What is the big deal with Octopath Traveler?

[Marik2]

 

[Casual Shinji]

Maybe you can claim we've gotten the best writing from literature but movies/TV are no slouches either. TV was pretty bad for a long time and now it's better than film on the whole, and that all changed really recently. However, there's a giant chasm separating literature/film/TV and video games at this point. There's just so little writing talent in the medium and games are developed backwards as well. How is a game's story/themes supposed to come together and gel with the gameplay/levels when those elements are done first and the writer has to come in and just make it work as best as they can? Video games are a young medium and we are far far from seeing their full potential and we really only get flickers of brilliance.

A lot of movies are made "backwards" as well. Hayao Miyazaki doesn't even write scripts and usually flies by the seat of his pants. Shaun of the Dead apparently had its plot and dialoge just scribled on a blackboard. A lot of movies already start location scouting and pre production before the script is finished. Movies, videogames, and TV show generally aren't crafted in a logical sequence.

Sure, the best screenplay may not win every year and you look back at a year and ask 'how the hell did XYZ beat ABC?' but it's not like a Michael Bay movie is winning best screenplays either. Uncharted 3 is so horribly written its not even funny, you can tell how disjointed and rushed the game development was just playing the game. The plot points don't even make basic logical sense along with the characters motivations being in opposition to their prior selves. And, that's the best video gaming can put out in a year? That's pretty sad. It's not that you don't have quality writing at times, but those are few and far between as the talent just isn't there execute such things. There's tons of games with good, fun B-movie writing like say Blood Dragon, Binary Domain, Bulletstorm, Metal Gears, most Platinum games, etc. I really don't see why anyone would play games primarily for story when you can get so much better anywhere else.

Because a game's story is more than just its written word. You keep saying 'primarily for the story', but story isn't just what's written. You don't watch a movie primarily for the writing either. You watch it for the combination of visual, sound, music, acting, and dialoge, which combined shape the storytelling to be either good or bad (or something you like or dislike). Even games with bad writing can still deliver a good story experience, because the visuals, sound design, and music come together to make you believe in what you're seeing/playing. As much as the dialoge in Resident Evil 2 sucks, the police station becomes a character on its own because of how well the visual and sound design make it work, and this adds to the narrative. And the fact that you as the player are allowed to interact with it adds even more.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

I don't want to spoil anything or burst bubbles, but once you get to about midway through the chapter 2's you start unlocking job passives that basically trivialize the game's resource management.

Eh, I don't consider OT to be a dungeon crawler at all as it's definitely not built like one, so resource management really isn't something I was looking forward to.

Hell, I'm already loaded up on so many olives and grapes that I'm really not worried about it.

Like, when I say Dungeon Crawler, I'm talking stuff like the Etrian Odyssey series, where you have a bunch of dungeons with multiple floors that you need to slowly grind through across many individual runs, making more and more progress each time, until you manage to overcome it.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Eh, I don't consider OT to be a dungeon crawler at all as it's definitely not built like one, so resource management really isn't something I was looking forward to.

Not in the sense of old school games it's not, but there are a ton of dungeons optional or otherwise. They just trend towards being quick and straightforward affairs that focus less on resource management over time, and more on being powerful enough to beat random encounters.

I've only ran into one dungeon thus far I found close to challenging, that was Cyrus' chapter 2 and explicitly due to lack of preparation on my part. The solution was just eating grapes after every other random battle during the ten minutes it took to grind Dancer on him and Ophilia. That wasn't even strictly necessary, since I could have leaned on Therion or Tressa as an SP battery, but I wanted to get that SP regen grind out of the way sooner rather than later.

I don't see at all how people are still ragging on "random battles take five minutes". Sure, early on before you get a full party and start experimenting with subjobs they can get lengthy, but once you get a firm grasp on the game's combat mechanics, learn how to manipulate BP, and learn monster subtype weaknesses, you should be able to get domination bonuses on most fights.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I haven't played this but the ZP review makes it sound like discount Odin Sphere (except character paths actually intertwine in OS). Checking the art style and character roster I'm also getting strong Dragon's Crown vibes from this. How close am I?

 

[sXeth]

I haven't played this but the ZP review makes it sound like discount Odin Sphere (except character paths actually intertwine in OS). Checking the art style and character roster I'm also getting strong Dragon's Crown vibes from this. How close am I?

No idea on Odin Sphere.

I dunno how you'd get Dragons Crown. Its a throwback JRPG with pixel sprites, not an animated side-scroller brawler(esque).

Battle Chasers and Child of Light would be the two most recent things I've played that I'd compare it to.

 

[Yoshi178]

I haven't played this but it's not on a Playstation system so therefore it's automatically bad.

