Octopath Traveler was a game that took me by surprise with how much I enjoyed it. Initially, I wasn't interested in the game due to it resembling Bravely Default and because I got filtered by both Bravely Default & Octopath Traveler's demos when those were released. In retrospect, I went into them hoping for and expecting them to be games that I could play and keep my brain turned off. Before & during my playthrough of the first Octopath Traveler I realized I was a total idiot. When I finally gave the game a proper chance, I found the strategy required in taking down bosses and enemies to be one of the best parts of the game. Octopath Traveler II keeps everything good about the first game and improves upon its shortcomings to deliver a fantastic RPG that is sure to become a classic in due time.

The gameplay is mostly the same with all of the primary jobs from the first game coming back. Even the new secondary jobs share some similarities to the ones in the previous game. However, they added one new mechanic and it is one that can become a game-changer in tough situations, Latent Powers. Each traveler has a unique one with different benefits. A few examples would be, Partitio's latent power that allows him to have max BP, Agnea's which allows her single attack moves to attack all enemies, or Hikari's & Ochette's which give them access to special attacks. I can't count the number of times this mechanic saved me from what would otherwise have been a game over had it not been added. There are also EX skills that grant you access to more powerful abilities but I didn't use them as much as I probably could have. They may not have been vital additions to the game, but they are welcome ones that make the game a little bit easier and each character more unique.

The biggest issues with the first game were the story and the 8 travelers you play as barely interact with each other. While there were a couple of travelers from the first game whose stories I ended up enjoying more, in most cases the stories were more interesting and an improvement over the first one. The pacing for each story was better too. Some chapters are split into two parts that give the game a little more breathing room to flesh out the story a little more compared to everyone in the first game where they only had 4 chapters. They fixed my biggest gripe with the first game's story and that was the lack of connection between each traveler's quest. The final chapter unites all of the characters together in order to save the world and also adds some lore that pieces some events in their respective stories together.

The travelers interact with each other a lot more and in a handful of others ways than they did in the first game. There is the banter dialogue which is a lot easier to find than it was in the first game (I didn't even know it existed in Octopath 1 till the end of the game), the crossed paths chapters that involve two of the travelers going on an adventure together, and the final chapter that unites them all. Seeing all your party members interact with each other might seem like a small, unimportant oversight, but it comes a long way in enhancing the experience.

While the first Octopath Traveler may have a special place in my heart, Octopath Traveler II is a game that surpasses it in pretty much every way. If this game is an indication of what is in store for the future of the Octopath Traveler franchise, then its a series that has a bright future ahead of it.

Prior to being release, I was very intrigued by the original Octopath Traveller. The new HD-2D graphics style looked beautiful and the idea of a modern-day SNES-era turn-based RPG sounded incredible. I planned on buying it shortly after release, but after hearing that most players were pretty disappointed by the game's story, mostly because the characters' storylines didn't really tie together in a satisfying way, I bumped it down significantly on my list of games to eventually check out.

Then, in early 2023, the game's sequel, Octopath Traveller 2, was released. Word on the internet was that the sequel was an improvement in pretty much every way, having a somewhat tweaked/improved combat system, slightly better visuals (but still used the HD-2D style), the characters' storylines tied together better, and best of all it required no prior knowledge of the first game. I decided I had to check it out.

Octopath Traveller 2 tells the story of eight individuals, each with their own personality, back story, motivations, and character class. When starting the game, you are presented with bios of each character, and whichever one you select will be locked in your party until you finish their storyline (I was a bit rash when making this selection, thinking it would be inconsequential once more characters joined the party, but I was wrong). After you finish your selected character's first chapter you are let loose in the game's world where are free to track down the remaining 7 party members however you see fit.

Each party member's story is broken up into about five chapters. Each chapter has a recommended experience level, and this level increases by a decent amount for each subsequent chapter (you can attempt a chapter under levelled, but I wouldn't recommend it). This was likely done to prevent players from burning through one character's storyline, forcing them to split their time up amongst the stories of other members of the group. I didn't mind this, for the most part, but it was a bit disappointing at times to not be able to continue a character's story until I grinded for experience or levelled up by playing through another group member's story.

All of the character's storylines were well-written, pretty enjoyable, and did a good job of outlining each of the characters' motivations. I didn't care much for the dancer's storyline, but otherwise these were well done. The characters' stories were mostly independent, but they did somewhat tie together towards the end of the game, which gave the group a mutual motivation of sorts. This link was nothing terribly shocking or groundbreaking, but it was still nice to see some sort of connection there.

My favorite aspect of Octopath Traveller 2 was its surprisingly complex turn-based combat. It was easy enough to understand but still required enough strategic thinking to keep things entertaining from the start of the game through to its conclusion. To explain it as simply as I can, in addition to their health points, enemies have shield points that can only be reduced by being attacked by one of their weaknesses. These weaknesses can be determined either through trial and error (trying random weapon/spell attacks) or by using the scholar's "Learn" spell. Each time the enemy is hit by something it is weak to its shield points will decrease, and once these hit zero the enemy will "break", preventing them from attacking for a short time and opening them up to increased damage from your attacks. Enemies still take damage when they have shield points, but the amount of damage they take is significantly less, so it is best to break an enemy before releasing your most powerful attacks.

On top of the shield point system is the BP system. Party members earn one BP per turn (unless they are using BP in that turn), to a maximum of 6 BP. The player can then stack this BP, up to a maximum of 4 in one turn, to unleash numerous regular weapon attacks (good for lowering shield points) or to unleash a charged-up version of a skill/ability (good for causing massive damage to a broken enemy).

The combination of the "break" system and the BP system made for highly entertaining battles, especially when it came to the bosses. The boss battles were a highlight of the game, always being challenging and always requiring good planning and tactical thinking. Bosses kept me on my toes by changing up their tactics mid-battle (they can change their weapon/elemental weaknesses, gain additional shield points, etc.) or by unleashing powerful charged attacks that were devastating if I wasn't prepared for them. Bosses have massive health pools, hit incredibly hard, and often took quite a while to defeat (especially if at or under the recommended level for the area), but it was always fun coming up with a strategy and whittling their health down to zero.

Though I really enjoyed the combat, there are two things I feel some gamers might not like. First, the random encounter rate is quite high. I wasn't bother too much by it, but I'm sure it could be aggravating to some gamers, especially since all encounters are random encounters. You can unlock a skill that, when equipped, reduces the frequency of these encounters, but I feel players won't want to miss out on too many battles as they'll require the XP in order to continue meet the level requirements of unfinished story chapters.

Secondly, every battle in this game, requires the use of tactics. Whether you're fighting a boss or just looking to grind for XP, you will need to put a decent amount of strategy into each battle (unless you are seriously over-levelled, but then you should probably fight more powerful enemies for an increased amount of XP). You can't simply steamroll through lower levelled enemies to gain XP, which makes grinding a bit more of a chore. I thoroughly enjoyed the complexity of the battle system, but there were times that I wished I could put in less effort to get my characters up to the recommended level for their upcoming story chapters.

In addition to the game's combat, there is a fairly sizable world to explore. None of the locations were overly unique or surprising, but there was enough variety to keep things interesting. Each area was enjoyable to explore, and they were all chock-full of treasure chests and hidden items to find. You mostly explore the world by foot, but eventually you gain access to a boat, which opens up the exploration a bit more (though you are quite limited by where you can board it/unload from it, which made using it a bit disappointing). Every town was stocked with NPCs, which could be interacted with in a few different ways. Depending on your team composition, you can coerce info out of the NPCs, steal their items, learn new skills from them, or get them to follow you around. Some NPCs also offer up side quests, but I found the instructions for these to be incredibly vague. I did a few of these but would highly recommend consulting a guide if you plan on tackling these.

This was my first time playing a game with the HD-2D graphical style, and I was quite impressed, though less so than I had anticipated. The world looked very nice and the amount of detail present in each locale was commendable. The character, enemy, and boss designs were well done and interesting, and the graphics instilled a good amount of charm into the experience. I played through the game entirely in handheld mode and felt that the performance was generally quite good. The framerate did drop when using fully charged BP attacks, and things got exceptionally choppy during the final boss fight, but otherwise the game's performance was more than adequate.

I'm sad to say it, but I can't really comment too heavily on Octopath Traveller 2's sound design. I played through most of the game while having a TV show or movie on in the background, so I missed out on a lot of this game's audio components. When I did have the sound on, I was generally impressed by the voice acting and the soundtrack, and I have since listened to a portion of the soundtrack on Spotify and really enjoyed it. If you have the option to play the game with headphones I do recommend it, but if not, the game is still fully enjoyable with the sound turned off.

Now, while I thoroughly enjoyed Octopath Traveller 2, there are a few things that didn't sit well with me, namely the game's length and the game's final boss battle.

Firstly, this game was way longer than I anticipated it would be. Howlongtobeat has it listed as 60 hours to finish the main story and 93 hours to fully complete it, but it took me over 110 hours and I know I was far from finishing everything. Mind you, I know my time would have had a good number of hours of idle time built in due to playing it with the TV on in the background, but I can't imagine that would equate to too elevated of a playtime. Also, I know I really shouldn't complain about the game having lots of content, and I didn't dock the game's score for this, but as I got closer to the game's conclusion, I just really wanted it to end.

That leads me to my main negative, the game's final boss. This boss fight had an immense difficulty spike that came completely unexpected and was really unappreciated. Leading up to this battle I wouldn't have considered myself a pro at the game's content, but I felt I had solid strategies and was more than capable of defeating bosses on my first attempt. My team members were between level 70 and 75, and I figured things were going to be pretty straightforward, but the boss completely and utterly wiped the floor with me, and I stood no chance of defeating it without a more advanced strategy. I gave the battle a few attempts, but quickly realized I did not stand a chance. I eventually resorted to following a YouTube guide to walk me through a strategy, which was utterly disappointing after getting through the rest of the game by myself. Prior to this battle I felt the game deserved a 4.5 or 5 star rating, but the unfair difficulty spike really lowered my overall feelings on the game as a whole.

