Octopath Traveler was a game that took me by surprise with how much I enjoyed it. Initially, I wasn't interested in the game due to it resembling Bravely Default and because I got filtered by both Bravely Default & Octopath Traveler's demos when those were released. In retrospect, I went into them hoping for and expecting them to be games that I could play and keep my brain turned off. Before & during my playthrough of the first Octopath Traveler I realized I was a total idiot. When I finally gave the game a proper chance, I found the strategy required in taking down bosses and enemies to be one of the best parts of the game. Octopath Traveler II keeps everything good about the first game and improves upon its shortcomings to deliver a fantastic RPG that is sure to become a classic in due time.

The gameplay is mostly the same with all of the primary jobs from the first game coming back. Even the new secondary jobs share some similarities to the ones in the previous game. However, they added one new mechanic and it is one that can become a game-changer in tough situations, Latent Powers. Each traveler has a unique one with different benefits. A few examples would be, Partitio's latent power that allows him to have max BP, Agnea's which allows her single attack moves to attack all enemies, or Hikari's & Ochette's which give them access to special attacks. I can't count the number of times this mechanic saved me from what would otherwise have been a game over had it not been added. There are also EX skills that grant you access to more powerful abilities but I didn't use them as much as I probably could have. They may not have been vital additions to the game, but they are welcome ones that make the game a little bit easier and each character more unique.

The biggest issues with the first game were the story and the 8 travelers you play as barely interact with each other. While there were a couple of travelers from the first game whose stories I ended up enjoying more, in most cases the stories were more interesting and an improvement over the first one. The pacing for each story was better too. Some chapters are split into two parts that give the game a little more breathing room to flesh out the story a little more compared to everyone in the first game where they only had 4 chapters. They fixed my biggest gripe with the first game's story and that was the lack of connection between each traveler's quest. The final chapter unites all of the characters together in order to save the world and also adds some lore that pieces some events in their respective stories together.

The travelers interact with each other a lot more and in a handful of others ways than they did in the first game. There is the banter dialogue which is a lot easier to find than it was in the first game (I didn't even know it existed in Octopath 1 till the end of the game), the crossed paths chapters that involve two of the travelers going on an adventure together, and the final chapter that unites them all. Seeing all your party members interact with each other might seem like a small, unimportant oversight, but it comes a long way in enhancing the experience.

While the first Octopath Traveler may have a special place in my heart, Octopath Traveler II is a game that surpasses it in pretty much every way. If this game is an indication of what is in store for the future of the Octopath Traveler franchise, then its a series that has a bright future ahead of it.

I completed this game a month ago so my review points are a little buried in my memory, but what hasn't been buried is how much I adored playing through it. The visuals in Octopath are gorgeous, and the box art for this being so nice honestly had more impact on my interest in it than I care to admit, but what I didn't expect was for the music to surpass it.

The OST for this game has got to be one of my favourites, ever. Such an amazing number of tracks with a huge range of tones and styles, all of them a joy to listen to. It's hard to overstate how pretty some of the songs are, and I think if my bottom-tier memory remembers only one thing about Octopath Traveler II, I'd like it to be that.

... However, it won't be that, because this game made the eye-watering decision to lock it's platinum trophy behind it post-game megaboss. Now I love JRPGs, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm not very good at them. I get by for sure, but any time I look up a strat or hear how someone else is running their party I realise that mine is using maybe 15% of it's full potential. This game does not allow you to buy-back equipment that you sell, so when my dumbass sold a weapon that turned out to be essential in just about every megaboss build I found online.. 🥹

It took me around 100 hours to beat the story, maybe 20 to cleanup everything else for the platinum and (I can't be certain because reloading my save meant the time wasn't tracked) I'm certain I spent no less than 20 hours grinding and throwing myself at this boss for the final trophy. Honestly it was probably closer to 40.
10 days worth of on-off grinding/attempts, sometimes for hours, sometimes just 2-4 tries. At one point I was so discouraged and quite frankly broken that I uninstalled the game to spare myself the pain of failure, only to redownload it a few days later with hopes of beating it out of spite.

I have seen people beat this boss with ease over 30 levels lower than my party were (I grinded from 50-60 range to 80-90 just for this) and despite having almost exactly the same gear (aside from stuff I'd sold) I wasn't doing nearly as much damage as they were 🥹 (I had also spammed all my stat nuts in inopportune ways without realising bc I am ranked #1 worst jrpg player)

Anyway all this to say, I finally did it. I don't know how, the numbers fell in my favour and by some miracle I actually beat it, and that's rad 😭

This "review" is unhinged but I should also say that I love the characters and the combat system was immensely fun to use the whole time, really enjoyed it. Biggest gripe with the game would be the difficulty spike but I expect that's a skill issue. Also the way the travelers meet is kinda goofy but I really don't think that affected my enjoyment at all.

