houses? It beats the shit out of FFT in the build porn department. Skill based systems will beat class based systems for me every time.

I think FFT is extremely overrated and newer games should stop copying it (besides, FFT is a worse version of Tactics Ogre to begin with).

Build porn in SRPGs only adds something if there are meaningful choices\trade-offs - in 3H, there's nothing to stop you spamming wyverns and ending most maps in 1-2 turns (because warp is essentially unlimited and wyvern knights have virtually zero drawbacks). The scenario design is just subpar all-round and extremely vulnerable to this kind of cheesing. New Mystery (FE12) handled features like reclassing and warp a lot better. It also had meaningful stat caps. Sure, it doesn't have a skill system, but there is something to be said for a tightly designed SRPG that makes the most of what it does include.

 

[GhostCow]

Build porn in SRPGs only adds something if there are meaningful choices\trade-offs - in 3H, there's nothing to stop you spamming wyverns and ending most maps in 1-2 turns (because warp is essentially unlimited and wyvern knights have virtually zero drawbacks). The scenario design is just subpar all-round and extremely vulnerable to this kind of cheesing.

This is true, but I always play with self imposed restrictions to keep myself from cheesing and ruining the game for myself. Sounds like you would enjoy the final DLC a lot more than the base game. Everything is much more tightly designed and there's no real choices you can make to cheese the game since there's no training and you have a preselected set of characters to use.

 

[Sentinel]

Can't believe people actually like FFT. If you like that game, you don't like strategy games. You like grindy shit where you can outlevel and roflstomp the enemies with completely broken abilities.

 

[spekkio]

besides, FFT is a worse version of Tactics Ogre to begin with

This. To make it lulzier, TO achieves this while still being totally broken.

 

[Zizka]

(I tried Three Houses.

FMV intro was very Berskerkish (looks good when it’s hand drawn, awful when computer rigged) but I was interested.

Then the first fight was fun. Environment didn’t look very good but still, looked ok. For comparison sakes:

Three Houses:

I thought combat was interesting although animation and art was janky (pixel art looked better and ages better in general).

Then I got to the academy/high school and my enthusiasm waned as I ran around the place, going to the greenhouse to do some gardening…

Exploration is a drag in T-RPG. Just give me battle after battle with varied and interesting objectives. I don’t want to have a long conversation with the students in high school to find out who has a crush on the math teacher. Were people clamouring for more exploration for the Fire Emblem saga? Goddammit.

I want a skip button for dialogue (if I deem it boring) and battle after battle.

So I won’t be playing this one either.)

 

[Bohrain]

I never got far in FFT. Confirmation after movement, rotating map and classes being very basic compared to FFTA just made it unappealing to me. Like why does a Dragoon have to learn a different jump skill for all heights or a Black Mage to cast fire with different intensity/delay? Why does alchemist have to learn different skills for every separate consumables to use them? What does the brave/faith system actually add to the game? I do like Matsuno's writing, but somehow the games always manage to have grindy or unnecessarily esoteric mechanics that detract from the experience.

 

[Delterius]

I don’t want to have a long conversation with the students in high school to find out who has a crush on the math teacher. Were people clamouring for more exploration for the Fire Emblem saga?

i dunno about 'exploration' but it does seem that fire emblem is the premiere 'talk to anime characters, pair them together' sim

 

[Bohrain]

Three Houses isn't a particularly good Fire Emblem. Major faults being that it's piss easy and while it does have different routes, the branching happens at around 60% of the whole length so you are forced to do the same pre-timeskip content again if you want to do a different one.
Radiant Dawn is my favourite one, though it does have the issue of being on the easier side on normal difficulty and awful on hard when you are playing the Dawn Brigade chapters.