Board 8 > Project Triangle Strategy Demo Impressions (light spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

The most intriguing game from today's Nintendo Direct (besides Mario Golf obviously) was Project Triangle Strategy, the follow-up to Octopath Traveler. It is a top-down isometric strategy rpg, ala Final Fantasy Tactics, which also boasts a kind of "morality system" where the choices you make seemingly affect the story.

I played one map of the demo and my first impressions are as follows.

1. You asked for more banter between characters: you got it. Be careful what you wish for. You are given a party of roughly 8 characters (each to show off a particular unit class ostensibly). Included within these 8 are what I'm guessing are the game's "main characters," a traditional protagonist, his prince friend, the trad protag's fiance, and the trad protag's butler. All of these characters have speaking lines.
2. There are 3 gameplay "stages": story, exploration, and battle. Story is just cutscenes (fully voiced - more on this later). Exploration is basically just a "pre-battle" prep area where you can walk around the map and talk with your party, shop, and search for items. Battle is battle.
3. Battle is Final Fantasy Tactics mixed with modern-day Fire Emblem quality of life changes (enemy line of sight markers mostly). The spell effects are the highlight of the game's graphics and are impressive. For the demo, HP seems to have been raised on the enemies so you can "try out everything." I think this makes battles go slower than they probably should.
4. No permadeath, at least in the demo.
5. The voice acting is average to terrible. Hopefully this is just because it's a demo and they're going to re-voice these lines for the final product, because it is bad.
6. The characters/plot/world are pretty generic fantasy so far. Again, Fire Emblem seems like an influence here, as does Game of Thrones. Here's hoping to plot goes in an interesting direction from here.
7. Music was a bit disappointing, considering the strength of Octopath's. Small sample size I know. It's not bad or anything, but it doesn't immediately grab you the way the battle music of OT does.
8. Graphics aren't quite as good as I remember Octopath's being. Maybe the sprites are still being worked on? The backgrounds still look great though.
9. So far there has been one "morality system" choice. Seems intriguing but not a huge aspect of the demo I guess.

I haven't played the second map yet. I guess it isn't exactly a great sign that I got tired of it after one battle. I think it's mostly due to the artificially toughened enemies. Still psyched for this project.

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The voice acting is average to terrible. Hopefully this is just because it's a demo and they're going to re-voice these lines for the final product, because it is bad.

This was my takeaway from today's Direct as a whole -- this game, Monster Hunter, World's End Club, I might be forgetting some even. I think Hades has me spoiled for good voice acting because yeesh

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I got absolutely demolished in the second battle. Like, I was able to take out 4 or 5 enemies tops before they annihilated me. I spent the first turn kind of just moving my units around with no clear plan, and man did it punish me for that. The most frustrating part though was there was no option to restart or give up, at least that I could find.

The most intriguing part to me was the voting segment, which is an interesting idea and supposedly impacts the story. I hope the final version isn't as simple as it was here, though, because if you just talk to the villagers and use the pieces of information they give you in every persuasion conversation, you can get every single unit to vote for the outcome you want. It would be intriguing if units were more difficult to persuade based on you character's relationship level with them, or something.

I fast forwarded basically all of the dialogue because I didn't want it to spoil the story, and I thought it was weird how much dialogue they left in for the demo. From what I saw though it looks like typical generic Square fantasy garbage. Even though I haven't played Octopath since 2018 I'm still weary of characters talking about pointless fantasy garbage in Shakespearean English because it seemed endless in that game. Bleh.

Overall, there's a ton of potential and I'm still hyped, though I need to keep my expectations in check. There's a lot I hope is improved before the official release.

I did finally finish the second map. I liked it better than the first.

The voting mechanic is interesting, and I think it has a lot of potential, so long as the story goes in interesting directions.

The dialogue here isn't quite as egregiously fantasy-esque as Octopath, but yeah, it could use some work to sound a bit more natural.


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I honestly really enjoyed it, tho I felt the ui was a bit weird, especially with the turn order portraits. I had to restart the second battle and be a bit more strategic and managed to use the field to my advantage.

I am wondering how much influence this will take from tactics and fire emblem, cause right now there doesnt really seem to be any job class and skill changes as well as random battles to grind a bit if I feel under leveled.

Played the first map earlier today and I basically echo everything that's been said here so far. Looking forward to the second map but I'm not, like, itching to get my hands on it or anything, which probably isn't the best sign.

I've been playing pretty much exclusively FE since the year started so far, though, so maybe my brain just has limited tactics RPG bandwidth right now. I'm sure I'll give it another whirl down the line since the release date is so far out.

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Just played the first chapter!