Overall I would definitely recommend this to anyone even remotely interested, it's a fantastic time and a really refreshing structure in how the story was told (for me, I haven't played 1 or Live A Live) -- Just maybe don't worry about the platinum or play on Switch (which I might have to for the first game 🥹)

Thanks for reading! Hope everyone's having a good mid-year, Final Fantasy XVI is around the corner and with this being my 124th platinum I'm hoping that one isn't quite so painful to make as my milestone 125! 😌

P.S. I just remembered there was a line near the end of Temenos' story that went so fucking hard, it was like "[Your Gods] created this world, and in their folly saw fit to taint it with humans" and that's so fkn raw😩

Octopath Traveler came out at the right time, It kickstarted the HD-2D genre.
That's about all I can say about Octopath Traveler. While the game was a commercial and critical success, It felt lacking in more aspects than one.
So here comes the long awaited sequel, how does it fare to the original?

As of writing this, I don't believe I've ever played a game that improves on every single part of the original game and rises to new heights in the entire genre. It's a magical little game that has managed to hook me in from the first minute of playing the game, every single character is interesting and are fun to be around, they each have their own storylines together. It feels like everything has finally clicked.
The original game simply feels like just a proof of concept compared to this.

Octopath Traveler as a game was an interesting idea, but it lacked the narrative hook and It didn't help that the characters weren't really interesting either, the interactions between them were minimal or even non existent at times, everything felt disconnected.
The game at its core felt like a short 20 hour long classic SNES JRPG about multiple protags of which all of them had their own storylines cough Live a Live cough but stretched over to 100 hours, it felt exhausting.
This resulted in the average person picking up the game for around 20-30 hours, having their fill and putting the game down.
However Octopath 2 feels like it deserves those 100 hours and ends up making every single minute of those 100 hours insanely fun and entertaining, be it the combat, the characters or the beautiful environments.

If you were someone who loved the original, were let down by it or absolutely despised it.
I desperately urge you to give the second game a chance, there is no doubt in my mind that this game will go down as one of the greats in the entire medium.

"You don't need to walk alone. No path is too perilous so long as friends are at your side."

rather than the game that struggled to emulate the polish and quality of its classic super nintendo contemporaries that was the original octopath traveler, octopath traveler 2 delivers not only a game that matches their level, but to me goes beyond and in many ways surpasses them. it has a few shortcomings, but it is definitely one of the best games i've ever played and more than anything i am beyond excited to see what team asano does next.

octopath traveler i find was a game plagued by many issues that it struggled to overcome in its endeavor to be a modern imagining of the snes-era jrpg classics square is known for. while that seems to be a fairly common consensus online i find the issue attributed as the 'main issue' of the original, the lack of 'meaningful' party interactions, to hardly be that big of a deal let alone a top 5 issue like people made it out to be. to me, it was mostly just a byproduct of the type of jrpg it was trying to be and completely "fixing" it isnt something that would work well if you wanted to keep the structure and identity of octopath or its very obvious conceptual inspiration in the saga games.in my opinion if you have any type of game like this where 8 characters come together, "fixing" this issue will mean their motivations are either going to be so similar that it becomes pointless to have them or even pointless to do more than just a typically structured jrpg. regardless, the game did supplement this issue with more than enough to satsfy the small part of me that was a bit bothered by it. the travel banter/party chat feature is still arguably one of the best things dragon quest pioneered and i love the clear character dynamics that form between your party in them. if that isn't enough for some i personally find the coverged paths idea to be fun even if they are in essence just a travel banter mini quest with voice acting.

in terms of the other issues, it's all so much better. the characters are more interesting and realized, the environments are gorgeous and varied, and the story itself successfully managed to capture that same sense of joy and adventure that the super nintendo classics did for me and even managed to go beyond that. i don't think i've seen a series go from initial entry to sequel while improving this much other than maybe yakuza or paper mario and even then the difference in improvement is still so massively different than those two. team asano did all they could to take an idea that might not've been executed well the first time and fix every issue with it and work on what was good about it at the same time. even non issues like music improved so much that octopath 2's soundtrack is easily some of my favorite tracks square has ever put out. the cast and stories are easily the biggest and most important improvement to me with all of them feeling so well realized and integral to this journey, whether that be to elaborate on the state of this world and the direction its heading or to tie into the big bad which i especially love. had they decided to make every story be about tying into the final boss and ending most of them would've fallen flat and left the world of octopath 2 feeling hollow and a good half of the cast feeling unfulfilled.

however, not all octopath 2 stories are created equal regardless of this. while osvald gets what i'd say is almost a shoe in for my favorite character story in any game i've ever played to the point where i'd gladly have played 90+ hours of that if square had given it to us and most everyone else gets incredibly compelling stories as well, castti is a bit of a black sheep. i don't find her terrible by any means, but she feels like a remnant of the original octopath. her story is relatively plain if a bit interesting and portrays her as a nothing character who has to share the stage with an otherwise great cast. i genuinely kind of hated her until i got more of her interactions with the other cast members because her story does absolutely nothing for her. i also find the final boss to be a bit uncompelling as a villain and i find that their impact depends on when you started temenos's story. they're definitely no sephiroth or odio, but they're servicable and mechanically one of the most exciting moments of the game and i don't find the story to be particularly hampered by them, just a bit of wasted potential is all.

