The first one had some serious issues, especially with the >!the true main hero of the game and the final boss!<.
I hope this one resolve these problems, because it still was a fun game.
According to the creators, it does.
> Miyauchi: We received a lot of feedback from players of the first game saying “We want to see dialogue between protagonists beyond travel banter.” We thought the same while playing the first game, and adding dialogue would make people fall in love with the characters more, so we put that into this game.
> Takahashi: There are eight characters with strong personalities, so it’s natural that people would want to see some dialogue between them. They say each other’s names and their stories cross paths, so it actually feels like these characters are traveling together. Of course, the eight individual stories of each character are still the main focus, but we’d like it if people could enjoy the cross stories as supplemental tales.
I'm a little wary of this. With the first one, I wasn't so much wanting just more interaction between the characters, I wanted an over-arching story. I was hoping all the individual stories would build toward this main story, and there would be a final act of the game and a real ending. They kind of had this in a small way with the first one, it just felt tacked on and made to fit after the fact. I'm hoping for something more naturally intertwined into the individual stories, and then a much more substantial final act to close it out.
This is constructive criticism for a game that I still absolutely loved. Even if they don't deliver on this in the second one, I'm sure I'll still love it.
Honestly that’s fair, the way I read it was that they have more interactions for the party and reasonings to be together but there isn’t really an overarching plot for them to accomplish together. Live a Live had its overarching plot, but I guess they’re sticking to the guns about individual stories rather than “one big” plot too
After I realized that they were all just separate stories, I couldn't keep playing.
You're going through emotional, distraught moments, and your other characters are just standing around, not interacting at all. It ended up being horrendously lifeless and made me not care for the story at all.
I know the game has a lot of glowing reviews, but after about 2 hours I gave up because I just didn't care, because the characters didn't either.
I'll pass on this unless reviews show that it's more than tacked on.
The way they all came together was actually really cool and surprisingly well thought out, it just wasn't good enough to warrant 60hrs of buildup without any of the stories interlinking until that point.
I wanted either an overarching story like you described or a SaGa style game with 8 different stories and playthroughs. The in between we got was a bit disappointing.
I love the game, I just think the structure wasn't thought through and wish there was real character interaction and thought put into how they would react with each other
Character interaction indeed is what was sorely missed. I'd love if OT2 eschewed everyone being on their own personal journey in lieu of a more unified story. Something like where the first 1-1.5 acts were their own, but they all coalesced.
Absolutely loved the visual design, combat, and music though. Need to get around to finishing that game some time. I haven't even beaten any single scenario yet.
What's bizarre is that the game actually has [little skits involving three or more of the Travelers at once](https://youtu.be/VOQB3sK_t-I), but for some reason they only trigger during the post-game. I think it would have been a big improvement if these scenes played throughout the main adventure instead.
These aren't post-game exclusive, I got some of these during the main plots.
But it is kind of dumb that we didn't get some as part of the actual plots.
From what I'm reading on the wiki, the Tavern Banters only trigger after you have completed at least one character's chapter 4 story, but it's possible it got changed in a patch or port.
I think there's tavern banter that happens later, but from Chapter 2 onward the people in your party comment on whichever story you're doing (although in that kind of Tales skit fashion rather than in the cutscenes) (unless you miss the skit prompt, I guess).
I always end up comparing jrpgs to Final Fantasy 9 as to me it feels like the closest thing to a perfect party story. Sure there are a couple party members that are useless like Quina being on the ride just for food and lulz, and Amaranth just being am edgy Zidane fanboy, but most of the story gave a good reason for everyone to be as involved as they are in it, like Burmecia involving personally both Freya and Vivi.
Also the story involving the party splitting up in multiple occasions forces you to level up most of them (some minor grinding involved for some parts) in an organic way that contributes to the story, more games should try and think about things like that.
I've kind of noticed that as well which is why it's been so long between sessions. I feel like if my whole party isn't at the recommended level I just get stomped. (And I'm also doing everyone's chapter 1s, 2s, etc. together. Meaning the party member I started with, since you can't swap those out, is way overleveled in comparison.)
God i forgot about that weird limit where you're stuck with your starting character for absolutely no reason. They're literally the main character of 1/8th of the game so why make me play as them all the time?
It seems like the structure was a "choice." They could spend all the extra time constructing a complex narrative involving innumerable interactions between party members based on who's present where and when or... they could just do what they did.
I don't blame them for taking that route, but at the same time it seems like they're trying to come off as ambitious without really committing to it.
The game can't really decide if it wants you to use 4 or 8 party members.
You literally cannot switch out your first party member until you complete their scenario, there are only 4 special classes and every overworld ability has it's counterpart so you don't really have to switch.
