While I haven't played Octopath 1 yet, I've always been a huge fan of the style and especially the soundtrack, so I was very excited to play this. I'm so glad I did.

There are a lot of specific things I want to praise this game for, but I'll get the one flaw I can think of right now out of the way first, that being that with good preparation and skills/equipment loadout, a lot of boss encounters can be made very easy. This wasn't really a problem for me, as random encounter and the boss fights are still really fun, but I can see how it'd be a problem.

The first thing I'll praise is the one most specific to this game, that being the path action + day/night system. Getting to a new town and being able to inquire, allure, challenge, buy, whatever from almost every npc is such a fun system. I found myself inquiring and bribing every single one not even for hidden items, but just to learn their backstories. Seeing that this guy's a thief with a heart of gold, that this person is secretly respected by the whole village for their hard work, that these two want to confess their feelings for each other but can't, it all really makes the game's world feel more diverse and interesting, even if all I'm getting moment-to-moment from these little tidbits of information are a chuckle or a "huh."

I also really like the way the world is laid out and how it lets you explore and even kind of encourages you to go to higher level areas. The biggest example of this is acquiring the boat, which opens up the sea, a level 34 area that leads to some bosses and higher level areas. Getting beat up in a higher level area never feels unfair because it's fun to gamble on your luck to get good gear earlier on.

I also really liked the characters and how their individual stories tied together. A problem people might have with the story is the wildly differing stakes between characters (this girl wants to be a famous dancer, this guy needs to save his kingdom from his evil brother), but each are very enjoyable, which is added to with great voice acting in both Japanese and English. This is one of the few games I actively chose to play in English a majority of the time. My favorite character was changing constantly, and I still don't really know who it'd be (right now it's Partitio the Merchant and Castti the Apothecary, but that could change whenever). I've heard the first game had a problem with tying the characters and stories together, which this game remedies with the "crossed paths" stories involving a pair of characters, along with the travel banter that you can view along your journey. I had no problems viewing the 8 main characters as a real group of friends by the end of the story. Love some of the pairings that develop from the crossed paths and banter working in tandem.

Maybe my favorite aspect of this game is the music. Going in, I really doubted that Yasunori Nishiki would be able to top the first game's soundtrack, but he absolutely did. There isn't a single track in this game that isn't both amazing in and outside of the game (my favorite song is still The Sunlands from the first game though). Praying that Nishiki is at some point held in somewhere near the same regard as Uematsu when it comes to jrpg soundtracks.

I think a phrase that's really easy to throw at this is that it's a "love letter" to jrpgs, this is one of the most overwhelmingly happy games I've ever played. Love it and hope they'll make a third one that makes this seem like a prototype the same way this made 1 seem like a prototype.