after a story that managed to keep me hooked for 90 hours over weeks of using almost all of the time i had outside of work and other duties, becoming attached to all 8 of these characters and their lives and dreams and everything they've been through to get where they are now and the bonds they've made with each other, it's time to finally say goodbye. the epilogue segment might be one of my favorite parts of any game i've ever played in my life. it's so painfully sappy and after that sap seeing so many of the characters you met who either helped you or were helped by you in places in their lives they wouldn't have even thought of being in cements the themes of this game perfectly to me. i cried a good bit during the whole thing and unlike most other pieces of media, that stupid title drop gave me goosebumps.

octopath traveler 2 is one of the best games i've played in my entire life, an all time favorite, and an experience i will keep with me until i'm old and gray. i implore anyone who enjoys jrpgs and has the free time to at least give it a chance whether you loved the original or hated it. i spent most of the prerelease of this game trying to temper my expectations lest i be disappointed by another game that failed to impress me like the other original hd-2d titles team asano has put out, only to be absolutely blown away by how much improvement and love for their craft oozes in almost every aspect of the game. i don't know if i'll ever play this game again in its entirety with how long it is, but i'm glad i played it all the same.

"Thank you for traveling with us."

Prior to being release, I was very intrigued by the original Octopath Traveller. The new HD-2D graphics style looked beautiful and the idea of a modern-day SNES-era turn-based RPG sounded incredible. I planned on buying it shortly after release, but after hearing that most players were pretty disappointed by the game's story, mostly because the characters' storylines didn't really tie together in a satisfying way, I bumped it down significantly on my list of games to eventually check out.

Then, in early 2023, the game's sequel, Octopath Traveller 2, was released. Word on the internet was that the sequel was an improvement in pretty much every way, having a somewhat tweaked/improved combat system, slightly better visuals (but still used the HD-2D style), the characters' storylines tied together better, and best of all it required no prior knowledge of the first game. I decided I had to check it out.

Octopath Traveller 2 tells the story of eight individuals, each with their own personality, back story, motivations, and character class. When starting the game, you are presented with bios of each character, and whichever one you select will be locked in your party until you finish their storyline (I was a bit rash when making this selection, thinking it would be inconsequential once more characters joined the party, but I was wrong). After you finish your selected character's first chapter you are let loose in the game's world where are free to track down the remaining 7 party members however you see fit.

Each party member's story is broken up into about five chapters. Each chapter has a recommended experience level, and this level increases by a decent amount for each subsequent chapter (you can attempt a chapter under levelled, but I wouldn't recommend it). This was likely done to prevent players from burning through one character's storyline, forcing them to split their time up amongst the stories of other members of the group. I didn't mind this, for the most part, but it was a bit disappointing at times to not be able to continue a character's story until I grinded for experience or levelled up by playing through another group member's story.

All of the character's storylines were well-written, pretty enjoyable, and did a good job of outlining each of the characters' motivations. I didn't care much for the dancer's storyline, but otherwise these were well done. The characters' stories were mostly independent, but they did somewhat tie together towards the end of the game, which gave the group a mutual motivation of sorts. This link was nothing terribly shocking or groundbreaking, but it was still nice to see some sort of connection there.

My favorite aspect of Octopath Traveller 2 was its surprisingly complex turn-based combat. It was easy enough to understand but still required enough strategic thinking to keep things entertaining from the start of the game through to its conclusion. To explain it as simply as I can, in addition to their health points, enemies have shield points that can only be reduced by being attacked by one of their weaknesses. These weaknesses can be determined either through trial and error (trying random weapon/spell attacks) or by using the scholar's "Learn" spell. Each time the enemy is hit by something it is weak to its shield points will decrease, and once these hit zero the enemy will "break", preventing them from attacking for a short time and opening them up to increased damage from your attacks. Enemies still take damage when they have shield points, but the amount of damage they take is significantly less, so it is best to break an enemy before releasing your most powerful attacks.

On top of the shield point system is the BP system. Party members earn one BP per turn (unless they are using BP in that turn), to a maximum of 6 BP. The player can then stack this BP, up to a maximum of 4 in one turn, to unleash numerous regular weapon attacks (good for lowering shield points) or to unleash a charged-up version of a skill/ability (good for causing massive damage to a broken enemy).

The combination of the "break" system and the BP system made for highly entertaining battles, especially when it came to the bosses. The boss battles were a highlight of the game, always being challenging and always requiring good planning and tactical thinking. Bosses kept me on my toes by changing up their tactics mid-battle (they can change their weapon/elemental weaknesses, gain additional shield points, etc.) or by unleashing powerful charged attacks that were devastating if I wasn't prepared for them. Bosses have massive health pools, hit incredibly hard, and often took quite a while to defeat (especially if at or under the recommended level for the area), but it was always fun coming up with a strategy and whittling their health down to zero.

Though I really enjoyed the combat, there are two things I feel some gamers might not like. First, the random encounter rate is quite high. I wasn't bother too much by it, but I'm sure it could be aggravating to some gamers, especially since all encounters are random encounters. You can unlock a skill that, when equipped, reduces the frequency of these encounters, but I feel players won't want to miss out on too many battles as they'll require the XP in order to continue meet the level requirements of unfinished story chapters.

