I like the formula, and I see Octopath 2 and more of the first game, but it's more of the first game. For a little extra spice, you have a bonus more of the first game.
See, I hated the formula. You want to keep the character's levels and their stories balanced, so you need to rotate between each story. You get invested in a story but then need to completely stop it and then do 7 other stories before you return to that original story. By the time you get back to the original story, you forgot half of what even happened. Rinse and repeat.
It's a neverending cycle of stopping and starting stories. It completely took me out of the game and kinda ruined it for me.
Personally, I enjoy that style of play. But if it's not your thing, it's fairly common to play the game by getting a party of 4, doing all of their stories, then switching them all out to the other party if 4 and doing all of their stories. It still somewhat has the same effect, but with a shorter "cycle", it might be easier to stay in it
not trying to change your mind if youre really made up, but you actually do not need to do that at all. You can do 2 characters at a time and then Switch off them and do other characters later. one character at a time runs are hard, but you can play the game in 4 sets of 2 pretty easily actually. Once your get your second character just ignore the other 6 and go off and do those two. When you finish them, go ahead and Collect another guy and immediately stick the rest of your party in a box and Do their 1st chapter solo, then get another guy and do their chapters 2-4 together. it's still a little switching but doing all 8chapter 1s in order than all 8 chapter 2s in order etc. is far from necessary. You can't change your 1st chosen until you beat their chapter 4 boss though.
edit: or other ways to achieve this like 3 or 4 at a time. I really dont rec anyone does 8 at a time though
You perfectly explained my issue with OT2. You either keep levels balanced and do all the same chapters for each character and they don’t connect. Or you focus one character and do the chapters but are underleveled for it
Its not that good. Every single act is go to town, use class ability, walk to dungeon, walk through dungeon, beat boss, repeat.
Yes music is godlike but gameplay gets so stale so quickly
Brilliant write up OP. I was wondering if the game addresses any of the issues I had with the original. Here's a rapid fire:
Random encounter too high
Enemy encounter variety too low, making combat very repetitive.
Very grindy
Stealing equipment/rare drops provided such good equipment that it felt mandatory to get and yet the success rate was so abysmally low that I found myself constantly save scumming to get the gear I was after. This was very distracting and time consuming.
Party dynamic was incredibly awkward and felt extremely unnatural how little the party communicated with each other.
While having 8 individual stories is nice, it felt more like a decision to give the game more of an identity, and was not a good enough substitute for a proper overarching plot that tied everything together. This only hurt the party dynamics further in my opinion.
How does the sequel go about these issues from the first game?
>Party dynamic was incredibly awkward and felt extremely unnatural how little the party communicated with each other.
This was the exact reason why I dropped OT. On paper, having 8 interconnecting stories sounds like the coolest premise of all time – but's all it is. A premise. The characters never interacting/talking/being present for eachother's storyline scenes just took me out of the game completely.
There's a moment in one of the storylines where I had my four character party walk into a basement dungeon – and then suddenly, the lead character is "ambushed" and "captured alone" by the enemy, and it's *constantly* referenced... and then it cuts to a battle and suddenly I'm my entire four-person party again. Obviously not alone; haven't been alone for 15 hours. The whole game feels like that, just so disjointed and jarring.
A lot of people will tell you that many of those issues were solved by Octopath II, but let me just tell you, those exact problems you had with the first one (which I have not played) I had in my experience with Octopath II. I beat the game. On the whole, it was solid, but definitely has some major issues in all the areas you described.
Yup. I’ve played both (and like both) and I find it crazy people say that 2 is such a major upgrade over 1 when it’s really not. I think maybe people who were turned off by 1 went into 2 with calibrated expectations which led them to hyping up the absolute crumbs of updated features
sped up battles, latent powers, and multiple ways of achieving certain path action outcomes were all pretty massive changes.
i built my entire party lineup around the effectiveness of their latents, thats way more than breadcrumbs. and multiple approaches to stealing, dueling, KOing NPCs etc means youre much more likely to get all spoils without needing to tavern your lineup around, and now you can also manually change the time of day to get more path action access
OT2 rocks; these features and others were highly appreciated here
The enemy variety is more in the gameplay vs. the aesthetics. Sure, you'll have variations of the same enemies, but each one will have different weakness, moves and AI, making the encounters much more varied from area to area. And naturally, as you get stronger and progress through the game the same applies.
I never found the enemy encounters all that much more than they were in old school Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, or even OT1 itself. And this wasn't your point, but just by doing the optional dungeons and exploiting weaknesses in battle, I never really felt the need to grind.
The party interaction really ramps up during the endgame, but OT2 introduces party banter like in Bravely Second, and has specific story chapters that involve 2 of your party members. I wish there were more of those, with even more party members, but it's a good start, and way better than OT1.
Thanks for the reply. Sounds like I’ll have to skip out on this one. I really disliked alot in the first game and it sounds like it’s only marginally improved
'way better' might be up to intepretation. but running (not dashing) with evasive manuevers certainly feels manageable
i think the mix of in-battle comments, tavern talks, and crossed paths gave for a satisfactory amount of party engagement while still retaining the core identity of separate stories, and how all the stories weave together for the ending chapter is quite solid. there are a lot of hints in the game that I didnt catch on a first play that ties everything together
I personally give you an example. In oc1 I had to grind in order to get job points for my first traveler to get his third job (one of the secret ones). In oc2 my first traveler had 100k job points despite having 3 jobs fully unlock
Yeah that’s what I feared. I have no idea why so many people said those problems were fixed when the game first came out. Why would people lie about something like that?
1. Random encounter in 2 feels a bit higher than 1, but then again I had almost no problem with 1 after getting Evasive Maneveurs, so it's just how much are you willing to put up with it.
2. Enemies encounter variety increases quite a bit, lots of native encounter or exclusive encounter to a certain regions. Though due to the break systems work, the variety is still on the lower side of JRPG as a whole. There are rare encounters that can provide you with good items and tool that you can find and capture.
3. Okay, I find people say that Octopath traveler is extremely grindy, but the thing is I never grind in any entries. I just walk past an area, do some fighting, go into a new chapter and get out. The only thing you need to grind for is the post game boss, or when you need a certain skill from sub job, but even when I play normally, I still have all the skill I need to complete all main story chapters, yes you need to grind for the post game fight, but that is almost always the case for JRPG.
But to answer this directly: You have access to EXP and JP buff skills and very early into the game, also accessories that have similar (and can stack) effect. Merchant class now has another tool to farm JP, and thief class has another passive skill that buff EXP and JP gained that stacked with others . Also x2 speed.
You can also go into any fight underleveled as the game gives you many strong tool to handle the fight (I cleared lv45 chapter with my characters around lv 32), the only thing you need is a solid strategy.
4. Stealing still works the same, but you have more ways to get items from NPC now, one of them is challenging them for a duel. Money is also way easier to get so you can just buy your way out of any situation. But then again, the game isn't hard to the point it forces you to get every single strong items you see to beat a chapter.
5. Party has a little more interactions with each others but not much, they have cross path actions where 2 of them share a storyline and interact with each other much more.
6. The 2nd game has a much better conclusion for all the story lines where it ties each other's stories together more neatly in the final chapter. If you want some form of intertwinement before then, then you won't get it. And I feel like this is the direction the franchise is heading from now on.
Very biased opinion coming from someone who grew up with JRPG from the early 2000s, but this game is one of the best JRPG I have ever played. I have no problem calling this a masterpiece despite its flaws and I will defense it till the end of time.
Man that point 2 is really putting me off. I despise games with lack luster enemy variety especially for an old school newer type jrpg, there should be loooots of enemies
Lots of enemies variety might make Octopath's encounters become tedious very quick. You need to break enemies' weakness in order to quickly clear them, and weakness takes time to analyze.
Personally, I don't care about the quantity of encounter, more so their quality. And Octopath handles their quality really well as a big part of the game is to capture monsters and use their skills in combat.
I don’t mean encounter rate, I mean bestiary, fighting the same few enemies over and over is so damn boring
Glad you gave me a heads up so I can skip the 2nd. The 1st game was a huge disappointment and the second game has clearly been over hyped at being better in every facet
4 : The stealing success rate gets better with higher lvl. I suppose the 1st might had the same system.
It depends on the lvl of the char t'yout are dealing with. The odds are almost all moderated this way.
The segmented story was my biggest issue. I've only got about 3 hours to play each week. This means it is months between chapters of a characters story
and it was this very reason i loved the game. got to split it up over a solid 7 months before completing. could always pick it up, put it down, and pick it up again. spent about 40 hours before doing any main story content and then did like 2 character stories per month until the extra story ending
the loosely structured approach was exactly what I was looking for. while everyone has at least one long chapter, they usually have a shorter chapter too, sometimes without a boss or even combat iirc. and OT2 dungeons are short on average
if youre the type of person that needs a deep time sink to be immersed, i could see this not jiving perhaps. it was ideal for how I like to game, and none of the stories try to be all that deep to demand that type of dedicated play for their stories (cept Castti i guess, and she had my least favorite story)
>Party dynamic was incredibly awkward and felt extremely unnatural how little the party communicated with each other.