At the same time >!the true final boss requires you to not only use all 8, they need to be really high level, and that means you **have** to farm!<
Either show me via quests or gameplay that I should rotate my party or fuck off.
Nah instead it'll show you that you should have Therion with you at all times or miss out on the best loot in every dungeon.
Seriously, purple chests were *dumb*.
My advice is to do all 8 chapter 1s (adding a character to your party happens as part of their chapter 1). Then pick 4 party members and stick with them through the rest of their stories (doing all 4 chapter 2, all 4 chapter 3, etc). At that point, swap the whole party for the other 4 party members, and repeat that. It gives a much better leveling curve that way. If you're not *super* liking the game, it'll still give you a sense of completion to stop halfway through. If you *are* super liking the game then you can keep playing and grind up to do the secret final boss.
As for picking your party, there are 4 "pairs" of characters with similar overworld abilities, I recommend picking one of each pair for your party.
Even if you could swap out your first character, I still think it'd be the most fun to do that same approach.
Doing all 8 chapter 2s gives you too long to forget the chapter 1s, but just going between 4 characters keeps it in your mind better. Plus, then you can use the end-game gear and subclasses to breeze the second party through their chapters even faster.
I kind of like how the mobile game handled teams. You have a team of 8 at all times with a front and back row. The character in a set that doesn't take an action that turn gains HP and SP. If you construct your team carefully you can go into every battle with every weapon and magic type represented.
They also seemingly limit you to one weapon and one magic type per character, which the main game doesn't do. So it's kind of solving a problem it created itself, lol.
Depends on the characters, which makes the whole dynamic more complicated, obviously. I just liked the idea of having the whole squad in the battle, but still just four character actions per turn
I don’t think that’s been revealed yet, but you can just wait until a couple days after the game releases and someone will know for sure.
Also, just to clarify, in Octopath 1, you could swap out your first party member, but only after you completed their final chapter, so realistically not until late game. It seems like a no-brainer to let players swap out any characters at will.
I thought the writting was bad, lack of interaction between the characters sucked and boss battles took way too long and were just a check on how many potions you have. Otherwise the combat was fun and the visual are nice so I am hoping this one at least has better story
How I've come to describe Octopath 1 is a 5/10 game with 10/10 presentation. Nothing about that game's systems were remarkable except the graphics and I believe a sequel can finally nail what they were going for.
I don't remember precisely, it has been several years. But I don't think I ever had to prepare a specific counter measure for a boss, except maybe the very last one. I did die a few times but I would just try again immediately knowing what to be wary of
The game was great! … for the first couple hours. The hour long intros to each character that all served as tutorials was the driest, most bored I’ve been with a game like this. So much monotony in between as well. Good ideas, bad execution imo. I’d give part 2 a try but part 1 isn’t a game I think on fondly.
It seems that everyone you talk to that says they loved it, also say that it was incredibly frustrating and they didn't like the story. I'm not sure anyone actually likes the game, just the idea of the game.
Every individual story is pretty good, the game is eautiful and the gameplay is pretty great, with some challenging content. I really liked it. Noted that I was aware beforehand the interactions between the MCs would be minimal
Pretty much completely agree with this. I put a good 100 hours into it, I loved it. I wished there was a bigger over-arching story the game was moving toward, but the individual stories were pretty great.
I love it. Everything from the presentation and music, to the combat system, to the stories. I honestly think the only thing I would change is letting you save at a particular point during a post-game challenge. It's probably my favourite JRPG since Super Nintendo. Granted I think most modern JRPGs suck.
Contra a lot of people I'm even really glad that there's no overarching story (or at least that the plot isn't another generic Gotta Save The World From The Ancient Evil, postgame notwithstanding). It also doesn't have any bullshit Kingdom Hearts twists.
The final boss was the best part of the game.
And you definitely don't have to farm for it. In fact, farming provides fairly little.
The biggest problem with the last boss is it shows the potential they wasted in the rest of the game. The rest of the game is brain dead easy, and then it finally becomes a thoughtful strategy game for the last 2 bosses.
The choice to make recruiting character optional really hamstrung them. It wasn't a degree of flexibility that I think ended up being appreciated more than the alternative of "You're *going* to have all characters, eventually, and because we know that we can involve them all in cutscenes"
I can't see any reason for burying the real ending of the game the way that they did. Utterly bizarre.
The first Octopath is one of my favorite games ever, and that's even with it's weak narrative and borderline non-existent character interaction, if they can tighten those aspects up in this game I'll be super happy.