Secondly, every battle in this game, requires the use of tactics. Whether you're fighting a boss or just looking to grind for XP, you will need to put a decent amount of strategy into each battle (unless you are seriously over-levelled, but then you should probably fight more powerful enemies for an increased amount of XP). You can't simply steamroll through lower levelled enemies to gain XP, which makes grinding a bit more of a chore. I thoroughly enjoyed the complexity of the battle system, but there were times that I wished I could put in less effort to get my characters up to the recommended level for their upcoming story chapters.

In addition to the game's combat, there is a fairly sizable world to explore. None of the locations were overly unique or surprising, but there was enough variety to keep things interesting. Each area was enjoyable to explore, and they were all chock-full of treasure chests and hidden items to find. You mostly explore the world by foot, but eventually you gain access to a boat, which opens up the exploration a bit more (though you are quite limited by where you can board it/unload from it, which made using it a bit disappointing). Every town was stocked with NPCs, which could be interacted with in a few different ways. Depending on your team composition, you can coerce info out of the NPCs, steal their items, learn new skills from them, or get them to follow you around. Some NPCs also offer up side quests, but I found the instructions for these to be incredibly vague. I did a few of these but would highly recommend consulting a guide if you plan on tackling these.

This was my first time playing a game with the HD-2D graphical style, and I was quite impressed, though less so than I had anticipated. The world looked very nice and the amount of detail present in each locale was commendable. The character, enemy, and boss designs were well done and interesting, and the graphics instilled a good amount of charm into the experience. I played through the game entirely in handheld mode and felt that the performance was generally quite good. The framerate did drop when using fully charged BP attacks, and things got exceptionally choppy during the final boss fight, but otherwise the game's performance was more than adequate.

I'm sad to say it, but I can't really comment too heavily on Octopath Traveller 2's sound design. I played through most of the game while having a TV show or movie on in the background, so I missed out on a lot of this game's audio components. When I did have the sound on, I was generally impressed by the voice acting and the soundtrack, and I have since listened to a portion of the soundtrack on Spotify and really enjoyed it. If you have the option to play the game with headphones I do recommend it, but if not, the game is still fully enjoyable with the sound turned off.

Now, while I thoroughly enjoyed Octopath Traveller 2, there are a few things that didn't sit well with me, namely the game's length and the game's final boss battle.

Firstly, this game was way longer than I anticipated it would be. Howlongtobeat has it listed as 60 hours to finish the main story and 93 hours to fully complete it, but it took me over 110 hours and I know I was far from finishing everything. Mind you, I know my time would have had a good number of hours of idle time built in due to playing it with the TV on in the background, but I can't imagine that would equate to too elevated of a playtime. Also, I know I really shouldn't complain about the game having lots of content, and I didn't dock the game's score for this, but as I got closer to the game's conclusion, I just really wanted it to end.

That leads me to my main negative, the game's final boss. This boss fight had an immense difficulty spike that came completely unexpected and was really unappreciated. Leading up to this battle I wouldn't have considered myself a pro at the game's content, but I felt I had solid strategies and was more than capable of defeating bosses on my first attempt. My team members were between level 70 and 75, and I figured things were going to be pretty straightforward, but the boss completely and utterly wiped the floor with me, and I stood no chance of defeating it without a more advanced strategy. I gave the battle a few attempts, but quickly realized I did not stand a chance. I eventually resorted to following a YouTube guide to walk me through a strategy, which was utterly disappointing after getting through the rest of the game by myself. Prior to this battle I felt the game deserved a 4.5 or 5 star rating, but the unfair difficulty spike really lowered my overall feelings on the game as a whole.

Though it wasn't a perfect experience, I had a great time playing through Octopath Traveller 2. I thoroughly enjoyed the game's cast, their individual storylines, and the overall narrative. The HD-2D graphics were lovely, performance was pretty solid (or solid enough that it didn't cause any frustration), and the soundtrack was top notch (though I didn't experience as much of it as I should have). The world was fun to explore and there were loads of treasures to find and secrets to unlock. The game's biggest strength was its turn-based combat system which required a fair amount of strategy and very well could be the best system I have experienced in the genre. Sadly, the unfair difficulty spike at the game's finale greatly detracted from my overall enjoyment of an otherwise great game. Despite that disappointment, I still highly recommend Octopath Traveller 2 for any fan of the genre.

So like I know the original Octopath isn’t particularly beloved among the big RPGheads on Backloggd and while I do kind of get it due to it having some pretty significant flaws, I still liked it a lot. I mean you can read it, it’s not like I went too deep into it but my opinion was pretty positive! The weird way the travel banters were handled kinda messed with the characters feeling connected at all and while I do think the way everything was connected was pretty neat it felt kinda underbaked and the way you figure it out is kind of bullshit. It was a pretty good foundation to me, though; I enjoyed the gameplay and the individual characters and their stories a whole lot, the game looked great, and the OST fucked. I wasn’t sure if it would ever get a sequel, but I’d kind of hoped for one.