Though it wasn't a perfect experience, I had a great time playing through Octopath Traveller 2. I thoroughly enjoyed the game's cast, their individual storylines, and the overall narrative. The HD-2D graphics were lovely, performance was pretty solid (or solid enough that it didn't cause any frustration), and the soundtrack was top notch (though I didn't experience as much of it as I should have). The world was fun to explore and there were loads of treasures to find and secrets to unlock. The game's biggest strength was its turn-based combat system which required a fair amount of strategy and very well could be the best system I have experienced in the genre. Sadly, the unfair difficulty spike at the game's finale greatly detracted from my overall enjoyment of an otherwise great game. Despite that disappointment, I still highly recommend Octopath Traveller 2 for any fan of the genre.

So like I know the original Octopath isn’t particularly beloved among the big RPGheads on Backloggd and while I do kind of get it due to it having some pretty significant flaws, I still liked it a lot. I mean you can read it, it’s not like I went too deep into it but my opinion was pretty positive! The weird way the travel banters were handled kinda messed with the characters feeling connected at all and while I do think the way everything was connected was pretty neat it felt kinda underbaked and the way you figure it out is kind of bullshit. It was a pretty good foundation to me, though; I enjoyed the gameplay and the individual characters and their stories a whole lot, the game looked great, and the OST fucked. I wasn’t sure if it would ever get a sequel, but I’d kind of hoped for one.

Then they announced a sequel with a cool new setting featuring like, desert Chinajapan and a cowboy and some smarmy-looking white haired pretty boy cleric and a furry and I was SO stoked. Octopath II doing the Final Fantasy thing with a different setting every game is extremely good to me, and it basically polished everything I enjoyed about the first game while addressing the problems I did have with it and adding some fun new stuff! I wouldn’t say it’s a perfect improvement, mind; the way that the different storylines are handled could theoretically still mess with the pacing a bit, and I did want a little more than just four Crossed Paths storylines.

However, man, just having all the travel banters accessible in the journal after you finish a chapter instead of just hoping you have the right party composition to activate the banters fucks, and I think it was pretty cool how a lot of the characters had split chapters that you could approach in any order (even if the recommended levels made some orders pretty, uh, obvious). I also really enjoyed all the storylines! There was a nice balance of fun, more lighthearted storylines and The Horrors. And, uh, barely anything in between. Like, I laughed a lot, I cried a lot, I was impressed by just how many characters were just, like, super gay? Like, damn. You got wholesome yuri. You got toxic yuri. You got useless lesbians. You got tragic yuri. You got old man yaoi. You’ve got a BL scenario where a straightlaced young knight must choose between his childhood friend and the obnoxious white haired pretty boy who keeps teasing him. You’ve got the most deranged heterosexuals on the planet. It’s great.

Anyway while I loved the first game’s cast, this game’s cast is, like, so excellent, and the party chats are real treasures. The more serious-seeming characters like Castti and Osvald have some of the funniest shit in the game, and I really love the friendships that develop like the one between master thief Throne and her gay best friend Church Detective Temenos. (btw starting with temenos was great, but every character gets to shine and i’m sure some alternate starter character decisions would have produced some truly wild scenarios, particularly once you’ve completed every character’s storyline and encountered The Thing That Comes After…) It’s like, the difference between sensibly enjoying the first game and wanting to grab the second game with my teeth and shake it around like an excited dog with their very favorite toy.

Anyway while I… think I might still prefer some specific tracks for specific scenarios in the first game, the music still rules, and the boss sprites are somehow even better than in the first game? They all have at least one unique animation to go along with a special attack, which makes them feel even more special. But god damn some of them are wild. Some of the things that happen are wild. I just kind of stared in horror through one of the most fucked up cutscenes in the game and the battle starts and I see this guy posed like a Renaissance statue with his big fat titties out for all to see and I just start laughing about how I want to cover Ochette’s innocent eyes (she’s like 20 so she’s probably had sex ed from her lion dad but she wasn’t really paying attention because she was busy thinking about lunch).

But what is an RPG without the battle system? God it feels good, though. Like I love turn-based RPGs but I have rarely found a gameplay element in a menu-based RPG that has the feel of breaking enemies in the Octopath games. Like the sound effect, the vibration from the controller, the slowdown… it just feels REAL fuckin good, dude. It’s pure dopamine. I liked that the first game ensured every character felt unique to a certain extent because they had one “base” class that they would always have access to and then you’d assign them a secondary class on top of that, and Octopath II keeps that system. However, it further gives every character their own Latent Power which gives them extra unique utility and sort of functions as a limit break, and I truly love that. It’s great.

The new secret classes are also pretty fun, with the added quirk that two of them require doing sidequests to unlock all their skills rather than requiring job points. I ended up using a guide to figure those out, which I haven’t really been big on doing but the game is chunky enough that I don’t really consider it to be cheating for me… also the improvements to the base classes! The hunter character went from having a talent that honestly kind of sucked to one that is honestly kind of OP? Ochette can use monsters as often as she wants, gets several permanent bonus monsters that have Big Limit Break Summon potential, and whenever you want to add a better monster to your roster you turn the old one into an item? It’s great!

Speaking of said items, the day/night system and the impact it has on path actions is pretty neat. It feels like they’ve kind of divided each action into four categories: percentage based, combat based, level based, and resource based. So, for example, to get items from NPCs, you have a percentage based chance of stealing them with Throne, a level based means of… I guess busking for them with Agnea, a resource-based means of buying them with Partitio, and a combat-based means of mugging them with Osvald. It’s neat! Some options feel obviously better than others, but I don’t know, I kind of liked them for the roleplay opportunities. It was fun to try and figure out a NPC’s moral character with Castti or Hikari’s inquiry-related skills so I could determine whether I wanted to pay them money for their items or if I just wanted to rob them blind. Sometimes you just want to play the moral arbiter of things, you know?


Anyway in conclusion this game rules, it was released at an unfortunate time so I hope it sold okay, I want Octopath III. I love what the Octopath team has been cooking and I hope they get to do even more in the years to come.

The reveal of Octopath Traveler II was both surprising and troublesome for me at the same time. Admittedly, I had gotten the first Octopath Traveler game soon after purchasing my first Nintendo Switch. And while I enjoyed the game, I never did beat it. The lack of interconnecting storylines, the backtracking required, the obtuse side quests, and necessary grinding left me unhappy with a game I desperately wanted to love. And while I may have several gripes with the first game that I won’t get into here, I am happy to say that Octopath Traveler II corrected every single one of my complaints and become an incredible experience that I won’t soon forget.

I want to start this review by saying that I am in love with the 2D-HD art style present in the Octopath Traveler series and pioneered by Team Asano at Square Enix. The 2D-HD art seamlessly merges the nostalgia of 2D pixel art with the modern aesthetically pleasing backgrounds and flair of modern 3D graphics and, for me personally, it cannot be topped.

Like the first game, Octopath Traveler II tasks the player with choosing their starting character from, much like the name of the game suggests, eight different characters. There is Castti the Apothecary, Agnea the Dancer, Throné the Thief, Partitio the Merchant, Ochette the Hunter, Hikari the Warrior, Temenos the Cleric, and Osvald the Scholar. While none of these choices available are necessarily bad or make the game more difficult, since you’ll be getting all of these party members eventually, it is important to know that who you choose must remain in your party for the entire game.

I decided to start my personal journey with Osvald the Scholar. Imprisoned for murders he didn’t commit, Osvald’s story is one of betrayal and revenge. He must use his intellect and knowledge of magic to track down the man who set him up, betrayed his trust, and murdered his wife and daughter. As he draws ever closer to getting his revenge and finding the truth, however, the answers he uncovers along the way may be more than he can bear.

While the synopsis of Osvald’s tale hopefully peaked your interest, each and every one of the possible eight protagonists have an interesting story to tell. Whether it is a fight for freedom and acceptance, a journey to find ones place in the world, a mystery to uncover a forgotten past, or overcoming unsurmountable odds to save your homeland from a tyrannical ruler, Octopath Traveler II has something for everyone and will keep the player engaged from start to finish.

The turn-based combat in the game is almost unchanged from the first entry in the series, which is fine since there was nothing wrong with it. Although, there are speed up options in this game to alleviate some of the tedium of fighting lower leveled enemies or when you simply want to blow through an encounter.

Players familiar with JRPGs will also understand the Job System prevalent in this game. They’re of course magic users, defensive walls, glass canons and the like, but the system here shines best when it comes to Secondary Jobs and Secret Jobs. Secondary Jobs, of course, allow a character to have more than one job. This enables a Scholar to also be an Apothecary, have the ability to wield staffs and axes, have access to all 3 elemental magic attacks, and the ability heal the entire party. This makes for immense customization and increases the prospect of replayability. Within the game there are also 4 Secret Jobs to discover - Inventor, Armsmaster, Arcanist, and Conjurer. While I want detail each of these, suffice it to say that Inventor and Armsmaster are likely the best in the game.

Finally, I want to discuss the music of this game. Octopath Traveler II likely has my favorite soundtrack of any video game (maybe tied with Megaman X). It captures every necessary emotion at just the right moment and is able to deliver on the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. There is no track in the entire game that doesn’t pull its weight and no track can conjurer up adventure like the Octopath Traveler II Main Theme. Yasunori Nishiki is an astounding artist and his work here is masterful.