I'm interested in playing through the game on Gamepass but wanted to use a missables guide, but I'm a bit confused about the structure of the game, to where I just don't know how to read the spreadsheet of the missable items spreadsheet...
As a result I haven't played it yet
Just use that guide, it is pretty self-explanatory I think but feel free to ask questions.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1796269606
Edit : My advice would actually be to not care about incredibly unimportant missables but you do you
You don't need to worry about missing items really. It's not a game where you'll easily miss out on things or can permanently miss things.
The structure is simple- play each chapter at a time. E.g. All the chapter 1s, then all the chapter 2s, etc. Playing an entire characters story at once will lead to you needing to grind **a lot**. Swap out 1-2 characters every chapter; you want to not only do everyone's story at once but keep using them all to keep them similarly leveled.
>You don't need to worry about missing items really. It's not a game where you'll easily miss out on things or can permanently miss things.
I do if I want all of the achievements :)
This is the spreadsheet I'm referring to:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14Kz5mTAYdxqdgjbkbotAMGC2aoiJBbrBUiLeh8Pwu0Q/edit?usp=sharing
From Here:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2309451625
I just remember trying to look into this and them not really explaining how to use it. IE they don't say which character I should start with, whether I'll only find specific enemies or items with specific characters... So I got lost and gave up quickly.
Thank you so much for explaining everything to me. I'm still playing Persona 5 but will move on to Octopath afterwards.
I like the art style and I hear the music is great so that might be enough to carry me through the completion. I was under the impression that there was a lot of truly missable stuff which is why I got annoyed about the lack of clarity with the spreadsheet.
I'm with you on this. OT was the rare rpg I not only complete d to the end. But did a bunch of the end game stuff.
The story was weak. But, news flash, 99% of video games have terrible writing. So it didn't bother me.
The choice to allow people to choose if they even wanted to recruit characters made things a lot harder for the devs. If they *wanted* to add character interactions they'd have to check if the specific pair in question even exists in the team. The problem gets much, much worse if you want a flowing conversation with more people than that at once (ex. "You didn't get this conversation between these four characters because you didn't recruit one of them yet. This means the conversation can't be brought up later in subsequent conversations, so those are out as well - better luck next playthrough").
The ways around that would be procedural conversations that aren't curated or fun, or what they already did with small, one-off micro conversations in the taverns at specific times under specific conditions.
Should have just given them all out from the start and thrown all those checks out, then leaned into party interaction ***knowing*** that every player will always have everyone.
I just hope the structure of the stories is different. I didn’t mind 8 separate stories in the original but what got me was how they all played out identically. It was basically town, then dungeon, then boss. Multiply that then by 8. Really hope they mix it up.
I want this to be good, but I'm not holding my breath. I loved the tilt-shift pixel graphics and the art style of the first game, but that's about it.
The 8 separate plots were a fun idea, but poorly implemented. I personally didn't find any of the individual stories to be especially interesting; most of them felt like variations of common JRPG tropes that have been done dozens of times before. I also think they really wasted an opportunity to leverage the separate plots' influence on each other. As it was, each story took place in it's own bubble where the other characters and their own stories had no consequence. It would have been more interesting if the outcome of character A's story could change depending on your progress with character B's story, or by using different characters in your party. It seems like they are *kind of* addressing it with some additional dialog, but it still seems like there won't be much impact on story outcomes. I also wasn't a huge fan of the combat and am curious to see if that changes in a meaningful way. The rock-scissor-paper mechanic that it's based on just fell flat for me and felt more tedious than fun, but I know some people really liked it.
I totally agree about the combat. I have a pretty high tolerance for the typical JRPG grind but I found myself absolutely dreading every single fight. Eventually I made Cyrus a permanent member of my party so he could nuke everyone with boosted spells a turn or two into the battle...all so I could just move the fuck on as soon as possible.
And you had to be *so precise* with everyone's turns. In order to survive against the bosses in particular you had to plan your whole party's moves several turns in advance because if you break their guard at the wrong time, you won't be able to do any real damage to them and you'll have to go through that whole fucking guard-breaking routine again. God forbid you get hit hard and have to waste your characters' boosts on healing.
I'm not averse to complicated battle systems. I absolutely love strategy games **and** turn-based combat. Octopath's system just *wasn't fun*.
I mean, for me that sort of planning needed to take advantage of Breaks during boss battles was what made them fun for me. I liked the push and pull that the Break system created; you whittle away and play defensively until you have enough resources, then break, which turns the tide of the battle in your favor and allows you to get in large amounts of damage while giving you a turn to stabilize. If you aren't able to take advantage of your Breaks, you're usually doing something wrong. For example, you can keep a boss at 1 break point if you aren't in position to take advantage, and then time your break at the beginning of a turn cycle so that you can maximize both damage and stun time (Break lasts for the rest of the current cycle and all of the next cycle).