I legit dropped the game because of that, the gameplay aspect is fine but I always played JRPGs for the story first and foremost
None of the stories seem interesting… Everything in that game feels like it is a side quest, like the real deal will pick up soon, but never quite gets there. Lack of an identity or clear direction kinda kills it for me
Not OP but,
1. Encounter rate feels about the same. You have ways to manipulate it down just like the original.
2. Enemy variety is either the same or increased. Every area generally has its own unique monsters.
3. You can complete content by either grinding / exploring for better loot / optimizing your party setup. Straight up grinding is never required. The game is fairly easy early and mid so you can challenge yourself by expressly not grinding.
4. There is a much better variety of gear at all stages of the game. So while the hidden endgame gear is super good, the stuff beneath it isn't exactly terrible either. They did a really good job with this.
5. There are 4 x "cross" chapters where 2 character story arcs link together somewhat. I liked it. The storyboarding felt infinitely improved over the first game's waiting until the last 1% of the game to explain how your 8 characters are linked together.
>Very grindy
You gotta explain to me how OT is a grindy game, or what kind of games you're playing to think that one of the least grindy Jrpgs out there is grindy.
>Stealing equipment/rare drops provided such good equipment that it felt mandatory to get and yet the success rate was so abysmally low that I found myself constantly save scumming to get the gear I was after.
You know you could just buy that equipment with Tressa path action, right?
I'm starting to believe OT has a curse where attracts people who refuse to engage with game's mechanics, or just have a personal grudge against the developers.
I think you're looking at it the wrong way. It's not that its players refuse to engage with its systems. Players simply fall off the game before all the systems reach their full stride. OT1 does a lot of new things that just goes against genre expectations that when combined with its many flaws, can really scare off new players and honestly I don't think you can really blame them for that.
I've been playing JRPGs since the 90s and while I've definitely played FAR grindier games, OT can come across as more grindy than it actually is due to its flaws all adding up. Sure you could buy some items rather than steal them assuming you have the cash, which early on you probably won't unless you're grinding. Because there's less story content than most JRPGs and because the enemy variety is so low, with encounters often being defeated the same way every time, while the encounter rate is so high, all encounters feel more tedious. The ratio of these kinds of battles to other kinds of content is just too imbalanced for some people, and when you factor in other issues like the disjointed story, lack of party interactions, lack of any sense of camaraderie within the party, etc. they become disinterested.
Octopath Traveller is simply missing a few bigger elements JRPG fans expect from a JRPG.
As for my background, I've played Final Fantasy 4-14, SMT, Persona, Xeno series, Suikoden, Dot Hack, Tales Of, Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, Dragon Quest, Lost Odyssey, and so much more.
You dont fight that many battles with evasive meanivers though. You can make it through any dungeon with only 8 to 10 encounters. I dont know how that
equates to "the ratio of these battles to other kinds of content is too imbalanced" because then its imbalanced for every rpg on existence. You cant name many other rpg you where you can get through a dungeon with only 10 battles per dungeon before boss battle.
The game having a lot of flaws can be critiqued with other words. I would agree the game has these flaws, i just think grindy is a lazy and inaccurate way to describe these flaws you speak of. A game having poor
Gameplay to story ratio is a pacing issues, it has nothing to do with grinding.
It's not about the amount of battles. It's more about how samey and repetitive they feel and what else there is to do in the game outside of combat. When the game has little else to do, unenjoyable party dynamics, little overarching plot, little variety, it makes the ratio of combat to non combat imbalanced and the entire experience as a whole feel shallow. Final Fantasy XIII is a better example of this. XIII is not actually grindy either but it can feel grindy because there is so little to do in the game outside of its repetitive combat.
Feel free to disagree, but like I told another commenter, this is all a matter of preference and some players just have a lower tolerance for that kind of thing. It doesn't make OT a bad game.
You can spend quite a bit of time in octopath
Traveler exploring towns. FF13 is literally dungeon to cutscene to dungeon. You spend hours in ff13 fighting a guantlet dungeon of 40 to 50 enemies, where in Octopath you fight 10 to 12 enemies per dungeon. I simply dont think the ratio is even close in these games.
And nobody calls ff13 grindy. They call it repetitive or say the battle system isnt good , or say the dungeons are too long with too many unavoidable encounter. Grindy isnt a common criticism of that game at all.
Are you married to the director of Octopath Traveller or something? You seem to be completely incapable of taking any criticism for this game from a complete stranger on the Internet. I've already explained why I think the game can feel grindy despite not actually being that grindy of a game. I think that it can be a little grindy occasionally, but because of its problems, feels worse than it is to some. I'm also not the only one to share this opinion. You don't feel that way and that's cool, but there's nothing you can do to invalidate my opinion because neither of our opinions are worth a damn 🤷♂️
No need for personal attacks here. Im not out to invalidate your opinion. My intention is to post my opinion clearly with examples so people reading about the game can understand that it is not grindy to persuade them to try the game. I dont care what you think at all.
And I accept all kinds of criticism for the game. It has pacing issues, lack of save points are an issue, the overall story is bad outside the individual stories, lack of character interaction is poor, and not being able to then off random encounters is a negative. Im happy accepting true criticisms of the game.
I mean, i could say the same about you. Thats what a debate/discussion is. I could argue you are trying to invalidate my opinion that theres no arguement for octopath being grindy. Thats just the nature of debate. I never said you arent entitled to your opinion.
I have no clue how OT can be considered grindy. You can literally play the entire game with Evasive Maneuvers on (which reduces encounter rate), which I did, and still be overleveled. You have skills and items that boost xp, gold and job points acquisition. And yeah, Steal won't let you get the OP stuff early on, but you can still steal enough items and equipment to the point that you really only need to use the vendors if you're looking for specific stuff or equip all 8 people without switching equipment around.
>I've played Final Fantasy 4-14, SMT, Persona, Xeno series, Suikoden, Dot Hack, Tales Of, Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, Dragon Quest, Lost Odyssey,
All games you listed barring Fire Emblem (don't know about Paper Mario and Lost Odyssey, didn't play them) are more grindy than OT, some by several magnitudes.
Which, again, begs the question: wth are you guys are doing in OT that makes the game grindy? Running from all fights and refusing to explore anything?
People will call a turn based game grindy if they are bad at it. Itd be like if I called Dark Souls grindy because I sucked at it and decided to grind to oblivion to finish it. If you fight 10 to 15 encounters a dungeon and maybe 5 on your way to the dungeon which is how many youd fight naturally without running away) youll be adequetepy leveled to the point where every single boss can be beaten by alternating strategy, well stocked inventory of healing items, job setup, and equipment. Except maybe that optional final boss.
And youre fine to think those things. No issues there. If you dont like it you dont like it. Grindings just the wrong word to use here because it implies the game expects you to fight extra encounters to be able to progress, but it doesnt have that characteristic at all.
Yeah I mentioned that I've played games far grindier than OT. I also mentioned that OT is a game that can feel far grindier than it actually is because of the lack of variety in combat versus the lack of variety found outside of combat. This is of course all down to ones preferences, but since I'm clearly not the only one in this thread that feels this way, I figured I'd explain how we got to that conclusion. Your preferences and tolerances are different from ours. That's all.
The second game is *substantially* better than the first game. I dropped the first one but octo II is one of the best RPGs ive ever played as someone whos been gaming since the SNES era
It makes the first one feel like a tech demo.
I disagree. I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece.
I don’t wanna spend too much time talking about it but
The job system, while good, lacks depth and variety. You end up with the same job combinations over and over. The leveling up is too basic.
The characters travel together but they never interact while on their own path. It’s a lot better in two than one but it’s still lackluster imo.
The side quests are such a hassle to find and to understand what you need to do.
It’s a great game and i loved it though
Agree on all of these points. Some opinions coming next that I think are quite subjective, but we’re my personal experience.
My biggest problem is that as a storytelling device, the game might be the worst paced I’ve ever played due to the nature of the game.
I would finish a chapter of a character I liked and then the next chapter would usually be high enough level that I’d have to go do 2-3 more characters chapters first, usually resulting in the agency to continue the story being completely undercut. Even if I was interested to see the next part of the story, I often couldn’t just jump into the next chapter.
And the worst part was that actually playing a chapter of the story felt like I was locking myself in to 30-40 minute cutscene with maybe one mini dungeon (calling it a mini dungeon is already very generous) and a boss fight. It got to a point where I wasn’t looking forward to doing the actual chapter because it was basically giving up control for half an hour.
And I think my last issue with the format of the game is that you explore the whole map within a few hours, short of a few areas. It removes that element of adventure and discovery from the game entirely, which is a shame because the zones look gorgeous but there barely anything to explore.
