Triangle Strategy - 1st Impression - Character Classes and Development & My Final Verdict

Hello lovely Hiveans !

Before I talk a bit about the character classes and the character development, I want to tell if the story-telling and the conviction system is keeping the expectations, now that I played through the first 3 chapters. In the end I will also present my final verdict of the game and try to erap up everything that I learned so far and give it a score ^^

The Storytelling keeps up to the Expectations !

The story evolved greatly. A lot of people are introduced right from the beginning. Frani Glenrook, Crown prince of Glenbrook* invited several guests from the whole realm, that will participate in a planned tournament.

The guest are important personalities from the different countries and are discussed, regarding their actual positions, social status in their countries and more. But I don't want to spoiler you too much here, but you will definitly meet them again, but depending on your convvtions and decision the time and the circumstances will vary ^^

At the same time, Serenoa and Frederica arrive in Castle Wolford and learn to know Erador and Anna. They have important position in the castle and will join forces with Serenoa later on too. These and two more chars will make your standart team that is always with you, at least thats what I assume. Things still may change, but it seems that those are the hard core.

Later on, it is explained, that the tournament is a part of a festivity that is held due to an upcoming treaty between the nations. In addition, two new persons are introduced which are announced as delegates in this manner, which arrive at Wolfort Castle the next morning as House Wolfort will be hosts to them.

I really don't want to tell you more at this point. The reason is simple and promising, hehe .. I really like how all these characters are introduced. In addition, there are already many disputes recognizable and there are some indication for possible intrigues too. But in this case, it got a bit harder to guess what will really happen, as everything is connected and cross-linked. Thus, everything may be possible and many surprises and story twists are actually possible. There are actually a lot of stories in the whole next chapter and again, the storytelling is done in an excellent way as was told already before, but better ! .. During the whole presentation, the characters feel real, and their behaviour is fully believable and not artificial pushed in a way. Although the story setting is a bit stereotypic, they perfectly managed it, to make an own very interesting story from that point on that I am eager to discover further. My expectation on the quality of the story are fulfilled and the previous rating of 8.5 out of 10 is still fully justified. It has even the possibility to go up in rating in my opinion, depending on how it will evolve in the end. As far as I figured out so far, there are even several final storylines possible and already up to chapter 3 the linearity of the story is broken and several approaches are possible. That is soo cool !!! .. and thus a replay is on the plan too 👍

There is also Free Exploration ^^

From time to time there are also passages of free exploration. The player can visit some location and move around the theme freely, even enter houses. Here, all other characters can be talked too to start a dialogue. Some of them grant you items or even news about the kingdom. This news is readable in the war chronic too. I can also already tell you, that collecting these various pieces of news, and also your anwsers with all met people, information will have an impact on conversations later on and on how the story progresses. The characters with the exclamation marks over their head up a multiple answer field again, which then, depending on the answer, can strengthen conviction in a certain way. I already talked about convictions in the previous post, and I really like that they can not only be gained by many ways throughout the game.

If you are like me, you try to look up every corner and talk to ever y charackter on the map. I did it, and fund several items, gaines many infos and the best, I figured out that you can interact with animals. It seems like the programmers really love cats, as well as me :)

The mixture between story, fighting and free exploration is really nice and welcome. They are loosening up the strict format of the game and are a very nice additional way to interact with the other characters of the game in a more traditional JRPG style.

The Conviction System Looks Really Promissing !

It seems that the conviction system it getting extremely more complex from minute to minute. During the storytelling, fighting scenes and the free exploration there are several possibilities to decided into one of conviction three directions and also to shape the furture storyline. This is done by choosing one of three answers. Thereby it is not easily detectable, which answer will direct into which of the three conviction possibilities. In Wolfort castle, there is even a Scale of Conviction which can be used to influence the convictions in a specific manner. This is also used to decide several manners, also very story developin critical aspects, with your core team. Depending on the gathered news, information, your convictions and more, a lot of things can be influenced. To avoid to much spoilers here, I just state, that the conviction system is complex and decisions are made felt in a great way and have a big impact ^^

Thereby the chosen convictions will also have an influence of how characters will react to you, their dialogue options and also if they will join your party or not. In addition, the whole story line will evolve in a different direction for other charackters too if other convictions are followed, not only yours. Again, very complex and well done!