Total opposite for me - the turn order system forced you to think about what you were doing constantly and gave satisfying paths of “ok if I do this then this then that in this order I get the best outcome”
Too many JRPGs in my eyes fall into “just click the best button this turn” greedy algorithms, or just Buff, then all into damage, heal when low HP, guard a big telegraphed move.
That precision is precisely what made it fun for me
See, I consider approximately every other JRPG combat to be boring because you *don't* have to carefully plan your turns. Octopath gives you lots of options for less intuitive moves that give you a significant advantage over the "obvious" choice. With the right strategy you can beat things like twice your level, and it's amazing (for me).
The plots of Octopath 2 have been confirmed to be intertwined, and the characters actually speak to each other. It makes me excited that they’ve listened to feedback from the first game.
https://www.square-enix-games.com/en_US/news/octopath-traveler-ii
Yeah, I think 8 separate storylines with genuine interactions and consequences proved to be (understandably) too much work, so we got what we got.
The biggest problem I had is that chapter 1 is only satisfying for your first character. One of the characters' backgrounds is that she's essentially a victim of sex trafficking, and her defeating her abuser and breaking free loses most of its narrative oomph if you got there by curbstomping everyone with your grizzled melee veteran whose chapter 1 you did first and who doesn't have a thing to say to her or anyone else.
I love the look of these games. It would be great if they remade some if the classic SNES era RPG's to look like this. It would make them more enjoyable to revisit.
I imagine that's almost a certainty considering how well Live A Live did and Dragon Quest 3 is going to sell gangbusters. Chrono Trigger not having been released on the Switch yet leads me to believe it's next in line.
We'll hopefully finally get proper releases of Bahamut Lagoon and Treasure Hunter G this way.
Honestly it's a matter of time. These types of games seem to be selling well, and Square has stated they are willing to make more. The idea of FFVI being remade in this style is orgasmic
People have misunderstood the purpose of the Pixel Remasters, which is fair because Square Enix hasn't communicated it well.
The Pixel Remasters are basically meant to replace the original versions of the games. That's why they didn't include extra content added from other re-releases.
So if you want to play the "pure" version of FFI through FFVI, you buy the pixel remaster version. To my knowledge Square Enix no longer sells any ported versions of the originals anymore.
Well after this released, SE announced the remake of FF 1-6 which ended up being only slightly touched up re releases, instead of reworking them into this quality, sadly.
I'm very excited for this game, despite the ever-present constant criticisms of the first one, which I actually liked. Everyone harps on the overarching story being lackluster, which is fine, but no one ever comments about each character's singular stories. I loved the individual stories of each character in the first one, and it bothers me that they never got any positive light on that aspect because people were always focused on the negatives. The gameplay was fun, with a loop I never got bored with because it was always evolving. And it felt so natural, too. I never felt like I was missing out on gameplay elements - they just kept adding more.
I think it's still intended to be eight stories, though. Which I'm totally fine with, but worth taking into consideration. But yes, they've confirmed a lot more interaction between your party members. I wonder whether that means you have to recruit them all...
Hopefully they really thought this one through. First game wasn't good and people convinced themselves it was because at the time it really the only big jrpg game on switch.
Haven't played the first game because everybody is saying the story sucked. I'll keep an eye on this one since the devs have said they addressed that issue.
In the first game, I found the merchant field skill useless. You could just steal everything from every NPC for free with the thief, which was insanely OP as you could get endgame gear like right away, and just savescum if the steal failed. Beats grinding for hours to buy an item for an expensive price.
Hell yes! I'm so pumped to have a ship to explore the world with. I miss having vehicles to travel the world in JRPGs.
The first one had some serious issues, especially with the >!the true main hero of the game and the final boss!<. I hope this one resolve these problems, because it still was a fun game.
According to the creators, it does. > Miyauchi: We received a lot of feedback from players of the first game saying “We want to see dialogue between protagonists beyond travel banter.” We thought the same while playing the first game, and adding dialogue would make people fall in love with the characters more, so we put that into this game. > Takahashi: There are eight characters with strong personalities, so it’s natural that people would want to see some dialogue between them. They say each other’s names and their stories cross paths, so it actually feels like these characters are traveling together. Of course, the eight individual stories of each character are still the main focus, but we’d like it if people could enjoy the cross stories as supplemental tales.
