keanex
2015
Yakuza 0 is an extremely fun action game that saddles absurdity between heavy drama. Led by two very different, but equally lovable, protagonists, the game tells a story from differing perspectives. Graphically it's a little dated, but the soul of the game makes up for it. Oh yeah, the mini-games are fantastic fun to break up the heaviness of the story.
Runs great on older hardware, and the Steam Deck. It also regularly goes on sale for less than $10. Absolute steal.
9.75/10
Runs great on older hardware, and the Steam Deck. It also regularly goes on sale for less than $10. Absolute steal.
9.75/10
2018
This game is insanely polished in terms of controls, performance, addictive game loop, and story. The world feels like it's living, and rich back stories are aplenty. It's a joy to play. I can't wait for Hades 2.
This was certainly unique.
Brilliantly depressing story. I loved it.
2022
Old school turn based RPG, with tons to do, an adult themed story, great performance, and fun combat. I found myself thrilled to do the side missions though I wish the island had more depth to it.
My only complaints are the sky armor battles being mediocre compared to the party battles, and the graphics being a step down compared to the quality of the game.
9.5/10
My only complaints are the sky armor battles being mediocre compared to the party battles, and the graphics being a step down compared to the quality of the game.
9.5/10
2023
Beautiful aesthetics, and pretty fun turn-based combat that utilized character swapping, and timed button presses. The story grew on me as the game moved forward. I would have liked a little more depth in the town building, a more fleshed out Gears game, and for the story to feel a little more grandiose with the final weapon sequences.
I find it to be a memorable game, but not one I'm likely to revisit. The true ending was satisfying, though. I enjoyed my time with it!
I find it to be a memorable game, but not one I'm likely to revisit. The true ending was satisfying, though. I enjoyed my time with it!
2021
The first act had incredible aesthetics, with intriguing gameplay.
The second act was pretty mindblowing to begin with.
The third act felt rushed.
Maybe I missed some of the story, but I could have done without any of the live action. I would have liked more cohesion within it all too.
Excellent concept, strong beginning, flat ending.
The second act was pretty mindblowing to begin with.
The third act felt rushed.
Maybe I missed some of the story, but I could have done without any of the live action. I would have liked more cohesion within it all too.
Excellent concept, strong beginning, flat ending.
2022
Hot off of a newly rekindled love for tactics RPGs, inspired by Fire Emblem: Three Houses, I found myself looking for a new tactics RPG to sink my teeth into. First up was Tactics Ogre Reborn, which after 30 hours of gameplay, I finally admitted to myself that I simply wasn’t having fun. I then took the logical jump to move to Fire Emblem Engage, which I loved the combat, but everything else was so grating to me that after 10 hours I traded it off for Triangle Strategy. Truth be told, if it wasn’t recommended by a friend, I would have ignored it completely. The name of the game is so dull and forgetful, that I hadn’t considered it at time of release and had forgotten about it by the time came for a new game.
So there’s my “useless history before the food recipe” backstory, now for the meat and potatoes. I’ll keep story spoilers behind spoiler tags, but there may be small spoilers depending on your sensitivity to them. I played on normal difficulty, and finished the game in approximately 45 hours with my ending being the MILDSPOILER >!save Roselle, Serenoa dies in the final battle!< MILDSPOILER ending.
The Great
I greatly enjoyed the quality of the fights. I found myself approaching many of the fights with some basic strategies, while modifying my approach pretty widely depending on the scenario. Types of moves I would choose, character choices, and placement choices felt pretty scenario dependent and I felt that it kept each fight fresh.
The wide assortment of characters allowed me to tailor my approach to each scenario. While I kept a steady crew of 6, I would use up to 8 of the other characters depending on what I felt the scenario called for. I found no use for some of the characters, but perhaps others will, and the catering to a variety of playstyles made me happy.
The fights are low-stakes. If I die, I die. XP gains within a battle are kept, and under-leveled characters gain massive XP each turn where they use any action. This reduces grinding in-between scenario battles, eventually you’ll be leveled up enough to defeat the scenario. Even more than that, items that are used in the scenarios are refunded, and the party can be changed. For me, this is a big win. It meant that fights that may originally be hard-stuck moments, turned into soft-stuck moments that had me re-evaluating my tactics.
I greatly enjoyed the story. While Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and Engage, offered a more enjoyable tactics experience, Triangle Strategy was significantly more engaging for me with the story. There are several key moments within the game where significant moments are voted on, and those voting moments often gave me a pause to consider the options in-front of me. The choices became much more difficult MILD SPOILER >!especially when the scales had 3 choices!< MILD SPOILER later in the game.