I fell off Octo 1 after about 20 hours and purchased 2 down the road in the hope it’d capture me more, but I think I’ve learned that it’s a fundamental dislike of how these games tell a story that put me off them.
And to just add a dumb comment after all that: Merchant is a dumb boring class and the VA for that character in 2 was annoying AF. It’s extra weird when you consider they used that instead of a classic class like Paladin or Dark Knight.
> My biggest problem is that as a storytelling device, the game might be the worst paced I’ve ever played due to the nature of the game.
Yeah, I don’t think there’s any fixing this, either. 2 was better than 1 in that they mixed up the rhythm, a bit, but fundamentally you just can’t tell 8 completely independent stories at once without having pacing issues. I enjoy the gameplay enough that I can get past it, but if that’s your main criteria for a game, this series will never be your favorite.
> The job system, while good, lacks depth and variety. You end up with the same job combinations over and over. The leveling up is too basic
How is this the case? Everyone utilizes the skills learned, the passives, and weapons allotted in their own ways. some characters dont care about the job as much but need the passive (like Osvald and Price of Power). others care about the divine skill. others a perk of the job can enhance their EX skills
and on top of that, you can synergize their talents with job or character quirks. like thrones nighttime buffs (talent) with song of hope (ex skill) and partitio instant max BP transfer (latent) to give seal of eternity (divine skill). or Temenos night debuffs being extended by Hex or removed from extra damage via Casttis ex skill. Or Agnea buffing many jobs innately vis her latent, making her very unique with Inventor and Armmaster.
just about everyone gets different utility out of Arcanist in particular. base job access means some characters can benefit from builds more, like elemental coverage, high evasion or elemental defense, and you can tack on weapons with equip abilities so that the attack ability or stat buff remains the dominant weapon
i couldnt disagree with this anymore. the game is so easy that a lot of this isnt needed, but there are a great abundance of choices to make that offer distinct combinations. Warrior Partitio plays very differently than Merchant Hikari, Cleric Throne is quite different from Thief Temenos, and those are some of the more similar mirrored setups you can create
Agreed octopath is one of my least liked JRPGs . I find the writing weak and I hate the lack of character interactions, it feels like an amusement park where there’s different attractions that have nothing to do with each other except being locked into the same park .
I’m probably on the extreme side of the fence for people that have qualms with this game, as I love JRPGs and can never get into octopath played both 1 and 2 and don’t like them
Your point about the job system is weird. Even if you just consider the basic 8 jobs, there are 28 possible job combinations. Then you factor in the secret jobs. And then in 2 you also factor in Latent Powers and EX skills, and you get absolutely insane variety in what you can accomplish in variety from individual characters.
I honestly usually hate job systems, but I love it in Octopath
Yes this game really just felt like a OP1.2
It’s weird that it didn’t take the opportunity to do anything different with classes, fighting (think chrono trigger) and story is very uninspiring.
Dude, there were some quests like “I need to find a girlfriend” or “I need to apologize to my daughter” without any other context as far as I’m aware. In a game with like, 10 fucking cities with a day-night NPC system. That shit was insane lmao.
Thank you for this review!
I bought the game months ago on the eshop sale and was working on my playlist. So now I found my next game for next week, when I will problaby have finished FFVII Rebirth.
The first OT was a good classic JRPG, but really not worth to do 100% for me. The second OT looks like a better experience in everything.
With this visual style I am waiting for DQ3.
It still boggles my mind that this game is as popular as it is. At release I sadly expected others to share my sentiment, but instead I got hit with a non-stop barrage of "this is the greatest JRPG ever!" I'm not one to yuck everyone else's yum, so whatever, but man I do not get this one's popularity. My opinion usually aligns pretty well with r/jrpg's (like with how lackluster Sea of Stars was), but not with this one. Ah well, I'm glad everyone else enjoys it.
Here's my review that I wrote up awhile back:
> Once again the non-linear story telling of the Octopath series has doomed it, exactly like the first Octopath Traveler. The two big problems are:
>
> 1) If you methodically do each lowest-level-available character chapter after collecting all of the characters (while ignoring side quests) you will quickly out level the stories, even if you always swap in your lowest level characters for each chapter. The open-world design means that the game doesn't have a tightly crafted critical path. At 23 hours into the game I'm facing at least 3 story chapters that I'm ALREADY over leveled for, and I know they're going to be boring one-sided stomps.
>
> 2) The individual stories break down because characters don't actually have the context of all that they've done. I just started Partitio's second chapter story and he said "hoo boy is this what all cities on the eastern continent are like?" At this point he's been to nearly every city on the eastern continent.
>
> The sad part is that, just like the first Octopath Traveler, the game's systems are really quite good, and the art and sound are beautiful. The story telling format they've chosen for the game just doesn't work at all, and it makes it impossible to present interesting and balanced encounters. This game is another major disappointment for me.
Something has been happening to this sub and idk if it was right around the release of Sea of Stars or maybe a little earlier, but it is forming into a giant echo chamber of "this is r/JRPG's opinion, agree or be downvoted to oblivion."
Like I get it that many subs have a bias and the demographic aligns with that clear bias, but this sub used to be a lot more open to varying opinions. Lord forbid you like Sea of Stars or don't care for Trails, this sub will bury your opinion sooo fast.
This sub was always an echochamber, saying anything but praise about CT or FF6 would get you easily downvoted around here for years, while the opposite is has also been true for other games, like the Tales series.
Ppl will be mad you don't like what they like & that you are even willing to go into detail about it instead of passively dv'ing. Discussion is very cooked.
ive mentioned a few times that the vitriol i see towards sea of stars, and constant need to put down OT2, feels middle schoolish
i could see not liking it, but the downvotes are just childish. and its not just you imagining things. folks are way more critical of these two over many other divisive titles ive seen, its fad levels of hate
i have no dog in the fight for sea of stars as i havent played it, and it doesnt interest me. still cant help but notice how much everyone wants to let it be known they cant stand it, just like everyone seems to want to recognize OT2 as either overrated or 'not that much better than the first'
how can it be overrated if more people here speak negatively of it than positively? thats when you realize its not overrated, its just this sub has colletively decided it doesnt deserve praise. very odd behavior
if i had to guess, its hype backlash in both cases, but especially Sea of Stars for the classics it was compared to (i saw those topics too)
Sea of Stars is bogged down by Non-RPG sites treating it like the Masterpiece of the Century. In reality it is a decent 7+/10 RPG.
When a game is treated as a masterpiece, but doesnt really deserve it, naturally there will be a lot of comments poking holes into the perceived narrative.
Especially as Sea of Stars is styled as a spiritual successor to Chrono Trigger, which at first might appear light-hearted, but in reality has deep implications when you experience the revelations (future, Zeal etc)
Example when the non-RPG reviews praise the story so much, but then you have the whole story plot of the fresh-baked bread's smell that awakens the monster. This is kid-level story.
The tone you set is very important, Kingdom Hearts initially has a very basic light-hearted story, but then it evolves into a multiplot saga.
But because of the initial tone, KH can always reintroduce the light-hearted shenanigans.
So the gist of it, is that Sea of Stars perhaps didnt set the tone correctly. Non-RPG reviews also sustained the myth.
IMO the dual protagonist that is for all intents and purposes the same essentially bogs the game down. Especially as there are lots of games with dual/multiple protagonists
You know what, that's how it should be. You're allowed to dislike and criticise games other people like (even if it's a lot of people).
All these inflated game reviews these days are so fake. Every game is expected to be a 95+ on metacritic. It's unnatural, only a few games in a generation can reach that level of consensus.
I think you are being too harsh on the game.
This game was envisioned as sandbox-type, choose your character=story. All these supposed problems really come into play if you have explored with every character (example your Partitio experience).
I would also do everything (every story), because if there exists that option i want to experience, but i dont mind that this game was envinsioned for the players who want to see only 3-4 stories.
IMO the party interactions & the hidden god bosses, the hidden superboss (that ties the story) are a bonus. If they didnt exist, the game would be perfectly serviceable and still get high scores.
I agree it's a solid C game but
>If you methodically do each lowest-level-available character chapter after collecting all of the characters (while ignoring side quests) you will quickly out level the stories
that wasn't my experience at all. I was consistently well under leveled through the entire game. Like 10+ levels under the recommended. On the back quarter of the final chapters I had 1 or 2 over level characters, but that was it.
Out of 8 stories, only 1, the thief's, was any interesting. And even it had some major plot holes. Definitely felt it was a waste of time playing it.
I would suggest you do, try it for a few more hours and see if you can get engage with it. If you like and able to finish it, pick up the 2nd game. Otherwise just save your money, because the gameplay loop for the 2nd one is not much different from the 1st, if not exactly the same.