Overall, Octopath Traveler II is an incredible game. While JRPGs aren’t for everyone, the stories contained within this game are. I believe if you embark on this adventure you will find yourself enthralled in the journey and long for the next installment in this beautiful franchise.

I'm still not really sure what possessed me to go all-in on Octopath Traveler II. Team Asano's 2018 outing felt like a miss to me; among a slew of complaints about OT1's mechanics feeling half-baked and Team Asano's now-signature HD2D look not quite finding its footing, its very loosely connected plot and minimal character interactivity felt like a waste of a wonderful setting and good characters and left me lukewarm on the possibility of more Octopath. As it'd turn out, it's always darkest...

Flash forward a bit: Team Asano's much-praised LIVE A LIVE remake (I've had some choice words to say about it here on backloggd) went WAY over on me while raising questions. "If this existed before, why did Octopath feel like a step back?" The blueprint was right there! LAL didn't even play around with the pretense of needing the characters to all be in the same region -- without spoiling much, characters' connectivity felt thematic and driven by a late-game plot event -- and the way things came together legitimately felt like a surprise. My faith restored, even if only in part, I figured the team could learn from both longstanding criticisms of OT while looking toward a game like LIVE A LIVE to draw some inspiration. With that in mind, I decided to give Octopath Traveler II a tentative go.

I came out of it feeling vindicated for taking a leap; Octopath Traveler II is everything its predecessor couldn't be. Although it doesn't change much of its series core DNA -- you're still playing through 8 different narratives, combat is largely untouched save for a couple new bells and whistles, the music still absolutely rocks -- II massively improves on many of the weak points presented by the original. Characters' stories now sprinkle some breadcrumbs hinting at an overarching narrative, the cast now acknowledges each other more frequently (even in battle!), and perhaps most importantly, a few joint chapters and skits throughout the game give some of the main cast an opportunity to bond and lean on each other's strengths to solve problems and uncover truths of their world in a way that doesn't feel cobbled together and inelegant. They really did it.

Of course, I do have my squabbles. Exploration feels very dioramic; although the world is "open", for lack of a better term, nearly every field and dungeon lays its cards out on the table with a minimap/radar highlighting points of interest for players to simply sprint over to without a second thought. It does work for some highly "Point-A-to-Point-B" gaming -- I lovingly referred to it more than once as a "blue collar RPG" -- but it's the sort of inorganic lean that really does turn the moments between into box-ticking with some turn-based combat sprinkled in. Personal actions are very similar in that regard, making every town a checklist of NPCs to harass for info, hidden treasures, skills, and so forth. The world of Solistia is teeming with a ton of essentially non-essential lore revealed by using these actions, though; every town feels like Value Town. This focus on details permeates through other portions of the game, too, with some incredibly well-planned moments even revolving around integrating character abilities directly into plot progression.

Character stories are largely better in II (Agnea's and Partitio's were personal favorites), though it was a bit strange that the scenario team still hasn't quite nailed how to put the cast in situations that at least consider the presence of party members, be it through a couple extra lines of optional dialogue or even a slight deviation in how a chapter plays out. Still, it's a monumental step above OT, even moreso emphasized by a jaw-dropping final chapter that felt like it was crafted specifically to address everything I thought the first game missed out on.

Octopath II sticks its landing cleaner than I thought it would. Really, I think the only place it DOESN'T far outstrip its predecessor is its music...but even that isn't because of a dip in quality, I just thought OT1's soundtrack was that good. By the time credits rolled, I had been moved and entertained in ways that OT hadn't compelled me to be, making this one a huge bright spot in my recent gaming landscape and a worthy GOTY candidate. Go into this one with confidence if you love and appreciate modern craftsmanship and classic RPGs.

Octopath Traveler II not only surpasses the original game, but improves so much that it makes the first game seem like a proof of concept. The combat was definitely the best part of the original game and that's the thing that is arguably changed the least, but that's not bad at all! The shield break system remains one of the most addicting and fun system in any turn based RPG, on the same level as Shin Megami Tensei's press turn. It's even better than the original with fixed balancing and the addition of character's talent gauges that give each character a unique meter move, some I used far more than others but they were all very interesting.

The major improvement on the original is the stories and characters, the original had good stories but pretty generic fantasy tropes. The stories are much improved now with different chapter structures, less obvious stories, and a better cast of characters than the original. There's also a lot more traveler interactions than in the original with the major contributor being the cross paths chapters between two travelers, all really fun that build relationships between the characters. The XP gain was also a massive fix than the original, with A LOT less grinding required which is a welcome addition since the game still took me 75 hours to beat.

The visuals also are a MASSIVE improvement over the original, I thought the original looked nice but HOLY SHIT this game just ups the visuals even more with my full and complete environments. The visuals are also helped by more variety in areas and more unique areas to explore, goes from generic area types like grass and snow to old western desert, European folklore inspired forests, Feudal Japan, and literally just fucking London. This also applies to the dungeons and battle backgrounds, which repeat themes a lot less and some are actually notable now. Also, worth mentioning the music still fucks hard, like there is no bad music track in the entire fucking game.

(SPOILERS IN THIS SECTION) My only real complaint is the final chapter, not that it was bad or anything but some characters from the main story were just randomly evil the whole time and it didn't feel natural at all.

Overall, Octopath II is one of the best turn based RPGs I have ever played with fun gameplay, stories, characters, visuals, and music and any big fan of the genre should pick up this game immediately.

octopath traveler was generally a game that I didnt grow enamored of granted I actually finished it even through all the fucking grinding and shit like that SO I may say that I liked it somehow

the HD 2D kinda of aesthetic kickstarted a lot of games that I do enjoy… namely live a live and thats it but that's still a feat . mixing high quality 2d pixel art and 3d environments with a lot of lighting tricks with unreal engine 4 made the game absolutely breathtaking to look at . the gameplay was also interesting for what it was a nice follow up to the raw combat system in bravely default with some incredible variety in classes and customisation and the story department was also kind of interesting dividing it in 8 parts and each telling a different story it was just incredible . until it was not due to 40 hours of grinding but that's another story

now I'm pretty happy to tell you people that all the issues I had with the original were addressed improved and expanded for a game that actually could shit in the mouth of its predecessor and leave it in a ditch if it weren't for the fact that octopath 1 still can boast the best storyline between the 2 games which is the one of primrose nothing can come close to that if you ask me thats a 10/10 and I wont even argue with people who don't think so too

let's get started with everything apart from the story since I know myself and I'm gonna get into heavy spoiler territory

listening to this again actually made me bawl my eyes out im sorry i got chills through my spine and i started crying i dont even like octopath 1 that much idk why that happened

most important part I had an issue with in the first game was the gameplay aspect and let me tell you people in the audience this game's gameplay is absolutely insane

largely the skeleton of the gameplay was kept the same as the original: its a traditional jrpg where you level up go through all the entirety of the world to get some new mates for your journey here and there listen to their story battle a lot and explore the shit out of every nook and cranny but the experience was enhanced to hell and back

the main combat is still fun as shit you can use that option to do a x2 x3 x4 enhancement of the action you will take or guard or attack to get more points or whatever this is fun and also makes for a great deal of strategising here and there where you can get 30.000 points of damage like nothing happened

so yeah whatever that's the main gimmick the other stuff is usual jrpg combat stuff PLUS the job system every single character has a class and unique abilities that you can use in battle and this also was present in the original one but got really upgraded to accommodate more interesting mechanics and not make some classes completely useless PLUS you can get a second class and really explore the incredible customization of this game also theres some new special classes which are really interesting and shrines here and there that can unlock special skills for each traveler and guilds to unlock new secondary jobs

that being said this is the combat now the other parts of the game actually concentrate on exploring and doing shit in the overworld here and there and when I tell you that after getting all the characters I spent like 40 hours just exploring and do dungeons I was so overlevelled that the chapter requirements were like LVL 15 and hikari was LVL 70 I went absolutely crazy I entered a trance like state and woke up with everyone getting 60 more levels whatever

so my main issue with the first game was 1) the incredibly slow leveling up 2) the super boring exploration 3) the tiring usage of characters abilities when interacting with NPCs and while not really a gameplay element 4) the samey dungeons

issue addressed you can level up pretty fast and with the new time mechanic you can generally travel the world during nighttime to make you level up faster (I basically had the night toggled all the time) so I could actually not kill myself this time
everywhere in the world map theres something to explore and it rewards your exploration sense and there's literally stuff to do in every corner side quests (they're still boring but they're something) challenging and interesting dungeons new towns to visit and literally chests on chests on chests
the skills of each character are still boring because you have to use them over and over again to steal get informations have steamy sex with someone and then use them in battle BUT since this game has the day and night thing at least theres some nuance to using particular skills for the day and others for the night do whatever
the designs of the dungeons for the original one were like 5 and reused for the entirety of the game this time theres a SHIT TON of different dungeons that have such a distinct feeling from one another so were so happy to be here

that being said we can talk about art design

this game is beautiful no point to argue about that and possibly even better than the first one in both art design art direction 3d environments and sprites theres literally NO bad sprite in this game and let's talk about boss sprites because those one are incredible im gonna talk about them during the route parts later you can't escape from hornyposting

in the first game those were usually just pngs moving a little to emulate movement but this time they actually have different sprites for different animations and thats cool as fuck I can remember vividly the mother in thrones route doing a gorgeous whipping animation and probably other stuff that I don't remember I played this some time ago I always take too long to make reviews

so anyway yeah every single part of the game is a painting the animation is great the towns and dungeons are filled to the brim with details and as I said the dungeons and also battle backgrounds are way way way better and diverse and I'm really happy about this

the music is also the one of the best parts of the entire experience but I don't have to be the one to tell you since octopath 1 had a lot of videos about the transitions between character themes and boss battles themes and YEAH theyre good as shit but wait a second I need to point out at least my fav themes or else I will explode

tempest on the battlefield was the very first song I heard in my experience with this game and it stuck with me so much so that I was always thinking about it in my playthrough and every time it would show up again I would cum all over my room I love this theme so fucking much its unreal I'm so glad I chose hikari

side note every single character theme is great (ochettes perfect) but they get taken down by square super fast so it's pointless to give you a link just listen to the ultra compilation

normal battle III is the one that makes me sweat more out of the 3 themes and the combo of electric guitar and strings was purposefully made to make me orgasm so I cannot do anything else but surrender

critical clash I is probably my fav ones of the two and it's really just because it's more heavy tone and has so many different vibes thrown into it and the beat is fucking sick and the string is fucking sick and the song is fucking sick

i unironically listen to fierce confrontation everyday dont @ me

so whatever all the songs are sick just listen to the illegal soundtrack online or play the game the fuck

so I guess it's time to talk about stories so here's my completely unbiased opinion in a handy tierlist