I love it, when the players have the possibility to steer the story into several directions depending on how they are reacting to circumstances. What I saw so far, is that the conviction system is not easily predictable, has already a direct impact on the subsequent dialogue, and the huge potential to change all the little plots and behind-the-curtain politics of the overall game setting. I don't want to spoiler too much here, but the choices have a great mentionable impact.

Charackter Classes and Development

Instead of explaining the different charackter to you, I show you the pop-up screens from the game itself, as they are quite self-explanatory and show an additional nice game animation. So far there are charackter in Serenoas team and every character posses a different class, covering the stereotypic warrior, tank, mage, healer, buff, thief, cavallery and archer skills. Further charackters have also more classes, but I thing that you get the scheme here already.

They actually play exactly like one would imagine it, but it need some time to figure out, how they are used the best in a real skirmish. At the moment I am still in the very beginning of the game, also I already played up to chapter 4. But so far I like the classes and how they are used. But, I am not so sure how this will evolve during the rest of the game. I am not sure if this very simply held scheme will hold my enthusiasm. Especially, as the character development is really scarse and offers not much flexibility in total.

As you see here, the classes of each character can not be changed at all. There is also no real crafting system, which allows you to produce additional weapons or armor for equipment. Instead, the main weapons can be upgraded twice in total, thats all. Gained trait points can then be used to free trait slots. Actually these are quite boring, as they only cover more attack, health, armor, and so on. For freeing those, you need the cragting items like iron, fiver and more, whcih all can be easily be bought too by the way. At the end, all will be set free, so that the only choice you have is the order you get them. Thus, the whole crafting system looks really boring too. In addition each character only earns 4 skills in total after leveling up. This is really not a lot. The base class can be upgraded to twice, which also costs cragting items and brings 2 more skills in the end, but still it is very scarse.

This is actually very disappointing in my opinion, especially as there are games, such as Final Fantasy Tactics (my all-time favourite game and motivation to buy this one here), that I talked about in the very beginning, that implemented extreme satisfying and complex systems already 15 years ago. The emntioned game actually caught me for more then 1000 hours altogther. I am really not sure, how cathcy the gameplay in Triangle Strategy will be for me. Its not a bad combat, but I actualyy wished for far more complexity.

Just 2 shots from the tournament, so show charackter deployment, movemnt and attack ranges and turn orders in the first overview. All the little detaisl that players wished in this kind of games are there, which is great. If you loose a battle, you can even restart it afterwards and keep the experience and level ups that you gained in the prior fight, hehe. By the way, in the Encampment, that I already presented, there willl be also the possibillity for litle skirmishes, for training and grinding purposes. As said, very very simple, but they kept all the important detaisl. This is true for all aspects of the game ^^

My Final Verdict

After playing the first 3 chapters of the game now, I came to my final conclusion regarding my 1st impression. I am sorry that I split it into 3 parts in total, but I tried to tackle my review in a manner that summarizes everything as complete as possible.

The story is excellent! Also, it delivers a classic stereotypic setting and the first 30 minutes were completely predictable, it evolved greatly after that. It is a lot of story and tons of text one has to go through, so I can only recommend the game to those players who are wishing to experience a great story and don't care to spend most of the time reading. If you are one of them, then you won't be disappointed. There are many characters and all are represented very believable. They all seem to behave natural and everyone has a different personality, motivation, believe and viewpoint on things. Right from the beginning there are many conflicts and intrigues laid open and also several story plots to be expected. The stor can be changed and stirred into so many different directions, based on and excellent conviction system, which makes the story individual every time and gives the player the feeling, that he really can shape the whole fate of the kingdoms !! .. Awesome ! .. If this evolves and keeps up the good quality, the story has potential for an awesome experience. Still, if they had dared to get rid of a stereotypic setting, this might have been a real masterpiece. Nevertheless, I love it and cant get enough of it !!!

