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Welcome to Tetrahedron! This hold aims to be reasonably approachable (in that there are many ways to convert resources of one type to another, so it is not very hard to complete the hold), while having layers of optional content to test stronger players. The hold's main gimmicks are the structure of levels that gradually increase in size, imitating a pyramid shape; and a magic system that appears from the Fourth Level onwards.

Hot tiles do 100 HP constant damage. Thanks to Chaco for custom equipment graphics, and Kieran Millar for conversions of TSS graphics.

navithmastero
Level: Smitemaster

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Registered: 01-03-2012
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This is a fun hold with an interesting gimmick. For inexperienced RPGers there is the offer of a small hold with masses of wiggle-room to get the earliest ending. The meat of the hold, however, is in the optional content which not only contains the bulk of the rooms, but also the majority of the scorepoints.

The conversion ability is an interesting one - it means that nearly every item (gems, potions, keys and even accessories) gives the player an optimisation choice as you can choose to convert 'cheaper' items into more expensive ones at the cost of REP. This is an interesting mechanic which provides a fairly unique optimisation feel, but does add additional complexity as there is just more to think about. I also find that keys operate in quite a different capacity in this hold compared to, for example, Tendry's Tale.

I think this is a fun challenge for more seasoned RPG players. The easy ending is nice enough but is very simple to achieve and doesn't require the use of the conversion mechanic to anywhere near the extent that the later parts (particular 7th level) require. The optional content is where things really get interesting, but also get much tougher. It's a fun RPG hold and worth playing!

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[Last edited by navithmastero at 07-08-2025 06:32 PM]

Red-XIII
Level: Smitemaster

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Registered: 08-05-2012
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Among all of the published RPG holds, Tetrahedron is one of the best and certainly one of the most peculiar hold. There are several reasons, most of them different from one another, which contribute to this hold being very nice:

1) If you are not interested in getting all the score/complete everything, you can conquer the hold without ever playing the second half of the hold, which is a lot harder than the first half, but still appreciate the main gimmick of the hold, which is the magic system.

2) The first two levels are short, easy, but still really interesting to optimize. Not only that, I let two new players try Drod RPG for the very first time using the first three levels of Tetrahedron. They managed to grasp the main features of Drod RPG because the hold was not too hard and there are so many choices you have.

3) I liked a lot that there are both a) non-back trackable levels (from 1 to 5) and b) two back trackable levels (6 and 7), so that I can focus on specific goals without having to leave stats. Despite the first levels are quite small, the number of choices is so high that it is really nice to think about what is best to do. Also, you are allowed to make “wrong choices”, the hold does not punish you if you do not follow the perfect route, nor it requires a lot of health management. Still, the hold rewards you if you make early sacrifices and make good choices.

4) The magic system (i.e. converting stats using REP) opens the Pandora box, because you get so many things you can do. I literally spent hours going back and forth to understand what the best use of my REP was, which is the heart of Drod RPG to me. The choices should be so balanced that it should be impossible to predict the best one, and this hold has so many of these instances.

5) The final boss (and the ATK route score) are really something; the first time I saw them I thought, “these are impossible”. And yet, the magic system allows you to do pretty much everything.

6) The gameplay is really friendly, there’s no need to switch weapons a lot and there are nice shortcuts in the last levels.

Among the negative things, I think that the magic system is so nice and powerful that the choice (that you will find more than once) between following a grackle path or a REP path is not really a choice. Also, the last level has a huge spike in difficulty, so playing it for the first time was a bit frustrating because I had no idea that was going to happen (fighting some pretty tough monsters). However, after replaying it two more times, it started to get more fun.
Lastly…

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There's just this one, just this rock.
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