Sword of Convallaria

[Don]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2526 ... nvallaria/

So strategy RPG games like Final Fantasy Tactics is one of the big hobbies of mine, and there are very few of those around. This is on mobile but it's like one of the few SRPG games I know of in the last 10 years that didn't flop within 6 months after it's live so I figure it was worth a shot and you can download the demo on it. There are a lot of standard 'well it's a gacha game but if it was a standalone game I'm willing to pay $50 for it' or whatever, which leads me to think people have very low standards. Final Fantasy Tactics is about $20 right now, and it still looks better than this game and it actually plays better and almost certainly has a better story, since the demo so far looks like the sudden craze with Epic 7 type of story of 'we totally screwed up the universe so we time travel back to the same universe repeatedly to try to screw up slightly less the next time', which is kind of cool when Epic 7 did it because they're the first one but that's about it. Just because a game has pixel graphics and some height-related element doesn't mean it's the spiritual successor of Final Fantasy Tactics. Sword of Convallaria is objectively an inferior clone of the Langrisser Mobile type game except it is not as good, and if you want a standalone game you could just spend $50 (or $0) on Langrisser Mobile and just play the time rift and ignore all the competitive elements and it plays better and looks better and has a way better soundtrack.

In fact, since Langrisser Mobile exists it's both a sign of how far we've gone on SRPG and how much progress is held back by reasons I can't quite explain. I'm going to ignore the Fire Emblem mobile game because I was never able to get into it so I can't tell if it's advancing or holding the series back or if it's just out there making money quitely, but Langrisser Mobile is almost certainly the best Strategy RPG made in the last 10 years not counting the Fire Emblem games that I don't know about. It's so good that Square Enix copied all the mechanics from Kalpa of Universe, which is basically a reskinned Langrisser Mobile and made Full Metal Alchemist Mobile, and then proceeded to immediately bomb into oblivion due to reasons no one can quite tell. Of course, the same company that made Langrisser Mobile, Zlongames, also bombed into oblivion with their now 3 tries at reskinning Langrisser Mobile.

If we go by worldwide revenue numbers, Langrisser Mobile actually still slightly beats Fire Emblem Heroes and then followed by Sword of Convallaria, and that's basically it for SRPGs on mobile. There's some Final Fantasy Brave Exvius or something which is like another way overpriced version of Final Fantasy Tactics that probably survives only because of the Final Fantasy name, similar to how Final Fantasy Ever Crisis only survives because it's got Sephiroth in it. For the non Fire Emblem fans, your choice is either Langrisser Mobile, which the publisher doesn't even care that it exists outside of Asia and it's a mystery why they even keep the NA version alive given the company probably has spent a total of $0 in the history of its North America existence on promoting the game. Or you have Sword of Convallaria which is coming out maybe at the end of year, while missing vast majority of features people consider as necessary in a modern gacha game, like PvP, and plays like a vastly inferior Final Fantasy Tactics. In fact the only thing it's similar to FFT is that the graphics look equally dated (though I'd say FFT actually looks better) and they got height as a parameter in the battle field.

I know SRPGs aren't exactly a big draw, but I don't think the genre should've been setback so far that we literally don't have anything better than Langrisser Mobile, not even something that's a copy of Langrisser Mobile with a facelift.

[Julius Seeker]

I’m still a fan of older Fire Emblem, but something about the newer games don’t grab me the way the old ones do.

Fire Emblem Awakening is probably the border for me. When playing older Fire Emblem games, I always have the urge to go back to the beginning and try it again, differently. With Awakening, I think what killed it for me was the lowering of the strategy mechanics and the raising of the RPG mechanics. There was something about knowing your characters could die if you miscalculated something, that really added to the game. Awakening did have really cool graphics in 3D mode on the 3DS, how the characters would peal up off the screen. I also felt the “breeding” element was interesting, but it got old way faster than I thought it would, it’s no Crusader Kings.

My preference was always for the games that I could play through, and then see if I could do better on the next playthrough, and the story was always fun. FE Awakening is mainly about level up loops and character deaths are far more devastating, so playing with perma-death off is the only option to really enjoy the game and not get frustrated.

The option for traditional play mode in Awakening exists, but the game was clearly not designed or balanced for traditional play mode - strategy and tactics to preserve units matter less, because there are way too many surprise traps that will likely kill a character. Add that to the fact that character losses are far more devastating, as one character death is also losing their children - and there’s more content to cover, fewer characters to do it. Fire Emblem Advance (Blazing Blade), it’s easier to preserve your characters, and if you lose one, chances are you have backups or new characters that will fill in the blanks. Because, old fire emblem somewhat encourages you to use your weaker characters because they gain much more experience.

Still, I’m in the minority, I’d say the majority of Fire Emblem fans much prefer the new direction of the series. But I haven’t bought a new FE game since Fates. I’d love to see a remaster of Genealogy of the Holy War and Blazing Blade. I haven’t played Binding Blade, but my understanding is that it was one of the weaker games (that it was nowhere near as good as the prequel).