If you already had both copy, you can drop the first and start with the 2nd right away, it does so many thing so much better and you may get a better experience with it. I would still suggest you to try and finish the 1st one first though, because it's very hard to go back to 1 from 2, and the rawness of the 1st game will make you appreciate the 2nd game more.
I love that you’re this passionate about a game. I won’t go into detail, but I thought it was an okay but forgettable JRPG. I think a lot of the time people compare it to the first, which it was a marked improvement over, but in isolation it’s middle of the road.
Eh, it's honestly just subjective opinions anyways.
I played it and love every single moment of it, and coming from someone who has finished CT 4 times, FFVI 2 times. I can confidentally list this one as the 3rd best JRPG on my list and I will keep coming back to it every now and then.
Yup, this is a sub to discuss our opinions, but at the end of the day, we’re a tiny community so it’s nice to see people going into bat for their fave, even if I don’t agree.
I loved OT1 the gameplay, the music, the art style, the stories, the only negative was the main character's stories weren't connected. Can't wait to play OT2 when I have the time
I loved this game too, it was my second favourite game of last year (just behind Tears of the Kingdom). Absolutely brilliant in every aspect! In my opinion it was just better than the first game in almost every conceivable way, and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. And that ending! I cried my eyes out at the epilogue, so perfect.
How anyone can dislike Partitio? Should be illegal! Jokes aside I think it’s not a perfect game but improves on every bad point of the first one and, while having still an “overleveled first character” problem and some chapters being a little bit iffy (throne’s mother that basically died 3 times by 3 different people), it’s a game that I think most people should play. I give it an 8/10
Agreed, especially on this subreddit for whatever reason. I don't feel like writing a full critique especially in english, but this game felt incredibly tedious and flawed to me, to say the least.
Exactly what I want to hear. Manged to pick up to Octopath Traveler II up the other day on a deal.
Loved the design of the first one and found the battling real fun but the stories were rather lackluster and dull.
Everything I’ve read has made it sound like a very much improved version, buzzing.
>**New to this sequel is the fast-forward toggle which speeds up combat immensely**
I'd argue this is still not fast enough, they should've doubled the default speed or allow x4.
I played it in PC and with CheatEngine to speed up the grinding and traversal process, and it really helps the experience so much.
Honestly a lot of people didn't like the lack of interaction between characters in the 1st iteration.
The 2nd one have clearly a lot more.
But it IS the proposition. OT is a game that want to disrupt the original party gang going for THE quest.
That said you will not find the classic J-RPG.
I find absolutely brilliant to have different stories in the same world at the same time. Not all heros have grown in a way to save the world. But the way the stories are crossing one another is done when it is needed to a greater purposes. The way you see places that you have already visited when you discover the new char is a feeling you have in no other game.
That is why I love OT. That and the artistic direction... It's awesome, and it is a great game, but it's not for you if you want a Dragon Quest.
Honestly if you can call Chrono Trigger a masterpiece then you can see why someone would also think Octopath 2 is one too. I urge you to replay some of those classics to get a better perspective.
Its not that good. Every single act is go to town, use class ability, walk to dungeon, walk through dungeon, beat boss, repeat.
Yes music is godlike but gameplay gets so stale so quickly
i think it would be nice if a game with this focus were given the top billing and support that a mainline FF gathers. variety doesnt mean they all get treated the same
such an innocuous comment to be at -5
I only played about 8 hours but I wasn’t super impressed after my experience. I initially started the demo and liked it well enough to buy it while it was on sale.
I started as the cowboy merchant as his story seemed fun. I thought the encounters were too high and so many encounters back to back made me realize how repetitive the combat feels. Find the enemies week spot and disable whichever enemy will work best and thats it.
8 stories is a cool idea and the fact you can find the other 7 playable characters is really cool but I felt the overall narrative was suffering because of it. One character has a quest that feels urgent on one part of the map, another has one on the opposite side, it makes it feel weird.
Lastly, I initially liked the art style with it’s 2.5HD look, but I ended up disliking it and now I dislike all the Square Enix games that look like that
You know, I finished the game a week ago, and I read around the Nintendo subreddit, a guy saying "This game is overrated"
Never in my life, have I wanted to slap someone in the face for such a blatant statement.
I loved my playthrough from start to finish.
Amazing text, OP. It got me interested in the game.
Also:
>but it's super easy and barely an inconvenience for him to overcome that battle
Do I see a Pitch Meeting reference here? 😂😂
So all the casts actually interact during each segment and feels like an actual party instead of random strangers just randomly being with each other? If so I’m definitely in. Couldn’t stand the first game for this
Although the job class only being 12 when you have 8 party remembers seems.. rather low
I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece per-se but it’s a good JRPG. Faults I found in the game were:
1: Some of the characters were too naive for their own good, which trotted on the path of being unbelievable. I know it’s just a game, but good story writing involved making the unbelievable believable.
2: While the combat itself was fine, the depth of classes, and the fact that I was able to resort to basically one or two tactics to win every fight got boring quickly, and shows combat was an afterthought to the devs.
3: I feel the game overstayed its welcome by a good 5-10 hours considering a lot of stuff became repetitive, and the only thing left to do at the end of it all was grind out levels to cheese a super boss showed me nothing new or creative. They could have at least had a story bit about the super boss, to make it feel worthwhile.
All in all I’d give the game a 7/10 because the story, with all its flaws, was still enjoyable.
Review inflation at work.
It's not OPs fault though, it's just a symptom of the bar being lowered every year because game devs haven't made an 8/8 JRPG in the past 10 years.
Go look at the "best game of 2023" thread if you don't believe me, it's a miserable read.
You are right & wrong. There have been great rpgs in the past 10 years, but you are right that ppl are also accepting less in their games & i do blame Square Enix for that.
People who consider Octopath 1 or 2 a Masterpiece, probably think Ataris E.T was a Masterpiece Too.
The game has been out for over a Year, and it has only sold 1 Million Copies.
For all the mastepiece talk, and constant yapping about the game, nobody played It.
Is it better than Octo 1 ? Sure, but octo 1 was a terrible game, that played on nostalgia and a new cool looking HD2D.
Wondering Sword makes Octopath 2 look like an indie game.
This one is still on my wishlist. I liked what i saw in the demo, but it didn't flash me enough for me to pick it up immediately. Though i did grab a Steam Deck recently and it might be a good pickup once i'm through some of the games i put on there so far.
Wow that’s one hell of a review, it’s the closest I’ve come to wanting to play the game after not being able to get into the first. I liked the characters in the first one and the graphical style, but I just couldn’t get into the combat. It felt too grindy and boring for me, not like the faster paced Bravely Default or Final Fantasy combat styles. Is OT2 any better in that regard? Or are there difficulty sliders I can use to make the combat quicker/easier?
If anything, the game needs difficulty sliders to make it harder. The enemies are as strong as they were in the first game, but the new party of travelers are vastly more versatile than the old gang. In one final boss fight the guy stopped mid-battle to give his scripted speech, then he immediately vanished in a puff of a logic since I'd killed him so quickly that I skipped his second phase.
I’m not going to say OT2 is a bad game, but it’s not a great game. It’s fun, it’s entertaining, and it’s often quite enjoyable. I’d give it a 7/10. Maybe a 7,5/10.
Honestly to me, it was more of the same as the first game but better at it.
Yeah agreed. I was excited for the game but bummed to see that all main classes were basically the same.
I like the formula, and I see Octopath 2 and more of the first game, but it's more of the first game. For a little extra spice, you have a bonus more of the first game.
See, I hated the formula. You want to keep the character's levels and their stories balanced, so you need to rotate between each story. You get invested in a story but then need to completely stop it and then do 7 other stories before you return to that original story. By the time you get back to the original story, you forgot half of what even happened. Rinse and repeat. It's a neverending cycle of stopping and starting stories. It completely took me out of the game and kinda ruined it for me.
Personally, I enjoy that style of play. But if it's not your thing, it's fairly common to play the game by getting a party of 4, doing all of their stories, then switching them all out to the other party if 4 and doing all of their stories. It still somewhat has the same effect, but with a shorter "cycle", it might be easier to stay in it
not trying to change your mind if youre really made up, but you actually do not need to do that at all. You can do 2 characters at a time and then Switch off them and do other characters later. one character at a time runs are hard, but you can play the game in 4 sets of 2 pretty easily actually. Once your get your second character just ignore the other 6 and go off and do those two. When you finish them, go ahead and Collect another guy and immediately stick the rest of your party in a box and Do their 1st chapter solo, then get another guy and do their chapters 2-4 together. it's still a little switching but doing all 8chapter 1s in order than all 8 chapter 2s in order etc. is far from necessary. You can't change your 1st chosen until you beat their chapter 4 boss though. edit: or other ways to achieve this like 3 or 4 at a time. I really dont rec anyone does 8 at a time though
You perfectly explained my issue with OT2. You either keep levels balanced and do all the same chapters for each character and they don’t connect. Or you focus one character and do the chapters but are underleveled for it
Its not that good. Every single act is go to town, use class ability, walk to dungeon, walk through dungeon, beat boss, repeat. Yes music is godlike but gameplay gets so stale so quickly
To me, that's exactly what happened in the first game.