As someone who's played and enjoyed Fire Emblem since it first came to the US, I like some of the twists this offers on combat, with directions, heights, and area changing spells all playing a role. Having foes not generally counterattack when you attack changes things as well.

What I DON'T like is the way the turns proceed. Having you and the enemy taking variable turns based on stats is a neat idea, but the UI is god awful and left me perpetually confused about who'd be going next, which led to some tight spots. It needs to be much more clear who's turn it is, maybe some prominence on the next two actors as well, and then easier to toggle through than the current setting. The way it is right now is a big damper.

The art style is enjoyable. Wish the physical battles showed more detail ala the beautiful FE sprite combat of old, but the cool magic mostly makes up for it.

Music is ok so far, could be better. Story wise it's too soon to say, but I do like the implication thus far that our choices have more of an impact than they do in most FE games. If they really nail the story it'll be a huge plus for them. Again, I love FE, but the last few haven't had the deepest storylines (tho tbf I still have to get back into 3 Houses)

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Just finished the demo, and I liked it quite a lot. Phew, that second map is no joke! (Repeatedly spamming Ice Wall on the stairs saved my ass a great deal)

I agree they could do a better job of making the turn order clear (Avlora's portrait in the second fight covers the whole background so you can't really see the enemy red for instance, I was fooled into thinking hers was an ally's turn a couple times), the VA is hit or miss, and personally the font is too thin for me, but honestly I'm liking the feel of things a fair bit. The battles play nicely, and though there's no explicit job system each character feels unique in battle. Definitely feels like there's some FFT in the presentation of the battles.

Many games have made lofty promises regarding player choices mattering, but this one does seem to be baked into the system better than most. Fingers crossed the writing is good, it could really make or break this game and they have gone very hard on the story here with all the optional side story cutscenes. So far you can feel the GoT influence pretty hard, but that's not a bad thing. There's a more grounded low-fantasy vibe here than in something like Fire Emblem, which I like. (Also it goes without saying but the absence of waifu/high school type stuff is much appreciated) I'll go back later and pick the other choice to see how that changes the rest of the demo, I also hope the persuasion thing gets more complex in the full game but I'll cut them some slack as they had to introduce an awful lot here.

I am cautiously optimistic!

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The story will definitely make or break this. I played the second chapter mostly the same way I usually play FE (EVERYONE HUDDLE!) and won the day without using any of the traps. The ways it differs from FE are interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing how else they come into play, but it's the story that's got to carry everything. Did anyone choose to toss over Roland? If so how'd that work out?

Also they need to fire whoever decided to spell domain and jail the way they did, it makes me want to strangle someone.

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I like the idea of pressing "X" to get a character profile, but it should have more information than their portrait and name. Maybe they could make additional info unlockable somehow? Like you do well on maps and you get their height/likes/dislikes, etc. Could add some nice flavor.

I hope new characters are introduced a bit more naturally than they were here, with a random green event popping up.

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I went back and played the other decision through- I was pleasantly surprised at how thoroughly it alters the path of the rest of the demo. I'll talk it through for people who don't want to go round the whole thing again:

Surrendering Roland results in you and House Telliore bending the knee to Gustadolph. Landroi of House Falkes refuses to yield though, so Gustadolph (through Roland) orders you to kill him. The Wolfforts plan to treaty with Landroi instead but the Aesfrosti march on his lands behind your back, making Landroi think you were tricking him and forcing a fight.

The fight is an entirely different (and imo cooler looking+sounding) map, a hillside with many archers and mages and some rudimentary zipline things you can ride up and down to get across the map faster. You kill Landroi but he razes his own lands to stop Aesfrost from making use of them. Afterwards you learn that Gustadolph plans to execute Roland and you are 'invited' to watch. The demo ends there, before the execution takes place.

Initially it seemed like this was a pure dark path (you're called a traitor and submissive to the Aesfrosti a lot, and that corrupt guy who Julio ran from praises you) but it is pretty intriguing, and you get different side story scenes and intrigue in the North instead of the East. Not sure if this is random, but I got a new character (A Shaman named Ezana who can change the weather) instead of Julio. Medina still shows up, and Roland is of course gone from the party.

I am very curious how sustainable this is. It certainly doesn't look like the game is railroading you to a specific plotline regardless, but this is a showy demo so it could be misleading. The state of Glenbrook is pretty different at the end of the demo at least, depending on which choice you make.

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I like the idea of pressing "X" to get a character profile, but it should have more information than their portrait and name. Maybe they could make additional info unlockable somehow? Like you do well on maps and you get their height/likes/dislikes, etc. Could add some nice flavor.

Agreed, I'm very fond of the art but they could really do with some brief biographies there too and little tidbits.

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Heads up I got a survey from Nint about the demo today, so check your emails!

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