FTFY.

 

[CaitSeith]

Are there microtransactions? I got Bravely Default because people were saying it was a return to classic form and was really well done and blah blah blah, but I was pretty surprised there were microtransactions in a single player JRPG.

I was just glad that it didn't mess with the gameplay (Bravely Default's). I played it in normal and didn't need to use any SP.

 

[CaitSeith]

There's probably like maybe 10 video games whose writing would be on par with TV shows/movies I'd consider 7/10 good.

Please name them (if not here, in another thread). I really want to play the games you consider having the best writing in gaming so far.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I haven't played this but the ZP review makes it sound like discount Odin Sphere (except character paths actually intertwine in OS). Checking the art style and character roster I'm also getting strong Dragon's Crown vibes from this. How close am I?

No idea on Odin Sphere.

I dunno how you'd get Dragons Crown. Its a throwback JRPG with pixel sprites, not an animated side-scroller brawler(esque).

Battle Chasers and Child of Light would be the two most recent things I've played that I'd compare it to.

I was referring less to the gameplay and more to the overall tone, style, aesthetic, whatever you wanna call it that is shared between Octopath and I guess any number of "throwback" JRPGs. Some striking similarities between characters as well. Though I guess there's such a thing as "generic JRPG look".

Spoiler: Spoiler'd for size

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

No idea on Odin Sphere.

I dunno how you'd get Dragons Crown. Its a throwback JRPG with pixel sprites, not an animated side-scroller brawler(esque).

Battle Chasers and Child of Light would be the two most recent things I've played that I'd compare it to.

It's none of the above. The producers gave comparison to FFVI, but that doesn't work either except maybe in terms of art style. This is the best comparison: the Saga Series, specifically Saga Frontier. Saga Frontier had the same setup in being set around seven protagonists with their own individual stories, so it was essentially seven campaigns in one, except switch out Octopath's more medieval setting with a weird, sci-fi setting like something out of Phantasy Star.

 

[totheendofsin]

No idea on Odin Sphere.

I dunno how you'd get Dragons Crown. Its a throwback JRPG with pixel sprites, not an animated side-scroller brawler(esque).

Battle Chasers and Child of Light would be the two most recent things I've played that I'd compare it to.

It's none of the above. The producers gave comparison to FFVI, but that doesn't work either except maybe in terms of art style. This is the best comparison: the Saga Series, specifically Saga Frontier. Saga Frontier had the same setup in being set around seven protagonists with their own individual stories, so it was essentially seven campaigns in one, except switch out Octopath's more medieval setting with a weird, sci-fi setting like something out of Phantasy Star.

One comparison I've heard that I like is an old game that was never released outside of Japan called Live A Live, which had a story stucture similar to Octopath, consisting of several seemingly unrelated storys with something unlocked at the end tying them all together (I haven't finished Octopath yet so I don't know if it has something like that)

 

[sXeth]

I was referring less to the gameplay and more to the overall tone, style, aesthetic, whatever you wanna call it that is shared between Octopath and I guess any number of "throwback" JRPGs. Some striking similarities between characters as well. Though I guess there's such a thing as "generic JRPG look".

OH well, yeah, sure then. Slightly Renaissance and/or Victorian themed fantasy settings are a dime a dozen, and certainly seem popular (from my generally outside perspective) in the anime/JRPG spaceh

No idea on Odin Sphere.

I dunno how you'd get Dragons Crown. Its a throwback JRPG with pixel sprites, not an animated side-scroller brawler(esque).

Battle Chasers and Child of Light would be the two most recent things I've played that I'd compare it to.

It's none of the above. The producers gave comparison to FFVI, but that doesn't work either except maybe in terms of art style. This is the best comparison: the Saga Series, specifically Saga Frontier. Saga Frontier had the same setup in being set around seven protagonists with their own individual stories, so it was essentially seven campaigns in one, except switch out Octopath's more medieval setting with a weird, sci-fi setting like something out of Phantasy Star.

I was covering the basic gameplay. The narrative structure could be compared to any variety of things. I'd generally associate it with strategy games from my own experience, which similarly tend to feature multiple campaigns with differing protagonists that interlock occasionally at best.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

One comparison I've heard that I like is an old game that was never released outside of Japan called Live A Live, which had a story stucture similar to Octopath, consisting of several seemingly unrelated storys with something unlocked at the end tying them all together (I haven't finished Octopath yet so I don't know if it has something like that)

Live A Live doesn't work 100% either as every campaign also took place in radically different time periods (they even had radically different art styles).

I was covering the basic gameplay. The narrative structure could be compared to any variety of things. I'd generally associate it with strategy games from my own experience, which similarly tend to feature multiple campaigns with differing protagonists that interlock occasionally at best.

