Unfortunately, they fumbled the actual "Octopath" part pretty bad. Sure, you've got the eight separate story arcs as promised. But none of them really have anything to do with each other. None of the main characters have any meaningful interactions save for a few short skits between certain story beats, and the entirety of the game is written so that it can still function while being completely agnostic to whoever's in your party. Which is, as you can imagine, quite disappointing in a genre that has historically prided itself in its character-driven narratives.

It's still an incredibly polished little game that looks great, sounds great, AND plays great. The Break & Boost battle system is simple at its core but thoroughly addicting, and the ability to grant your party members a secondary Job opens up a whole slew of possibilities that allow you to do some incredibly silly shit. And the MUSIC. GODS. Yasunori Nishiki was in there composing those tracks like his fucking LIFE depended on it.

It's just. Y'know. Kind of a bummer that the one thing they couldn't pull off was the primary selling point of the game. Written there in the title and all.