The fact we know this to be false doesn't matter, but what does matter is the people of Glenbrook cheering when Gustadolph speaks for some reason. Gustadolph keeps the 'kind and benevolent king' prisoner, holds a speech about how Glenbrook betrayed Aesfrost during the opening of a joint mining operation. The game pretends like he does, however, which is a problem. Maybe Gustadolph, who is portrayed as the main antagonist, has some kind of weird reason for what he's doing, but he doesn't have the charisma to sell it.

The villains thus far seem to be mustache twirling Saturday morning cartoon characters or the usual anime take on cowardly nobles. This wouldn't be the first military strategy game to basically ignore things like these, but it is very egregious here. I realize this might be addressed somehow, but this is a red flag for logistics being completely ignored. The logistics behind the attack which seems to set off the real beginning of the plot make absolutely no sense. Even if they managed to convince House Tellior, whose leader is a coward, they'd also have to pass through or close to House Wolffort's territory, which is the domain of the protagonist. Aesfrost is located far to the north, surrounded by mountains with seemingly only one easy way in and out, and that goes through two Glenbrook High Houses territories. The game all but starts with one massive issue which seems unlikely they'll address satisfactorily in the first chapters we haven't seen: Aesfrost's forces manage to seemingly teleport to the Glenbrook capital without anyone being able to tell. While this may come later, there are some major red flags and inconsistent writing in the demo. A mixture of Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, and with the setting similar to Three Houses, I was hoping for some sweet sweet drama and tales of political intrigue. Triangle Circumference seemed like it had a lot of potential. Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Shadows of Valentia, although the latter game has many major problems of its own, consistently managed to sell what was happening on-screen. Gameplay and writing may be king in a game like this, but when you just can't get into it and buy what the characters themselves are saying, you'll feel emotionally disconnected. It made me laugh during what was supposed to be a serious moment. When Roland mourns his dead father, Serenoa is supposed to convey his sympathy, but he sighs in what sounds like annoyance. This is particularly bad since, like I just mentioned, the protagonist's performance is the worst. The quality is so uneven and the delivery of some characters change seemingly mid-sentence. If the chibis don't take you out of it, the voice acting definitely will. Some actors sound like they're really trying, but some - especially the main character - sound like they had to memorize their lines and don't have the script in front of them. The English voice acting is.uneven, to say the best. So, you've got chibi sprites which don't really fit the tone of the game and can't convey the individuality of the characters, but I'm afraid there's one more issue: the voice acting. This is something games haven't done for decades, so it's so weird seeing this in a modern game from a prominent studio. I'm honestly baffled they didn't learn this after Octopath Traveler, which suffered from the same problem. Square Enix could use the official art they already have, and just draw some three or four expressions per character, with more for the main ones of course.

This would could easily be fixed by just including character portraits when they speak. Some sprites also look vastly different to their official art. You can press X when a character is speaking to get a picture of them, but it never changes expression or anything to fit the current situation. The problem is that the sprites simply can't convey enough emotion or even individuality - one of the best things of Fire Emblem is that every character in your army is unique, and Project Triangle Strategem seems to opt for a similar approach, but the sprites don't look distinct enough for you to be able to tell what each character is about. Every character seems to have official art - which is pretty damn good - but you have to click a button to see it, otherwise you're just watching these pixly chibi humans emote. Triangle Attack's sprite work may be good, but I don't think it services the story it tries to tell, at least not when it comes to the cast. Being a big tactics and strategy game fan, especially when it comes to Fire Emblem, as well as someone who really values a good story, I was hoping for something to scratch that itch while I roll my thumbs waiting for the next scrap of Fire Emblem news. Last Direct, what really caught my eye was Project Triangle Strategy.

Project triangle strategy choices