There are some really good character introductions. Ophelia and Primrose especially stand out. There doesn't seem to be as much character progression as of yet, but I've been greatly enjoying just meeting the party members. The writing is quite good, visuals are captivating, and the music is catchy as fuck. The turn-based combat is pretty basic, but very enjoyable nonetheless. Better than Persona 5's, that's for sure.
Overall it's a very charming little game that proves Square can actually show some restraint, and can still write engaging characters. It's nice to finally play something worth while on the Switch again.
Honestly, I really like Octopath Traveler. If you liked 16-bit JRPG's, it's for you. If not, it's probably best avoided. Mechanically, it's somewhere between DQ3 and FFT, closer to FFV in its implementation of how developing individual jobs grants bonuses that make a given character more powerful that can lead to some pretty fun and unique variations, and some pretty game-breaking ones. That each character has a unique combat mechanic, and their first of two jobs being locked in, puts enough constraint on character development to ensure diversity, but doesn't feel restrictive considering characters with weaker unique combat mechanics have stronger overworld mechanics, and vice versa.
Some characters have potential job/subjob combinations that are game-breakingly, "who in their right mind put this in the game?", powerful (lookin' at you, Tressa), and not all passive skills granted through leveling jobs are created equal, which can lead to some monotony later on if you're min-maxing, but that's to be expected.
Special mention goes to boss fights, which tend to be large, grandoise affairs with mechanics that range from "smack down the meat shield" in the early game all the way to convoluted puzzle bosses with multiple layers of defenses with respawning adds and super attacks.
Story-wise, structurally it has a lot of Seiken Densetsu 3 in its DNA, where you choose a central character whose perspective changes the game's overall experience in subtle ways, and recruit other playable characters whose stories effectively serve as B-plots. Like SD3 the game's characters function effectively in thematic pairs, and serve as foils to one another in story and theme. For example, Ophilia and Primrose are one such pairing, being orphans whose lives went in dramatically different directions, and both their stories focus on themes of sacrifice, loss, familial obligation and finding purpose, and betrayal. So, it's fitting their unique mechanic -- recruiting NPC's as temporary party members -- is the same, but works differently and has radically different implications that fit their characters.
Thematically, the story sits somewhere between FFVI and FFT. It starts out with a bunch of disparate characters whose perspectives, experiences, and goals radically differ, but find companionship out of mutual interest. Each character has their own unique story which stands alone, but:
as the chapters progress, it becomes progressively clearer the characters all have a common enemy which has been the source of their woes all along, and a piece of the bigger puzzle is revealed upon completion of each character's main story. Assuming you don't just look online for spoilers, if you've paid enough attention, put two and two together, and follow the disparate breadcrumbs you find a series of well-hidden side quests that require all the character's unique talents to progress through, in order to unlock the game's true final dungeon, boss, and ending.
It gets dark. But considering Primrose starts the game as a sex slave and part of her character introduction is literally being put to work on the streets, it's kind of to be expected.
It?s a well put together classic style JRPG in a market where those are a rarity. Plus it has a good soundtrack, good voice acting, likable characters, and a fun and interesting combat system.
It seems like just a standard JRPG that's mechanically around 25 years old just done relatively well and having all the pitfalls of that type of game design like brain-dead turn-based combat, random battles, and grinding. Even if the story and characters feature amazing writing (which is very doubtful), it won't be worth trudging through the archaic gameplay. Why does any game feature random battles when they were only even a thing due to hardware limitations that we are far far past at this point? It's kinda like say FPSs sticking with not being able to look up just for the purposes of tradition.
i'm only very early into the game. i started playing as Therion and i've beaten the first boss and so far it's pretty fun but i'll need to play it alot more before i make my final verdict.
Funnily, considering I was literally the target audience for it, I wasn't overly impressed.
Mechanically its fine, if enjoy the classic FF JRPG stuff you'll like it, if not you won't.
Graphically, they try and do some weird stuff to modernize it, that doesn't (IMO) work very well. The super-bloom is the most glaring (literally and figuratively) example, but in general a lot of the efforts to use modernized graphics don't mesh well.