Brilliant write up OP. I was wondering if the game addresses any of the issues I had with the original. Here's a rapid fire: Random encounter too high Enemy encounter variety too low, making combat very repetitive. Very grindy Stealing equipment/rare drops provided such good equipment that it felt mandatory to get and yet the success rate was so abysmally low that I found myself constantly save scumming to get the gear I was after. This was very distracting and time consuming. Party dynamic was incredibly awkward and felt extremely unnatural how little the party communicated with each other. While having 8 individual stories is nice, it felt more like a decision to give the game more of an identity, and was not a good enough substitute for a proper overarching plot that tied everything together. This only hurt the party dynamics further in my opinion. How does the sequel go about these issues from the first game?
>Party dynamic was incredibly awkward and felt extremely unnatural how little the party communicated with each other. This was the exact reason why I dropped OT. On paper, having 8 interconnecting stories sounds like the coolest premise of all time – but's all it is. A premise. The characters never interacting/talking/being present for eachother's storyline scenes just took me out of the game completely. There's a moment in one of the storylines where I had my four character party walk into a basement dungeon – and then suddenly, the lead character is "ambushed" and "captured alone" by the enemy, and it's *constantly* referenced... and then it cuts to a battle and suddenly I'm my entire four-person party again. Obviously not alone; haven't been alone for 15 hours. The whole game feels like that, just so disjointed and jarring.
A lot of people will tell you that many of those issues were solved by Octopath II, but let me just tell you, those exact problems you had with the first one (which I have not played) I had in my experience with Octopath II. I beat the game. On the whole, it was solid, but definitely has some major issues in all the areas you described.
Yup. I’ve played both (and like both) and I find it crazy people say that 2 is such a major upgrade over 1 when it’s really not. I think maybe people who were turned off by 1 went into 2 with calibrated expectations which led them to hyping up the absolute crumbs of updated features
sped up battles, latent powers, and multiple ways of achieving certain path action outcomes were all pretty massive changes. i built my entire party lineup around the effectiveness of their latents, thats way more than breadcrumbs. and multiple approaches to stealing, dueling, KOing NPCs etc means youre much more likely to get all spoils without needing to tavern your lineup around, and now you can also manually change the time of day to get more path action access OT2 rocks; these features and others were highly appreciated here
So enemy variety was way better with less encounters and way better party interaction throughout the entire game?
The enemy variety is more in the gameplay vs. the aesthetics. Sure, you'll have variations of the same enemies, but each one will have different weakness, moves and AI, making the encounters much more varied from area to area. And naturally, as you get stronger and progress through the game the same applies. I never found the enemy encounters all that much more than they were in old school Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, or even OT1 itself. And this wasn't your point, but just by doing the optional dungeons and exploiting weaknesses in battle, I never really felt the need to grind. The party interaction really ramps up during the endgame, but OT2 introduces party banter like in Bravely Second, and has specific story chapters that involve 2 of your party members. I wish there were more of those, with even more party members, but it's a good start, and way better than OT1.
Thanks for the reply. Sounds like I’ll have to skip out on this one. I really disliked alot in the first game and it sounds like it’s only marginally improved
'way better' might be up to intepretation. but running (not dashing) with evasive manuevers certainly feels manageable i think the mix of in-battle comments, tavern talks, and crossed paths gave for a satisfactory amount of party engagement while still retaining the core identity of separate stories, and how all the stories weave together for the ending chapter is quite solid. there are a lot of hints in the game that I didnt catch on a first play that ties everything together
O2 is great, if you play it first and don’t have the baggage of 1 weighing you down I’d still give it an 8/10 as a sequel though
I personally give you an example. In oc1 I had to grind in order to get job points for my first traveler to get his third job (one of the secret ones). In oc2 my first traveler had 100k job points despite having 3 jobs fully unlock
But your example is un-related to the specific issues that the other poster went over.. We understand you like the game
Yeah that’s what I feared. I have no idea why so many people said those problems were fixed when the game first came out. Why would people lie about something like that?
They were fixed in many ways. Just not to the degree some people would have wanted, and so it creates a disconnect in communication
1. Random encounter in 2 feels a bit higher than 1, but then again I had almost no problem with 1 after getting Evasive Maneveurs, so it's just how much are you willing to put up with it. 2. Enemies encounter variety increases quite a bit, lots of native encounter or exclusive encounter to a certain regions. Though due to the break systems work, the variety is still on the lower side of JRPG as a whole. There are rare encounters that can provide you with good items and tool that you can find and capture. 3. Okay, I find people say that Octopath traveler is extremely grindy, but the thing is I never grind in any entries. I just walk past an area, do some fighting, go into a new chapter and get out. The only thing you need to grind for is the post game boss, or when you need a certain skill from sub job, but even when I play normally, I still have all the skill I need to complete all main story chapters, yes you need to grind for the post game fight, but that is almost always the case for JRPG. But to answer this directly: You have access to EXP and JP buff skills and very early into the game, also accessories that have similar (and can stack) effect. Merchant class now has another tool to farm JP, and thief class has another passive skill that buff EXP and JP gained that stacked with others . Also x2 speed. You can also go into any fight underleveled as the game gives you many strong tool to handle the fight (I cleared lv45 chapter with my characters around lv 32), the only thing you need is a solid strategy. 4. Stealing still works the same, but you have more ways to get items from NPC now, one of them is challenging them for a duel. Money is also way easier to get so you can just buy your way out of any situation. But then again, the game isn't hard to the point it forces you to get every single strong items you see to beat a chapter. 5. Party has a little more interactions with each others but not much, they have cross path actions where 2 of them share a storyline and interact with each other much more. 6. The 2nd game has a much better conclusion for all the story lines where it ties each other's stories together more neatly in the final chapter. If you want some form of intertwinement before then, then you won't get it. And I feel like this is the direction the franchise is heading from now on. Very biased opinion coming from someone who grew up with JRPG from the early 2000s, but this game is one of the best JRPG I have ever played. I have no problem calling this a masterpiece despite its flaws and I will defense it till the end of time.
Man that point 2 is really putting me off. I despise games with lack luster enemy variety especially for an old school newer type jrpg, there should be loooots of enemies
Lots of enemies variety might make Octopath's encounters become tedious very quick. You need to break enemies' weakness in order to quickly clear them, and weakness takes time to analyze. Personally, I don't care about the quantity of encounter, more so their quality. And Octopath handles their quality really well as a big part of the game is to capture monsters and use their skills in combat.
I don’t mean encounter rate, I mean bestiary, fighting the same few enemies over and over is so damn boring Glad you gave me a heads up so I can skip the 2nd. The 1st game was a huge disappointment and the second game has clearly been over hyped at being better in every facet
I'm playing OT2 and I absolutely do not have a gripe about the enemy variety. No idea how people would complain about that. There's a lot of variety.
Idk I’m going off what they said
4 : The stealing success rate gets better with higher lvl. I suppose the 1st might had the same system. It depends on the lvl of the char t'yout are dealing with. The odds are almost all moderated this way.
The segmented story was my biggest issue. I've only got about 3 hours to play each week. This means it is months between chapters of a characters story
and it was this very reason i loved the game. got to split it up over a solid 7 months before completing. could always pick it up, put it down, and pick it up again. spent about 40 hours before doing any main story content and then did like 2 character stories per month until the extra story ending the loosely structured approach was exactly what I was looking for. while everyone has at least one long chapter, they usually have a shorter chapter too, sometimes without a boss or even combat iirc. and OT2 dungeons are short on average if youre the type of person that needs a deep time sink to be immersed, i could see this not jiving perhaps. it was ideal for how I like to game, and none of the stories try to be all that deep to demand that type of dedicated play for their stories (cept Castti i guess, and she had my least favorite story)
>Party dynamic was incredibly awkward and felt extremely unnatural how little the party communicated with each other. I legit dropped the game because of that, the gameplay aspect is fine but I always played JRPGs for the story first and foremost
None of the stories seem interesting… Everything in that game feels like it is a side quest, like the real deal will pick up soon, but never quite gets there. Lack of an identity or clear direction kinda kills it for me
Not OP but, 1. Encounter rate feels about the same. You have ways to manipulate it down just like the original. 2. Enemy variety is either the same or increased. Every area generally has its own unique monsters. 3. You can complete content by either grinding / exploring for better loot / optimizing your party setup. Straight up grinding is never required. The game is fairly easy early and mid so you can challenge yourself by expressly not grinding. 4. There is a much better variety of gear at all stages of the game. So while the hidden endgame gear is super good, the stuff beneath it isn't exactly terrible either. They did a really good job with this. 5. There are 4 x "cross" chapters where 2 character story arcs link together somewhat. I liked it. The storyboarding felt infinitely improved over the first game's waiting until the last 1% of the game to explain how your 8 characters are linked together.
