Couch Soup logo

A Pretty Good Tactics RPG Dropped this Month and it Will Likely Go Ignored

by: 
hello world!
Ben Hazell
| August 26, 2024
hello world!

There’s a game out right now called Sword of Convallaria (SoC). It’s a mobile RPG tactics Gatcha game that is also on Steam. People who like tactics games have games like Fire Emblem, Triangle Strategy, and Final Fantasy Tactics for retro fans. And everyone who likes Gatcha games is grinding away on Genshin Impact, or for some other bizarre reason, you’re still playing Fate: Grand Order (You guys know you’re suffering from Stockholm syndrome, right?) So I was thinking that this game would just be forgotten, right?

While on the surface, you may be looking at a cash grab, the reality is that this game houses an in-depth, multi-ending story with numerous branching paths, chances to change the story and a separate roster of characters from your main collection. Characters are given incredibly hefty characterization, and it all stems from the idea that your little mercenary group can now affect the world that may have been fated to perish in an all-encompassing conflict. It reminds me an awful lot of Radiant Historia, one of my all-time favorite time-travel-based RPG games from the Nintendo 3DS.

The beginning of a long branching path of story progression.

My experience with this game has been strange. On the one hand, you have the introduction where you die unexpectedly, characters with defined models are killed, and your character, recently freed from imprisonment, meets an undue end. From here, you are given a second chance by a deity that takes the form of a cat. Splitting the story into two halves.

The first half is your standard daily progression system, where you draw characters from a pool with decreased rates to get powerful characters. You take on increasingly difficult tactical challenges, free to use whatever resources you gain. This is all to protect the afterlife from calamities that keep on causing trouble and mayhem. Fighting the celestial cancerous beings and making your way through the story. This is, unfortunately, the surface level of this game, where it takes the form of an admittedly decent tactical fare filled to the brim with microtransactions and gating that encourage you to spend money. But that all changes when we get to the second half.

A typical battle screen in the game.

The second half, named spiral destinies, is a fully playable single-player experience with the cast of SoC. Upon being given the opportunity to return to the point of your demise, your characters are returned to their strength within the boundaries of the story. And the solution to saving your character’s lives becomes waiting out the riot and the majority of the carnage and fleeing the city much later than usual. A very small change that results in your fights being much less lethal. From here, you join these mercenaries and are given units in a far more story-based pattern. The decisions you make become far less luck-based and far more dependent on your own decisions.

Your characters will be subject to training and experience based on in-game mechanics, not gathering resources to power up your previously accessible roster of characters. Everything in this mode is gained through gameplay exclusively.

Everything runs on resources, training and preparation in this mode only.

So we hit a rather strange situation. Your afterlife is a mobile game cash grab, and your Earthly life is fun, engaging and limited only by your own choices, cultivating your units and hiring choices, fighting against major characters and ultimately changing the fate of the world. All the while wondering if the events of the heavenly area might also require your attention every so often.

The single-player option isn’t entirely playable from start to finish, though, with replays and different choices being locked behind weekly keys to either replay or play additional chapters. However, upon playing for four hours, I only used one key and played about 13 weeks of gameplay on single-player. It shows no signs of forcing me to use additional keys anytime soon, making me think that excessive playing of the story may be gated. I would most likely say this game is a really decent play, even if you avoid the gatcha elements. I would liken it to something like Triangle Strategy in terms of quality, in my personal opinion. It genuinely feels like they stuffed a Nintendo Switch-quality game into this 2.5D tactics game as “side content”. And personally, I think it’s criminal for this to go ignored.

Okay, that’s all for now. If you try the game out, let me know what you think below! That’s Sword of Convallaria: For this world of peace!

Hey fellow nerds! Before you dive back into that gaming session or start your next binge-watch, here’s the deal with Couch Soup: we’re a completely independent pop culture site run by genuine fans who get just as hyped as you do about the latest games, comics, movies, and TV shows. No corporate overlords, no AI-generated content, just real people who know their Metroid from their Mass Effect.

Unlike the big corporate sites, we don’t chase clicks or stir up drama. Sure, we might have some hot takes (looking at you, controversial season finale), but they come from a place of genuine passion and respect for the creators and fandoms we cover.