Story-wise, its alright. Maybe a smidge better done then Setsuna and Lost Sphere, but still a bit mired in trope regurgitation. One big hole, which is only furthered by the name dropping of FF6 as an influence, is that despite being sold around the premise of 8 characters, they basically don't interact with each other. With a bare handful of awkward post-quest scenes, party dynamics are non-existent and characters only have parts to play in their own storylines.
Graphically, they try and do some weird stuff to modernize it, that doesn't (IMO) work very well. The super-bloom is the most glaring (literally and figuratively) example, but in general a lot of the efforts to use modernized graphics don't mesh well.
For me it's the depth of field. Too shallow for my tastes. Combined with the bloom and "early 7th gen console game"-like desaturation, everything outside of the thin plane of focus becomes a blurry mess I honestly find ugly in motion.
For me it's the depth of field. Too shallow for my tastes. Combined with the bloom and "early 7th gen console game"-like desaturation, everything outside of the thin plane of focus becomes a blurry mess I honestly find ugly in motion.
Honestly, the presentation reminded me more of the narrow band of games at the very end of the fourth generation, and the first half or so of the fifth, where game devs were experimenting with graphical effects, perspectives, underlaid pre-rendered backgrounds and blurring effects, feeling out where RPG's would go aesthetically before moving fully into the 3D realm. Most of us saw the beginning of that with SoM's and FFVI's use of mode 7 graphics, and it continued through games like Lunar (the original and remakes), Vay, and Wild Arms.
I'm taking my time with it (Too busy looking for work and working in Unity on practice projects, and also too addicted to Warframe right now to spend too much time playing OT), but I'm really liking it. The combat system is snappy and fun, the boss fights and some normal fights are a credible threat that make me use items and Debuffs frequently, and the story so far is great, even if I haven't yet started someone's chapter 2 (I'm about to start Therion's though).
If you're looking for a classic turn based RPG with a great combat system and glorious art/music and some neat characters, it's great. The limited interaction between characters is a crying shame, but eh, every game's allowed a flaw or two.
Ok, normal battles aren't Etrian Odyssey levels of "two or three dumb moves and your party is dead, enjoy losing an hour of progress", but brain-dead is totally unfair.
Why does any game feature random battles with they were only even a thing due to hardware limitations that we are far far past at this point?
As an RPG aficionado I will totally agree that in most cases RPGs should move beyond random battles, and that Octopath Traveler could totally have ditched them and maybe should have. My own RPGs typically don't use them either. On-Field-Battles are way more engaging and lets you make the battles longer or more involved because you can choose to engage in them or not.
BUT!
The Dungeon Crawler RPG genre works super well with random battles. The Resource Management aspect of that genre requires you to spend resources (MP, items, etc), so if you can just avoid all the battles then a good chunk of what makes the formula fun goes away. Knowing how much farther you can push into a dungeon before retreating home, and knowing what risks you can take typically works best when you have a constant loss of resources.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make a dungeon crawler that doesn't use random battles (*waves at persona 5*), just that it's the most elegant solution that doesn't involve making an entire stealth mechanic where completely evading enemies is very difficult, AND you have to ambush the majority of your enemies in order to minimize resource loss.
Honestly, it just seems like you dislike the RPG genre in general. Which is fine. But some of us like the so called "archaic" design of them and see the beauty in it.
Because they weren't only due to hardware limitations. They were inspired by table-top RPGs like D&D (which have random battles). Your tastes in games aren't the only valid ones, you know?
If you like JRPG's (and I generally don't) you might like this one. It is generally competently made and the combat is fairly interesting and does require that you pay more attention than in a lot of turn based systems.
I however, mostly just found it boring. There are noticable flaws such as the dialogue, the awkward lack of interaction between the eight characters, the awkward lack of interaction between gameplay and story, the pointless stuff you collect by stealing and in battles but none of it bad enough to ruin the game by itself. They do add up though and for me the games really lacks any positive reason to keep playing, so I didn't. It's also really, really generic in it's storytelling. One issue with it is that it does a lot if the JRPG things without turning it into a coherent whole. This results into there being 1, 4 or 8 characters present at random times according to bizarre and nonsensical rules. To be clear, I didn't hate this game or anything, but I did find it boring.
edit: oh and another thing, if you want to include a scholar, don't introduce him by having him lecture on topography and history so basic you'd normally teach it to 9 year olds.
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