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Project Triangle Strategy: Octopath Tactics
- Thread starter YangusKhan
- Start date
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Ah, I'm glad they took the demo feedback to heart and gave more camera control. Very excited for this.
Pajaro Pete
(He/Himbo)
I'm a little surprised they didn't add dialogue portraits since, as a I understand it, most characters already have in-game portraits, because I remember seeing some folks talk about how they had trouble remembering who was who. Anyway, is the demo still up and should I play it.
Bumping this thread because of the new demo. I'm only just finished with the first battle at the moment. I keep forgetting this game doesn't have Tactics Ogre rules where you always get counter-attacked.
Finished the new demo. I still like what I did about it a year ago, only with this additional development time basically all performance-related issues seem to have been addressed. Very happy with the inferred systems at play where character growth is a mostly additive, options-scarce process where the differences in results come from who you're fielding and not so much how you're developing them; takes the edge off from analysis paralysis in a genre I don't think I'll ever be that comfortable with. I'm not planning to drop anything below the default difficulty because I still want to interact with the systems as projected, but it fits my preferences in that that design doesn't seem too improvisational to get a handle on.
I think people who like their tactics games very mechanics-heavy are in for a bit of a rude awakening since the emphasis here is clearly on bookish and protracted slow-burn writing and worldbuilding. I don't know if there's much to say about it in qualitative terms this early on, but quantitatively it bears its intent clear to see: for a demo that lasts just over five hours at an average pace across three chapters, it offers three mandatory battles to engage with, and these early skirmishes aren't as long as many others in the genre besides. You have to be willing to meet the storytelling head-on to get anything out of the whole, and I don't think the languid pace suits all intrigued. It could just as well be the markings of a humble beginnings narrative with the rhythm to match, though who knows.
The more I see of Ikushima's art in conjunction with the roles his character designs end up playing in the story, the more frustrated I become with the unimaginative typecasting as far as physical builds, gendered roles as reflected by mechanics, and whatever else. You don't need to have a character say or do anything to form an impression of them as untrustworthy or virtuous, because these traits seem uniformly reflected and externalized in the expressions or body language they wear in portraits, or even just facial feature stereotyping which leans hard on the caricaturish here. It's a shortcut that's tempting in an ensemble cast like this to allow at least some definition to a cast of dozens, but it does lead to a lot of superficial coding between all parties involved in a way that's regressive and which is not particularly interesting even as narrative beats to follow, and trends the writing side of the storytelling toward similar avenues in a feedback loop that doesn't exactly engender much faith in its eventual unraveling.
I think people who like their tactics games very mechanics-heavy are in for a bit of a rude awakening since the emphasis here is clearly on bookish and protracted slow-burn writing and worldbuilding. I don't know if there's much to say about it in qualitative terms this early on, but quantitatively it bears its intent clear to see: for a demo that lasts just over five hours at an average pace across three chapters, it offers three mandatory battles to engage with, and these early skirmishes aren't as long as many others in the genre besides. You have to be willing to meet the storytelling head-on to get anything out of the whole, and I don't think the languid pace suits all intrigued. It could just as well be the markings of a humble beginnings narrative with the rhythm to match, though who knows.
The more I see of Ikushima's art in conjunction with the roles his character designs end up playing in the story, the more frustrated I become with the unimaginative typecasting as far as physical builds, gendered roles as reflected by mechanics, and whatever else. You don't need to have a character say or do anything to form an impression of them as untrustworthy or virtuous, because these traits seem uniformly reflected and externalized in the expressions or body language they wear in portraits, or even just facial feature stereotyping which leans hard on the caricaturish here. It's a shortcut that's tempting in an ensemble cast like this to allow at least some definition to a cast of dozens, but it does lead to a lot of superficial coding between all parties involved in a way that's regressive and which is not particularly interesting even as narrative beats to follow, and trends the writing side of the storytelling toward similar avenues in a feedback loop that doesn't exactly engender much faith in its eventual unraveling.
I've been playing on Hard and I'm almost finished with Chapter 3. The number balance so far has been pretty good; I do constantly feel like everyone is in danger, and of the 2 story fights so far I have had 1 person get KO'd in each. But that tension is satisfying in a way somewhat orthogonal to permadeath mechanics -- since there is no risk of permadeath, when someone does get KO'd I'm only scrambling about how to complete the rest of the fight with a reduced army size instead of scrambling to revive them (FFT style) or resetting/rewinding at every crucial mistake (Fire Emblem style).
Pulling back a bit, permadeath also wouldn't make sense for this game's design goals since it absolutely centers the story, your choices, and the principal cast's reactions to your decisions. I agree with Peklo that this is feeling very much like a slow-burn story. The demo that came out before this featured more battles in its single chapter than these one-per-chapter beginnings, so that's even more evidence of a slow ramp-up aspect to the narrative. I guess my main curiousity is whether it will eventually turn towards heavier fantasy elements like its most direct ancestors (FFT and Tactics Ogre both eventually go that route), or if it will remain grounded in politics and character motivation the whole way through.