Then they announced a sequel with a cool new setting featuring like, desert Chinajapan and a cowboy and some smarmy-looking white haired pretty boy cleric and a furry and I was SO stoked. Octopath II doing the Final Fantasy thing with a different setting every game is extremely good to me, and it basically polished everything I enjoyed about the first game while addressing the problems I did have with it and adding some fun new stuff! I wouldn’t say it’s a perfect improvement, mind; the way that the different storylines are handled could theoretically still mess with the pacing a bit, and I did want a little more than just four Crossed Paths storylines.

However, man, just having all the travel banters accessible in the journal after you finish a chapter instead of just hoping you have the right party composition to activate the banters fucks, and I think it was pretty cool how a lot of the characters had split chapters that you could approach in any order (even if the recommended levels made some orders pretty, uh, obvious). I also really enjoyed all the storylines! There was a nice balance of fun, more lighthearted storylines and The Horrors. And, uh, barely anything in between. Like, I laughed a lot, I cried a lot, I was impressed by just how many characters were just, like, super gay? Like, damn. You got wholesome yuri. You got toxic yuri. You got useless lesbians. You got tragic yuri. You got old man yaoi. You’ve got a BL scenario where a straightlaced young knight must choose between his childhood friend and the obnoxious white haired pretty boy who keeps teasing him. You’ve got the most deranged heterosexuals on the planet. It’s great.

Anyway while I loved the first game’s cast, this game’s cast is, like, so excellent, and the party chats are real treasures. The more serious-seeming characters like Castti and Osvald have some of the funniest shit in the game, and I really love the friendships that develop like the one between master thief Throne and her gay best friend Church Detective Temenos. (btw starting with temenos was great, but every character gets to shine and i’m sure some alternate starter character decisions would have produced some truly wild scenarios, particularly once you’ve completed every character’s storyline and encountered The Thing That Comes After…) It’s like, the difference between sensibly enjoying the first game and wanting to grab the second game with my teeth and shake it around like an excited dog with their very favorite toy.

Anyway while I… think I might still prefer some specific tracks for specific scenarios in the first game, the music still rules, and the boss sprites are somehow even better than in the first game? They all have at least one unique animation to go along with a special attack, which makes them feel even more special. But god damn some of them are wild. Some of the things that happen are wild. I just kind of stared in horror through one of the most fucked up cutscenes in the game and the battle starts and I see this guy posed like a Renaissance statue with his big fat titties out for all to see and I just start laughing about how I want to cover Ochette’s innocent eyes (she’s like 20 so she’s probably had sex ed from her lion dad but she wasn’t really paying attention because she was busy thinking about lunch).

But what is an RPG without the battle system? God it feels good, though. Like I love turn-based RPGs but I have rarely found a gameplay element in a menu-based RPG that has the feel of breaking enemies in the Octopath games. Like the sound effect, the vibration from the controller, the slowdown… it just feels REAL fuckin good, dude. It’s pure dopamine. I liked that the first game ensured every character felt unique to a certain extent because they had one “base” class that they would always have access to and then you’d assign them a secondary class on top of that, and Octopath II keeps that system. However, it further gives every character their own Latent Power which gives them extra unique utility and sort of functions as a limit break, and I truly love that. It’s great.

The new secret classes are also pretty fun, with the added quirk that two of them require doing sidequests to unlock all their skills rather than requiring job points. I ended up using a guide to figure those out, which I haven’t really been big on doing but the game is chunky enough that I don’t really consider it to be cheating for me… also the improvements to the base classes! The hunter character went from having a talent that honestly kind of sucked to one that is honestly kind of OP? Ochette can use monsters as often as she wants, gets several permanent bonus monsters that have Big Limit Break Summon potential, and whenever you want to add a better monster to your roster you turn the old one into an item? It’s great!

Speaking of said items, the day/night system and the impact it has on path actions is pretty neat. It feels like they’ve kind of divided each action into four categories: percentage based, combat based, level based, and resource based. So, for example, to get items from NPCs, you have a percentage based chance of stealing them with Throne, a level based means of… I guess busking for them with Agnea, a resource-based means of buying them with Partitio, and a combat-based means of mugging them with Osvald. It’s neat! Some options feel obviously better than others, but I don’t know, I kind of liked them for the roleplay opportunities. It was fun to try and figure out a NPC’s moral character with Castti or Hikari’s inquiry-related skills so I could determine whether I wanted to pay them money for their items or if I just wanted to rob them blind. Sometimes you just want to play the moral arbiter of things, you know?


Anyway in conclusion this game rules, it was released at an unfortunate time so I hope it sold okay, I want Octopath III. I love what the Octopath team has been cooking and I hope they get to do even more in the years to come.

The reveal of Octopath Traveler II was both surprising and troublesome for me at the same time. Admittedly, I had gotten the first Octopath Traveler game soon after purchasing my first Nintendo Switch. And while I enjoyed the game, I never did beat it. The lack of interconnecting storylines, the backtracking required, the obtuse side quests, and necessary grinding left me unhappy with a game I desperately wanted to love. And while I may have several gripes with the first game that I won’t get into here, I am happy to say that Octopath Traveler II corrected every single one of my complaints and become an incredible experience that I won’t soon forget.