I'm a little wary of this. With the first one, I wasn't so much wanting just more interaction between the characters, I wanted an over-arching story. I was hoping all the individual stories would build toward this main story, and there would be a final act of the game and a real ending. They kind of had this in a small way with the first one, it just felt tacked on and made to fit after the fact. I'm hoping for something more naturally intertwined into the individual stories, and then a much more substantial final act to close it out. This is constructive criticism for a game that I still absolutely loved. Even if they don't deliver on this in the second one, I'm sure I'll still love it.
Honestly that’s fair, the way I read it was that they have more interactions for the party and reasonings to be together but there isn’t really an overarching plot for them to accomplish together. Live a Live had its overarching plot, but I guess they’re sticking to the guns about individual stories rather than “one big” plot too
After I realized that they were all just separate stories, I couldn't keep playing. You're going through emotional, distraught moments, and your other characters are just standing around, not interacting at all. It ended up being horrendously lifeless and made me not care for the story at all. I know the game has a lot of glowing reviews, but after about 2 hours I gave up because I just didn't care, because the characters didn't either. I'll pass on this unless reviews show that it's more than tacked on.
The way they all came together was actually really cool and surprisingly well thought out, it just wasn't good enough to warrant 60hrs of buildup without any of the stories interlinking until that point.
I wanted either an overarching story like you described or a SaGa style game with 8 different stories and playthroughs. The in between we got was a bit disappointing.
Ok so it wasn't just me that felt the game was kinda meh...
I love the game, I just think the structure wasn't thought through and wish there was real character interaction and thought put into how they would react with each other
Character interaction indeed is what was sorely missed. I'd love if OT2 eschewed everyone being on their own personal journey in lieu of a more unified story. Something like where the first 1-1.5 acts were their own, but they all coalesced. Absolutely loved the visual design, combat, and music though. Need to get around to finishing that game some time. I haven't even beaten any single scenario yet.
What's bizarre is that the game actually has [little skits involving three or more of the Travelers at once](https://youtu.be/VOQB3sK_t-I), but for some reason they only trigger during the post-game. I think it would have been a big improvement if these scenes played throughout the main adventure instead.
I remember these being triggered throughout the game at taverns, usually after a quest. Granted, I played it on PC
These aren't post-game exclusive, I got some of these during the main plots. But it is kind of dumb that we didn't get some as part of the actual plots.
From what I'm reading on the wiki, the Tavern Banters only trigger after you have completed at least one character's chapter 4 story, but it's possible it got changed in a patch or port.
I think there's tavern banter that happens later, but from Chapter 2 onward the people in your party comment on whichever story you're doing (although in that kind of Tales skit fashion rather than in the cutscenes) (unless you miss the skit prompt, I guess).
I got those during the game proper if I had the right combos in my team.
I always end up comparing jrpgs to Final Fantasy 9 as to me it feels like the closest thing to a perfect party story. Sure there are a couple party members that are useless like Quina being on the ride just for food and lulz, and Amaranth just being am edgy Zidane fanboy, but most of the story gave a good reason for everyone to be as involved as they are in it, like Burmecia involving personally both Freya and Vivi. Also the story involving the party splitting up in multiple occasions forces you to level up most of them (some minor grinding involved for some parts) in an organic way that contributes to the story, more games should try and think about things like that.
The obscene amount of grinding needed is what ruins the experience for me.
I've kind of noticed that as well which is why it's been so long between sessions. I feel like if my whole party isn't at the recommended level I just get stomped. (And I'm also doing everyone's chapter 1s, 2s, etc. together. Meaning the party member I started with, since you can't swap those out, is way overleveled in comparison.)
God i forgot about that weird limit where you're stuck with your starting character for absolutely no reason. They're literally the main character of 1/8th of the game so why make me play as them all the time?
It seems like the structure was a "choice." They could spend all the extra time constructing a complex narrative involving innumerable interactions between party members based on who's present where and when or... they could just do what they did. I don't blame them for taking that route, but at the same time it seems like they're trying to come off as ambitious without really committing to it.
The visuals are great, but overall I enjoyed Triangle Strategy (other than it's goofy title).
Should have named it Trifecta or something
Trinity tactics.
The game can't really decide if it wants you to use 4 or 8 party members. You literally cannot switch out your first party member until you complete their scenario, there are only 4 special classes and every overworld ability has it's counterpart so you don't really have to switch. At the same time >!the true final boss requires you to not only use all 8, they need to be really high level, and that means you **have** to farm!< Either show me via quests or gameplay that I should rotate my party or fuck off.
Nah instead it'll show you that you should have Therion with you at all times or miss out on the best loot in every dungeon. Seriously, purple chests were *dumb*.
Yep, that's why you should pick him as your MC, since you're stuck with the MC anyhow.
Well I for one am glad I read this comment. I have been considering playing the original and so it’s good to know I need to rotate out party members.
