I wanted to like this game so bad, at times I really did like it, but it falls so flat where story is concerned.
Its combat and progression is deeply engaging, its world is gorgeous and well designed, its skill system and party make up is so well balanced. The game is incredible to play when you’re running through dungeons or fighting bosses. The issue is that a game like this needs a story that propels you through the gameplay, a context you care about and that keeps you going, but it just doesn’t. There is no main plot or main story, it’s just 8 separate and disconnected character stories that are of no real interest or importance to anything outside of those very specific events for the stories to take place. I couldn’t engage with any of them beyond Agnea. The messages felt flawed and cack-handed; a man who wants to create a land of equality by coming a monarch? A man who wants to end poverty through capitalism? A woman who wants to kill her abusive parental figures and escape from a life of pain, only to go back on that for no logical reason? This game’s story is just simply broken, it’s a slog, it has no real point of investment and it’s a huge shame.
Where the Final Fantasy games these are obviously directly spiritual successors to used their enthralling plot as a means to make you care about everything you do, the stories here feel like a total after thought, just something that vaguely exists to give you an excuse to play it. But it’s not enough and the game suffers for it.
I’ve been trying to play this one and off for almost a year and the gameplay is so damn fun, the music and atmosphere are tremendous but the crux of the game, its story and characters, are empty, disconnected and messy as all hell. I want to try the first game to see if it has the same issues and I hope they make a third to fix some of these flaws and improve on a game premise that has such shining potential to be incredible.
Its combat and progression is deeply engaging, its world is gorgeous and well designed, its skill system and party make up is so well balanced. The game is incredible to play when you’re running through dungeons or fighting bosses. The issue is that a game like this needs a story that propels you through the gameplay, a context you care about and that keeps you going, but it just doesn’t. There is no main plot or main story, it’s just 8 separate and disconnected character stories that are of no real interest or importance to anything outside of those very specific events for the stories to take place. I couldn’t engage with any of them beyond Agnea. The messages felt flawed and cack-handed; a man who wants to create a land of equality by coming a monarch? A man who wants to end poverty through capitalism? A woman who wants to kill her abusive parental figures and escape from a life of pain, only to go back on that for no logical reason? This game’s story is just simply broken, it’s a slog, it has no real point of investment and it’s a huge shame.
Where the Final Fantasy games these are obviously directly spiritual successors to used their enthralling plot as a means to make you care about everything you do, the stories here feel like a total after thought, just something that vaguely exists to give you an excuse to play it. But it’s not enough and the game suffers for it.
I’ve been trying to play this one and off for almost a year and the gameplay is so damn fun, the music and atmosphere are tremendous but the crux of the game, its story and characters, are empty, disconnected and messy as all hell. I want to try the first game to see if it has the same issues and I hope they make a third to fix some of these flaws and improve on a game premise that has such shining potential to be incredible.
octopath traveler ii feels like a copy of its predecessor but in all the right ways. the battle system is just as good, perhaps even better with the addition of latent powers. the score is a massive bonus to the gameplay (although i was an IDIOT for not saving the epilogue on a different save file while they warned me and now i'm stuck in the shadowlands with a boss I've given up on beating). the bonus chapters you get where two characters interact give off a very 'found family' vibe which i love.
the only downside i see to this game is that the character stories feel a bit lacking. they don't have as interesting goals as in octopath traveler i.
in the end, it's just as good as the first one.
the only downside i see to this game is that the character stories feel a bit lacking. they don't have as interesting goals as in octopath traveler i.
in the end, it's just as good as the first one.