Tier S
Ochette (10), Hikari (9.5), Castti (9)
Tier A
Osvald (8.5)/Temenos (8.5)
Tier B
Throné (8)/Partitio (8), Agnea (7.5)

Ex
Ochette x Castti > Hikari x Agnea > Temenos x Throné > Osvald x Partitio

numbers don't mean anything it was just a way to keep track while playing what stories I liked more than the others

for this I'll also talk about each characters ost so you can check them here in this mega ost stuff thing and talk about them from best to worst be advised that the ones on the bottom aren't to be considered as BAD I just needed to make a tierlist and some of them would've to be in the bottom

so there's gonna be spoiler talk so SPOILER WARNING youre advised

OCHETTE

starting with ochette i can tell you that shes absolutely my fav character out of the entirety of the cast every time she says がお I cry like a fucking bitch she's funny and charming and goofy but also definitely a sweetheart at core and cares for everybody so i was already biased to begin with but her story is such a fucking blast from start to finish and has some of the most interesting tropes I see in videogames

as a hunter I also had so much fun playing with her also BECAUSE she can capture basically every single enemy and use their unique skills in battle and when I tell you at one point in the game I captured the mega shark or whatever I was basically living my best life with an assured 9999 damage once per battle

ochette comes from a village of half beasts that inhabit a forest in an island and shes also the successor of the head of this clan who funnily enough is a fucking lion that talks whatever so shit happens and they find out there's gonna come a red moon and its gonna bring destruction and the rebirth of something something evil and thats it

IMPORTANT ! at the beginning of her route the head clan will ask you to choose between either an owl OR a … fox ? what's akala ? I think he's a fox but also I think he's HOT AS FUCK LIKE umg sorry maybe I should not say that here ok anyway hes really the best choice of the 2 since people told me the owl acts as a younger sister and akela acts as an older brother and im really … interested in this relationship like umh …. yeah

so whatever semi beasts are also fighting for their land against a bunch of humans trying to take this land from them whatever not important the important thing is to contrast the red moon war flashbacks of botw and anyway you have to get the 3 sacred beasts back to the main land and do shit and then you get like 3 chapter 2 for each beast thats cool as fuck I mean due to levels differences probably you will get the recommended order but apart from that so cool

the sea guardian made me cry even if the quest has zero tension since no boss battles its cool anyway the volcano guardian made me horny … sorry and has a super bomb design and boss battle and the ice guardian also made me cry and also has an incredible boss battle I really like every single one of these chapters honestly

then you get back to the main land and the guardians all gather while the red moon arises you fight with hordes of monsters until you face the beast that you left behind in the beginning of the story and now its up to ochette to give them a good ending … IM SORRY THIS IS TOO MUCH I LOVE THIS ROUTE SO DEARLY I CRIED LIKE A BITCH AT THAT FINAL ENDING I HAD GOOSEBUMPS ALL OVER UGHHHHHHH THIS GAME ISTG

anyway since I chose akala instead of mahina I had to face mahina and it was damn fucking epic but I gotta say that feral akala is kinda hot im sorry I should say these things here alright

anyhow ochette saves the day everyone is happy the sexy lion boss says ochette is gonna be the next head of the tribe and the humans say alright we're gonna stop this war between us or something and then the end

I loved this route from beginning to end there was no dead moment every single chapter was packed back to back back to back thats fucking absurd ok anyway moving on or else I'm gonna stay here forever

HIKARI

hikari was my choice as the protagonist and I couldn't be happier being a warrior I was already interested in getting him super buffed for some incredible damage each turn and WHAT THE FUCK he's a BEAST after you get the arms master class he's basically your main character for damage he's gonna get some incredible numbers after you remove the 9999 cap and he's also a hunk to boot im absolutely free and I could suck your dick all day long if you want hikari hmu

as a warrior you can guess whats gonna happen and 2 seconds in his route he gets in a battlefield with my FAVORITE SOUNDTRACK PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND UGHHHHHH I was already hooked I had no chance but Stan

after that shit you get a tale of betrayal between a royal family hikari is the successor of the current king of land of ku until his brother succeeds in a regicide and he's left to just run away

this was a great beginning for his story really full of hype I cannot really say that this hype will be up for the entire route theres some boring events here and there with hikari recruiting some people and the pacing gets back up probably when you have to get the girl from the other clan like that's probably where the events begin to unravel faster but this all pays out when you get to the final confrontation

here and there hikari will get delusions and voices in his head due to a homicidal other personality which is like due to his cursed blood or something so yeah when you get to battle against your brother its also gonna be a battle against hikaris self and shit so whatever this was really emotional and I ended up having goosebumps all throughout the final boss which was also the FINAL boss of all the routes I did so it was an incredible conclusion of the journey if you ask me

also can I say that hikaris brother is kinda hot like in particular his demon form

CASTTI

cassti is a weird case since I wasn't really vibing with her entire plotline until really late in the route not because it was bad but because I really didn't get what it was going to be

her being a whats the name ….. I don't remember the name in english ok anyway speziale is really half the character since she cares for others really tries her best to put people first and herself second and thats something in common with alfyn but the thing is alfyn was extremely hot and tempting and she is kind of an enigmatic character also due to the fact that her story revolves around her memory loss issues and shit like that so

slowly you begin to realise that she actually was part of a big group of potion people I still dont remember the name and after the chapter of the mother and daughter YKNOW THE ONE GOD FUCK LOED UGHHHHH I CRIED SO MUCH DAMN you realise that the girl who kept on following her and was allegedly one of her companions was a actually just her delusion and in reality the group of people she was a boss of was already dead and that point all my hair fell off everything made sense and my life and heart were completely ruined I hate this game with a passion

you get to know theres another herb user guy who just goes around spreading death because he's like omg why the fuck are we helping people out if they're gonna die anyway let's just kill all of them which is honestly kind of a weird statement to say but I guess it does make sense for the character whatever anyway cazzi goes there and says actually I didn't say this but I call her cazzi because it means dicks in italian and its pretty similar sounding to cassti moving on she battles with this guy saves the day and she's left with absolutely nothing but loneliness and the dread of recovering her entire memory and realising her companions all vanished from her life and so the team said ok let's just give them some more reason to cry and put her theme which is already sad as fuck and put an illustration of her surrounded by ghosts of her mates who the fuck im sorry

great story possibly my fav one in terms of how much mental distress it gave me 9/10 deserved

no hunks here unfortunately but the legion head guy sounds kinda hot yknow the one

OSVALD

osvald is such a weird contrast from what the cyrus route was in the first game there cyrus was actually treated almost like a prince he just fucks around all day being surrounded by chicks and studies everything in his damn books and then here ? they made osvald and said ok we are gonna put this guy through hell literally we are gonna ruin his life so much hes gonna be pitiful throughout the game and so scarred that the most character interactions he'll have they're gonna be pointing out him being silent af

this route begins with osvald making an escape from prison and this was caused by his bestie who he thought was genuinely sharing his knowledge for a research but was actually just trying to exploit him to take possession of the research and then just push him aside burning his house down killing his wife and daughter and then getting him arrested and put in jail honestly what a fucking master plan my guy that being said after escaping the entire route concentrates on giving more context to the relationship between this guy and dio brando which is kind of an homosexual relationship like the one jojo and dio have so it's all good and then just pursuing this guy all around the land until you discover that osvalds daughter actually alive and being mindbroken by dio so you go there and open his ass apart and everything is good until osvald just decides to live his little girl behind like why would you do that I'm sorry but anyway I still want to suck your dick … osvald please give me your junk I cannot do this anymore

anyway this route is kind of a mess but in a good sense I love how much they make osvald suffer im sorry if that sounds controversial teehee siamo ragazzi