* Quietus Points are an excellent “oh crap, please help me” option. You get a limited option per fight, and it helped me out quite a bit. I enjoyed the safety net aspect of it, without it feeling too overpowered like the rewind in Fire Emblem can feel.
The Okay
Graphically, this isn’t a stunner. The pixel art was serviceable to me, but it didn’t enhance or hurt my experience within the game. The portrait art, however, was beautiful.
The music wasn’t too notable for me. It existed nicely with the moments on display, but I felt unmoved by it as a whole.
The class system mostly felt tacked on. Perhaps I never fully needed to min-max or worry about the full benefits of them, but they felt like a skill unlock and stat upgrade mechanic that’s level and item locked. I didn’t see any other benefit. I wish there were perhaps more of an aesthetic difference, at the very least.
The weapon upgrade system also felt mostly unnecessary. I felt that the unlocks, aside from the tier 3 ones, were mostly just mild upgrades. I didn’t feel that they were offering anything unique to my characters, or increasing their abilities to a worthwhile degree. It was just a system that existed, and I utilized it as it was available.
* The story is a lot. I think I may have been in two fight scenarios within the first 2 hours of the game. If the story isn’t interesting to you in the least, you’re going to have a bad time. It felt like 60% of my time was spent reading or listening to the story.
The Bad
The camera can be wonky. It is free-moving, but there are 4 “lock” points. If you’re at a lock point, then moving around the grid feels correct. The directions of the d-pad input feel correct. If you’re off-axis of one of the lock points then using the d-pad to move around the grid feels off. It took me a few hours to get used to this.
No, “whoops, didn’t mean to do that” correction. There were a few times where I accidentally ended a character's turn without doing anything. Certainly my fault, but in this scenario there is no way to undo that. I was forced to live with my mistake.
* The conviction system is completely opaque in the first playthrough. It was impossible to know what was going on in the background, or why buying items “strengthened Serenoa’s convictions.” There are guides to the scales of conviction points, but they are not apparent at all in the first playthrough. Perhaps by design, but perhaps a score at the end of the game would have at least shown me where I’d ended up.
_______
Overall
As a whole, I greatly enjoyed my experience with Triangle Strategy, and it’s a shame that it was given such a forgetful name. It is perhaps my favorite tactical RPG on the Switch, thus far, neck-and-neck with Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I don’t have any immediate plans to play NG+ though, for me it felt like a one and done. Who knows what the future holds.
So there’s my “useless history before the food recipe” backstory, now for the meat and potatoes. I’ll keep story spoilers behind spoiler tags, but there may be small spoilers depending on your sensitivity to them. I played on normal difficulty, and finished the game in approximately 45 hours with my ending being the MILDSPOILER >!save Roselle, Serenoa dies in the final battle!< MILDSPOILER ending.
The Great
I greatly enjoyed the quality of the fights. I found myself approaching many of the fights with some basic strategies, while modifying my approach pretty widely depending on the scenario. Types of moves I would choose, character choices, and placement choices felt pretty scenario dependent and I felt that it kept each fight fresh.
The wide assortment of characters allowed me to tailor my approach to each scenario. While I kept a steady crew of 6, I would use up to 8 of the other characters depending on what I felt the scenario called for. I found no use for some of the characters, but perhaps others will, and the catering to a variety of playstyles made me happy.
The fights are low-stakes. If I die, I die. XP gains within a battle are kept, and under-leveled characters gain massive XP each turn where they use any action. This reduces grinding in-between scenario battles, eventually you’ll be leveled up enough to defeat the scenario. Even more than that, items that are used in the scenarios are refunded, and the party can be changed. For me, this is a big win. It meant that fights that may originally be hard-stuck moments, turned into soft-stuck moments that had me re-evaluating my tactics.
I greatly enjoyed the story. While Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and Engage, offered a more enjoyable tactics experience, Triangle Strategy was significantly more engaging for me with the story. There are several key moments within the game where significant moments are voted on, and those voting moments often gave me a pause to consider the options in-front of me. The choices became much more difficult MILD SPOILER >!especially when the scales had 3 choices!< MILD SPOILER later in the game.
* Quietus Points are an excellent “oh crap, please help me” option. You get a limited option per fight, and it helped me out quite a bit. I enjoyed the safety net aspect of it, without it feeling too overpowered like the rewind in Fire Emblem can feel.