I want to start this review by saying that I am in love with the 2D-HD art style present in the Octopath Traveler series and pioneered by Team Asano at Square Enix. The 2D-HD art seamlessly merges the nostalgia of 2D pixel art with the modern aesthetically pleasing backgrounds and flair of modern 3D graphics and, for me personally, it cannot be topped.

Like the first game, Octopath Traveler II tasks the player with choosing their starting character from, much like the name of the game suggests, eight different characters. There is Castti the Apothecary, Agnea the Dancer, Throné the Thief, Partitio the Merchant, Ochette the Hunter, Hikari the Warrior, Temenos the Cleric, and Osvald the Scholar. While none of these choices available are necessarily bad or make the game more difficult, since you’ll be getting all of these party members eventually, it is important to know that who you choose must remain in your party for the entire game.

I decided to start my personal journey with Osvald the Scholar. Imprisoned for murders he didn’t commit, Osvald’s story is one of betrayal and revenge. He must use his intellect and knowledge of magic to track down the man who set him up, betrayed his trust, and murdered his wife and daughter. As he draws ever closer to getting his revenge and finding the truth, however, the answers he uncovers along the way may be more than he can bear.

While the synopsis of Osvald’s tale hopefully peaked your interest, each and every one of the possible eight protagonists have an interesting story to tell. Whether it is a fight for freedom and acceptance, a journey to find ones place in the world, a mystery to uncover a forgotten past, or overcoming unsurmountable odds to save your homeland from a tyrannical ruler, Octopath Traveler II has something for everyone and will keep the player engaged from start to finish.

The turn-based combat in the game is almost unchanged from the first entry in the series, which is fine since there was nothing wrong with it. Although, there are speed up options in this game to alleviate some of the tedium of fighting lower leveled enemies or when you simply want to blow through an encounter.

Players familiar with JRPGs will also understand the Job System prevalent in this game. They’re of course magic users, defensive walls, glass canons and the like, but the system here shines best when it comes to Secondary Jobs and Secret Jobs. Secondary Jobs, of course, allow a character to have more than one job. This enables a Scholar to also be an Apothecary, have the ability to wield staffs and axes, have access to all 3 elemental magic attacks, and the ability heal the entire party. This makes for immense customization and increases the prospect of replayability. Within the game there are also 4 Secret Jobs to discover - Inventor, Armsmaster, Arcanist, and Conjurer. While I want detail each of these, suffice it to say that Inventor and Armsmaster are likely the best in the game.

Finally, I want to discuss the music of this game. Octopath Traveler II likely has my favorite soundtrack of any video game (maybe tied with Megaman X). It captures every necessary emotion at just the right moment and is able to deliver on the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. There is no track in the entire game that doesn’t pull its weight and no track can conjurer up adventure like the Octopath Traveler II Main Theme. Yasunori Nishiki is an astounding artist and his work here is masterful.

Overall, Octopath Traveler II is an incredible game. While JRPGs aren’t for everyone, the stories contained within this game are. I believe if you embark on this adventure you will find yourself enthralled in the journey and long for the next installment in this beautiful franchise.

Octopath Traveler was a good game that did a lot well. Visually, it pioneered the HD-2D style, successfully marrying retro and modern techniques to create a distinct identity. The music was phenomenal: Yasunori Nishiki's compositions are on par with the best of Square's golden era. And the battle system was a clever tweaking of the Brave/Default system from Team Asano's earlier games. Structurally, it borrowed from the Romancing SaGa series and Live A Live, creating a semi-open world that was refreshing for the turn-based RPG genre. All of this was exceedingly promising but, at times, the game was let down by poor pacing, chapter structure repetition, bland character writing and ultimately, a brutally unfair final boss gauntlet cryptically locked behind side quests.

Everything that Octopath Traveler did well, Octopath Traveler II does better. And everything it did poorly, II addresses.

On the surface, it doesn't immediately feel as though much has changed. You still have eight characters, one of which you choose to start with, which all follow separate narratives as you move across the map to collect them. Yes, these stories still do not coalesce for the most part, but additional party banter, battle chatter and the new Crossed Paths (chapters where two characters share a story) give a better sense of camaraderie. The individual stories themselves, meanwhile, prove that the anthology concept is a solid one, as long as each story is well-written. Across the board, these are much better. Agnea the Dancer and Ochette the Hunter perhaps have the weakest tales, but they still outdo most of the first game. On the other end, Partitio the Merchant, Temenos the Cleric, and Throne the Thief outright crush everything from the first title. We've leapt all the way to one of the better parties in modern JRPG history: already a huge difference.

But the worldbuilding is next level. The first game did provide flavor text on each NPC when you used inquire or another comparable Path Action, but it's far more detailed here. Even without names, these characters have notable relationships with each other: some are having affairs, some just moved and are struggling to make friends, etc. It does so much for immersion. The grander lore is better, too. Engage with certain NPCs in certain towns and you'll learn about Eir's Apothecaries before ever meeting Castti, or learn about the gods off the beaten path from Temenos's Seven-like cult murder mystery. Team Asano did an incredible job making this new world feel organic and far less game-y than their previous efforts.

