Triangle Strategy: A Hidden Gem
A turn-based Strategy RPG that delivered on every expectation and promise it made to me.
It’s already been a big year for gaming. Elden Ring has been, rightfully, sweeping the gaming space with its delightful open world, setpiece-exhibition design, and deep sandbox. Destiny 2: The Witch Queen dropped one of the best expansions for the title (and franchise) ever, with an engaging story with implications reaching as far into the future as they do into the lore-rich past. Kirby and the Forgotten Land just dropped as well, with the charm and joy that Kirby seems to be physically made of. All of these titles and more have been delighting people for the first 1/3rd of the year, but one title has slipped through the cracks, being caught only by those of us who are in a specific genre space.
After the success of Fire Emblem: Three Houses — and the frustrating drought in new FE titles since — I’ve been itching for a new Strategy RPG to play. So when Triangle Strategy, developed by Artdink and Square Enix, was announced for the Nintendo Switch(with a demo prepared for us), I was ready to give it a try. The game leans more on the Final Fantasy Tactics side of the SRPG genre style than the Fire Emblem or Advance Wars sides, which was a new experience for me, but I loved every minute of the demo and couldn’t wait for the full release.
Well, the full release has come, and I’m here to dump my thoughts. The game received an 82% on Metacritic, a 4.7/5 from GameStop, and an 8/10 from IGN — all solid scores suggesting a quality game. Do I agree with those scores?
Absolutely. Beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Triangle Strategy, as the name (amusing as it may be) suggests, finds itself operating on a rule of threes. The game as a whole offers three experiences: an initiative-based, action-economy focused, turn based combat; a rich and mature story with a strong setting, interesting characters, and a compelling plot; and a charming presentation that pulls a mixture of HD 2D art design, sprite work, and a dramatic score together for memorable effect. The rule of threes is consistent, and I will follow the game’s example in this review.
Let’s start with the meat of things: the gameplay.
Initiative, Actions, Positioning
Triangle Strategy eschews the back-and-forth turn orders of games like Fire Emblem for an initiative-style turn order, where your units’ acting order is determined by their stats — specifically Speed. While this means single-turn map clears and large synchronized movements like you’d see in Fire Emblem aren’t nearly as easy (or possible), it does mean that every battle is going to have a unique ebb and flow to it — more of a dance than a card game. It also means you’re incentivized to, through the use of buffs like Haste or stat-boosting equipment, manage your units’ speed both between and during battles. For example, buffing the speed of Benedict, your primary buff support unit, will let you more consistently apply powerful status buffs to your team throughout the battle.
Speaking of buffs, managing and planning out your action economy for each character’s turn is crucial to success in this game. Every turn, a unit will gain 1 TP to expend on special skills. Basic attacks and item usage (with two, character-specific exceptions) do not consume any. Higher end, more powerful skills or abilities will consume more TP. It adds a level of resource management to each turn, and I enjoyed the choices it forced me to make. Do I have Geela use her TP to cast Cure Wounds on Erador, my tank, or do I wait a turn, hope he survives, and use Sanctuary to heal him and two nearby allies at the same time? Do I have an item I can use to achieve both outcomes? It adds a level of depth and planning that I enjoyed significantly.
Positioning was an entirely new element in an SRPG for me. After taking an action and/or moving, you can determine which direction your unit is facing at the end of their turn. Why does this matter? Because the game features a backstab mechanic, where any attack from behind becomes an instant critical hit. Additionally, if you flank an opponent by putting them between two of your units, you can trigger a follow-up attack from the flanking allied unit. Of course, the enemy can (and does) take advantage of this as well. Planning out and managing this will become more and more important as the game progresses and enemies become both more powerful and more numerous.
These three fundamentals of the combat system set a compelling foundation for the battles in Triangle Strategy. The best games are built on solid fundamentals — that’s why the basic formulas of so many games have remained constant for decades. That is true here, and that foundation allows the game to support a cast of 30 playable units that all have their own unique class, abilities, skillset, and utility, creating a game that offers replay value by means of unit variety alone. I took great pleasure in abusing the unit synergy between Ezana, a shamaness with powerful spells, and Julio, an advisor with TP-adjusting abilities. The latter would act as a TP battery for the former, letting her drop devastating lightning on enemies every turn. That’s just one example, there are many more.
Did I mention that terrain effects can come into play? That exists too. I’ll let you explore that one on your own. It’s time to move on to the story.
Drama, Politics, and Lore
The single largest and most consistent criticism of the game I’ve seen is this: “it has a slow start”. I’ll agree to that descriptively, but I do not think that detracts from the experience. The first three chapters of the game are slower, giving you time to meet the characters and engage with the world through conversations, brief exploration phases, narration, and (for those interested) lore entries scattered throughout the game. For some, this slow start may be a turn-off. While that is a question of taste and preference, I do want to emphasize that this is a game that encourages you to pay attention to the goings-on of the world and story, one that wants you to engage with it. I was engaged fully through those early chapters because I was happy to engage with those politics, character flaws, and setting-specific tensions. If you want to see if the early pacing will be a deal-breaker for you, I believe the free demo (consisting of the first few chapters) is available. If you like it, you’ll be able to transfer that save data to the full game upon purchase.
All of that said, it might surprise you to hear that the narrative component of the game is, in my opinion, simultaneously one of the best and most flawed parts of the experience. I’ll explain.
