The Best Strategy RPG Of The Decade Just Came To PlayStation

Square Enix’s HD-2D style has been an undeniable success since Octopath Traveler first popularized it. The beautiful pixel-based art style has been used for some of the best RPGs of recent years, but even after everything, Triangle Strategy can proudly stand at the top of the pile. The best strategy RPG since Final Fantasy Tactics, Triangle Strategy is a grand tale of intrigue, oppression, economic subterfuge, and political upheaval — all wrapped up in a combat system bristling with tactical depth. It’s quite simply one of the best RPGs of the last decade, and you should hop on the PlayStation and Xbox releases if you haven’t already.

As an HD-2D game, Triangle Strategy has a lot in common with the likes of Octopath Traveler, from its graphical style to the way it tells its narrative — both are made by the same studio, after all. It might sound strange, but the best way to describe Triangle Strategy is a gorgeous visual novel fused with a strategy game.

The reason I say that is that Triangle Strategy has a ton of story — it’s genuinely the primary focus. That being said, the narrative is one of the strongest elements of the game, with four branching paths that help flesh out the world and characters in incredibly dynamic ways, giving you different sides of each conflict and nation. This is a game about the weight of decisions and the nature of power, and how even something done in the best of intentions might have dire, far-reaching consequences for people you’ve never met.

Triangle Strategy takes place on the fantasy continent of Norzelia, thirty years after a brutal conflict known as the “Saltiron War,” where the three major countries of Glenbrook, Aestfrost, and Hyzante vied for dominance of crucial resources.

You play as Seranoa Wolffort, the heir of House Wolffort, a vassal state of Glenbrook. After the discovery of the Grand Norzelian Mine, Seranoa works with his friend, Glenbrook’s Prince Roland, to broker a treaty between the country and Aestfrost for ownership of the mine and to further relations. But a shocking betrayal pushes the continent to the brink of catastrophe, forcing Seranoa to lead his people through uncertain times.

That sense of an uncertain future is vital to the experience of Triangle Strategy and how the story molds the way you play the game, right down to which characters you can recruit. Each chapter is essentially split into three parts: the story, an exploration section where you prepare for battle, and then the battle itself. Unlike a lot of strategy RPGs, Triangle Strategy lets you roam around each city and location, getting to know the plights of the commoners that live there, their relationships and opinions of the nobles, and more. In a few levels, you might even have a chance to set up extra defenses or traps.

Battles in Triangle Strategy are your traditional grid-based affairs, but with a few twists. There isn’t any kind of job system; instead, like in Fire Emblem, each character has a pre-assigned class and set of skills. So your strategy is about knowing how to use each character effectively, and find synergies with the rest of your units. For instance, Serranoa functions great as a tank to soak up enemy attention, but grows even stronger if you pair him with an agile, backstabbing unit like Anna or Benedict.

Every character has unique class skills to use, but Triangle Strategy also places a huge emphasis on unit placement and terrain. Magic spells can affect the environment, like lightning shocking anyone standing in water, or fire setting patches of grass ablaze. If you nail the positioning, you can also create combo attacks that hit the enemy multiple times — but they can do the same to you. This means you really need to think about each move and position. Your strategic options only increase as you make your way through the story, unlocking new Quietus Skills that can have drastic effects, like boosting the speed of your entire army.

The other factor is Triangle Strategy’s great map design, often providing unique choices in battle that can affect your strategy as well as story elements. In one mission, you have to decide if you want to destroy a village to trap an enemy squadron — this gives you a leg up in battle but also directly affects your kingdom’s people. It’s through this fusion of mechanics and storytelling that Triangle Strategy succeeds, and makes each battle feel like it actually matters in the grand scheme.

There’s been a lot of innovation over the last few years in the strategy space, but Triangle Strategy is unique in the way it manages to feel both nostalgic and shockingly fresh, all at once. It has the sensibilities of the classic games from the ‘90s and 2000s, spliced with modern ideals and streamlined systems. But more than anything, it’s the game that showed the versatility of the HD-2D style, and how it can be used to make so much more than simply turn-based RPGs.

Triangle Strategy is available on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.