Octopath Traveler II is everything that I wanted from the first game, almost. I think that Square did a fantastic job of taking criticism from the fans about the first game and channeling that into a fantastic sequel. If we're talking about strictly gameplay and music, this eclipses the original. But in terms of the story, I have some comments.

This is a point of contention for me in both games, as Octopath II is building off the system from the first game on character stories. It has a few improvements here and there, such as route splits, combined stories, etc. However, I did find myself feeling like I was just ready to set the game down towards the end, as it felt like the same old song and dance of arrive at new town, watch ten minutes of cutscene, go through a short dungeon, and fight a boss for every single chapter. Some chapters just skipped the dungeon, the boss, or even both which was jarring to me, but even still. I didn't find my expectations subverted or shaken in any capacity up until the final few hours of the game, which is where the most radical change happens between this game and the first.

My biggest issue with how Octopath II tells its story is the fact that the party still doesn't act like a cohesive group. I understand that this would be insanely difficult to pull off, as this is a very non-linear game in a genre that is defined by linear story telling, and it would be very hard to manage what characters are in the player party and etc, which is fine. But I found that the party banters were seldom enough to sate my desire for group interaction, as they're fairly shallow most of the time and don't really have me feeling any type of way. It makes the game feel like there are no stakes for the travelers outside of the role they play in their own story. The group faces no internal struggle, just as they don't grow closer either, that is until the last few hours. They just seem to be at arms length the entire game, until the Journey for Dawn, which FINALLY fixed my issues, but too little too late.

This lack of meaningful relationships for like 90% of the game made a lot of my choices on where I went and when feel like they had no stakes, and that I solely went there on a whim because I decided to. Like don't get me wrong, the individual character stories are pretty good, it's just that overall the game felt a little underwhelming in the overarching narrative, as even the final showdown is a little vacant of group togetherness and triumph as they all just spit character lines about themselves rather than interact in a meaningful way. In the end, this was still a massive improvement over the first game's story, but still felt a few steps removed from the answer I was hoping for.

My qualms about the story aside, the gameplay loop is actually quite fun, as each traveler feels like they have more options this time around, and the combat is MUCH more balanced (at least until you find all the Ochette exploits.) I also really like the soundtrack, so there's that. I can't complain with what we got, but man I almost wish they just focused more energy into a good Bravely Default game, as those games are the peak of what a great JRPG party is, even if their overall story is a little less good.

Nonetheless, I was satisfied with this sequel. But fuck them for trying to squeeze this game's dogshit title in at the end, that was a little painful ngl.