The game’s story is set in Norzelia, a continent split three ways by, you guessed it, three different nations: the Kingdom of Glenbrook, the Duchy of Aesfrost, and the Holy State of Hyzante. You play as Serenoa Wolfort, heir to House Wolfort of Glenbrook — positioned right in the middle of all three nations. The world map shows the northern mountains, the verdant fields to the south and west, and the desert surrounding Hyzante to the east. The story starts 30 years after the Saltiron War, a three-way resource war over mainly salt. The tensions from that war still exist, and the game opens with a new multinational project to better secure peace between these nations. Right away we’re given a setting with a history rooted in a timeless source of conflict: mundane resources necessary for society. Now, we know things won’t go well — it’s a SRPG, there’s gotta be a war of some kind — but the game wants us to engage with this history and how the characters are responding to it as we approach that flashpoint in the early game. This root conflict runs through all of the (branching) story beats. This is the root of the political back and forth that the game does an admirable job presenting, and that’s why the slower start is necessary and beneficial. I can’t go into a lot of detail without spoiling, but the character drama, twists, and decisions you have to make through the game all have their roots in this conflict and how the setting has shaped it.
This is good worldbuilding in a genre that’s not always so consistent with it. But a story with an emphasis on politics will by necessity require more information, and that might turn some potential players off. This setting, and the plot developed from it, have been a consistent joy throughout my time with the game thus far. If you pay attention to the setting and actively engage with the concepts and themes of the game, you’re rewarded.
Triangle Strategy does a good job of walking the thin line between “respecting the player’s intelligence enough to piece things together on their own” and “being narratively accessible to a broad enough audience”.
I was able to connect the dots on some key events and plot reveals several chapters in advance, and felt rewarded for doing so. As a reader and writer, this experience was wonderful for me — and there are branching paths in the story that will doubtlessly engage me in other ways on subsequent playthroughs. The plot and story of the game is one I have been consistently satisfied — and occasionally impressed — by, and one that demonstrates the value of intentional worldbuilding.
So where’s the weakness?
Unfortunately, this is a plot-focused game, and that often leads to characters being underdeveloped. While the cast members of Triangle Strategy aren’t lacking or bland, they’re not exemplars of complexity either. There are some standouts: Roland specifically experiences a significant amount of growth and development over the course of the story. Benedict fills a character archetype I’m quite fond of, and does so in a way that also thematically synergizes with his role in combat. Frederica grows in confidence and surety through the story, and is a compassionate core for your cast. Unfortunately, there are some others who didn’t quite impress. Serenoa himself is the bog-standard “do the right thing,” humble Lord you might expect from a classic Fire Emblem title. He’s not bad, but he’s not as dynamic on his own — which lines up with the collaborative themes of the game, but doesn’t do him any favors.
The game offers side stories not unlike Fire Emblem style support conversations to remedy this, with mixed results. Benedict and Erador both benefit the most from these, while others are used as vehicles for extra backstory or minor interactions between characters. The cast is charismatic enough for you to develop favorites, but I don’t expect any of them to have the staying power that characters like Fire Emblem: Awakening’s Lucina has. The voice acting is — for the most part — well done, but some performances fell a little short of the vigor some scenes demanded. This is, in my view, the weakest part of the game — and I’m still not too bothered by it.
Sprites, Sets, Score
For those of us with a soft spot for sprite art and HD 2D in this world with an increasingly sad focus on hyperrealism, Triangle Strategy is a delight to experience. While not as haunting or beautiful as games like Octopath Traveler (which I still need to play) can be, Triangle Strategy’s style is one that I’ll remember and recognize for a long time. The game makes good use of shape language and color differentiation to make identifying characters at a glance easy, while also including a level of detail that I wasn’t expecting out of sprites. The official character art for each unit, viewable in dialogue with a button press (which is an odd choice) or in their status screen, makes good use of different textures and minimal harsh linework.
Each in-game combat or exploration map has multiple levels and perspectives, with good use of varying object textures and visual effects (fire, water, etc.) that make the world feel alive and rich. A design choice I particularly appreciated was that the boundaries of each map weren’t obscured by random repeating trees, or sand, or whatever. The developers opted to have the borders blend into the world map, creating a feel of living through the history book by situating you even in combat.
Speaking of combat, the game does a great job of utilizing the animation limitations of 2D sprites for multiple purposes, while blending them with flashy and interesting visual effects for abilities and spells. Every time Ezana called down lightning on some poor sod, I could feel the impact of the strike. Triangle Strategy does this without cluttering the screen with particle effects or causing seizures, letting you appreciate the art and setpieces you’re being shown.
I want to give a special shoutout to the musical score of the game. Akira Senju, the composer for the title, did a fantastic job capturing the moments of triumph, tension, despair, and drama throughout the story. I regularly found myself pausing my gameplay just to listen to the music as it played. It didn’t surprise me to learn that he lent his talents to Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Tales of Vesperia. The music of Triangle Strategy made its big moments all the bigger, and I’m tempted to buy the OST outright for my own listening.
Final Thoughts
Triangle Strategy is a game that kept me interested, engaged, and excited for more. It’s flaws are, in my opinion, relatively minor in comparison to its strengths. There’s lore to explore, a setting with conflicts that are all too human, a series of back-end systems and judgements I didn’t discuss here (like the voting system, the convictions, etc.) for sake of time, and a robust battle system as its foundation.
I’ll happily recommend Triangle Strategy to anyone interested in SRPGs, and I think people without a history in the genre will enjoy it too. The difficulty is fair and well balanced, with options for those that just want the story or those that want a more grueling experience. It’s been a great ride, and I’ll happily give this game an 8/10. If future playthroughs where I explore different branching paths hold up to quality, this score may go up to an 8.5.
It’s a grand old time.