I love men

TEMENOS

temenos is don matteo but japanese its literally that italian fiction but in a videogame if you for some reason know what I'm talking about you will get the reference that being said this is temenos just having a lot of gay sex

while ophilia was the pure and humble character you would expect from a religious figure temenos acts as an absolute contrast from that design he's shrewd he's malicious and he's cunning and all these are actually good aspects of his personality he's really a sight to behold since the religious person being actually fat from the canonic stereotype of the usual religious figure is one of the most interesting tropes around if you ask me

being a priest or something from a small town he lives his life as a town figure until obviously hell breaks and he has to cooperate with fellow knight creek to solve a political intrigue with some ties to cultist shit

now the investigative sequences were cool as fuck but what was actually cooler is the fact that temenos and creek have such a great chemistry like every time temenos calls creek little lamb you can really feel the sexual tension skyrocket I'm not even joking yall these 2 fuck and they fuck pretty hard while the hometown girlie friend of temenos gets cucked to hell and back

so whatever since square enix said too much homosexuality they killed creek and honestly I'm pretty mad about it since I wouldve honestly liked to suck his dick after the final battle but alright so anyway temenos goes to the guild master or whatever fucks her up and avenges her boyfriend back the end

interesting not too shabby

THRONÉ

femme fatale throné has some of the weirdest plot twists in history and I genuinely am still confused at what happened in her story but anyway

shes from a guild of thieves where orphans are trained into full-fledged ATTENZIONE PICKPOCKET and shit like that and the main figures are mother and father now throné at one point realises shits going down in this guild due to the fact that his bestie aka possible lover got killed (by her lmao) and so she goes on a quest to murder both father and mother

apart from mother being absolutely batshit crazy you can tell that father was actually the more full-fledged character since he got a damn good backstory if I do say so myself and thats like the highest point of the route for me like killing her father is something that reminded me of primrose so alls good

after that she has to follow leads to get to her real father which you find out is not only in a hidden village in the sky that you can only get with a whats the name in english whatever funivia and when you get there the huge plottwist is that his father is alucard castlevania and fucked a lot of human women for reasons ? so whatever you go there and fuck him up

now being a carbon copy of alucard he's pretty hot and I gotta say he also has one of the greatest boss sprites in the game so that's fine my real issue is that there was no foreshadowing to this ? like idk if I missed something but I don't think there's any reason to think that this plottwist has any sense in the plotline since the route was going completely elsewhere until chapter 4 but whatev3r I digress

still a great route and also the first one I finished so I had a good time with it

PARTITIO

now partitio is probably my favorite character of the bunch after ochette he's charismatic he's upbeat energetic and hunky hot and intelligent cunning and good willed and I am still looking for him on rule34 until I get satisfied

so why is he in the bottom mmmmm im not really a fan of the merchant stories in octopath traveler tressa was interesting but nowhere near some other routes in that game and the premise of yeah I do business usually falls flat for me since there's not gonna be a lot of plottwists or intrigue for a foundation like this one

you follow partitio since his childhood and his father's quest to build a village from zero after some sick timeskip you realise that 1) partitio became hot as fun 2) the village was completed 3) they are knee deep in debt so it's up to partitio to seek the one responsible to this which was also the business companion of his father

so yeah after some business ™ and really chill route progression you get to the ISLAND yeah the guy bought an island and fuck him up or better youre gonna fuck his locomotive up????? shits crazy I tell you what the hell

whatever you beat him you do some more business ™ and everyone's happy now that partitio is on top of his company and also on top of me god bless the end

this route is cool the side quests where you get the boat and shit are interesting and break the pace of the route but still it's not that much of a great route as I wanted it to be partitio as a character carried the route entirely and I still enjoyed my time with it anyway

partitio I'm single please

AGNEA

agnea is my third favorite character and it's pretty funny to me how both her and partitio are among the best characters and are both on the bottom

now before somebody comes for my neck no I don't think this route is bad in fact I think every single route in this game is delicious but of course someone had to be put in the bottom or else it wouldn't be a tierlist

maybe im biased by the fact that I wanted this to reach the same highs as primroses route but of course it would've not been possible and thats probably why they opted for another type of storyline entirely

agnea is a free spirited happy little girl with an incredible passion and talent for dancing and singing like her mother something that his father doesn't approve but of course in the hand he accepts that and its probably the most beautiful part of the route I cried like a fucking bitch at the end of the prologue and during the finale probably because an accepting father is something I don't have HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHQ LAUGH

so whatever she wants to travel the world and compose a song so here we go (she's not only very similar to tressa but also has similar motives as tressa) all around the world getting pieces and pieces

after this it's a total blank to me the route is pretty chill and steady throughout to the point that I fell asleep during the circus guys thing whatever anyway main antagonist is another dancer singer diva whatever and shes bad because plot so you fuck her up metaphorically in the final battle and boom agnea is the new diva everyones happy the end

now putting the story like this you understand how laid back it is compared to the other routes and its a shame since she's such a beautiful character I love her so dearly

idk the end

CROSSED PATHS

these ones was a great addition they put some cool ideas here and there and seeing the pairs interact was pretty interesting but its so weird how ochette and cassti are absolutely above every other

TRAVEL TALKS

i read every single one of them i went fucking crazy I love every and each one of them

SIDE QUESTS

they suck

POST GAME / FINAL QUEST

for me the finale was a big slip up in the original octopath traveler due to the fact that It was 90% retconning and infodumping on wall of texts that made me think that i wouldve just reread umineko entirely instead

now this is actually not really different but it felt more streamlined since they didn't make me fucking fight against every single boss in the game again and there's still some degree of infodump through notes but it's less than the first one so yeah whatever

the plot is not as thick as they'd like to make you believe since it's just some loose ends that they left in the main game and they connected them together also recontextualizing some characters like mindt being evil ? right whatever

that being said the lead up to the final boss was actually kind of intriguing and the final boss in itself is kind of both tough and visually stunning they hinted for vide to be the end boss and here we go its still a nice fight if you ask me

the epilogue made me a bit teary eyed I gotta say and seeing all the characters interact make for a great conclusion to this tale

i hate postgames

SECRET BOSS

i hate galdera

CONCLUSIONS

I came in my pants

the more I thought about this game and the more I loved about it not only because of the game itself but also how they managed to make such a great fucking sequel to a game that I felt was flawed in every single way and it managed to keep me returning to it every single day for the span of like 80 hours this game is fucking insane ochette get the adoption papers we're going home

claro que tem os textos entre os bonecos em tavernas e lugares importantes da história de cada um, as historinhas em duplas e o epílogo. mas o que conecta os oito protagonistas mesmo é andar pelo mapa e encontrar um lugar com uns inimigos bem fortes, sair pelo mar e pegar uns tesouros, passar por dificuldades numa batalha só pra habilidade inata de um dos personagens salvar tudo. a narrativa só enfraquece se a afeição do jogador pelo mundo pelas batalhas pelas interações é pequena, é que nem o guia de imaginação do etrian odyssey - cada batalha, cada saída para explorar fazem parte do texto, são elas que tornam a reunião dos personagens na fogueira, como a capa ilustra, um evento nostalgico, que provavelmente aconteceu diversas vezes, longe dos nossos olhos mas pertinho da nossa mente.

Na minha opinião a melhor trilha sonora de 2023 disparado e se não fosse Baldur's Gate 3, também seria o melhor RPG do ano.

Não consigo entender essa Square Enix que fala de queimar dinheiro em NFTs e cospe gachas genéricos enquanto lançam projetos absurdos como Live A Live e Octopath Traveler. Parece pura contradição. Mas não estou reclamando não, por mim que continuem nessa.

Eu queria ter mais coisas pra falar sobre, mas eu ainda estou muito encantado com quão lindo esse jogo é e quão maravilhosa é essa trilha sonora. É realmente um projeto feito com muito carinho e acho que da pra sentir a intenção e amor colocado nele pelos desenvolvedores.

Eu mal sai desse mundo e já sinto falta de tudo nele.

Osvald, Castti, Throne, Ochette, Partitio, Agnea, Temenos, and Hikari make the party for this game, and it's a great cast. The game surpasses the first one in almost every inconcievable way.
The world of Solista has so many neat little locations to find and it was always fun to explore and see how what the world was building to. The exceptionally beautiful HD-2D graphics made the world flourish and shine unlike anything else. To compliment that you have a beautiful OST to give everything even more life!
The party and their stories are the main event though. Each of the eight stories are great in their own way and have their own themes and lessons with them. They somehow had the stories connect in a big way, as the last chapter can possible make you shed a tear (i definitely didn't don't look at me!)
The fixed alot that felt missing with the first one with special chapters that had two of the travelers team up together with their own story, and some side quests that felt like they had meaning! The boss fights can also be very difficult, and also a little easy if you know how to cheese some of them(lol). Which i enjoyed that, it shows that the game has alot of flexibility within it.
I have no complaints, this was my GOTY for 2023 and has my highest recommendation!

I completed this game a month ago so my review points are a little buried in my memory, but what hasn't been buried is how much I adored playing through it. The visuals in Octopath are gorgeous, and the box art for this being so nice honestly had more impact on my interest in it than I care to admit, but what I didn't expect was for the music to surpass it.

The OST for this game has got to be one of my favourites, ever. Such an amazing number of tracks with a huge range of tones and styles, all of them a joy to listen to. It's hard to overstate how pretty some of the songs are, and I think if my bottom-tier memory remembers only one thing about Octopath Traveler II, I'd like it to be that.

... However, it won't be that, because this game made the eye-watering decision to lock it's platinum trophy behind it post-game megaboss. Now I love JRPGs, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm not very good at them. I get by for sure, but any time I look up a strat or hear how someone else is running their party I realise that mine is using maybe 15% of it's full potential. This game does not allow you to buy-back equipment that you sell, so when my dumbass sold a weapon that turned out to be essential in just about every megaboss build I found online.. 🥹

It took me around 100 hours to beat the story, maybe 20 to cleanup everything else for the platinum and (I can't be certain because reloading my save meant the time wasn't tracked) I'm certain I spent no less than 20 hours grinding and throwing myself at this boss for the final trophy. Honestly it was probably closer to 40.
10 days worth of on-off grinding/attempts, sometimes for hours, sometimes just 2-4 tries. At one point I was so discouraged and quite frankly broken that I uninstalled the game to spare myself the pain of failure, only to redownload it a few days later with hopes of beating it out of spite.

