Octopath Traveller is praised by many people and I wanted to see for myself. I don't play many JRPGs myself and this game showed me perfectly why. I don't think I'm the right person for this kind of game.

The gameplay feels outdated and unnecessarily tiring. If you disregard the occasional grinding, you still have to deal with constantly running into towns to change your team. Why can't you do that everywhere? Why can't I always access all character actions?

It was to be expected that the storytelling would be rather weak, if you already have to write eight stories. Some of the stories had interesting beginnings, others never got interesting, but in the end you still have to endure this really superficial writing. Most of the characters, if they are lucky, have one or two traits. The fact that some of the antagonists were simply evil and had nothing else to offer doesn't make it any better.

Exploring the world and finding new items kept me entertained, and the battle system was absolutely fine. Even if the balancing is completely destroyed by the team leader, who can't be changed.

I'm currently in the final chapters and just need a break, maybe I'll return one day. But a JRPG of this type doesn't seem to be for me.

I desperately wanted to like this game - it's gorgeous, it sounds great, it has an undeniable charm. But it's not scratching that one itch that's most important to me in an RPG - the plot.

I've put in around 40ish hours, finished 4 character stories, I'm sitting on the last chapter of Castti's story, and it's just become a struggle for me. I don't think I can continue.

The 4 stories I finished were the ones that peaked by interest from the start, and not one of them has satisfied me at all. I don't think the handful of chapters format is enough to fully realize the potential of some of these stories, and honestly, the writing isn't particularly great anyway (Throne's story in particular left a bad taste in my mouth).

Gameplay wise, it's fine. It's serviceable. I'm a sucker for a job-based battle system, so that's probably the best part of the actual game for me. Everything else feels quite shallow, the exploration, side quests, and especially the path actions. The grind really starts to kick in after a while aswell, and when you're grinding for plot that you're not even enjoying, it becomes a case of what's the point?

So yeah, I think I'm done with it. I don't think this series is for me, it reminds me of the SaGa games and those don't gel with me either, so it is what it is.

2 stars felt too low, and 3 stars is too high for me personally, so taking everything else into account, 2 and a half feels fair. I'm most certainly in the minority here. Pretty much everyone loves this game, which I can respect. It's nice to see an RPG do well.

Every encounter in 7th Dragon is like the proverbial block in the sorting bucket: they all fit in the square hole of charged non-elemental damage spells. Etrian's mechanics simply don't work if the encounters aren't threatening and the resource management, already trivialized here by non-respawning enemies and short dungeons, can be completely circumvented by the medic's ability to infinitely restore mana. I've heard it suggested that this game wasn't localized because of its difficulty, but I'd like to believe publishers simply recognized it'd have no appeal to an audience not already inoculated by Dragon Quest III.

A2 does something no other FFT and honestly no other game really does- or even attempts to do. The game tries to personalize the player as the group, and not as any individual character.

The game allows any clan member to be the representative in major longrunning questlines and turf wars. Luso is treated as A main character, not THE main character. The other clan members take part in his quest just as well as he takes part in theirs. Its a subtle theme that gets pushed with every other named party member as well. Its not really something any company would market with and its not really anything anyone looks for in a game, but regardless it makes A2 have a unique flavor that no other game has, nor does any other game try to match.

I think Ryu Hayabusa is a 10/10 action game character stuck in a 5/10 action game. Fighting grunts is the best part of the game because Ryu's moveset is so robust and killing stuff feels so good. Combos are fast and fluid while also not being too difficult to pull off and the Izuna Drop may be one of the best attacks in a video game. The enemies also all pose a threat to some extent so unlike in DMC you have to constantly be on your toes. The problems arise in literally everything else. While Ryu's fast far-reaching jumps are good in combat, they end up being a liability during exploration platforming sections. Countless times I intended to do a wall run and ended up running straight up the wall instead or I just wanted to jump forward and Ryu decides to cling to random nearby structures. The levels are fairly uninteresting both to look at and traverse and this is especially bad given the amount of backtracking you need to do. While fighting grunts generally is fun, the military level manages to make even that subpar by dumping you in an area full of enemies with guns so someone is ALWAYS hitting you. The ghost fish are absolute abominations and drag chapters 17 and 18 down tremendously. The bosses are typically either frustrating, unfun, short, or some mixture of the 3. Bosses lack any sort of personality and I wouldn't really describe any of them as fun or memorable. The way they seemingly decide when to block your attacks at random and nullify your techniques likes ninpo, flying swallow and izuna drops makes them intrinsically less fun to fight than grunts. I realize most people prefer ninja gaiden black so I poured over all the differences I could find to make sure I wasn't making some big mistake by playing Sigma instead and I can't say I would've liked Black much better. The Rachel missions are pretty lame but they're short and I didn't mind them too much. The ability to fire projectiles mid-jump is good and makes fighting flying enemies and the helicopter/tanks much more bearable. The new burning village chapter was pretty good as well. I also don't really like Rachel that much, I think her outfit looks really stupid and I would've much preferred playing as Ayane. I didn't really dislike the game and as much as I got frustrated, I still had plenty of fun thanks to how good the general combat is.