I remember barely anything about the first Octopath Traveler so some things I praise or complain about here might just be holdovers.
When I played the first game I only went through it with my chosen 4 members, this time I went through the game with everyone on top of just going for the whole platinum so that means all sidequests, locations and whatnot on top of getting everyone all the job skills for the hell of it. Unlike the first game, if I'm remembering correctly, you need to go through everyone's stories in order to hit credits. Speaking of credits, it was a really nice ending without going into spoilers. It honestly got to me, maybe I'm just continually softening up as I get older.
The battle system is mostly the same as the first entry but now they added passive abilities andlimit breaks I mean latent powers which add enough to the combat flow. Ochette is been the beastmaster job I have wanted in jprgs for a long time. You catch a monster and (barring some special cases) you can use it in every single battle and will not leave your roster until you choose to get rid of it. To balance that she can only carry 8 non story related ones. Her latent power I think was was the best cuz has versatility. Do you want an aoe, high single target damage or an aoe debuff? She got it all
In terms of story, like the first game, they are unfortunately still very much isolated. You might as well not even have a party and it should have been done in in the way of Live A Live where its all separate until the end. They tried to alleviate it by having optional banter you can view depending on story progression, location and party composition which are unvoiced. There are also these paired stores between 2 characters where they actually speak to each other, interact, the whole 9 yards. Great, should have been the whole game. Then the epilogue has all 8 actually exist on screen at on time and speak to each other! I couldn't believe it! Again this should have been the whole game.
Still no bench party experience so I was dreading going through the more unused characters but it was pretty painless especially when my stronger characters could carry them through thing easily. Not that the game itself was difficult outside of maybe 3 or 4 fights and only cuz of those bosses being really annoying and doing things like giving themselves extra turns, bonus turns after brining a party member to 1 hp, and locking out basic actions like healing (both via magic and item), attacking (via regular action and skill) and blocking boosting. You also needed to go to a tavern to swap characters which was annoying. There were things in the world map that required certain characters so if they weren't with you then you had to either come back later or if you're like me and worry you'd forget, go back to a town, swap characters, walk ALL the way back to where it was and through the considerable high encounter rate this game has even with the reduced encounter skill to get back to it. The fact the option to swap party members out via the menu was locked to the epilogue is cruel and unusual punishment.
Speaking of skills, the game outright tells you what skills don't stack. Limited the fun a bit but I appreciate the game telling me it won't work so I wouldn't waste time. Since the game was so upfront about labeling things as unstackable, I assumed the items that don't have the disclaimer stacked as they should. Considering how often I was running into the metal slime equivalents while wearing the increasing items as I was power leveling for the last bit of the game, they were working. I also liked that there was an npc who only did the exp/jp buffs, so that way I didn't have to play russian roulette with the dancer class and have a chance to wipe my party.
Music was phenomenal, I adored the night versions of the tracks. This was another Xenoblade situation where I listened to everything at both times of the day. Partitio's theme is GOATED, fantastic and I'll be considering buying the ost just cuz of it. The whole time I've been writing this review I've been sitting in a tavern in game with it on loop.
I am also not tired of the HD2D style, its just so beautiful. Granted I did skip the more recent releases like triangle strategy and diofield chronicle so I haven't been as exposed to it as some others. Can't wait for that Dragon Quest 3 HD2D remake.
So given my, admittedly, lacking memory of the first game from what I remember I think this game is an all around improvement. I recommend it, unless you're a tryhard who only cares about difficult cuz then you have nothing here. Only things I ask in the future is, if they can't feasible have more interaction between the characters in each of their stories due to the sheer amount of variable its openness comes with, then do it like Live a Live and have everything be completely separated until they meet up at the end. The second ask is please allow bench exp, even if its at a reduced rate. It doesn't have to be from the get go, you could have that happen after you beat the character's story since you do have set levels of the encounters for each sequence. The third is allow party swapping from the menu or at save points. There is no good reason to not have it to lock it to the tail end of the game.
When I played the first game I only went through it with my chosen 4 members, this time I went through the game with everyone on top of just going for the whole platinum so that means all sidequests, locations and whatnot on top of getting everyone all the job skills for the hell of it. Unlike the first game, if I'm remembering correctly, you need to go through everyone's stories in order to hit credits. Speaking of credits, it was a really nice ending without going into spoilers. It honestly got to me, maybe I'm just continually softening up as I get older.
The battle system is mostly the same as the first entry but now they added passive abilities and
In terms of story, like the first game, they are unfortunately still very much isolated. You might as well not even have a party and it should have been done in in the way of Live A Live where its all separate until the end. They tried to alleviate it by having optional banter you can view depending on story progression, location and party composition which are unvoiced. There are also these paired stores between 2 characters where they actually speak to each other, interact, the whole 9 yards. Great, should have been the whole game. Then the epilogue has all 8 actually exist on screen at on time and speak to each other! I couldn't believe it! Again this should have been the whole game.
Still no bench party experience so I was dreading going through the more unused characters but it was pretty painless especially when my stronger characters could carry them through thing easily. Not that the game itself was difficult outside of maybe 3 or 4 fights and only cuz of those bosses being really annoying and doing things like giving themselves extra turns, bonus turns after brining a party member to 1 hp, and locking out basic actions like healing (both via magic and item), attacking (via regular action and skill) and blocking boosting. You also needed to go to a tavern to swap characters which was annoying. There were things in the world map that required certain characters so if they weren't with you then you had to either come back later or if you're like me and worry you'd forget, go back to a town, swap characters, walk ALL the way back to where it was and through the considerable high encounter rate this game has even with the reduced encounter skill to get back to it. The fact the option to swap party members out via the menu was locked to the epilogue is cruel and unusual punishment.
Speaking of skills, the game outright tells you what skills don't stack. Limited the fun a bit but I appreciate the game telling me it won't work so I wouldn't waste time. Since the game was so upfront about labeling things as unstackable, I assumed the items that don't have the disclaimer stacked as they should. Considering how often I was running into the metal slime equivalents while wearing the increasing items as I was power leveling for the last bit of the game, they were working. I also liked that there was an npc who only did the exp/jp buffs, so that way I didn't have to play russian roulette with the dancer class and have a chance to wipe my party.
Music was phenomenal, I adored the night versions of the tracks. This was another Xenoblade situation where I listened to everything at both times of the day. Partitio's theme is GOATED, fantastic and I'll be considering buying the ost just cuz of it. The whole time I've been writing this review I've been sitting in a tavern in game with it on loop.
I am also not tired of the HD2D style, its just so beautiful. Granted I did skip the more recent releases like triangle strategy and diofield chronicle so I haven't been as exposed to it as some others. Can't wait for that Dragon Quest 3 HD2D remake.
So given my, admittedly, lacking memory of the first game from what I remember I think this game is an all around improvement. I recommend it, unless you're a tryhard who only cares about difficult cuz then you have nothing here. Only things I ask in the future is, if they can't feasible have more interaction between the characters in each of their stories due to the sheer amount of variable its openness comes with, then do it like Live a Live and have everything be completely separated until they meet up at the end. The second ask is please allow bench exp, even if its at a reduced rate. It doesn't have to be from the get go, you could have that happen after you beat the character's story since you do have set levels of the encounters for each sequence. The third is allow party swapping from the menu or at save points. There is no good reason to not have it to lock it to the tail end of the game.