i've been playing this for a few days and while i would usually wait for me to finish a game before sharing my thoughts, i can not contain how elated i am at how much of an improvement it is over the original. almost all of my issues with the original game were addressed and i'm very pleasantly surprised. what stands out the most to me is how interesting the characters are and the beautiful and varied environments, it really feels like a rare instance of a dev learning from not only the issues of the original but the parts of it that worked. would not be surprised if this ended up being my goty. i'm going to be locking comments and ignoring this 'review' once i finish the game and get my actual review out, i just genuinely could not stop myself from gushing about this game

Octopath Traveler came out at the right time, It kickstarted the HD-2D genre.
That's about all I can say about Octopath Traveler. While the game was a commercial and critical success, It felt lacking in more aspects than one.
So here comes the long awaited sequel, how does it fare to the original?

As of writing this, I don't believe I've ever played a game that improves on every single part of the original game and rises to new heights in the entire genre. It's a magical little game that has managed to hook me in from the first minute of playing the game, every single character is interesting and are fun to be around, they each have their own storylines together. It feels like everything has finally clicked.
The original game simply feels like just a proof of concept compared to this.

Octopath Traveler as a game was an interesting idea, but it lacked the narrative hook and It didn't help that the characters weren't really interesting either, the interactions between them were minimal or even non existent at times, everything felt disconnected.
The game at its core felt like a short 20 hour long classic SNES JRPG about multiple protags of which all of them had their own storylines cough Live a Live cough but stretched over to 100 hours, it felt exhausting.
This resulted in the average person picking up the game for around 20-30 hours, having their fill and putting the game down.
However Octopath 2 feels like it deserves those 100 hours and ends up making every single minute of those 100 hours insanely fun and entertaining, be it the combat, the characters or the beautiful environments.

If you were someone who loved the original, were let down by it or absolutely despised it.
I desperately urge you to give the second game a chance, there is no doubt in my mind that this game will go down as one of the greats in the entire medium.