I have seen people beat this boss with ease over 30 levels lower than my party were (I grinded from 50-60 range to 80-90 just for this) and despite having almost exactly the same gear (aside from stuff I'd sold) I wasn't doing nearly as much damage as they were 🥹 (I had also spammed all my stat nuts in inopportune ways without realising bc I am ranked #1 worst jrpg player)

Anyway all this to say, I finally did it. I don't know how, the numbers fell in my favour and by some miracle I actually beat it, and that's rad 😭

This "review" is unhinged but I should also say that I love the characters and the combat system was immensely fun to use the whole time, really enjoyed it. Biggest gripe with the game would be the difficulty spike but I expect that's a skill issue. Also the way the travelers meet is kinda goofy but I really don't think that affected my enjoyment at all.

Overall I would definitely recommend this to anyone even remotely interested, it's a fantastic time and a really refreshing structure in how the story was told (for me, I haven't played 1 or Live A Live) -- Just maybe don't worry about the platinum or play on Switch (which I might have to for the first game 🥹)

Thanks for reading! Hope everyone's having a good mid-year, Final Fantasy XVI is around the corner and with this being my 124th platinum I'm hoping that one isn't quite so painful to make as my milestone 125! 😌

P.S. I just remembered there was a line near the end of Temenos' story that went so fucking hard, it was like "[Your Gods] created this world, and in their folly saw fit to taint it with humans" and that's so fkn raw😩

When Octopath Traveler 1 came out in 2018, it was kind of a big moment for pixel rpgs. The "HD-2D" art-style was a stunning graphical wonder. There was some broad criticism by some people who considered it ugly or "lazy", but like most of the endless online discourse, it faded away once there was something else to focus on. But within the last five years, the HD 2D style has shown it might be here to stay. It encouraged Square Enix to consider bringing back lost pixel RPGs that players are still invested in. After several poor remaster attempts, the Final Fantasy Remasters have been really positively received. Bolstered by that, the Live A Live HD-2D remake was released to rave reviews across the seas. I think there's an argument to be made that those re-releases wouldn't exist without the existence of Octopath 1.

Still, the first game was burdened with some major problems. Despite its marketing around 8 party members, the cast virtually never interacts with each other across the entire game. The "travel banters" where they did interact was exceptionally easy to miss content. The game also became notorious for its exceptional difficulty, making progression daunting for new players. Even finding the final boss of the game was locked behind various obtuse, unmarked side quests. The game sold a million copies, but the actual story didn't seem to leave much of a cultural impact.

Its why its kind of sad to me that the initial sales of Octopath 2 don't seem too hot, when I really do think its something special.

It took me a long time to fully decipher the mechanics. The overworld and battle mechanics aren't entirely well explained and it was one of the reasons I bounced off the first game. I'd say it took me 15-20 hours into the system to grasp its fundamentals. But once the system clicks with you, it connects together in a really crunchy way. Balancing the job systems, the special skills, and all the other layers makes for a truly gripping combination of systems and gimmicks.

One of the major criticisms of the first game was how little the cast interacted with each other. In 2, the Travel Banters are easily collected in your journals to view any time, even the ones you missed. It helps you get a good sense of each character's dynamic. This is expanded upon in "Crossed Paths", where two characters pair up to their own sidequest and bounce off each other more directly. Not only does it alleviate the concerns of the first game, it also helps flesh out the cast. How they act around different people and how their behaviors change in circumstances. It helps them feel more real and defined. And that's crucial for the kind of story Octo

The core theme of the game, as with many rpgs, is this idea of lightness versus darkness. Straight-forward enough. But how the game delivers that message is through this idea of the overwhelming horror of violent history. The cycle of betrayal, heart-break, corrupt systems, and how they make future seem so horrifically bleak. Its a hard topic to really deliver if the writers don't fully understand those systems. But for the most part, I think Octopath threads the needle. Its in the stories themselves

Castti the Apothecary

I don't often go for healer girls or amnesia stories. Healer girls are often a bit too soft for my liking, a bit too deferential and "traditionally" cute. So much of what makes Castti work is how tired she seems beneath the surface. She's treated as and performs as the "mother hen", fussing over the other characters. But she's old, she's seen things. A nightmare sequence features her chased down by all the people she's failed to heal. All the blame she places on herself for those deaths. It makes her decision to keep working all the more powerful and heart-breaking.

There's a narrative beat about the Book of Night. It appears to detail the worst of history, every nightmare-ish act of human villainy ever written down. Most characters go nuts and decide to burn the world down after they read it. Castti's just like "...yeah? And?" She's seen the worst and doesn't care. That's just more people to heal. She signed up for that. Seeing the worst and building something better comes with the job description. Its the kind of characterization the game needs for its core theming to work.

Throne and Agnea

I liked Primrose in 1. But, there was weird stuff too. Her "Seduction" mechanics as the Dancer just felt uncomfortable when paired with her history. Trafficking, exploitation... it doesn't mesh well.

Primrose's main traits are diverged into two characters. Agnea is the Dancer and she's portrayed as a joyous inspiration chasing her dream. I never quite fell in love with that story, but its a nice way to balance the game's darker tones and its a much better characterization for the Dancer type.

Throne gets the bulk of the darker storytelling. For the game's narrative of "finding hope in the future," they need a story about someone who seemingly has no future. No control. No options. The Blacksnakes are a team of criminals who are kept in line with their poison collars. The Mother and Father of the guild can activate the poison any time, killing their unruly children. So Throne's goal is simple. Kill her "parents", unlock the collars, gain freedom.

Through this darkness, we dive deep into the idea of freedom and control. What it means to fight for something everyone else has, discovering your identity when your identity has been determined since birth. What you have to sacrifice to win that fight. Its bleak, but its perhaps the most thematically interesting of the batch. It swerves into so many fascinating directions, none of them quite what you'd expect. How it establishes the systems a parent sets up for a child, what that child grows into, and all the complications through it all... its such a fascinating picture. The darkness works here. Its pointed and purposeful. I adore it.

Hikari

Takes a lot to sell me on a Royal Prince Must Win story. But Hikari's story really works for two reasons.

1. The nation of Ku has subjugated and massacred its neighbors for generations. Its a horrific place. Hikari is the only political force with the support to rework it into something better.

2. Hikari's power doesn't come from his royal bloodline. It comes from his humble roots. While the Ku family mocks him as part-royal/part-lowborn, his connection to the average civilian gives him a perspective the nobles lack. While the Ku Family embrace this weird demon power that encourages bloodshed, he can actively resist it by knowing the consequences of such violence on the average person. Its great. Its a good hook. Hikari's a good kid.

The thing I really had to let go of while playing this game is the wider political ideas of Ku. Hikari's goal to return to power kind of dances around the idea of what the public sentiment is. Ku massacres any dissident, yeah, but it never quite examines if there's a major political body that likes the murders. People kill because the royal family orders murders. Once Hikari's in power, everyone will happily not murder peasants anymore. That's the only logic we need to follow. Trying to overthink it past that? Not what the story is about. Sometimes, you just gotta accept what the story's doing.

Ochette

Ochette's just fun. In the midst of these darker tales of depravity and corruption, here's a shonen protag. I love it. Good tone balancer.

Osvald and Temenos

These are pretty good. Osvald's story is gripping enough, even if it just checks some boxes in my eyes. Dead family. Get revenge. Find a new way to live.

Temenos' story is probably the most connected to the Overarching Plot of the cast, which makes his murder mystery plotline a little difficult to follow at times. The narrative has to hide some of the cards for the finale. What you're left with is a Twink Church Cop who dances his way through some murders. They try to balance out the whole "I'm an inquisitor for the church chasing down heretics" tension with the characterization that Temenos himself doesn't... really care about religion. He likes to solve crime. Finding "heretics" is how he does that. Since the people that hate the Church in this game miraculously end up being murderers, it works out. Weird tension there. Hard to grapple with it.

More than anything, both of these lads just really excel as Travel Banter characters. Osvald is the grumpy straight man, gloomy and miserable and baffled by the wackier antics of the other characters. Temenos is the perpetual tease, needling others, getting under people's skin. For the dynamics to work, you need these guys! Essential for a large party! If everyone gets along too well, they become less interesting. With a grump and a jackass, you get good variety. Its perfect.

Partitio

A Kentucky-fried traveling salesman decides to end poverty with 1. the planned assassination of oil barons and 2. department stores.

Its weird.

Don't look to media for politics, its never a good idea. But its hard not to look at Partitio's weird balancing act between loving and hating capitalism. The villains use the word capitalism. They spew off hatred for worker's rights. The villain's final monologue involves proclaiming "money is meant to be hoarded by people like me!" The game's very intentional with this! The industrial revolution and its impact on society is the key center piece of what this story path is about. There's no denying that.

But I think fans who put Partitio as a socialist king are sort of missing the mark of Partitio's character. Because honestly, I'm not even sure the game knows what Party's beliefs are. Partitio likes trade and he likes money. He's fervently in favor of the industrial revolution and generally seems to like capitalism. But he wants a nice capitalism. An equitable enough capitalism. Fair wages and good bosses. Its a really specific needle the story is trying to thread and I can't say they succeed. Cause at the end of the day, Partitio's plan is to be a Good Billionaire. The only path out of capitalism is Good Capitalism. Its a really odd piece.

But he's fun. He says goofy folksy quips. He... offers to buy Throne's poison collar and find a way to make a "good" version of it, which seems like a loaded concept to drop casually in a travel banter. But he's fun. The charm overrides most of the head-scratching.

Ultimately

This kind of game has a lot to prove. Investing time into a huge rpg, especially right before Zelda ToTK release, is tough. And I think a lot of people passed on this for so many complicated marketing reasons. But despite my reservations on some story aspects... the game really hooked me. I dedicated a whole month to this monstrosity, after I expected to drop it from the first 10 hours. It grabs you. Its exudes charm and passion. It grows from the first game in such smart ways. And more than anything... I want more of these games. I want the Octopath franchise to keep growing and improving. They've got so much to show off and I think they have a lot more stories to tell. I loved this game. I hope to see more of it.