Story: 9.5 out of 10

The fighting system is great, but nothing too special and far from being unique. It reminds me a lot of what I have experienced with games like Fire Emblem, especially with FE:Awakening. It is a classic tile-bases strategy game with turn based combat. There are defined turn orders, movement and attack ranges and prebattle positioning possibility and other common features there. Unfortunately, each character has a fixed defined class and offers not much of adaptability. They have only a few skills and the traits that can be chosen are mostly just increased stats, which everyone will get anyway in the end. So the only choice you have, is what you take first and what last. This is a bit disappointing, as it takes a lot of complexity out of the character development and team strategy development. Nevertheless, the mechanics they applied, and the presentation is simply awesome and well done. Every detail one could wish, from a free movable camera, to attack lines, enemy stats, replayable fights with kept experience, and more, is present here. The combat feels great and at the hard difficulty it is a nice challenge too, that makes a lot of fun. But I am not sure if this is an everlasting and suer cathy scheme in the end.

Combat: 7 out of 10

The crafting system is actually totally disappointing. The only thing that you can do, is to upgrade each characters' weapon and main class twice. That's it. This is kind of unnecessary. In my opinion it would have been far better, if they had left it out at all and put something else in place instead. The character development is not better, but quite more complex. The traits are far from innovative and only focus on increasing the main stats. The most exciting here, is that you need to upgrade the weapons to free all of them and that you can decide the order you get them. From all tile based strategy games that I ever saw, it's the minimalistic one that I ever saw. I really wished for more. Nevertheless, as the storytelling and the overall fighting mechanics look great, I believe that I can ignore this point. At least, it works for me personally with this. Still, my big big disappointment is there, and it reflects in the super low score for this point.

Crafting and Character Development: 4 out of 10

Besides storytelling and combat, the other mechanics of the game are awesome too. A conviction system is implemented, which enables the player to evolve in three different areas, depending on his answers in many available dialogues throughout the game. This gives the player the feeling, that he is free to choice his allies, companions and the way the whole fate of the kingdoms is shaped in the future, and also the complete way to them, just upon his own decisions. The map setting is very simple, but include everything that is important, like little description, coat of arms, an own encampment, with shops, smiths and skirmishes, for upgrading character weapons and purchasing consumables and accessories, experience training and more. This is also kept very simple and easily. Overall, the whole game is kept as simple as possible. But as everything that someone could wish for, even a fully adaptable text displaying configuration, is available, this states no problem. Some may find it too simple, but I personally appreciate is, especially as it takes all details in account anyway, and thus helps to focus on the actual story and fighting even more.

Other Mechanics: 8 out of 10

Besides all the mechanics and the story, I want to tell something bout the graphics and the sound of the game. The graphics are actually kind of old school. Not many would like it, but old JRPG fans definitely find them adorable. Nevertheless, the characters and the surrounding are presented in a really, really great way and characters even have nice expressions and interactions with the surrounding. They have many details and look super beautiful. Each setting is created completely individual and there are so many locations overall, each with a different charm and ambience. Besides that, the light and especially the water animations are just stunning. It is probably the most beautiful game I ever saw using this point of playing perspective ever. The whole dialogue is completely synchronized, and the speaker are doing a great job. I only looked into the English audio version so far, but I love it and only play with headphones on, to soak in the full experience. The ambient effect is also great, and the music is fitting too. With headphones on, one can really lose into the great story and the world of the game. Really well done! What they could have improved, maybe, is a bit more combat effect visualization. There are some, but as there are not so many skills, they are repeatable.

Graphics and Sound: 9 out of 10

Overall, the game holds completely to my expectations and my first impression is completely positive. I really want to get further in the game and already are sad, that I probably have not the time resources for it as I had as a teenager for the old school JRPG area 😂

Overall: 8 out of 10

With possibility to an 9 out of 10 if it keeps the story quality throughout the rest of the game, which I look upon positive, and depending on how satisfying the combat will be even later on. So far I love it, but are still skeptic regarding the long-time satisfaction. I can easily oversee the stereotypic base setting due to the amazing story-telling and huge flexibility in shaping the story itself on the way, which they made excellent, but due to the really bad character, trait and skill system, which is barely there at all, more is not to be expected from my side ^^

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_{All screenshots were taken by myself, ©@adalger, with my Nintendo Switch}

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Best wishes,
Adalger