Triangle Strategy

This strategy title merges tactical combat and political intrigue, which will appeal to a number of RPG fans. Without spoiling the story, Triangle Strategy has a plot that feels ripped from A Song of Fire and Ice, with arranged marriages, court betrayals, murders, and more driving the plot. Players can explore a main chapter story point or a possible side tale to gain a new character or learn more about a party member's background. Along the way, there are moments where you'll be able to select between three conversational choices to adjust Serenoa's personal convictions. These, in turn, impact your allies, and can directly change or manipulate the way that they'll vote for key plot points. To fully understand every side of the story, you'll need to replay the game several times. But there are some issues here: the choices themselves aren't visually aligned to a specific conviction system, so when a menu pop up simply says that your convictions are strengthened, you have no idea what direction you're leading your character. Further, many of the events of the story are already set in motion, so while you may make important decisions, you're often on the sideline watching the plot unfold. You just wish that there was more you could do to explore the lives of these characters in these extreme circumstances.

Fortunately, the tactical strategy in battle makes up for the story's rough spots. Players can take advantage of elevated ground to cause additional damage from a distance, funnel enemies into narrow pathways and blast them with magic, or immobilize targets with status effects. Units can also be strategically positioned to backstab enemies for more painful strikes, or to bounce targets between two teammates for combo attacks. Completing these tactical blows will earn you points to use for special moves, like recovering a unit's health automatically or skipping enemy turns in favor of your own. It might not be as deep as other tactical titles like Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but the fights require planning and careful placement of units to be successful. You'll also need to invest in grinding through battles to strengthen your troops, because missions will test your squads with more challenging units that will easily wipe out weaker troops. If you can look past the story hiccups, Triangle Strategy will test your tactical skills for quite some time.