Want to support what we do and join what we think is the coolest community of pop culture enthusiasts on the internet? Check out our supporter tiers – each packed with perks that’ll level up your fandom experience. Every contribution helps keep us independent and lets us keep nerding out with you!

Thanks for being part of our quest – now, back to our regularly scheduled geekery!
Drew Lewis,
Editor-in-chief
Membership
Monthly
Yearly
Members Only Newsletter
5% Couch Soup Store Discount
Ability to Comment on Articles
Unlocked
Access to Couchsoup Community
Circle Forum
SIGN UP
Everything in free +
No Ads on the Site! Woohoo!
5% Couch Soup Store Discount
Monthly AMA chat with CouchSoup team members
Early access (up to 72hrs) to new
episodes
Access to exclusive members only
content (video & articles)
JOIN
Everything in free +
No Ads on the Site! Woohoo!
5% Couch Soup Store Discount
Monthly AMA chat with CouchSoup team members
Early access (up to 72hrs) to new
episodes
Access to exclusive members only
content (video & articles)
JOIN
Everything in free +
No Ads on the Site! Woohoo!
5% Couch Soup Store Discount
Monthly AMA chat with CouchSoup team members
Early access (up to 72hrs) to new
episodes
Access to exclusive members only
content (video & articles)
JOIN
Everything in free +
No Ads on the Site! Woohoo!
5% Couch Soup Store Discount
Monthly AMA chat with CouchSoup team members
Early access (up to 72hrs) to new
episodes
Access to exclusive members only
content (video & articles)
JOIN
Annual Membership
Everything in free +
No Ads on the Site! Woohoo!
5% Couch Soup Store Discount
Monthly AMA chat with CouchSoup team members
Early access (up to 72hrs) to new
episodes
Access to exclusive members only
content (video & articles)
JOIN
Annual Membership
Annual Membership
No Ads on the Site! Woohoo!
5% Couch Soup Store Discount
Monthly AMA chat with CouchSoup team members
Early access (up to 72hrs) to new
episodes
Access to exclusive members only
content (video & articles)
JOIN
Annual Membership
Everything in free +
No Ads on the Site! Woohoo!
5% Couch Soup Store Discount
Monthly AMA chat with CouchSoup team members
Early access (up to 72hrs) to new
episodes
Access to exclusive members only
content (video & articles)
JOIN
Annual Membership
Everything in free +
No Ads on the Site! Woohoo!
5% Couch Soup Store Discount
Monthly AMA chat with CouchSoup team members
Early access (up to 72hrs) to new
episodes
Access to exclusive members only
content (video & articles)
JOIN

About the Author

  • Ben Hazell

    Ben is a writer and video game enthusiast from somewhere mysterious in the North East of England. He spends a lot of his time either jamming out to music or playing video games with stories which take his fancy, or if they include fun and immersive multiplayer. As Magnasword2 on YouTube and Twitch, he's made gameplay videos and streams for the past seven years. (Oh no has it been that long already...)

Share This

0 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Comments are for members only. Sign up here to become a member for free.

False

Get our Newsletter!

Featured

Venom: The Last Dance Review – A Satisfying End to The Trilogy?

Venom: The Last Dance is here, but is it a fitting conclusion to the Venom trilogy? Join Tom as he gives his thoughts on Venom’s final chapter.
by Thomas RichardsOctober 28, 2024
1 2 3 848

Read more

Friendship Enders – Mario Kart

Hey there everyone and welcome to the inaugural Friendship Enders, a series where we’ll go back into the halls of video game history and dust-off games and memories from days past playing with our mates. Yes, I know it’s only been about half a year since we’ve been able to get together with our mates […]
by Rohan ElliottNovember 16, 2020 

5 Spider-Man Games To Play While Waiting For Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Who else is excited for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 game releasing later this year? Author Jake Brown has thrown together some of his favorite Spidey games to make the wait a tad bit easier.
1 2 3 151
© 2024 CouchSoup, LLC. All Rights Reserved
Terms of Service | Privacy
© 2024 CouchSoup, LLC. All Rights Reserved
Manage Cookie Settings chevron-down