JRPG in 2.5D beauty.

Octopath Traveller II took me by surprise when I first played its demo, as I remember disliking Octopath Traveller I's demo. This led me to purchasing the game and it was pretty good. The score and graphics are very pretty with nice game direction.

The gameplay is very much traditional JRPG turn-based combat but its own unique spin. This is in the form of enemy shield points where you have to break them down with the correct weakness of a certain weapon type or spell type. It also has a few other systems where you can power-up your attacks and have unique abilities to each character, which help make the game more strategic at times, especially with boss battles. Plus, the exploration is fun and you can interact with NPCs differently based on the characters' unique abilities. Also, the secret jobs were pretty cool to discover and to play with during battles. However for the most part, the game is quite easy with decent pacing as I never had to grind once during the character stories. The only time I had to grind was the final chapter of the game and the final chapter didn't have great guidance towards what your suppose to do which left me quite lost.

Story-wise it was pretty good for having 8 different stories in one game. Each story I found to be good and it had a mix of genre and themes, which allowed it to be a refreshing change of pace at times. Although, it did feel weird that party never really interacted with each other properly in each others main stories, outside the side stories. The only bad writing was the final chapter which felt like it was trying too hard to involve all 8 characters in a rushed way.

All in all, Octopath Traveller II is a very good and well-made JRPG due to the lack of grinding, good story, score and graphics but suffered from a lacklustre final chapter.

Top Games of 2023: https://www.backloggd.com/u/Aj_Waran/list/top-games-of-2023/

“May the roads ahead of you be filled with fortune and smiles.”

Octopath Traveler was a game that promised to deliver an experience akin to Final Fantasy VI, a sprawling adventure with an incredible cast of characters that develop strong bonds throughout their journey.

However, it suffered from crippling structural issues that belied its admittedly good combat and music.

Octopath Traveler II rectifies this issue by writing exciting characters with relatable motives and struggles and having them actually interact with one another throughout the game.

II is also improved at nearly every other level. The combat is even better than in the original, with an even more fleshed-out ion system that allows for player expression and satisfying job synergy, and the visuals benefit from an improved color palette and lighting.

These elements come together to create a game that actually succeeds in feeling like a grand undertaking. Over dozens of hours, you experience these characters grow and bond with satisfying conclusions to their own arcs and a surprisingly coherent finale.

Watching the cast say their goodbyes to one another captures how it feels to say farewell to friends, which is always bittersweet. Whether it’s college buddies, coworkers, or family members, anything can happen, and you never know when the last time you see them will be the last time you see them.

You never know how much of a role you play in someone else’s life. Cherish those you hold dear and enjoy the time you have with each other.

Now I’ll be completely honest I never played the original Octopath Traveler though I heard a lot of mixed thoughts when it came to people I spoke to about it. So admittedly Octopath Traveler 2 was a bit of a gamble. Would I love this game despite my lack of knowledge of the first one? How would it compare to other RPGs that I’ve played over the years & would it do anything different to break the mould?

The answer is simply: this game absolutely rules & It’s worthy of every bit of hype in my eyes. This is probably my favourite game of the entire year so far & it really touched me in ways that I didn’t ever expect it to. Throughout my entire 100 hour journey I grew to fall in love with the world & the incredible cast of characters each with their own engaging stories & to be honest…it’s been a while since I’ve played an RPG with mature themes such as the ones that are tackled in Octopath 2.

Each of the eight main characters has their struggles. Hikari a prince driven from his kingdom by his tyrannical dictator of a brother & goes on a journey to forge alliances to reclaim his home & stop the long history of bloodshed his people have faced. Throné a thief enslaved by the abuse of the Blacksnakes searches for her freedom in order to escape from her chains. Osvald a man who was framed & locked up in prison for the murder of his wife & daughter plots his revenge against the person who ruined his life. Castti an amnesiac apothecary searches for her memories & who she once was before everything. Partitio a merchant who survived the suffering of poverty & wants to bring happiness to the entire world. And I mean sure not ALL of the stories are hits & feel very cliche & run of the mill (hello Agnea you’re very nice though) but I’d say more than half of these characters all have engaging plots & it’s well worth seeking out all of them on your journey. You’re gonna want to experience all of them & there’s no story that I consider to be genuinely bad which for a game as massive as this is a huge compliment & it says a lot about the quality of these eight compelling narratives. And seeing how they all come together is absolutely mindblowing.

The combat in this game is absolutely exceptional. Maybe one of the best turn based systems. In combat your opponents have a shield & in order to break through it, you need to find which attack they are weak to whether that be swords, knives, polearms, bows, staffs or magic. What’s really cool is you have an option with what’s called the boost system. If you have two boost points you can attack twice or alternatively you can wait after the turn to attack three or even four times or use a more powerful attack to deal massive damage. Once you get through the shield your opponent will enter a break state which then allows you to deal much more damage to them. There’s also latent powers which when your power gauge is full you can use an ultimate move depending on the character. For example Partitio’s allows him to have maximum BP, Agnea’s has her attacks/buffs reach everyone & Ochette & Hikari will be able to use extremely powerful attacks. These abilities are especially handy in tough boss fights as one wrong move could mean losing the entire battle. I found this game to be genuinely challenging at times especially in the early stages when I was still getting a hang of things. But once the combat clicks man it’s such a satisfying feeling.

On top of that there’s also a job system which allows you to acquire a license of a class to use a secondary job for each character. These include hunter, warrior, apothecary, thief, merchant, dancer, scholar & cleric. You can use the job points that you acquire from battles to invest in whatever job you choose as it will give your party more abilities & support skills. The combinations are endless & ultimately I feel there’s some jobs which suit characters much better but you’re free to experiment at your leisure to find the perfect fit. There are also secret jobs which are well worth seeking out especially in the late game which give you even more powerful abilities such as the Armsmaster which will allow you to wield all six weapons types or the Arcanist which specialises in much more powerful magic.

One thing i absolutely love about Octopath Traveler 2 is the amount of freedom you have from the very start. The world of Solistia is vast & sure you can follow your main character’s story but you’re free to roam wherever you choose, even higher level areas if you’re brave enough. The game doesn’t hold your hand at all, this is your adventure & you can go about it your own way. I haven’t felt an RPG has given me this kind of experience since the YS series & I much prefer this kind of game design over vast bloated open worlds. There’s also a day/night system which you can toggle at will. This is another mechanic I love about the game as you can do different things at day & night called path actions. For example Hikari can duel people to learn different skills during the day & bribe someone for information at night. It also changes the NPC’s that you will encounter depending on the time of day you choose. I find this to be such a unique inclusion of a day/night cycle & it really gives Octopath 2 an identity of its own compared to other RPGs.

I don’t think I even need to mention the artstyle do I? Square Enix have taken a lot of L’s recently with the decisions they’ve made especially in the business side of things but one thing I don’t think anyone can deny: these HD 2D graphics are absolutely GORGEOUS. I played this game on the PlayStation 5 & oh my goodness it looks beautiful. It’s got a very old school feel & I would love to see more of this kind of artstyle in modern RPGs.

And how could I forget about the incredible soundtrack composed by the wonderful Yasunori Nishiki whether it be the relaxing town themes or the bombastic battle music which pumps you up with untold amounts of adrenaline. There were so many tracks in this game that really went so much harder than they had any right to & it’s definitely one of the best game soundtracks I’ve ever heard.

Now does this game have any problems that stick out to me? Well…yeah. Kind of. While each of the stories are engaging I will admit it feels a little disjointed at times. When you start a character’s chapter the other characters kind of just bugger off & don’t have a lot of impact, which I’m aware was an issue with the original Octopath. To counteract this you do have travel banter which actually sort of reminded me of the skits from the Tales of series where two or more characters discuss what is happening in that moment or perhaps just bond & tease each other. This is definitely a good addition & I always enjoy when these scenes play out when you have the option to view them but I still wish there was more interconnection between the cast at pivotal story moments.

Overall though, I really loved Octopath Traveller 2. As a fan of RPGs you owe it to yourself to check this game out if you haven’t already. As long as Square Enix continues to make titles with as much love & care as this then I’m sure I’ll be more than happy to stick with them because it truly proves there’s still a place for turn based RPGs in the modern era of gaming. Definitely my game of the year for 2023 & will be extremely hard to top.

(MY 500TH GAME LOGGED ON BACKLOGGD WOOHOO!)

I'm very happy that the greatest video game soundtrack of all time also came with a free incredible JRPG. Thanks Team Asano!

The best word I can use to describe Octopath 2 is delightful. This world, its various stories and characters, and the emotions that they evoke in the player, are all beautiful. I truly believe that this series has some of the best worldbuilding in video games right now.

I really enjoyed Octopath 1, but I had to always tell people to play the game for its combat, worldbuilding and music, instead of for its characters and story. I'm very happy that I can say Octopath 2 deserves to be played for all of the above. Not every story is a home run (Osvald's started out phenomenally but it started getting extremely messy by the end, and Temenos really deserved a better story given how interesting he is as a character) but the majority are very strong. I have to shout out Partitio's and Castti's in particular. Partitio's story just kept getting better and better until he was my definitive favorite character. Castti's chapter 3 is probably the best chapter in the game and chapter 4 genuinely made me cry.

I won't talk too much about the ending but I will say that the revelations were extremely interesting and the interactions between all eight characters were fantastic. The atmosphere and music were top notch in the final act, too. And of course, the final boss is a banger. It might be one of my favorite final fights in any game ever. Even the very last ending scene had me grinning like an idiot at 2 in the morning.