Pulling back a bit, permadeath also wouldn't make sense for this game's design goals since it absolutely centers the story, your choices, and the principal cast's reactions to your decisions. I agree with Peklo that this is feeling very much like a slow-burn story. The demo that came out before this featured more battles in its single chapter than these one-per-chapter beginnings, so that's even more evidence of a slow ramp-up aspect to the narrative. I guess my main curiousity is whether it will eventually turn towards heavier fantasy elements like its most direct ancestors (FFT and Tactics Ogre both eventually go that route), or if it will remain grounded in politics and character motivation the whole way through.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
I want to beat two other things I'm playing first and want to start the demo closer to the release date so I don't forget what I'm doing. But I am extremely excited for this.
Completed the first 5 chapters. It's quite good! It's not quite Three Houses, but being able to explore and talk to people in between battles does a lot to help establish a good flow that breaks up the monotony of battle > cutscenes > preparation > battle. I'm playing on Normal and battles have been decently challenging, but not brutal. Supposedly Hard mode is really intense from what I've heard elsewhere, so be warned for that.
I do think this game would be well served by having some sort of rewind feature during battles, such as Divine Pulse from FE3H or Chariot from the Tactics Ogre remake. Granted, the lack of any kind of permadeath means that mistakes are generally less costly, but there have been one or two times where I messed up a turn due to simple error of accidentally confirming an action too quickly.
I do think this game would be well served by having some sort of rewind feature during battles, such as Divine Pulse from FE3H or Chariot from the Tactics Ogre remake. Granted, the lack of any kind of permadeath means that mistakes are generally less costly, but there have been one or two times where I messed up a turn due to simple error of accidentally confirming an action too quickly.
Sharing collected thoughts that I've posted elsewhere, since I realized I've been writing a fair bit about this and may as well make a post of it:
For context, I just began chapter 5 and have completed a handful of story battles and a handful of tavern battles.
Anyway, I'm liking it a lot so far! It reminds me a fair bit of Vandal Hearts in some ways, which will always be my gold standard for SRPGs. Foremost is the fact that units have fixed roles and fixed promotion paths. There's still a bit of customization with the weapon-smithing, but this is not a game about character builds, this is a game about battlefield tactics.
It made a very strong first impression, when, in the very first battle, a Bandit Lord picked up a horse, twirled it over his head, and threw it over his shoulder.
That said, while that first battle happened surprisingly early, I didn't hit the second one until there was literally 3 hours on the game clock. So this is a very talky game! However, I am also me, so I suspect a normal person would get to it faster, but 1.5-2 hours is still a long wait! Also, shit in the story just recently hit the fan, so I suspect that the pace of battles may be about to speed up a bit.
Anyway, it is a very talky game. It throws a lot of nobles and kingdoms and history at you very fast. One feature that I love (perhaps based on demo feedback? I was on media blackout for this game until it released) is that you can press a button at any time during a cutscene to see a portrait of who is talking and a short blurb of what their deal is. Also, those portraits? Almost uniformly evil-looking. Like, at first, every time I met a new politician I was like "Ha, look at this sneering asshole; I guess we've found our evil vizier", but then 15 sneering viziers later I realized that every politician just looks like that. (All politicians are evil; can't find the lie.)
Is the story any good, though? Maybe! I like it, but it's still unclear what the story is, although I feel as if I'm going to find out soon. Much of the early game is establishing stuff, meeting a bunch of foreign dignitaries and having parties while you learn about the world and the people who live in it. I guess I can say that I've had few complaints about the narrative thus far, anyway. The only thing I didn't really care for is that the narrative stuff framing the magical decision-making macguffin feels very forced and out of place and I didn't really care for it.
One neat thing, though, is that it looks like each decision made with that macguffin is a formal story branch and there's an in-game chart summarizing those branches. It makes me think of 999, or Radiant Historia, although I don't know if there will be any mechanism to explore alternative branches here (my suspicion is not).
Also, the mechanics of some stuff surrounding those decisions is pretty opaque. Being able to influence your party members' votes seems pretty straight-forward, but it is entirely unclear to me how my previous decisions are shaping any of it. I love it when the game is like "Serenoa's resolve has hardened" or some-such even though it is often unclear what that means or why it has happened. I swear I got the message once while I was just wandering around town. Like, I hadn't clicked on anything or talked to anyone; I was just walking from point A to point B when it popped up.
