I didn’t realize this was due out so soon. I guess I need to download the demo since FFT was once my favorite game and is still probably in contention for the game I’ve poured the most hours into.
However, since we’re talking about FFT, in addition to being a former favorite, it’s also a game that’s been falling rapidly in esteem for me. I mentioned in the Expeditions: Rome thread that that series isn’t up to par in an age where there’s a glut of tactics RPGs to play, and I think that’s true for FFT (and the lesser Tactics Ogre, sorry) as well. Though for the latter, it has more to do with their age than there being dozens of viable alternatives. For one thing, I see people talking about FFT’s story being good, but I think it’s pretty bad. It has the bones of a good story—the church manipulating a war between nobles so it can stay relevant and reassert its power, not bad!— and has the good sense to mostly stay out of your way: the cutscenes are kind of brief, but on the other hand are just as histrionic and ultimately nonsensical as more drawn-out JRPGs. However, it’s mostly wasted on hackneyed plot developments (jk, it was demons all along, lol) and is overly reliant on constantly killing off characters to heighten drama (might work if it spent enough time to make the player care about any of them).
The appeal of FFT for me was trying out different ability sets on characters (behold my teleporting knight dual-wielding great swords!) but then the story battles become trivially easy because those encounters do not scale to your party’s level, particularly a problem if you do the side quests. I had an itch to play it again recently(ish), but just couldn’t bring myself to try. I went with Tactics Ogre: LUCT instead before remembering that I don’t like it as much in the first place and then played the FFIV pixel remaster instead and called it close enough.
Which is to say these games are definitely in need of a refresh, and Triangle Strategy could be just that. I think Three Houses sets the bar pretty high—a divisive title on this forum, but I think it’s easily the best in the genre now—but there’s certainly room for more than one great Japanese tactics RPG (apologies to Disgaea), especially if it has similar QOL improvements as Three Houses.
Although this has me less enthused since it appears to be taking away what I most liked about FFT/TO. Being more akin to Fire Emblem does not seem like a smart move to me because I just don’t see that comparison working out in its favor.
I did try that one after wavering on buying it for a while, but it didn’t click for me for whatever reason. I might give it a go again if this one disappoints, or if this one leaves me wanting more tactics.
I would recommend pumping the difficulty up a bit from default (there are many knobs to turn, which is great!) and the DLC is actually quite good in that it injects a ton of variety into the main game via mix-n-match monster classes.
Something I wanted to remind folks that played the demo but forgot until a comment I just saw on a preview, is this demo covers the game’s prologue, so presumably we aren’t even getting to the title card yet when this demo takes place. I know from the first demo some crazy shit goes down during that demo (and from what folks are hinting at, in chapter 4 and 5 as well, which is not a part of either demo). I believe I know where the story goes thanks to that first demo and it’s going to be really explosive, very quickly.
So far “normal” difficulty is pretty basic. But again, the possibility space is really constrained so most of the strategy so far is “don’t overextend so someone gets surrounded and pwned” which ain’t that tough.
Yeah, I appreciated that difficulty can be changed later. I generally expect the early stages to be a cakewalk, so my preference with most games is to start on hard and then dial it down if I wind up getting stuck.
I played the demo through yesterday on Hard; looks like it took me about 3:30 to do everything (though I suppose that’s actually five fights rather than 3, if you include the two at the encampment training thingy). I mostly agree with the other comments here (a lot of mediocre text and VA relative to the amount of time the player is doing things, much more of a Fire Emblem style character building than FFT/TO which is quite disappointing, etc.). I still have it preordered and I’m still really looking forward to it, but this seems destined to end up in the medium-plus bucket in a genre I really like, rather than an excellent game in its own right. Not unlike Octopath.
I think review embargo is up tomorrow, but Famitsu scored it an 8/9/9/9 (35/40) which strikes me as very promising.
As much as I am having fun with Horizon and as amazing as Elden Ring and Warhammer 3 have been, I have to admit this is the game I’m the most excited for. It drops Friday and I hope it lives up to my own expectations!
Most of the reviews agree the tactical combat is the best part of the game, as are the delicious decisions and the fallout from them you get to make. The story/plot is something that seems to be working for the reviews I skimmed as well, which is great because the almost universal drawback is the game takes it’s time to develop the story and characters as others have commented on here. Of course, the dialog can be skipped through and the optional exposition scenes skipped entirely, but then you might miss out on character development and story so I think you would come to this game wanting to be told a good story, like you’d come to a book or a movie, and enjoy the ride. That’s how I’ve approached the demo, and I’m excited to read the reviews that it seems to be more of that and the story doesn’t seem to falter and have a bad final act or anything.
It’s getting about the scores I had assumed (a few high 70’s and a few in the 4/5 or 8.5/10 range with no one saying it’s bad in any meaningful way (or overall)). Playing the demo(s) like I did it’s what was presented for sure, but unlike Octopath Traveler I’m a lot more interested in the world, characters, and plot here and while I’d like more of a focus on the tactical combat (since it’s the best part of the game - thankfully all reviews agree on that) I don’t really think I’ll complain given the game is reasonably hefty in length and battles aren’t short and sweet or anything.
I thought the latter third of the demo had a better balance of dialog to game. I’m likely to pick this up if it can keep up a decent ratio later on or if the story takes off.
I… have no idea what you are talking about. Are you taking about the depth of field effect for background objects? Are you referring to the screenshots, or the demo?
So this is more FE than FFT, correct? I’m like 75 hours into FE:3H and kind of tired of the ‘can’t lose anyone’ design of the game. I’d prefer something between the death rates of FE and say XCOM, hehe.