The Okay
Graphically, this isn’t a stunner. The pixel art was serviceable to me, but it didn’t enhance or hurt my experience within the game. The portrait art, however, was beautiful.
The music wasn’t too notable for me. It existed nicely with the moments on display, but I felt unmoved by it as a whole.
The class system mostly felt tacked on. Perhaps I never fully needed to min-max or worry about the full benefits of them, but they felt like a skill unlock and stat upgrade mechanic that’s level and item locked. I didn’t see any other benefit. I wish there were perhaps more of an aesthetic difference, at the very least.
The weapon upgrade system also felt mostly unnecessary. I felt that the unlocks, aside from the tier 3 ones, were mostly just mild upgrades. I didn’t feel that they were offering anything unique to my characters, or increasing their abilities to a worthwhile degree. It was just a system that existed, and I utilized it as it was available.
* The story is a lot. I think I may have been in two fight scenarios within the first 2 hours of the game. If the story isn’t interesting to you in the least, you’re going to have a bad time. It felt like 60% of my time was spent reading or listening to the story.
The Bad
The camera can be wonky. It is free-moving, but there are 4 “lock” points. If you’re at a lock point, then moving around the grid feels correct. The directions of the d-pad input feel correct. If you’re off-axis of one of the lock points then using the d-pad to move around the grid feels off. It took me a few hours to get used to this.
No, “whoops, didn’t mean to do that” correction. There were a few times where I accidentally ended a character's turn without doing anything. Certainly my fault, but in this scenario there is no way to undo that. I was forced to live with my mistake.
* The conviction system is completely opaque in the first playthrough. It was impossible to know what was going on in the background, or why buying items “strengthened Serenoa’s convictions.” There are guides to the scales of conviction points, but they are not apparent at all in the first playthrough. Perhaps by design, but perhaps a score at the end of the game would have at least shown me where I’d ended up.
_______
Overall
As a whole, I greatly enjoyed my experience with Triangle Strategy, and it’s a shame that it was given such a forgetful name. It is perhaps my favorite tactical RPG on the Switch, thus far, neck-and-neck with Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I don’t have any immediate plans to play NG+ though, for me it felt like a one and done. Who knows what the future holds.
Singular play-through.
Graphics & Sound: Throwback pixel art style, basic at times, but charming. Some good sound moments. Nothing significantly memorable in either capacity, but effective in the moment. 3.5/5
Story: Lots of sprawl to the story, but wraps up nicely in the end. It's a heavy story, but fell short of affecting me. I appreciate what it tried, it did a great job. 4/5
Technicals: No bugs noticed, game ran well on the Switch. 5/5
Gameplay: Simple gameplay, a bit more involved than a visual novel, but not significantly more than that. Adventure games aren't the pinnacle of gameplay. 2.5/5
Replayability: Not much to really gain from playing again to me. 1/5
Overall: Cute game that tackles a difficult subject, and does a good job in execution. For $20, it's a simple game with a solid story. I don't regret a penny spent on it. 4/5
Graphics & Sound: Throwback pixel art style, basic at times, but charming. Some good sound moments. Nothing significantly memorable in either capacity, but effective in the moment. 3.5/5
Story: Lots of sprawl to the story, but wraps up nicely in the end. It's a heavy story, but fell short of affecting me. I appreciate what it tried, it did a great job. 4/5
Technicals: No bugs noticed, game ran well on the Switch. 5/5
Gameplay: Simple gameplay, a bit more involved than a visual novel, but not significantly more than that. Adventure games aren't the pinnacle of gameplay. 2.5/5
Replayability: Not much to really gain from playing again to me. 1/5
Overall: Cute game that tackles a difficult subject, and does a good job in execution. For $20, it's a simple game with a solid story. I don't regret a penny spent on it. 4/5
70 hours in this game, played through Silver Snow route as a first time player. Normal/Casual mode.