As far as the actual battles go, Hard feels like a good sweet spot for now. (You can adjust the difficulty at any time, though, which is cool.) I typically lose 1-2 characters per battle, and it always feels tense. Also, the enemies are very good about not just rushing in, and the usual SRPG tactic of baiting out an attack by moving just inside their range typically does not work. Thus far, I have been able to field most or all of my units, but I get the feeling that it's heading towards a Fire Emblem model of giving me way more units than I can reasonably maintain and I'm not looking forward to it, if so. Also, you can do optional battles at the tavern, which concerns me, because I find that SRPGs that allow you to do that are typically not as tightly balanced.
One of my favourite things about the combat system are the "kudos" (I don't know what the name for this mechanic is in Japanese, but "kudos" to whoever made this inspired translation choice), which is essentially a "do cool shit" currency. Love the little hits of dopamine for playing the game good. Backstab? Kudos! Pincer attack? Kudos! Attack from higher elevation? Kudos! Backstab Pincer attack from higher elevation? Screen-full of kudos! You also get them for having multiple targets in your AoE, doing ranged attacks from spaces outside the enemies' counter-attack range, etc. And then you can trade them in for special powers, promotion items (according to the tutorial), and lore!
Anyway, in summary, this is a good triangle.
For context, I just began chapter 5 and have completed a handful of story battles and a handful of tavern battles.
Anyway, I'm liking it a lot so far! It reminds me a fair bit of Vandal Hearts in some ways, which will always be my gold standard for SRPGs. Foremost is the fact that units have fixed roles and fixed promotion paths. There's still a bit of customization with the weapon-smithing, but this is not a game about character builds, this is a game about battlefield tactics.
It made a very strong first impression, when, in the very first battle, a Bandit Lord picked up a horse, twirled it over his head, and threw it over his shoulder.
That said, while that first battle happened surprisingly early, I didn't hit the second one until there was literally 3 hours on the game clock. So this is a very talky game! However, I am also me, so I suspect a normal person would get to it faster, but 1.5-2 hours is still a long wait! Also, shit in the story just recently hit the fan, so I suspect that the pace of battles may be about to speed up a bit.
Anyway, it is a very talky game. It throws a lot of nobles and kingdoms and history at you very fast. One feature that I love (perhaps based on demo feedback? I was on media blackout for this game until it released) is that you can press a button at any time during a cutscene to see a portrait of who is talking and a short blurb of what their deal is. Also, those portraits? Almost uniformly evil-looking. Like, at first, every time I met a new politician I was like "Ha, look at this sneering asshole; I guess we've found our evil vizier", but then 15 sneering viziers later I realized that every politician just looks like that. (All politicians are evil; can't find the lie.)
Is the story any good, though? Maybe! I like it, but it's still unclear what the story is, although I feel as if I'm going to find out soon. Much of the early game is establishing stuff, meeting a bunch of foreign dignitaries and having parties while you learn about the world and the people who live in it. I guess I can say that I've had few complaints about the narrative thus far, anyway. The only thing I didn't really care for is that the narrative stuff framing the magical decision-making macguffin feels very forced and out of place and I didn't really care for it.
One neat thing, though, is that it looks like each decision made with that macguffin is a formal story branch and there's an in-game chart summarizing those branches. It makes me think of 999, or Radiant Historia, although I don't know if there will be any mechanism to explore alternative branches here (my suspicion is not).
Also, the mechanics of some stuff surrounding those decisions is pretty opaque. Being able to influence your party members' votes seems pretty straight-forward, but it is entirely unclear to me how my previous decisions are shaping any of it. I love it when the game is like "Serenoa's resolve has hardened" or some-such even though it is often unclear what that means or why it has happened. I swear I got the message once while I was just wandering around town. Like, I hadn't clicked on anything or talked to anyone; I was just walking from point A to point B when it popped up.
As far as the actual battles go, Hard feels like a good sweet spot for now. (You can adjust the difficulty at any time, though, which is cool.) I typically lose 1-2 characters per battle, and it always feels tense. Also, the enemies are very good about not just rushing in, and the usual SRPG tactic of baiting out an attack by moving just inside their range typically does not work. Thus far, I have been able to field most or all of my units, but I get the feeling that it's heading towards a Fire Emblem model of giving me way more units than I can reasonably maintain and I'm not looking forward to it, if so. Also, you can do optional battles at the tavern, which concerns me, because I find that SRPGs that allow you to do that are typically not as tightly balanced.
One of my favourite things about the combat system are the "kudos" (I don't know what the name for this mechanic is in Japanese, but "kudos" to whoever made this inspired translation choice), which is essentially a "do cool shit" currency. Love the little hits of dopamine for playing the game good. Backstab? Kudos! Pincer attack? Kudos! Attack from higher elevation? Kudos! Backstab Pincer attack from higher elevation? Screen-full of kudos! You also get them for having multiple targets in your AoE, doing ranged attacks from spaces outside the enemies' counter-attack range, etc. And then you can trade them in for special powers, promotion items (according to the tutorial), and lore!