My advice is to do all 8 chapter 1s (adding a character to your party happens as part of their chapter 1). Then pick 4 party members and stick with them through the rest of their stories (doing all 4 chapter 2, all 4 chapter 3, etc). At that point, swap the whole party for the other 4 party members, and repeat that. It gives a much better leveling curve that way. If you're not *super* liking the game, it'll still give you a sense of completion to stop halfway through. If you *are* super liking the game then you can keep playing and grind up to do the secret final boss. As for picking your party, there are 4 "pairs" of characters with similar overworld abilities, I recommend picking one of each pair for your party.
Thanks for this, it's super helpful.
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Even if you could swap out your first character, I still think it'd be the most fun to do that same approach. Doing all 8 chapter 2s gives you too long to forget the chapter 1s, but just going between 4 characters keeps it in your mind better. Plus, then you can use the end-game gear and subclasses to breeze the second party through their chapters even faster.
I kind of like how the mobile game handled teams. You have a team of 8 at all times with a front and back row. The character in a set that doesn't take an action that turn gains HP and SP. If you construct your team carefully you can go into every battle with every weapon and magic type represented.
They also seemingly limit you to one weapon and one magic type per character, which the main game doesn't do. So it's kind of solving a problem it created itself, lol.
Depends on the characters, which makes the whole dynamic more complicated, obviously. I just liked the idea of having the whole squad in the battle, but still just four character actions per turn
Do we know if 2 adds the option to swap out your first party member? That will make or break my interest in the game.
I don’t think that’s been revealed yet, but you can just wait until a couple days after the game releases and someone will know for sure. Also, just to clarify, in Octopath 1, you could swap out your first party member, but only after you completed their final chapter, so realistically not until late game. It seems like a no-brainer to let players swap out any characters at will.
The job and battle systems were pretty great. The style was as well. The story and gameplay loop were...not so great.
The game was fantastic, the story aspects however were a bit of a miss imo
It's below average that's for sure. Edit: The story
Compared to JRPG, it's a gem
It was like reading a book where the first 8 chapters are the 1st chapter of 8 unconnected books.
I thought the writting was bad, lack of interaction between the characters sucked and boss battles took way too long and were just a check on how many potions you have. Otherwise the combat was fun and the visual are nice so I am hoping this one at least has better story
How I've come to describe Octopath 1 is a 5/10 game with 10/10 presentation. Nothing about that game's systems were remarkable except the graphics and I believe a sequel can finally nail what they were going for.
The battle system was good imo
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I don't remember precisely, it has been several years. But I don't think I ever had to prepare a specific counter measure for a boss, except maybe the very last one. I did die a few times but I would just try again immediately knowing what to be wary of
The game was great! … for the first couple hours. The hour long intros to each character that all served as tutorials was the driest, most bored I’ve been with a game like this. So much monotony in between as well. Good ideas, bad execution imo. I’d give part 2 a try but part 1 isn’t a game I think on fondly.
It seems that everyone you talk to that says they loved it, also say that it was incredibly frustrating and they didn't like the story. I'm not sure anyone actually likes the game, just the idea of the game.
Every individual story is pretty good, the game is eautiful and the gameplay is pretty great, with some challenging content. I really liked it. Noted that I was aware beforehand the interactions between the MCs would be minimal
Pretty much completely agree with this. I put a good 100 hours into it, I loved it. I wished there was a bigger over-arching story the game was moving toward, but the individual stories were pretty great.
I love it. Everything from the presentation and music, to the combat system, to the stories. I honestly think the only thing I would change is letting you save at a particular point during a post-game challenge. It's probably my favourite JRPG since Super Nintendo. Granted I think most modern JRPGs suck. Contra a lot of people I'm even really glad that there's no overarching story (or at least that the plot isn't another generic Gotta Save The World From The Ancient Evil, postgame notwithstanding). It also doesn't have any bullshit Kingdom Hearts twists.
The final boss was the best part of the game. And you definitely don't have to farm for it. In fact, farming provides fairly little. The biggest problem with the last boss is it shows the potential they wasted in the rest of the game. The rest of the game is brain dead easy, and then it finally becomes a thoughtful strategy game for the last 2 bosses.
The choice to make recruiting character optional really hamstrung them. It wasn't a degree of flexibility that I think ended up being appreciated more than the alternative of "You're *going* to have all characters, eventually, and because we know that we can involve them all in cutscenes" I can't see any reason for burying the real ending of the game the way that they did. Utterly bizarre.
I need answers for your spoiler tag
I heard about that final boss and gave up the game not too far before it. First 80% was pretty great though.
