Triangle Strategy is an action role-playing game that combines a complex branching plot with grid-based battles like Fire Emblem or Advance Wars. It stands out not only for its unusual diorama visuals, but by creating an intertwining story of many characters

Play begins in a world of high fantasy, crafted of those unusual graphics and dense prose waxing lyrical about lords of high houses and their politics. This continues throughout, as you talk to locals and decide how you want things to play out in the world. Once you have a plan you then need to persuade the others in your party, not always as straightforward as it sounds.

Although there's no hiding the volume of reading, things eventually move to the tactical battles. Here you draw on the members of your party best suited for each encounter. Things then proceed in turn based fashion. Like with the narrative, in you need to take care about the decisions in battles as well. Not only whether your character can defeat an enemy but how the terrain or architecture may affect each encounter.

As you progress you can level up your characters so they gain enhanced stats and equipment. You also need to work on developing what information you have about the world and the people in it. This is crucial to making the right decisions. You can skip these investigations but be prepared for the impact of mis-informed decisions to be far reaching.

The result is a game that offers a huge branching story with characters you will care about. The choices you make often have surprising and moving (and calamitous) consequences many hours later in the game. For such an ambitious and sizeable game it's surprisingly coherent and brings the many threads together in a satisfying way.