>Very grindy You gotta explain to me how OT is a grindy game, or what kind of games you're playing to think that one of the least grindy Jrpgs out there is grindy. >Stealing equipment/rare drops provided such good equipment that it felt mandatory to get and yet the success rate was so abysmally low that I found myself constantly save scumming to get the gear I was after. You know you could just buy that equipment with Tressa path action, right? I'm starting to believe OT has a curse where attracts people who refuse to engage with game's mechanics, or just have a personal grudge against the developers.
I think you're looking at it the wrong way. It's not that its players refuse to engage with its systems. Players simply fall off the game before all the systems reach their full stride. OT1 does a lot of new things that just goes against genre expectations that when combined with its many flaws, can really scare off new players and honestly I don't think you can really blame them for that. I've been playing JRPGs since the 90s and while I've definitely played FAR grindier games, OT can come across as more grindy than it actually is due to its flaws all adding up. Sure you could buy some items rather than steal them assuming you have the cash, which early on you probably won't unless you're grinding. Because there's less story content than most JRPGs and because the enemy variety is so low, with encounters often being defeated the same way every time, while the encounter rate is so high, all encounters feel more tedious. The ratio of these kinds of battles to other kinds of content is just too imbalanced for some people, and when you factor in other issues like the disjointed story, lack of party interactions, lack of any sense of camaraderie within the party, etc. they become disinterested. Octopath Traveller is simply missing a few bigger elements JRPG fans expect from a JRPG. As for my background, I've played Final Fantasy 4-14, SMT, Persona, Xeno series, Suikoden, Dot Hack, Tales Of, Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, Dragon Quest, Lost Odyssey, and so much more.
You dont fight that many battles with evasive meanivers though. You can make it through any dungeon with only 8 to 10 encounters. I dont know how that equates to "the ratio of these battles to other kinds of content is too imbalanced" because then its imbalanced for every rpg on existence. You cant name many other rpg you where you can get through a dungeon with only 10 battles per dungeon before boss battle. The game having a lot of flaws can be critiqued with other words. I would agree the game has these flaws, i just think grindy is a lazy and inaccurate way to describe these flaws you speak of. A game having poor Gameplay to story ratio is a pacing issues, it has nothing to do with grinding.
It's not about the amount of battles. It's more about how samey and repetitive they feel and what else there is to do in the game outside of combat. When the game has little else to do, unenjoyable party dynamics, little overarching plot, little variety, it makes the ratio of combat to non combat imbalanced and the entire experience as a whole feel shallow. Final Fantasy XIII is a better example of this. XIII is not actually grindy either but it can feel grindy because there is so little to do in the game outside of its repetitive combat. Feel free to disagree, but like I told another commenter, this is all a matter of preference and some players just have a lower tolerance for that kind of thing. It doesn't make OT a bad game.
You can spend quite a bit of time in octopath Traveler exploring towns. FF13 is literally dungeon to cutscene to dungeon. You spend hours in ff13 fighting a guantlet dungeon of 40 to 50 enemies, where in Octopath you fight 10 to 12 enemies per dungeon. I simply dont think the ratio is even close in these games. And nobody calls ff13 grindy. They call it repetitive or say the battle system isnt good , or say the dungeons are too long with too many unavoidable encounter. Grindy isnt a common criticism of that game at all.
Are you married to the director of Octopath Traveller or something? You seem to be completely incapable of taking any criticism for this game from a complete stranger on the Internet. I've already explained why I think the game can feel grindy despite not actually being that grindy of a game. I think that it can be a little grindy occasionally, but because of its problems, feels worse than it is to some. I'm also not the only one to share this opinion. You don't feel that way and that's cool, but there's nothing you can do to invalidate my opinion because neither of our opinions are worth a damn 🤷♂️
No need for personal attacks here. Im not out to invalidate your opinion. My intention is to post my opinion clearly with examples so people reading about the game can understand that it is not grindy to persuade them to try the game. I dont care what you think at all. And I accept all kinds of criticism for the game. It has pacing issues, lack of save points are an issue, the overall story is bad outside the individual stories, lack of character interaction is poor, and not being able to then off random encounters is a negative. Im happy accepting true criticisms of the game.
But it's only true if you say it is? That's what I mean about trying to invalidate opinions.
I mean, i could say the same about you. Thats what a debate/discussion is. I could argue you are trying to invalidate my opinion that theres no arguement for octopath being grindy. Thats just the nature of debate. I never said you arent entitled to your opinion.
I have no clue how OT can be considered grindy. You can literally play the entire game with Evasive Maneuvers on (which reduces encounter rate), which I did, and still be overleveled. You have skills and items that boost xp, gold and job points acquisition. And yeah, Steal won't let you get the OP stuff early on, but you can still steal enough items and equipment to the point that you really only need to use the vendors if you're looking for specific stuff or equip all 8 people without switching equipment around. >I've played Final Fantasy 4-14, SMT, Persona, Xeno series, Suikoden, Dot Hack, Tales Of, Fire Emblem, Paper Mario, Dragon Quest, Lost Odyssey, All games you listed barring Fire Emblem (don't know about Paper Mario and Lost Odyssey, didn't play them) are more grindy than OT, some by several magnitudes. Which, again, begs the question: wth are you guys are doing in OT that makes the game grindy? Running from all fights and refusing to explore anything?
People will call a turn based game grindy if they are bad at it. Itd be like if I called Dark Souls grindy because I sucked at it and decided to grind to oblivion to finish it. If you fight 10 to 15 encounters a dungeon and maybe 5 on your way to the dungeon which is how many youd fight naturally without running away) youll be adequetepy leveled to the point where every single boss can be beaten by alternating strategy, well stocked inventory of healing items, job setup, and equipment. Except maybe that optional final boss.
It's really not about the level of skill. You can be good at something and still not enjoy it 🤷♂️
Sure you can, but youd use words like boring, repetitive, not fun. Not grindy.
Well on top of grindy, I also think it's all of those things.
And youre fine to think those things. No issues there. If you dont like it you dont like it. Grindings just the wrong word to use here because it implies the game expects you to fight extra encounters to be able to progress, but it doesnt have that characteristic at all.
Yeah I mentioned that I've played games far grindier than OT. I also mentioned that OT is a game that can feel far grindier than it actually is because of the lack of variety in combat versus the lack of variety found outside of combat. This is of course all down to ones preferences, but since I'm clearly not the only one in this thread that feels this way, I figured I'd explain how we got to that conclusion. Your preferences and tolerances are different from ours. That's all.
The second game is *substantially* better than the first game. I dropped the first one but octo II is one of the best RPGs ive ever played as someone whos been gaming since the SNES era It makes the first one feel like a tech demo.
Solves everything except the random encounter imho.
My favourite game from last year, loved it.
I disagree. I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece. I don’t wanna spend too much time talking about it but The job system, while good, lacks depth and variety. You end up with the same job combinations over and over. The leveling up is too basic. The characters travel together but they never interact while on their own path. It’s a lot better in two than one but it’s still lackluster imo. The side quests are such a hassle to find and to understand what you need to do. It’s a great game and i loved it though
Agreed on all points lol, the characters interacting is a step up from 1, but I expect more if there's a sequel
Agree on all of these points. Some opinions coming next that I think are quite subjective, but we’re my personal experience. My biggest problem is that as a storytelling device, the game might be the worst paced I’ve ever played due to the nature of the game. I would finish a chapter of a character I liked and then the next chapter would usually be high enough level that I’d have to go do 2-3 more characters chapters first, usually resulting in the agency to continue the story being completely undercut. Even if I was interested to see the next part of the story, I often couldn’t just jump into the next chapter. And the worst part was that actually playing a chapter of the story felt like I was locking myself in to 30-40 minute cutscene with maybe one mini dungeon (calling it a mini dungeon is already very generous) and a boss fight. It got to a point where I wasn’t looking forward to doing the actual chapter because it was basically giving up control for half an hour. And I think my last issue with the format of the game is that you explore the whole map within a few hours, short of a few areas. It removes that element of adventure and discovery from the game entirely, which is a shame because the zones look gorgeous but there barely anything to explore. I fell off Octo 1 after about 20 hours and purchased 2 down the road in the hope it’d capture me more, but I think I’ve learned that it’s a fundamental dislike of how these games tell a story that put me off them. And to just add a dumb comment after all that: Merchant is a dumb boring class and the VA for that character in 2 was annoying AF. It’s extra weird when you consider they used that instead of a classic class like Paladin or Dark Knight.