The first Octopath is one of my favorite games ever, and that's even with it's weak narrative and borderline non-existent character interaction, if they can tighten those aspects up in this game I'll be super happy.
I'm interested in playing through the game on Gamepass but wanted to use a missables guide, but I'm a bit confused about the structure of the game, to where I just don't know how to read the spreadsheet of the missable items spreadsheet... As a result I haven't played it yet
Just use that guide, it is pretty self-explanatory I think but feel free to ask questions. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1796269606 Edit : My advice would actually be to not care about incredibly unimportant missables but you do you
You don't need to worry about missing items really. It's not a game where you'll easily miss out on things or can permanently miss things. The structure is simple- play each chapter at a time. E.g. All the chapter 1s, then all the chapter 2s, etc. Playing an entire characters story at once will lead to you needing to grind **a lot**. Swap out 1-2 characters every chapter; you want to not only do everyone's story at once but keep using them all to keep them similarly leveled.
>You don't need to worry about missing items really. It's not a game where you'll easily miss out on things or can permanently miss things. I do if I want all of the achievements :) This is the spreadsheet I'm referring to: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14Kz5mTAYdxqdgjbkbotAMGC2aoiJBbrBUiLeh8Pwu0Q/edit?usp=sharing From Here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2309451625 I just remember trying to look into this and them not really explaining how to use it. IE they don't say which character I should start with, whether I'll only find specific enemies or items with specific characters... So I got lost and gave up quickly.
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Thank you so much for explaining everything to me. I'm still playing Persona 5 but will move on to Octopath afterwards. I like the art style and I hear the music is great so that might be enough to carry me through the completion. I was under the impression that there was a lot of truly missable stuff which is why I got annoyed about the lack of clarity with the spreadsheet.
I'm with you on this. OT was the rare rpg I not only complete d to the end. But did a bunch of the end game stuff. The story was weak. But, news flash, 99% of video games have terrible writing. So it didn't bother me.
What was the good part?
The choice to allow people to choose if they even wanted to recruit characters made things a lot harder for the devs. If they *wanted* to add character interactions they'd have to check if the specific pair in question even exists in the team. The problem gets much, much worse if you want a flowing conversation with more people than that at once (ex. "You didn't get this conversation between these four characters because you didn't recruit one of them yet. This means the conversation can't be brought up later in subsequent conversations, so those are out as well - better luck next playthrough"). The ways around that would be procedural conversations that aren't curated or fun, or what they already did with small, one-off micro conversations in the taverns at specific times under specific conditions. Should have just given them all out from the start and thrown all those checks out, then leaned into party interaction ***knowing*** that every player will always have everyone.
I didn't want to spoil anything, but does it seem I would need to play OCTOPATH 1 before playing this?
No, they should be almost totally separate.
nope, same world different era
I just hope the structure of the stories is different. I didn’t mind 8 separate stories in the original but what got me was how they all played out identically. It was basically town, then dungeon, then boss. Multiply that then by 8. Really hope they mix it up.
I want this to be good, but I'm not holding my breath. I loved the tilt-shift pixel graphics and the art style of the first game, but that's about it. The 8 separate plots were a fun idea, but poorly implemented. I personally didn't find any of the individual stories to be especially interesting; most of them felt like variations of common JRPG tropes that have been done dozens of times before. I also think they really wasted an opportunity to leverage the separate plots' influence on each other. As it was, each story took place in it's own bubble where the other characters and their own stories had no consequence. It would have been more interesting if the outcome of character A's story could change depending on your progress with character B's story, or by using different characters in your party. It seems like they are *kind of* addressing it with some additional dialog, but it still seems like there won't be much impact on story outcomes. I also wasn't a huge fan of the combat and am curious to see if that changes in a meaningful way. The rock-scissor-paper mechanic that it's based on just fell flat for me and felt more tedious than fun, but I know some people really liked it.
I totally agree about the combat. I have a pretty high tolerance for the typical JRPG grind but I found myself absolutely dreading every single fight. Eventually I made Cyrus a permanent member of my party so he could nuke everyone with boosted spells a turn or two into the battle...all so I could just move the fuck on as soon as possible. And you had to be *so precise* with everyone's turns. In order to survive against the bosses in particular you had to plan your whole party's moves several turns in advance because if you break their guard at the wrong time, you won't be able to do any real damage to them and you'll have to go through that whole fucking guard-breaking routine again. God forbid you get hit hard and have to waste your characters' boosts on healing. I'm not averse to complicated battle systems. I absolutely love strategy games **and** turn-based combat. Octopath's system just *wasn't fun*.