Even in terms of gameplay that doesn't work. It's more like they took Bravely Default, but reworked the BP system, streamlined the jobs, threw in some unique interactive elements like Therion's Steal, Alfyn's Inquire, and H'aanit's Provoke, and then added in Shin Megami Tensei's system of exploiting elemental weaknesses. All in all, it's mostly its own thing at the sum of its parts

 

[sXeth]

I was covering the basic gameplay. The narrative structure could be compared to any variety of things. I'd generally associate it with strategy games from my own experience, which similarly tend to feature multiple campaigns with differing protagonists that interlock occasionally at best.

Even in terms of gameplay that doesn't work. It's more like they took Bravely Default, but reworked the BP system, streamlined the jobs, threw in some unique interactive elements like Therion's Steal, Alfyn's Inquire, and H'aanit's Provoke, and then added in Shin Megami Tensei's system of exploiting elemental weaknesses. All in all, it's mostly its own thing at the sum of its parts

Also didn't play Bravely, so that'd be out of my comparison.

I don't quite get why you're so deadset against it being compared to those two games that necessitates throwing a barrage of alternate takes. For what its worth, that interactive options stuff is in Battle Chasers. Jobs have literally been a staple in the genre since well, forever. The weakness stuff reminded me of Xenoblade (although in Octopath the stacks are on the enemies, in Xenoblade they're on your team) with less of the UI spam reminiscent of some kind of casino app.

You wander around an overworld/town/dungeon, with primarily random encoutners. Which are resolved by your team lining up and engaging in various actions in a turn based combat system. It is what is conventionally referred to as JRPG. Some throw on "classic" to denote a difference from more recent offerings that scrapped the turn-based part out for real time or ARPG combat. And the J is kind of a nebulous one, while Japanese games have dominated the genre for an extended period, there's been several western that were both inspired by the them, or even concurrently pioneered the idea (except western RPG's following the same base mechanics had the odd tendency to line the characters along the bottom vs enemies on the top, instead of right vs left)

 

[sageoftruth]

It definitely has a target market. Basically, those who miss Pre-FF7 Final Fantasy games. Yahtzee said it pretty well. It's styled a lot like FF6, but with a few modern improvements. Basically, old JRPG nostalgia is a huge hook for this one.

With that said, much like nostalgia itself, you do start to notice a slew of problems once you look past the glorious rose-tinted imagery.

 

[Yoshi178]

You see this 3rd Parties?

This is what happens when you release games on Nintendo platforms and don't half arse them!

https://twitter.com/NintendoEurope/status/1025275122863800326

 

[Erttheking]

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 was totally going to post this, your Excellency!!!

I was totally going to post this, your Excellency!!!

*sigh*


You know you can switch the language to Japanese, right? You know, the original dialoge track that doesn't make the game sound like trash.

*raises hand*. Am I the only one who unironically thinks the dub is downright superb? Because I do think that. Also I don?t get the complaint. She calls the bishop Your Excellency...I don?t get it. The voice acting is good and it?s a sign of respect from a character who probably still feels a little bit like an outsider to her adopted family. What?s the big deal?

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

*raises hand*. Am I the only one who unironically thinks the dub is downright superb? Because I do think that. Also I don?t get the complaint. She calls the bishop Your Excellency...I don?t get it. The voice acting is good and it?s a sign of respect from a character who probably still feels a little bit like an outsider to her adopted family. What?s the big deal?

The dub has actually been highly praised. Not hard to see why either considering they got great actors like Patrick Seitz, Cristina Valenzuela, Cindy Robinson, Frieda Wolff, Greg Chun, Laura Post, the main characters alone are all great and even smaller ones are pretty good. My guess for criticisms: the predictable as hell, kneejerk reactions to anything dubbed and because it's on a Nintendo system it gets doubly bad (though luckily not to the point where anyone has been harassed off social media).

You see this 3rd Parties?

This is what happens when you release games on Nintendo platforms and don't half arse them!

https://twitter.com/NintendoEurope/status/1025275122863800326

Yeah, this is one of those "take notice" moments. Same thing with Nintendo releasing a financial report recently revealing the Switch sales are up 50% compared to last year. And how the Switch's sales also reversed the decade-long downward trend of system sales in Japan.

 

[Zeraki]

*raises hand*. Am I the only one who unironically thinks the dub is downright superb? Because I do think that. Also I don?t get the complaint. She calls the bishop Your Excellency...I don?t get it. The voice acting is good and it?s a sign of respect from a character who probably still feels a little bit like an outsider to her adopted family. What?s the big deal?

Nope you're not the only one, the voice acting is fine.

Most of the general consensus I've seen is that the dub is very good.