I thought this game was fantastic! While I've played a few Western tactics games (e.g., XCOM), I haven't played too many Japanese tactics games, and I found it excellent. The story was, for the most part, excellent as was the Japanese voice acting. The branching story line makes decisions feel like they matter. In terms of gameplay, I found combat difficult but not overwhelmingly so. I also didn't feel like I had to grind very much in the game. The only gripe I have is that there are very long cutscenes and not many battles interspersed between them. It would be nice to have a little more variation in that regard. On the whole, this game is excellent.

Man, this game could have been a masterpiece. How did it fail so harshly in such critical aspects?

I would consider this a stage play first and an SRPG second. This game has easily the worst pacing of any game I've ever played. You will regularly go for 45-60 minute stretches just watching cut scene after cut scene. Then once the cut scenes are finished, time to go "explore" (talk to everyone in town). Then more cut scenes, THEN maybe a battle.
The bright side is that the story(ies) in Triangle Strategy are some of the best you will ever experience. A captivating, well-written plot that's easy to digest and keep track of. Nothing gets too far off the reservation. Very few pieces you'd consider cliche. The influence from Game of Thrones is palpable.

The choice and consequence is truly difficult to decide on with how much gravitas the choices make. You are almost always tossing someone to the dogs in order to save another. The constant betrayals, playing off the back foot, and absence of a truly moral decision can be exhausting though. This is not a feel good video game.
But, even this age-old system is flawed in Triangle Strategy. What's the point of choice and consequence when regardless of what *I* want to do, some NPCs can usurp me and pick a different direction than me? Why tell me my convictions are strengthened every few minutes when i still can't convince them ♥♥♥♥?
Think about it, it should be as simple as "Which path will you take?," and instead it's here's a break from the five cut scenes you just sat through, go talk to everyone in town to get evidence on that you'll then have to recite to the party members in an attempt to convince them to select the path you (the player) want. You will fail.

Poor design isn't replayability, poor design is *expecting* you to replay the game. You don't have conviction levels high enough to pick certain paths your first time through. Because of this, they actually force you certain ways in decision making during your first playthrough, furthering an already flawed system under the guise of choice.

The combat and battle customization are puddle deep. There is no weapons or armor, no classes, and barely any skill variation. The tactics you use at the first battle will be nearly identical to the last. You can tell the "budget" put story first and everything essential to a good RPG dead last.
The upgrade system is unbelievably convoluted. Like, who-thought-this-was-a-good-idea-and-fire-them bad. No such simple resource like job points you can use to get upgrades, you instead need a silly amount of materials from an ever growing list of resources and also a ton of currency. Every time you upgrade one piece, the others all get more expensive too. It just makes so little sense I'm getting pissed writing this. It *could* have made sense, but no... they needed to keep you from fully upgrading to drag you along into another playthrough.
Grinding for currency and mats doesn't even make sense. I would do the highest level mock battle I could at the time and come away with scraps. There is a huge economic issue where not enough resources are provided or able to be obtained if needed.

The OST is soooooo good. Almost every track is an instant classic. Special care was put into each battle theme.

Even with copious annoyances, I still kept coming back. Was it for the story? Maybe. Was it to fill the void of being without a a Square Enix SRPG since the DS and PSP era? Absolutely it was.

Overall I enjoyed the game. There were a few cons that I feel you should be aware of.

1.you aren't actually in control of the choices you get to make.
There is a hidden rating system that consist of 3 values, that the game doesn't show you and if your rating doesn't meet the requirement for a choice that you wanted (the game doesn't tell you the requirement for the choice you want) then you cant get the choice no matter what dialogue option you chose.
These 3 values are gained based on dialogue choices and other weird things that shouldn't even count. For example killing units, looting, buying and selling stuff increase one of the 3 values when they shouldn't play a role in the story decisions I want to make.
There is no sense of consequence to choices as if you didn't get the option you want its always oh my rating doesn't line up not, oh I made this choice early thats why I can only do this choice.

2. Mouse keyboard controls are terrible. Not terrible in the sense that the binding is bad but more so that it is unresponsive and clunky. You can play the game on either mouse or keyboard so when you try to use both inputs at once the game has trouble registering your commands.

3. they went the lazy route for difficulty level. Higher difficulty is just enemies have more stats when they should have added more units/change enemy unit placement to make the battle harder.

4. Your companions get exp by doing damage/buffing/using items. You don't get any exp at the end of an encounter nor from any quest. Meaning when your ally dies early in the fight they miss out on a good amount of exp. Which doesn't incentives you to take risk in battle. This also means there is no point in swapping out companions as the ones you don't bring into battle will always be underdeveloped.