Mr. Triangle's Adventure Retrospective

It has been over a week since I last wrote a blog about Mr. Triangle, which you can read here: http://maniafig.blogspot.nl/2015/08/mr-triangles-amazing-adventure.html

35 hours! That's a lot.

I've beaten the game since and though my initial impression was already positive, the game still exceeded my expectations in several areas! In many ways this only makes sense, Mr. Triangle's Adventure is a game that was made over the span of four years, and a person can develop many skills and grow a lot as a person in such a span of time. While Mr. Triangle's Adventure begins as what looks like a juvenile game about beating up evil vegetables, by the end there's a much more serious plot that actually justifies and explains a lot of the elements that seem goofy on the surface.

Just a little bit goofy.

The game starts off in a pretty typical way, with the hero being assaulted by mooks from Team Onion and receiving a letter from a mysterious man, Mastermind, claiming he seeks to take control of the world for whatever purpose. What follows is the first act of the game in which the main goal is putting a stop to Team Onion schemes and stopping Mastermind while braving dungeons and crashing castles. In many ways it's the first act of a roughly three-act plot.

Why, that devious Mastermind!

It becomes much clearer though that there is a lot more going on behind the scenes and that a lot of the strange elements of the game that you might take for granted have reasons for existing, and those reasons are not always as whimsical as the nature of sentient and amicable vegetables would suggest. This is where the game goes into its second act and your goals become a lot more defined and tangible, going across the land amassing both the power and allies you need to stop the menace that plagues the planet.

Could it be... Louis the Goose?! 

Of course every game must have a final act, and boy does this game deliver! The final part of the game is where the expectations are the highest, yet I was still blown away by the things that transpired once the second act was over. I obviously do not want to spoil or even hint as to what happens, but suffice to say it's suitably epic! Much more than you'd think a game about a shape fighting vegetables would be, for certain.

We've come quite far from fighting evil turnips and wheat.

While all of these events happen, the game does take the time during certain scenes to develop its characters as well, both having arcs for each character dealing with their past and their future, but also just having some scenes of the party talking with each other trying to figure out what is happening or just about how that Green Gorilla guy would be the perfect match for Jojo the Gorilla. Some of these scenes can be quite extended and come with unique sprites as well. And of course the game maintains a sense of lighthearted humour throughout all of this!

Gorillas dating at a rock concert? Sign me right up!

Just as the game seemed to get better as it went along plotwise, so it did artwise. Although the first few areas are not exactly much to look at, the first dungeon in the game is simply a large corn maze with few landmarks, the further you get into the game the more diverse and well-designed the towns and dungeons become. The first town you find might just be a plain, pleasant little grassy town inhabited by fungi who live in giant toadstools, later on there's a magnificent city in the sky, a lost city in the depths of the ocean and a city straight out of the future to explore at your leisure. The dungeons get similarly more interesting, going from wheat fields and caves to cyberspace, bizarre realms and whatever the final area is supposed to be.

In cyberspace nobody can hear you scream... with JOY!

Even the music only gets better as the game keeps going. The first volume of the OST is already solid, but the second volume is definitely my favourite! The game really expands its scope in many ways as it keeps going on, and the music does a great job of keeping up, strongly adding to the scenes. I urge people to play the game with the music on since it's definitely tailor-made for this game.

They're not kidding.

The one part of the game that feels like it's on a solidly even level all throughout the game is its core gameplay. I already went over it in my past blog, but as you keep playing the game keeps throwing interesting new enemies and bosses at you, as well as a ton of optional content and sidequests to do! This is definitely a game you'd want to 100% as the sidequests give some truly great items for their completion, some of which are in fact so good that they make the final stretch of the game seem like one of the easier parts, which considering the difficulty of some of these sidequests is a suitable reward. That said, it does feel like the player gets access to a variety of equipment that raises HP after a certain point which makes the survivability of the game in general less of an issue which was a shame.

Good luck taking down Mr. Triangle, Mastermind. You'll need it.

The game is not just purely about fighting and stats, though! There are two full-fledged minigames to partake in, both wildly different. The first minigame has Mr. Triangle assume the role of Noodle Chef and tailor dishes to the wishes of customers, as soon as he can figure out how to make the dishes, that is! There's up to 50 recipes and a variety of customers with wildly varying tastes, meaning you'll either need a lot of knowledge on noodles or keep a sizable Excel file of recipes and a notepad to analyze just what customers want. It's all worth it if you can get that perfect score and learn that final recipe though...

Gimme my Golden Spatula!

On the other side of the spectrum there is a musical minigame! Throughout your quest you not only put a halt to Mastermind's evil forces, you can also retrieve the instruments stolen by several obsessive Mr. Triangle fanatics and their curious monstrosities. Once you finally get all of them, not only does Mr. Triangle get to swing his guitar in battle, he can also record and perform his own music with his band in Rock 'n Roll city! With Gary on the bass, Marvin on the keyboard and Jojo manning the drums, you can put together your own music using over 150 soundbites! I'm as far from a virtuoso as one can be, but I still had fun putting this little thing together in about an hour: http://vocaroo.com/i/s1UYCYTDZPku (music starts at around 20 seconds)

Of course you also get to see your band perform your song!

All-in-all Mr. Triangle's Adventure was a really enjoyable experience and it certainly was worth checking out and spending those 35 hours on! It is really a shame that I've not seen more exposure of this game, since it's legitimately and sincerely good, but people only really judge the game to be some silly game and never bother checking it out beyond one hour... There's just so much heart and spirit to this game, and I love the way how it's just so stuffed with content and how it doesn't just take the lazy route where it would have been so easy to. There's a ton of unique sprites for all the townsfolk, there's interesting minigames, there's even a dungeon with a whole separate artstyle and retro music! The game could have omitted most of these features and it'd still be a complete game, but then it'd not be the Mr. Triangle's Adventure I grew to love! I would honestly recommend this game to anyone who is into RPGs like Final Fantasy or just anyone looking for a fun game in general, it's definitely an accessible game and I really hope people will see it for that rather than judge it for daring to be goofy!

The game can be found here for PC http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?p=110453 and here for Mobile http://redtrianglegames.com/trianglerpg.html