My favorite moments still involve the freedom the game offers, though. I remember in Montwise, I had Hikari challenge a champion that I likely wasn't supposed to be able to beat yet. But, having picked up the Apothecary sub-job and some key Warrior and challenge skills, my Hikari felt pretty tanky even at a very low level. It was a long one-on-one battle: 15 minutes at minimum. But he won, and behind that champion was a chest with an incredibly powerful bow that basically doubled my Partitio's attack stat. Such newfound power emboldened me to buy my ship earlier and take to the seas: because I started with Partitio, I was able to raise the necessary funds much faster, and through clever use of the hire Path Action, I got a 50% discount, saving me tons of money for armor and concoction ingredients. The interplay between the in and out of battle systems was good before, but it's masterful now, and the open-world begs for multiple playthroughs to approach problems in different ways and tackle bosses with different parties and job combinations in different orders.

The visuals and music are, per usual, astonishing. This is the best use of the HD-2D engine so far. Lighting and shadows are immaculate, locales are artistically distinct, sprite animations are lovingly detailed. There's also much more dynamism in the camera angles, giving scenes a more cinematic feel. Nishiki returns with another stellar orchestral OST as well. But the voice acting! In the first game, it was minimal and frequently bad. Here, every major story scene is fully voiced, and it's good! Agnea's a stand-out: she's from the country but tries to speak like a bubbly city girl when possible. But when she's flustered, she'll revert back to her accent in a surprisingly believable performance. Temenos is another great one, with Jordan Dash Cruz capturing both his flirtatious nature and cynicism in equal measure.

It's difficult to levy a single, truly notable complaint. Side quests can be a bit obtuse, but considering it got me to touch every little corner of the game and puzzle them together, whether it's a plus or minus will vary from player to player. It'd be nice if you could change your party on the fly, but taverns are frequent enough that it rarely feels like a big issue and is probably a wise call when the game wants you to sort of commit to certain Path Actions for a section. Same with save points. If you could save anywhere, it would remove a lot of good tension, but points are still liberally scattered: you'll almost never go more than 15 minutes without seeing a new one. Every other aspect feels on point: the difficulty curve is far more balanced, chapter pacing is more varied, writing is mature without slipping into cringey edgelord territory. I love this. It feels like Team Asano's first true masterpiece: the studio that has continuously replicated the golden age of JRPGs has perfected the formula, put their own spin on it, and has finally captured the magic their previous efforts lacked. Cannot recommend this enough.

Now I’ll be completely honest I never played the original Octopath Traveler though I heard a lot of mixed thoughts when it came to people I spoke to about it. So admittedly Octopath Traveler 2 was a bit of a gamble. Would I love this game despite my lack of knowledge of the first one? How would it compare to other RPGs that I’ve played over the years & would it do anything different to break the mould?

The answer is simply: this game absolutely rules & It’s worthy of every bit of hype in my eyes. This is probably my favourite game of the entire year so far & it really touched me in ways that I didn’t ever expect it to. Throughout my entire 100 hour journey I grew to fall in love with the world & the incredible cast of characters each with their own engaging stories & to be honest…it’s been a while since I’ve played an RPG with mature themes such as the ones that are tackled in Octopath 2.

Each of the eight main characters has their struggles. Hikari a prince driven from his kingdom by his tyrannical dictator of a brother & goes on a journey to forge alliances to reclaim his home & stop the long history of bloodshed his people have faced. Throné a thief enslaved by the abuse of the Blacksnakes searches for her freedom in order to escape from her chains. Osvald a man who was framed & locked up in prison for the murder of his wife & daughter plots his revenge against the person who ruined his life. Castti an amnesiac apothecary searches for her memories & who she once was before everything. Partitio a merchant who survived the suffering of poverty & wants to bring happiness to the entire world. And I mean sure not ALL of the stories are hits & feel very cliche & run of the mill (hello Agnea you’re very nice though) but I’d say more than half of these characters all have engaging plots & it’s well worth seeking out all of them on your journey. You’re gonna want to experience all of them & there’s no story that I consider to be genuinely bad which for a game as massive as this is a huge compliment & it says a lot about the quality of these eight compelling narratives. And seeing how they all come together is absolutely mindblowing.

The combat in this game is absolutely exceptional. Maybe one of the best turn based systems. In combat your opponents have a shield & in order to break through it, you need to find which attack they are weak to whether that be swords, knives, polearms, bows, staffs or magic. What’s really cool is you have an option with what’s called the boost system. If you have two boost points you can attack twice or alternatively you can wait after the turn to attack three or even four times or use a more powerful attack to deal massive damage. Once you get through the shield your opponent will enter a break state which then allows you to deal much more damage to them. There’s also latent powers which when your power gauge is full you can use an ultimate move depending on the character. For example Partitio’s allows him to have maximum BP, Agnea’s has her attacks/buffs reach everyone & Ochette & Hikari will be able to use extremely powerful attacks. These abilities are especially handy in tough boss fights as one wrong move could mean losing the entire battle. I found this game to be genuinely challenging at times especially in the early stages when I was still getting a hang of things. But once the combat clicks man it’s such a satisfying feeling.

