Triangle Strategy review – a long story

metro.co.uk:

Square Enix’s follow-up to Octopath Traveler is a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy Tactics that tries to mix the best of new and old.

One of the intrinsic problems with video game storytelling is that the average narrative-based game lasts at least 15 hours, and often much longer, which is the equivalent of over half a dozen movies or multiple seasons of a TV show. Triangle Strategy takes around 50 hours to play through, which is more than the time it takes to read War and Peace. And while most video games at least have the excuse that the majority of their running time is pure action, that is not the case for Triangle Strategy.

That’s not a dig at this being a turn-based strategy; far from it, as those are easily the best bits. The problem is that they stand as oases of gameplay in a sea of never-ending exposition and attempts at political intrigue. No doubt some will find the ponderous plot engaging, but what has been implied to be a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy Tactics comes across more like a visual novel than an actual strategy game.

So if you’ve played the demo and were looking for more of the same you need to be prepared to sit through a lot of very dry dialogue in order to get there.

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As you can guess from both the HD-2D graphics and the peculiar name, Triangle Strategy is by the same team behind Octopath Traveler and Bravely Default. Octopath Traveler had a similar problem with its inability to ever shut up, but it benefited from considerably more engaging characters and more frequent action sequences. The problem with Triangle Strategy, right from the very start, is that it just won’t stop talking and it becomes increasingly hard to understand why.

Square Enix’s HD-2D graphics engine is marvellous,