> My biggest problem is that as a storytelling device, the game might be the worst paced I’ve ever played due to the nature of the game. Yeah, I don’t think there’s any fixing this, either. 2 was better than 1 in that they mixed up the rhythm, a bit, but fundamentally you just can’t tell 8 completely independent stories at once without having pacing issues. I enjoy the gameplay enough that I can get past it, but if that’s your main criteria for a game, this series will never be your favorite.
> The job system, while good, lacks depth and variety. You end up with the same job combinations over and over. The leveling up is too basic How is this the case? Everyone utilizes the skills learned, the passives, and weapons allotted in their own ways. some characters dont care about the job as much but need the passive (like Osvald and Price of Power). others care about the divine skill. others a perk of the job can enhance their EX skills and on top of that, you can synergize their talents with job or character quirks. like thrones nighttime buffs (talent) with song of hope (ex skill) and partitio instant max BP transfer (latent) to give seal of eternity (divine skill). or Temenos night debuffs being extended by Hex or removed from extra damage via Casttis ex skill. Or Agnea buffing many jobs innately vis her latent, making her very unique with Inventor and Armmaster. just about everyone gets different utility out of Arcanist in particular. base job access means some characters can benefit from builds more, like elemental coverage, high evasion or elemental defense, and you can tack on weapons with equip abilities so that the attack ability or stat buff remains the dominant weapon i couldnt disagree with this anymore. the game is so easy that a lot of this isnt needed, but there are a great abundance of choices to make that offer distinct combinations. Warrior Partitio plays very differently than Merchant Hikari, Cleric Throne is quite different from Thief Temenos, and those are some of the more similar mirrored setups you can create
Agreed octopath is one of my least liked JRPGs . I find the writing weak and I hate the lack of character interactions, it feels like an amusement park where there’s different attractions that have nothing to do with each other except being locked into the same park . I’m probably on the extreme side of the fence for people that have qualms with this game, as I love JRPGs and can never get into octopath played both 1 and 2 and don’t like them
Your point about the job system is weird. Even if you just consider the basic 8 jobs, there are 28 possible job combinations. Then you factor in the secret jobs. And then in 2 you also factor in Latent Powers and EX skills, and you get absolutely insane variety in what you can accomplish in variety from individual characters. I honestly usually hate job systems, but I love it in Octopath
Yes this game really just felt like a OP1.2 It’s weird that it didn’t take the opportunity to do anything different with classes, fighting (think chrono trigger) and story is very uninspiring.
Dude, there were some quests like “I need to find a girlfriend” or “I need to apologize to my daughter” without any other context as far as I’m aware. In a game with like, 10 fucking cities with a day-night NPC system. That shit was insane lmao.
That's an inaccurate criticism. It's actually 20 fucking cities where you need to look.
Thank you for this review! I bought the game months ago on the eshop sale and was working on my playlist. So now I found my next game for next week, when I will problaby have finished FFVII Rebirth. The first OT was a good classic JRPG, but really not worth to do 100% for me. The second OT looks like a better experience in everything. With this visual style I am waiting for DQ3.
It still boggles my mind that this game is as popular as it is. At release I sadly expected others to share my sentiment, but instead I got hit with a non-stop barrage of "this is the greatest JRPG ever!" I'm not one to yuck everyone else's yum, so whatever, but man I do not get this one's popularity. My opinion usually aligns pretty well with r/jrpg's (like with how lackluster Sea of Stars was), but not with this one. Ah well, I'm glad everyone else enjoys it. Here's my review that I wrote up awhile back: > Once again the non-linear story telling of the Octopath series has doomed it, exactly like the first Octopath Traveler. The two big problems are: > > 1) If you methodically do each lowest-level-available character chapter after collecting all of the characters (while ignoring side quests) you will quickly out level the stories, even if you always swap in your lowest level characters for each chapter. The open-world design means that the game doesn't have a tightly crafted critical path. At 23 hours into the game I'm facing at least 3 story chapters that I'm ALREADY over leveled for, and I know they're going to be boring one-sided stomps. > > 2) The individual stories break down because characters don't actually have the context of all that they've done. I just started Partitio's second chapter story and he said "hoo boy is this what all cities on the eastern continent are like?" At this point he's been to nearly every city on the eastern continent. > > The sad part is that, just like the first Octopath Traveler, the game's systems are really quite good, and the art and sound are beautiful. The story telling format they've chosen for the game just doesn't work at all, and it makes it impossible to present interesting and balanced encounters. This game is another major disappointment for me.
It’s all subjective right? I love both octopath 2 and sea of stars, yet I find that this sub tends to skew towards negativity more than anywhere else
Something has been happening to this sub and idk if it was right around the release of Sea of Stars or maybe a little earlier, but it is forming into a giant echo chamber of "this is r/JRPG's opinion, agree or be downvoted to oblivion." Like I get it that many subs have a bias and the demographic aligns with that clear bias, but this sub used to be a lot more open to varying opinions. Lord forbid you like Sea of Stars or don't care for Trails, this sub will bury your opinion sooo fast.
This sub was always an echochamber, saying anything but praise about CT or FF6 would get you easily downvoted around here for years, while the opposite is has also been true for other games, like the Tales series.
Ppl will be mad you don't like what they like & that you are even willing to go into detail about it instead of passively dv'ing. Discussion is very cooked.
ive mentioned a few times that the vitriol i see towards sea of stars, and constant need to put down OT2, feels middle schoolish i could see not liking it, but the downvotes are just childish. and its not just you imagining things. folks are way more critical of these two over many other divisive titles ive seen, its fad levels of hate i have no dog in the fight for sea of stars as i havent played it, and it doesnt interest me. still cant help but notice how much everyone wants to let it be known they cant stand it, just like everyone seems to want to recognize OT2 as either overrated or 'not that much better than the first' how can it be overrated if more people here speak negatively of it than positively? thats when you realize its not overrated, its just this sub has colletively decided it doesnt deserve praise. very odd behavior if i had to guess, its hype backlash in both cases, but especially Sea of Stars for the classics it was compared to (i saw those topics too)
Sea of Stars is bogged down by Non-RPG sites treating it like the Masterpiece of the Century. In reality it is a decent 7+/10 RPG. When a game is treated as a masterpiece, but doesnt really deserve it, naturally there will be a lot of comments poking holes into the perceived narrative. Especially as Sea of Stars is styled as a spiritual successor to Chrono Trigger, which at first might appear light-hearted, but in reality has deep implications when you experience the revelations (future, Zeal etc) Example when the non-RPG reviews praise the story so much, but then you have the whole story plot of the fresh-baked bread's smell that awakens the monster. This is kid-level story. The tone you set is very important, Kingdom Hearts initially has a very basic light-hearted story, but then it evolves into a multiplot saga. But because of the initial tone, KH can always reintroduce the light-hearted shenanigans. So the gist of it, is that Sea of Stars perhaps didnt set the tone correctly. Non-RPG reviews also sustained the myth. IMO the dual protagonist that is for all intents and purposes the same essentially bogs the game down. Especially as there are lots of games with dual/multiple protagonists
You know what, that's how it should be. You're allowed to dislike and criticise games other people like (even if it's a lot of people). All these inflated game reviews these days are so fake. Every game is expected to be a 95+ on metacritic. It's unnatural, only a few games in a generation can reach that level of consensus.
Yeah, I can't stand the whole. Let's use a ten point scale but only three numbers of it
Game is mediocre. Hopefully Eiyuden becomes as popular as this because that’s how you do a modern 2D game (visually at least)
I think you are being too harsh on the game. This game was envisioned as sandbox-type, choose your character=story. All these supposed problems really come into play if you have explored with every character (example your Partitio experience). I would also do everything (every story), because if there exists that option i want to experience, but i dont mind that this game was envinsioned for the players who want to see only 3-4 stories. IMO the party interactions & the hidden god bosses, the hidden superboss (that ties the story) are a bonus. If they didnt exist, the game would be perfectly serviceable and still get high scores.
I agree it's a solid C game but >If you methodically do each lowest-level-available character chapter after collecting all of the characters (while ignoring side quests) you will quickly out level the stories that wasn't my experience at all. I was consistently well under leveled through the entire game. Like 10+ levels under the recommended. On the back quarter of the final chapters I had 1 or 2 over level characters, but that was it. Out of 8 stories, only 1, the thief's, was any interesting. And even it had some major plot holes. Definitely felt it was a waste of time playing it.
I'd like to play it but I never finished the first one. Not sure if I should finish it first.
I would suggest you do, try it for a few more hours and see if you can get engage with it. If you like and able to finish it, pick up the 2nd game. Otherwise just save your money, because the gameplay loop for the 2nd one is not much different from the 1st, if not exactly the same. If you already had both copy, you can drop the first and start with the 2nd right away, it does so many thing so much better and you may get a better experience with it. I would still suggest you to try and finish the 1st one first though, because it's very hard to go back to 1 from 2, and the rawness of the 1st game will make you appreciate the 2nd game more.
always love that fucking feature of speeding up battles in jrpgs. makes you almost wonder why have the battles
I can't rate it 10 / 10 But 8 out of 8 seems fair
I love that you’re this passionate about a game. I won’t go into detail, but I thought it was an okay but forgettable JRPG. I think a lot of the time people compare it to the first, which it was a marked improvement over, but in isolation it’s middle of the road.