Anyway, in summary, this is a good triangle.
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This might actually prevent me from playing. I tried the demo and it took 15 or 20 minutes just to skip past everything between the first and second battles. I often play games for the story, but come on!
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
My copy is still in transit so still playing the prologue demo but like it a lot. It is talky but I feel it works, we'll see if I feel the same later on.
Lots of games are story games. It is, nevertheless, possible to overdo it.
I didn't say it was filler. The amount of story/narrative time vs. turn-based strategy gameplay time was subjectively too high for me in the segment I played. There's not really any point to be made against that.
If you want a break from the story to do combat, there are optional "mock" battles you can do from the encampment. You can do these at anytime as long as you have access to the encampment, which is usually anytime you're doing investigation or in a persuasion/voting phase, or when on the world map in between cutscenes. These mock battles get you exp and crafting items, so even beyond getting a break there's obvious incentive to do it. That said, it doesn't make the cutscenes themselves any shorter, so it may not be enough to change your feelings on it. It is definitely a story heavy game.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Finished the prologue demo and my copy arrived yesterday so pleased to keep going.
My first decision was to go to Hyzante, I was curious about the Ministry of Medicine, but mainly it was just that the Aesfrost cousins are rude and I had no interest in spending any more time with those assholes.
My first decision was to go to Hyzante, I was curious about the Ministry of Medicine, but mainly it was just that the Aesfrost cousins are rude and I had no interest in spending any more time with those assholes.
I'd be really curious to see stats on some of the decisions, because I have to assume that the majority of players chose the same on that first branch for similar reasons. I know that I certainly did! "Hey, do you want to go to the fun science place with the cool desert prince, or do you want to go to a frozen hellhole with two giant assholes?"
And the second branch point seems similarly to have a much more appealing option of the two presented, IMO, that I would have to assume is chosen by the majority of players.
In the demo, I chose the frozen hellhole :crossarms:
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
I'm loving but also slightly overwhelmed by the variety of characters and jobs. Picoletta's decoy ability is legit, although overall as a unit she's not great, I'm having fun with her in the mock battles. The merchant and the apothecary aren't working for me at all though so they're probably getting benched.
And I'm glad the weather shaman lady is back, I was concerned when the section that was in the original demo came and went and she wasn't there but just got her!
And I'm glad the weather shaman lady is back, I was concerned when the section that was in the original demo came and went and she wasn't there but just got her!
I need to get better at positioning in this game. I am really bad about leaving my mages to get squished. I guess I need to get more use out of non-damage dealing abilities, but that has never really served me well in an SRPG.
May I recommend ladders? Best utility ability in the game, IMO. It's not relevant on all of the maps, of course, but it can dramatically redraw some of the encounters, especially if you hold the top of the ladder and make access asymmetrical.
Still plugging away on Hard, and I'm not sure how I'd have completed a couple of these maps without *yoinking* several units straight up a sheer cliff.
Out of curiousity, does anyone else find themselves constantly underleveled? I'm not sure if that's a product of playing on Hard or if the game just always expects you to be 1-2 levels below the recommended level when each battle begins. (To be clear, it's certainly not a lack of optimization on my part-- my VH-loving heart makes sure to squeeze every last bit of XP out of every turn.) At least the catch-up mechanic means that anyone can come off the bench and be at that near threshold in short order, since XP rewards balloon with level disparity.
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Violentvixen
(She/Her)
I am extremely stuck on my chapter 10 where Svarog is fighting with you after the spy was killed. I keep whittling down to the last few enemies, then he suddenly rushes across the battlefield and sandwiches himself between a bunch of enemies and then he gets backstabbed to death before I can do anything about it.
I've seriously played this map at least seven times now and I can't seem to keep him away from the enemies/alive. I've tried rushing across to keep enemies from getting close enough for him to start moving. I've tried to pen him in/protect him with ice walls and traps. I've had Geela trailing him and trying to heal him, but his movements are so unpredictable they either get separated or some enemy gets between them or he shoves some enemy too close to her and she's dead. What the heck am I missing here?!
I've seriously played this map at least seven times now and I can't seem to keep him away from the enemies/alive. I've tried rushing across to keep enemies from getting close enough for him to start moving. I've tried to pen him in/protect him with ice walls and traps. I've had Geela trailing him and trying to heal him, but his movements are so unpredictable they either get separated or some enemy gets between them or he shoves some enemy too close to her and she's dead. What the heck am I missing here?!
jesus christ!
I recently finished chapter 10, and it is clear that the story is branching significantly here, because it is hard to overstate how little sense any of that makes to me. I spent chapter 10 doing a nighttime raid of a Minister's villa in the Hyzante capital.
That said, maybe you could leverage the Quietus teleport power to yank him back to the other side of the map?