Graphics & Sound: Decent looking game and a pleasant soundtrack, though forgettable. I loved how almost every character was voice acted. 3.25/5
Story: I loved the vibe of the game, the story was good enough to keep me engaged from start to finish. While the sim stuff eventually got a bit old, I genuinely loved it at first. It was a nice way to spend time in-between battles. Some memorable moments. 3.5/5
Technicals: No bugs noticed, framerate was a bit rough at times. Didn't hurt my enjoyment, but could have been better. 3.5/5
Gameplay: I loved upgrading the weapons, leveling up the classes, customizing my characters, and the challenge in some fights. The difficulty had some jarring spikes though. Tons of fun, I found myself constantly going, "One more battle..." 4/5
Replayability: Multiple routes to go through, but the first-half felt very "samey" in my second play-through and I knew how to play a lot better so it made it mindlessly easy. Unfortunately you can not adjust difficulty to be harder. 4/5
Overall: I really loved this game in my first play-through. I have issues with the game, but the sum of everything was greater than everything individually. I whole-heartedly recommend this to new-to-tactics players, it revitalized my love for the genre. 4.25/5
Graphics & Sound: Decent looking game and a pleasant soundtrack, though forgettable. I loved how almost every character was voice acted. 3.25/5
Story: I loved the vibe of the game, the story was good enough to keep me engaged from start to finish. While the sim stuff eventually got a bit old, I genuinely loved it at first. It was a nice way to spend time in-between battles. Some memorable moments. 3.5/5
Technicals: No bugs noticed, framerate was a bit rough at times. Didn't hurt my enjoyment, but could have been better. 3.5/5
Gameplay: I loved upgrading the weapons, leveling up the classes, customizing my characters, and the challenge in some fights. The difficulty had some jarring spikes though. Tons of fun, I found myself constantly going, "One more battle..." 4/5
Replayability: Multiple routes to go through, but the first-half felt very "samey" in my second play-through and I knew how to play a lot better so it made it mindlessly easy. Unfortunately you can not adjust difficulty to be harder. 4/5
Overall: I really loved this game in my first play-through. I have issues with the game, but the sum of everything was greater than everything individually. I whole-heartedly recommend this to new-to-tactics players, it revitalized my love for the genre. 4.25/5
2019
I play this on PC and Android. It's an addictive game that I like to play while passively watching TV. It's not without its faults, but Mort at Riot really cares about trying to make the game better.
Set 7.5 is kinda fun, running SOY+Syfen and it's quite fun. I hit Plat 1 this set.
Set 7.5 is kinda fun, running SOY+Syfen and it's quite fun. I hit Plat 1 this set.
2019
This review contains spoilers
I just completed the game "A Short Hike" which is a game that uses some of the Animal Crossing assets to create a cool little story of its own. It takes about 2 hours to complete and there are some things I didn't complete. I will probably go back eventually to 100% it since it's a cute and cozy game that definitely doesn't overstay its welcome.
It's a really good game for a chill vibe. It's not deep, but it was really enjoyable to play while on mushrooms. I'm not sure if that's kosher to bring up here, but that's the honesty of the situation. Also, "Animal Crossing fan fic" probably isn't ideal to say, but it uses the assets and that's what I'ma call it.
It's hard for me to find a rating. I think I got it for free. I feel $5 would be a good value for the 2 hours of a smile I had on my face.
7.75/10
It's a really good game for a chill vibe. It's not deep, but it was really enjoyable to play while on mushrooms. I'm not sure if that's kosher to bring up here, but that's the honesty of the situation. Also, "Animal Crossing fan fic" probably isn't ideal to say, but it uses the assets and that's what I'ma call it.
It's hard for me to find a rating. I think I got it for free. I feel $5 would be a good value for the 2 hours of a smile I had on my face.
7.75/10
This review contains spoilers
Much better than the first, but it has pacing issues. I didn't care about the game until about 4-5 hours in, which is nearly half of the game. I hope 3 has better pacing.
2012
This review contains spoilers
The concept of the game is very cool, and perhaps the story is too, but I split it up over 3 nights despite it being a short game and didn't feel connected to it. I plan to re-play it at some point though because I feel that I should play it in one sitting and take in the story more.
This review contains spoilers
A tragic story of two brothers on a journey through a gorgeous and epic world. Giants and semi-familiar creatures are around, as well as some mythical figures. The world is beautiful, even in the linear glimpses I got to see. The story has a twist, who knew the older brother would die while the father lived? It makes this a wonderful coming of age story, with a powerful ending of the younger brother being the strong one as the father breaks down.
Unfortunately the gameplay is largely boring. While the scenes are beautiful, the game felt long in the tooth despite it being a 2-4 hour game. Yikes.
The puzzles are kept simple, I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the story. I enjoyed the world. I enjoyed the controls and the concept. It's a great game plagued by poor pacing. I recommend this game, but only less than $10.
Unfortunately the gameplay is largely boring. While the scenes are beautiful, the game felt long in the tooth despite it being a 2-4 hour game. Yikes.
The puzzles are kept simple, I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the story. I enjoyed the world. I enjoyed the controls and the concept. It's a great game plagued by poor pacing. I recommend this game, but only less than $10.