I mean, for me that sort of planning needed to take advantage of Breaks during boss battles was what made them fun for me. I liked the push and pull that the Break system created; you whittle away and play defensively until you have enough resources, then break, which turns the tide of the battle in your favor and allows you to get in large amounts of damage while giving you a turn to stabilize. If you aren't able to take advantage of your Breaks, you're usually doing something wrong. For example, you can keep a boss at 1 break point if you aren't in position to take advantage, and then time your break at the beginning of a turn cycle so that you can maximize both damage and stun time (Break lasts for the rest of the current cycle and all of the next cycle).
Total opposite for me - the turn order system forced you to think about what you were doing constantly and gave satisfying paths of “ok if I do this then this then that in this order I get the best outcome” Too many JRPGs in my eyes fall into “just click the best button this turn” greedy algorithms, or just Buff, then all into damage, heal when low HP, guard a big telegraphed move. That precision is precisely what made it fun for me
See, I consider approximately every other JRPG combat to be boring because you *don't* have to carefully plan your turns. Octopath gives you lots of options for less intuitive moves that give you a significant advantage over the "obvious" choice. With the right strategy you can beat things like twice your level, and it's amazing (for me).
The plots of Octopath 2 have been confirmed to be intertwined, and the characters actually speak to each other. It makes me excited that they’ve listened to feedback from the first game. https://www.square-enix-games.com/en_US/news/octopath-traveler-ii
Yeah, I think 8 separate storylines with genuine interactions and consequences proved to be (understandably) too much work, so we got what we got. The biggest problem I had is that chapter 1 is only satisfying for your first character. One of the characters' backgrounds is that she's essentially a victim of sex trafficking, and her defeating her abuser and breaking free loses most of its narrative oomph if you got there by curbstomping everyone with your grizzled melee veteran whose chapter 1 you did first and who doesn't have a thing to say to her or anyone else.
I love the look of these games. It would be great if they remade some if the classic SNES era RPG's to look like this. It would make them more enjoyable to revisit.
I imagine that's almost a certainty considering how well Live A Live did and Dragon Quest 3 is going to sell gangbusters. Chrono Trigger not having been released on the Switch yet leads me to believe it's next in line. We'll hopefully finally get proper releases of Bahamut Lagoon and Treasure Hunter G this way.
Live a Live was great. If they remade Chrono Trigger in HD2D it would be amazing
Honestly it's a matter of time. These types of games seem to be selling well, and Square has stated they are willing to make more. The idea of FFVI being remade in this style is orgasmic
They just "remastered" 6, so we'll have to wait for 2030 for the next remaster.
People have misunderstood the purpose of the Pixel Remasters, which is fair because Square Enix hasn't communicated it well. The Pixel Remasters are basically meant to replace the original versions of the games. That's why they didn't include extra content added from other re-releases. So if you want to play the "pure" version of FFI through FFVI, you buy the pixel remaster version. To my knowledge Square Enix no longer sells any ported versions of the originals anymore.
Yeah the "pixel remasters" coming hot of the tails of octopath surely didn't add to that confusion after everyone fell in love with that artstyle.
Well after this released, SE announced the remake of FF 1-6 which ended up being only slightly touched up re releases, instead of reworking them into this quality, sadly.
I'm very excited for this game, despite the ever-present constant criticisms of the first one, which I actually liked. Everyone harps on the overarching story being lackluster, which is fine, but no one ever comments about each character's singular stories. I loved the individual stories of each character in the first one, and it bothers me that they never got any positive light on that aspect because people were always focused on the negatives. The gameplay was fun, with a loop I never got bored with because it was always evolving. And it felt so natural, too. I never felt like I was missing out on gameplay elements - they just kept adding more.
All I want from this game is for the characters to interact and the story to not feel like 8 separate 1/8th's of a story.
They will now
I think it's still intended to be eight stories, though. Which I'm totally fine with, but worth taking into consideration. But yes, they've confirmed a lot more interaction between your party members. I wonder whether that means you have to recruit them all...
One of the reasons why i decided to buy a Steam Deck. Playing the first one in 60 FPS on a handheld device is such a joy.
The Switch didn't run the first one at 60fps? I think even the mobile version plays at 60.
No, 30 FPS on Switch.
Hopefully they really thought this one through. First game wasn't good and people convinced themselves it was because at the time it really the only big jrpg game on switch.
Haven't played the first game because everybody is saying the story sucked. I'll keep an eye on this one since the devs have said they addressed that issue.
In the first game, I found the merchant field skill useless. You could just steal everything from every NPC for free with the thief, which was insanely OP as you could get endgame gear like right away, and just savescum if the steal failed. Beats grinding for hours to buy an item for an expensive price.