A variety of turn-based tactics - perhaps one of the most fertile genres for the Switch. This is facilitated by the very ideology of the hybrid console, because you can take it with you literally everywhere and interrupt at any time, and the whole online game from the developer Friv2Online world will patiently wait for your move. And now, to the exclusive Fire Emblem, XCOM 2 port, great Mario Rabbids and a huge number of near-indie projects like Hard West has joined Triangle Strategy - a look at the genre from the creators of Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler.

If in the Western gaming tradition it is customary to separate RPGs as such and tactical strategies (an expression established in the gaming press, albeit an oxymoron), albeit with role-playing elements, then the Japanese brothers XCOM and Jagged Alliance proudly call themselves "tactical RPGs" and try to combine the charm of Japanese RPG and a more elaborate combat system.

Unlike JRPGs, in the vast majority of which you can’t move characters in battle, and tactics require the player to mainly choose the right sequence of actions, in TRPG battles take place on a full-fledged battlefield, often divided into cells, which immediately opens up a new facet in the form of maneuver, positioning and interaction of your fighters.

At the same time, tactical RPGs also have everything that we love Japanese role-playing games so much for - exciting plots, interesting settings, relationships between characters and, of course, high-quality soundtracks. Often TRPGs are spin-offs of "big" series (for example, Final Fantasy Tactics), but many of them are quite independent. Triangle Strategy is just a typical example of such a game.

The setting of the friv game was the fictional continent of Norselia, which is home to three states - the duchy of Esfrost, the kingdom of Glenbrook and the "sacred state" Gisant, which is a nuclear mixture of communism and theocracy. Announcements promised an "epic plot" and a fascinating story, and the game shows that the developers at least tried.

The devastating “iron-salt wars” ended relatively recently, due to the fact that Esfrost monopolized iron mining, and Gisant monopoly controlled salt, but now the nations have come to the long-awaited peace and are optimistic about the future, which promises cooperation and prosperity.

Our protagonist is called Serenoa Wolffort, heir to the lord of the great house of the same name from the kingdom of Glenbrook. And the game begins with the fact that, together with a faithful and wise servant named Benedict, we will meet in the port a ship from Esfrost, on which Serenoa's future bride arrives - the pink-haired Princess Frederica.

Right in the port, the future newlyweds are attacked by bandits - and after defeating them, the couple is imbued with each other's military prowess and continues their journey across Norselia, because iron mining at the Great Mine is to begin very soon with the joint forces of the three nations.

But the world that exists in words between nations turns out to be very fragile in reality (who would have thought!), Esfrost attacks Glenbrook, and, of course, we have to look for a way out of this situation in the person of Serenoa. On this, perhaps, I will finish with the plot - otherwise you can just rewrite it, and for this, even a dozen of such articles will not be enough, especially considering all the possible ramifications.

In general, Norselia resembles a kind of “Game of Thrones” in miniature - the states do not like each other and build different intrigues, and within the same nation there can be different forces with their own interests (for example, in Glenbrook there is a king and three Great Houses).

The universal equality and prosperity of Gisant is built on iron discipline, fidelity to religious dogmas and the actual slavery of an entire people. The dynastic marriage “in the name of friendship” between Esfrost and Glenbrook is concluded not by the heir to the throne and the eldest princess, but by the offspring of a noble, but not royal house, and her half-sister, born from the mistress of the past duke. So that in which case they were not sorry.

Of course, given the emphasis on gameplay characteristic of the genre, some characters look like cardboard extras, dialogues are superficial, and conflicts and motivations will not seem convincing to everyone - especially with a lot of "play" in high-quality story RPGs.

Perhaps part of the reason here is the primitive pixel-cartoon graphics, which are dissonant even with the art of the game itself, often quite gloomy and serious. It is far from always possible to take the fuss of little funny men with big heads seriously, although the game honestly tries to raise rather “adult” topics such as economic conflicts, corruption, betrayal, conflicts of personal and state interests, and even racial discrimination.

In terms of gameplay, Triangle Strategy is built on no less strong discipline than Gisant's society. The game is divided into chapters, each with main story events, secondary story events, character quests, exploration, and battles.

All this within the framework of each chapter is literally divided into formalized phases, to launch each of which you need to activate the corresponding icon on the map. Story events are banal cutscenes in the friv game engine, where we mostly read the dialogue - even without the option to choose a specific answer. Moreover, the main ones differ from the secondary ones only by their obligation (you can skip the secondary ones) and the participating characters.

Character quests look about the same. In fact, “quest” is even too loud a word here - in fact, this is the same video where, at the level of a school scene, we are introduced to a new fighter who will fight in our ranks, and tell his brief story.

The research mechanics cannot be called revolutionary either, but here at least we can control our character. Exploration in Triangle Strategy is just as formalized as everything else, a run through a closed area of ​​terrain, behind which stretches a map slightly “soaked” by textures.

This process is far from useless - we can find something we need, trade or talk with the right characters to enrich the lore, unlock a previously unknown answer for dialogue or just pet the cat - but by pressing the " " button, the study can be completed at any time and move on to the next event.

This approach causes ambivalent feelings - on the one hand, it is really interesting to learn the news of the plot. But on the other hand, the formalized structure and lengthy presentation cause an acute desire to quickly skip through all the dialogues - all the more so then they can still be re-read in a special log.

A special feature of the game is the system of beliefs and voting. With each important step in the game's storyline, Serenoa's beliefs grow stronger, as we are immediately informed in the upper right corner of the screen. And at the end of some chapters, a vote is held - all the main characters have special coins that he (or she) puts on one of the bowls, depending on the chosen solution.

Serenoa himself participates in this vote indirectly. Through dialogue with the undecided, he can incline them to his side (that is, more interesting to the player) by increasing the number of coins on one of the scales. This is where the replica options obtained during the study come in handy. Different decisions you make take the story along different paths, providing non-linearity and replayability, and some characters may leave your squad in protest.