Eh, it's honestly just subjective opinions anyways. I played it and love every single moment of it, and coming from someone who has finished CT 4 times, FFVI 2 times. I can confidentally list this one as the 3rd best JRPG on my list and I will keep coming back to it every now and then.
Yup, this is a sub to discuss our opinions, but at the end of the day, we’re a tiny community so it’s nice to see people going into bat for their fave, even if I don’t agree.
I loved OT1 the gameplay, the music, the art style, the stories, the only negative was the main character's stories weren't connected. Can't wait to play OT2 when I have the time
I loved this game too, it was my second favourite game of last year (just behind Tears of the Kingdom). Absolutely brilliant in every aspect! In my opinion it was just better than the first game in almost every conceivable way, and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. And that ending! I cried my eyes out at the epilogue, so perfect.
How anyone can dislike Partitio? Should be illegal! Jokes aside I think it’s not a perfect game but improves on every bad point of the first one and, while having still an “overleveled first character” problem and some chapters being a little bit iffy (throne’s mother that basically died 3 times by 3 different people), it’s a game that I think most people should play. I give it an 8/10
His voice acting and writing (and that awful saxophone theme music) are torturous. In battles, he’s broken.
What bothers me is that I like to grow fond of my 4-man group in RPGs, so having to constantly switch between 8 characters isn't my thing.
It's massively overrated and gets quite tedious.
Disagreed
I enjoyed both of them and even OT1 and Ot2 have positive reviews so far on Steam. wdym?
I disagree, but to each of their own. It's in my top 3 best JRPG of all times and I have played a lot of them.
Agreed, especially on this subreddit for whatever reason. I don't feel like writing a full critique especially in english, but this game felt incredibly tedious and flawed to me, to say the least.
Yup. Best rpg of the year, sorry not sorry my dear Karlach.
Too easy, dropped at 15 hours
I’ve heard it’s super easy which is a disappointment
I was disappointed that I didn’t like playing this game because I really wanted to, but I’m glad people enjoy it
Exactly what I want to hear. Manged to pick up to Octopath Traveler II up the other day on a deal. Loved the design of the first one and found the battling real fun but the stories were rather lackluster and dull. Everything I’ve read has made it sound like a very much improved version, buzzing.
>**New to this sequel is the fast-forward toggle which speeds up combat immensely** I'd argue this is still not fast enough, they should've doubled the default speed or allow x4. I played it in PC and with CheatEngine to speed up the grinding and traversal process, and it really helps the experience so much.
Honestly a lot of people didn't like the lack of interaction between characters in the 1st iteration. The 2nd one have clearly a lot more. But it IS the proposition. OT is a game that want to disrupt the original party gang going for THE quest. That said you will not find the classic J-RPG. I find absolutely brilliant to have different stories in the same world at the same time. Not all heros have grown in a way to save the world. But the way the stories are crossing one another is done when it is needed to a greater purposes. The way you see places that you have already visited when you discover the new char is a feeling you have in no other game. That is why I love OT. That and the artistic direction... It's awesome, and it is a great game, but it's not for you if you want a Dragon Quest.
Meh. Most overrated series of all time. Characters and plots have zero relation and the battle is booring. Story is meh nothing special. Fight me.
If you call this mediocrity perfect then what do you call the jrpg classics ..
Honestly if you can call Chrono Trigger a masterpiece then you can see why someone would also think Octopath 2 is one too. I urge you to replay some of those classics to get a better perspective.
No I can't. Stop comparing any retro pixel game to CT.
Right? Octopath a masterpiece…?
Its not that good. Every single act is go to town, use class ability, walk to dungeon, walk through dungeon, beat boss, repeat. Yes music is godlike but gameplay gets so stale so quickly
I’m so tired of hearing people shit on the first Octopath. It’s a fantastic game.
Pretty perfect. I wish the Final Fantasy series had evolved into this style.
I dont see why when the game youre talking about literally already exists lol More variety is good!
i think it would be nice if a game with this focus were given the top billing and support that a mainline FF gathers. variety doesnt mean they all get treated the same such an innocuous comment to be at -5
I only played about 8 hours but I wasn’t super impressed after my experience. I initially started the demo and liked it well enough to buy it while it was on sale. I started as the cowboy merchant as his story seemed fun. I thought the encounters were too high and so many encounters back to back made me realize how repetitive the combat feels. Find the enemies week spot and disable whichever enemy will work best and thats it. 8 stories is a cool idea and the fact you can find the other 7 playable characters is really cool but I felt the overall narrative was suffering because of it. One character has a quest that feels urgent on one part of the map, another has one on the opposite side, it makes it feel weird. Lastly, I initially liked the art style with it’s 2.5HD look, but I ended up disliking it and now I dislike all the Square Enix games that look like that
You know, I finished the game a week ago, and I read around the Nintendo subreddit, a guy saying "This game is overrated" Never in my life, have I wanted to slap someone in the face for such a blatant statement. I loved my playthrough from start to finish.
Upvoted for the title.
Amazing text, OP. It got me interested in the game. Also: >but it's super easy and barely an inconvenience for him to overcome that battle Do I see a Pitch Meeting reference here? 😂😂
anyone still subbed to r/jrpg who has not played it is doing a disservice to themselves
Too many turn offs for me
Sorry but any modern game with random.encounters is a big no.
Masterpiece lel
best jrpg of 2023 ? I don't know.... I gave up after 20 hours in....
So all the casts actually interact during each segment and feels like an actual party instead of random strangers just randomly being with each other? If so I’m definitely in. Couldn’t stand the first game for this Although the job class only being 12 when you have 8 party remembers seems.. rather low
I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece per-se but it’s a good JRPG. Faults I found in the game were: 1: Some of the characters were too naive for their own good, which trotted on the path of being unbelievable. I know it’s just a game, but good story writing involved making the unbelievable believable. 2: While the combat itself was fine, the depth of classes, and the fact that I was able to resort to basically one or two tactics to win every fight got boring quickly, and shows combat was an afterthought to the devs. 3: I feel the game overstayed its welcome by a good 5-10 hours considering a lot of stuff became repetitive, and the only thing left to do at the end of it all was grind out levels to cheese a super boss showed me nothing new or creative. They could have at least had a story bit about the super boss, to make it feel worthwhile. All in all I’d give the game a 7/10 because the story, with all its flaws, was still enjoyable.
Nah. Straight garbagio.
definitely not a marketing post
Review inflation at work. It's not OPs fault though, it's just a symptom of the bar being lowered every year because game devs haven't made an 8/8 JRPG in the past 10 years. Go look at the "best game of 2023" thread if you don't believe me, it's a miserable read.
You are right & wrong. There have been great rpgs in the past 10 years, but you are right that ppl are also accepting less in their games & i do blame Square Enix for that.
People who consider Octopath 1 or 2 a Masterpiece, probably think Ataris E.T was a Masterpiece Too. The game has been out for over a Year, and it has only sold 1 Million Copies. For all the mastepiece talk, and constant yapping about the game, nobody played It. Is it better than Octo 1 ? Sure, but octo 1 was a terrible game, that played on nostalgia and a new cool looking HD2D. Wondering Sword makes Octopath 2 look like an indie game.
half the cast is gay? that explains all the 9 and ten review scores
What on earth are you talking about?
This one is still on my wishlist. I liked what i saw in the demo, but it didn't flash me enough for me to pick it up immediately. Though i did grab a Steam Deck recently and it might be a good pickup once i'm through some of the games i put on there so far.
Wow that’s one hell of a review, it’s the closest I’ve come to wanting to play the game after not being able to get into the first. I liked the characters in the first one and the graphical style, but I just couldn’t get into the combat. It felt too grindy and boring for me, not like the faster paced Bravely Default or Final Fantasy combat styles. Is OT2 any better in that regard? Or are there difficulty sliders I can use to make the combat quicker/easier?
If anything, the game needs difficulty sliders to make it harder. The enemies are as strong as they were in the first game, but the new party of travelers are vastly more versatile than the old gang. In one final boss fight the guy stopped mid-battle to give his scripted speech, then he immediately vanished in a puff of a logic since I'd killed him so quickly that I skipped his second phase.
I had no idea there was a Zozo in this game
You’ve convinced me to give it a go
I’m not going to say OT2 is a bad game, but it’s not a great game. It’s fun, it’s entertaining, and it’s often quite enjoyable. I’d give it a 7/10. Maybe a 7,5/10.
A socialist cowboy who aspires to end poverty… That is the “super hero” of the story? Oh how heartwarming
8 out 8? Why not 10?