Announced during the most recent Nintendo Direct,Triangle Strategyis an upcoming tactical JRPGbeing developed by Square Enix. Though the game has a visual style similar to that ofOctopath Traveler,the game’s gameplay appears to be more akin to that of games likeFinal Fantasy Tactics,Tactics Ogre, andFire Emblem.
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From the single trailer shown, the game appears to be putting an emphasis on player choice, but the game’s development is still quite underway, andTriangle Strategyis currently a working title. As the game is currently slated for a 2022 release, they’re plenty of time to speculate on what the game can have in store for players.
10Numerous Endings
Through the premise of the game alone, it’s a safe assumption that the game will have numerous ending based upon the choices the player makes throughout their playthrough. Our primary hope is that the game learns from the mistakes of a game likeMass Effect 3, and that the numerous endings each reflect the paths that the player chose to take. While this would definitely improve replay value, it would make for a much more fulfilling ending experience, while giving each choice a player makes have more weight.
“The player’s choices matter” gets tossed around a lot these days, so when a game is willing to follow through, it shows.
9Moral Ambiguity And Difficult Choices
We’ve already seen from playableTriangle Strategydemo that the choices that player is forced to make aren’t always going to be black and white, and that there will be pros and cons to the choices they make. Maintaining this approach over the course of the game will be key, as it can lead to a much more hollow experience with telegraphed outcomes that are much easier for the player to anticipate.
8Route Exclusive Characters
As the player progresses through the game and makes more and more decisions, we hope that certain characters will only be available behind certain routes.
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This would be especially effective if particular characters weren’t locked behind single decisions, rather than chains of choices that would encourage the player to experiment with their choices and greatly enhance replay value through tangible assets that are only available under certain conditions.
7Route Exclusive Bosses
Similarly, having key boss fights be dictated by a player’s decision-making would truly drive home the themes of the game. Perhaps a character that is a playable ally if certain choices are made becomes a major adversary that must be dealt with in another route. These would give the game’s various routes more identity while giving the player immediate indicators of how their choices are impacting the game’s story.
6Plenty Of Sidequests
Sidequests in JRPGs can open up a lot of space for the player to gain access to additional in-game rewards such as items as well as allowing the spotlight to be put on side characters for further character development. AsTriangle Strategyis being billed as a game built around a player’s choices and decision making, sidequests could be used in a variety of interesting ways.
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While some sidequests could only be available to players who made certain choices, the completion of other sidequests could potentially provide additional context to a problem at hand, giving the player insight into how making a given choice may impact the plot.
5Priority On Character
Outside of combat, one of the key differences between a tactical JRPG and a more traditional turn-based RPGs is that players tend to have access to many more party members in tactical RPGs. As seen with the earliest entries in theFire Emblemseries, this can lead to many less important party members getting little to no character development. However, later entries in theFire Emblemseries introducedthe support mechanicthat allowed even the most minor of characters to still interact with the cast and show their character if the player desired. In order to make the player care about the characters in their party, the game should feature some method of interacting with their allies outside of combat.
4Various Means Of Character Customization
Much of the fun of tactical RPGs comes from the player’s ability to figure out their own strategies to use in combat. In addition to figuring out one’s own strategies, allowing the player to customize their characters to some extent allows a player to further play into the strategies they prefer using while making these characters feel much more personalized. Whether through the use of a class system, abilities, or varied equipment, we hopeTriangle Strategyallows players to customize the characters at their disposal.
3Combat Variety
The worst thing for any RPG is for its combat to grow mundane, bland, or repetitive. As a tactical RPG,Triangle Strategyhas the opportunity to feature numerous ways to spice up combat, from interesting map variety to differing win conditions that change from battle to battle.
2PVP
For whatever reason, very few tactical JRPGs in recent memory have featured PVP multiplayer. Allowing players to face off against each other simply adds more variety to the game as a whole. Additionally, as the game is centered around the player’s choices, opposing players may have access to different characters, weapons, and other resources based on the choices they made, making combat even more varied.
1Post-Launch Support
While having numerous endings and routes within a game incentivizes numerous playthroughs, nothing incentivizes players to keep playing a game quite like post-launch content. Whether these are free updates or DLC, additional content to a game allows it to continue to be fresh over a much larger period of time. As atactical RPG,Triangle Strategycould theoretically add anything from new recruitable characters to entirely new modes.
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