I struggle to think of what they can improve on if they were to make an Octopath 3, other than tiny quality of life stuff (the random encounter rate is a little high and got frustrating often), but that's just a testament to how fantastic this turned out. Please play this!!!!

Just not feeling it. I like the music. I can't form my opinion about the look? I just genuinely cannot. I'm not compelled to play but I can't really find too much negative to say. I mostly feel uncompelled and unconvinced as to this game's quality either way.

**EDIT:

Thought about it more and I'm feeling real negative after my initial time with the game. Started with Castti and the first thing I had to do was a classic dungeon dive to kill a boss which was OK but the dungeon design is like... sub FF4 level quality. The dungeons/paths I went down were just straight lines with branches for treasure chests. And the treasures weren't very exciting!

The battle system has some cool stuff but I was already getting tired of random encounters after 3 hours. That's not a good sign!

The systems outside of the battles, like the bribing people or selling stuff to people (I got Partitio and Hikari) are just sort of... game design? Like what's the point of this stuff? It just feels inserted into the game to have stuff in the game. It doesn't really serve a fluid purpose.

Also I have decided... I don't like the HD-2D. The name is dumb. And... it looks bad!

The music is amazing I will probably listen to the soundtrack but I can't imagine spending 10 hours in this game, lest the 80 required to do all the stuff.

Unfortunately, I have already finished the sequel to a JRPG that really touched my heart, and that I never expected to see again so soon. I've lived 5 months of hype since the game was announced and I've already reached the end of this adventure. But was it really worth it? Before talking about the overall plot, I will deal individually with the stories of the 8 protagonists of this game. Osvald's story is incredible, painful and emotional from beginning to end. A very good tragic story with good twists and told really well. Towards the end I was almost moved. Also Osvald as a character is very well executed, I loved him a lot. I'm really glad I used him as the lead protagonist. Regarding Castti, at first I had some doubts about the plot, but this too turned out to be a truly magnificent story with excellent twists. The way the narrative unfolds is really cool. Castti is an excellent character with a great evolution and very beautiful scenes. The story of Temenos i really incredible. It maintains a very high quality in each chapter both at the level of the story and at the level of the character. Especially Chapter 3 is structured really well and is very engaging. Temenos is also really great, I don't know how they managed to create such a wonderful character. Regarding Ochette, she has a rather simple story that goes straight to the point, however in some way this is consistent with the character. I'm a little sad because I had rather high expectations, but I didn't come out too disappointed in the end. Ochette is a very nice character who really was needed in the party of this game, I liked her enough. Partitio is HIM. He is THE man. His story and his character are amazing from start to finish, and really well told. I love him very much. Regarding Agnea, while her story is the weakest of the 8 and absolutely no match for the others, it's still very nice. There are some elements that cringe me a little bit but overall it has a very warm atmosphere, especially thanks to the characters you meet along your journey. Throné has THE CRAZIEST STORY EVER. I literally have no idea how they managed to put something like this in a game like this, it's a very dark and disturbing story but it still doesn't clash with the atmosphere of the game. I think it's perfect from start to finish, I really have nothing to complain about. Throné then as a character is truly magnificent, masterfully written. Regarding Hikari, he has a great story, more engaging than I expected. Hikari is a good character but he's probably the one I've grown fond of the least. The overall story of the game that is formed by connecting the stories of the eight characters in the final chapter is quite good. I really love that they have managed to create a new interesting and in-depth lore in this new continent and I had a lot of fun discovering the truth behind the mysteries of this game. I'm really amazed at the progress the team behind the game has made in terms of writing compared to the first Octopath Traveler. Both in terms of plot and in terms of dialogues, there is really a big difference between the two games from this point of view. The gameplay of this game is phenomenal. It hasn't undergone huge changes compared to the original, but still manages to be engaging and innovative thanks to several improvements. The new continent felt much more alive and enjoyable to explore than Orsterra in the first game. In this sequel I spent so many hours simply looking for secret caves and interacting with NPCs, something that didn't come naturally to me with the first Octopath Traveler. The addition of the day-night cycle also makes everything even more realistic and pleasant, and allows you to immerse yourself in the world in different ways and in different atmospheres. The Combat System, also largely taken from the first game with several improvements, is a lot of fun. The latent powers of each character make the characters even more unique, while the new classes and skills allow for much more complex battle strategies and make team-building more interesting than in the first game. Also, farming is easier and more satisfying thanks to being able to increase the speed of the battles. As for the interactions between the party characters, they remain almost absent within the individual chapters. When one character experiences his story, the rest of the characters are just there to fight alongside him, without appearing in cutscenes or helping him in some way. This problem present in the first game is also present in the second. The team behind the game promised more interactions between characters through the "double" chapters. These double chapters do not radically compensate for this problem of single chapters. They are certainly quite nice, but only focused on two characters at a time and very short. There is a section of the game where the characters interact with each other in quite an exciting way, but sadly it's only towards the end of the game. I won't go into detail because I don't want to spoil, but I absolutely loved seeing ALL 8 adventurers talk to each other and I wish we had more moments like this sooner. Finally, regarding the difficulty of the game, I found it quite balanced. There were a few moments where I had a little difficulty against the bosses but nothing too stressful, I just changed my strategy and equipment. Regarding graphics, from the first to the second game there has been an incredible graphical improvement. If in the first Octopath Traveler the graphics and artstyle are already quite beautiful, in the second they have really surpassed themselves: they have created truly magnificent environments full of details, made even more pleasant thanks to even better lighting. I'm really happy with these improvements and can't wait to see how HD-2D will evolve over time. Regarding the soundtrack, it really is a masterpiece, I can't find other words to describe it. I love Yasunori Nishiki's style so much. Octopath II's soundtrack surpasses that of the first game in almost every way and is perhaps among the most solid soundtracks I've ever heard. Overall, I loved Octopath Traveler II. It definitely has its downsides, but I still loved it with all my heart and binged it in less than two weeks. I'm quite happy to have bought it and will look forward to a new entry in the series, although it is not currently planned. That said, I actually recommend it only to those who liked the first game. The basis of the second game is the same, and therefore you may experience the same problems that you had in the first game also in the second one. Having loved the first game as a result I loved this one even more.

Final grade: 93

i do enjoy experimentation in games. i swear i do! but i think having us follow eight different characters around was a bit more than the writers and the devs could handle.

as a result, every character's route feels more like a rushed summary, than an actual story that you can get emotional about. hikari's story is really very tragic! temenos's story could have been a great murder mystery! but we move around so fast, constantly swapping between characters, that it's difficult to get attached to anyone. the pacing is off, too. it's bad.

another thing: why are these characters all following each other? i mean, really. osvald was imprisoned for murdering his wife and child. one of his actions is mugging strangers. so why would relatively normal people like agnea or partitio even believe a thing he says? the group dynamics are so bland! bland, bland, bland! they accept each other without a single thought. they all come from different backgrounds, so why would they choose to travel together? fight for each other?

i think a game like dragon age origin does this better. these people all have a good reason for travelling together, but most of them can't stand each other. which is fun! i love seeing people bicker and argue just because they're petty! a manga i enjoy (dungeon meshi) does fun group dynamics really well, too. i like it when characters are weirded out by each other! it's even better if they don't bother to hide their discomfort!

all in all, my thoughts are: this is game is a mess, with some fun ideas. i would recommend it to others! the music is beautiful, the gameplay is fun, and if you're lucky, you might like one or two characters. but in the future, i hope the devs ignore the title OCTOPATH and let us follow... maybe four or five characters in total, with stronger, better written stories. that is my hope for octopath traveler 3.

Octopath Traveler II is a massive adventure packed to the gills with juicy, delicious SYSTEMS. Its deep turn-based RPG mechanics practically beg you to break them and build your little guys into single turn boss-killing machines. If you’re the kind of person that gets a dopamine hit from seeing the numbers go up, then get excited. You’ll be unlocking new weapons and skills and abilities left and right until you’re dealing just dumb amounts of damage. There is always some new synergy or strategy to unlock, and Octopath has a billion different bosses with their own unique mechanics to put your skills to the test, including a post game superboss that basically requires you to break the game to survive.

Where Octopath Traveler 2 doesn’t quite shine (for me anyway) is in its narrative and characters. By all accounts it's an improvement on the original (though I haven't played it), but the protagonists are just so shallow. Everyone has their one character trait, and they talk about it all the time. Osvald is stoic and gruff and out for revenge, Castii can’t remember anything, Temenos is a sassy crime-fighting detective, Ochette is hungry, Partitio loves making fat stacks, Throné wants to NOT be a slave, Hikari hates any bloodshed that he’s not personally committing, and Agnea just wants to dance. Seriously, what are you doing here, Agnea? Go. Go dance. Be free. This all goes doubly for the bad guys, who are generally so cartoonishly evil they’re impossible to take seriously.

To be fair, this seems to be the vibe the game is going for, emulating the simple tales of good vs evil from JRPGs of old. The characters aren’t shallow, they’re archetypal. Mythic figures standing (dancing?) against impossible odds. But when the characters are so one-note it can be difficult to become invested in their journeys. It doesn’t help that the interactions between party members are limited to brief text exchanges and a few crossover chapters that make up a vanishingly small percentage of the game’s overall length (though the final chapter IS very cool).

That’s not to say that the stories being told here are bad. They’re just kind of... there. They give the characters reasons to collect new skills and swords to make their numbers go up so they can kill bigger guys. And at the end of the day maybe that’s all Octopath Traveler II needs to be. The mechanics and systems at play are so good and satisfying that I was more than happy to spend 100+ hours defeating ancient evils and brokering business deals and collecting pokemon and dancing and whatever else.