Post

a stark change from chess to many grid based strategy games is how movement immediately gets homogenized. in chess every piece type has very different movement rules, but as soon as you remove the abstraction and put people in there like FE/FFT, suddenly it’s too weird for people to move that way

one of the reasons i really like pixel art is its abject refusal to go too far down that path. it always requires that you put your imagination forward, and leaves room for metaphors and mechanics that would feel entirely wrong in a less abstract environment

when you don’t give away all the details, it allows the imagination to fill in. the story here is “you adventure across a vast land with your allies, it takes days, maybe weeks” but in actual gameplay it takes like 1 minute but not when your game is realistic, and promises a realistic experience

i also use FF7 here because i think low poly can actually serve this same purpose as well. as designers were transitioning away from this more abstract style of design but i don’t think they realized what they were leaving behind

Something I always really loved about Shining Force compared to FE was that the higher level spells could cast in ranges and hit multiple targets at once. Felt a little more "tactical". I still need to play Triangle Strategy, being able to make barriers etc in the demo was fun.