On top of that there’s also a job system which allows you to acquire a license of a class to use a secondary job for each character. These include hunter, warrior, apothecary, thief, merchant, dancer, scholar & cleric. You can use the job points that you acquire from battles to invest in whatever job you choose as it will give your party more abilities & support skills. The combinations are endless & ultimately I feel there’s some jobs which suit characters much better but you’re free to experiment at your leisure to find the perfect fit. There are also secret jobs which are well worth seeking out especially in the late game which give you even more powerful abilities such as the Armsmaster which will allow you to wield all six weapons types or the Arcanist which specialises in much more powerful magic.

One thing i absolutely love about Octopath Traveler 2 is the amount of freedom you have from the very start. The world of Solistia is vast & sure you can follow your main character’s story but you’re free to roam wherever you choose, even higher level areas if you’re brave enough. The game doesn’t hold your hand at all, this is your adventure & you can go about it your own way. I haven’t felt an RPG has given me this kind of experience since the YS series & I much prefer this kind of game design over vast bloated open worlds. There’s also a day/night system which you can toggle at will. This is another mechanic I love about the game as you can do different things at day & night called path actions. For example Hikari can duel people to learn different skills during the day & bribe someone for information at night. It also changes the NPC’s that you will encounter depending on the time of day you choose. I find this to be such a unique inclusion of a day/night cycle & it really gives Octopath 2 an identity of its own compared to other RPGs.

I don’t think I even need to mention the artstyle do I? Square Enix have taken a lot of L’s recently with the decisions they’ve made especially in the business side of things but one thing I don’t think anyone can deny: these HD 2D graphics are absolutely GORGEOUS. I played this game on the PlayStation 5 & oh my goodness it looks beautiful. It’s got a very old school feel & I would love to see more of this kind of artstyle in modern RPGs.

And how could I forget about the incredible soundtrack composed by the wonderful Yasunori Nishiki whether it be the relaxing town themes or the bombastic battle music which pumps you up with untold amounts of adrenaline. There were so many tracks in this game that really went so much harder than they had any right to & it’s definitely one of the best game soundtracks I’ve ever heard.

Now does this game have any problems that stick out to me? Well…yeah. Kind of. While each of the stories are engaging I will admit it feels a little disjointed at times. When you start a character’s chapter the other characters kind of just bugger off & don’t have a lot of impact, which I’m aware was an issue with the original Octopath. To counteract this you do have travel banter which actually sort of reminded me of the skits from the Tales of series where two or more characters discuss what is happening in that moment or perhaps just bond & tease each other. This is definitely a good addition & I always enjoy when these scenes play out when you have the option to view them but I still wish there was more interconnection between the cast at pivotal story moments.

Overall though, I really loved Octopath Traveller 2. As a fan of RPGs you owe it to yourself to check this game out if you haven’t already. As long as Square Enix continues to make titles with as much love & care as this then I’m sure I’ll be more than happy to stick with them because it truly proves there’s still a place for turn based RPGs in the modern era of gaming. Definitely my game of the year for 2023 & will be extremely hard to top.

For all of its many, many faults - a story that drags its feet for too long, a few dull cast members, and a largely dull overworld - I loved the first Octopath Traveler. The music, the artwork, and the fantastic push and pull of the Boost and Break systems in the first game carried me... almost all the way to the finish line, before I got burned out hard in between every character's final chapter.

This game fixes all of that shit. Every character in the cast, even the ones I was pretty sure I wasn't gonna like (sorry, Partitio), grew into some of my favorite characters in an RPG (yay, Partitio!) ever. Character stories are varied and interesting, with characters like Osvald, Cassti, and Throne throwing exceptionally dark, while characters like Partitio and Agnea stay lighthearted and goofy in some spots that are more remiscient of the SNES-era of Square games. Regardless of the tonal whiplash that some of these stories can bring, I felt satisfied by every one of them.

The world feels more connected, there's more to do in between each capital city, and every character's story hits the ground running, and holds that pace until journey's end.

Another thing sorely missing from the first game is the feeling that each character's story was connected in some way, and without giving away too much, you'll see some similar words and phrases come up in separate characters' stories that give the feeling that there's a larger force drawing all of these characters together much earlier in the game; the suspense created by some of these similarities was enough to get me to power through any grind-heavy sections of the game as I worked to catch some of my lower-leveled party members up to speed to continue their stories.

On top of fixing the negatives, the positives of the first game have only been enhanced further. There's some genuinely jaw-dropping moments in the game's soundtrack, particularly in the ways they work each of the 8 characters' musical themes into some of the game's more important moments. You're given a wider variety of character actions in the overworld thanks to the addition of a toggleable day-night cycle that changes how each of your four party members interact with the world around them, ensuring that you're less likely to miss out on something by not having a particular party member with you in an area.

The base combat structure remains largely unchanged from the first game, poking and prodding an enemy with basic attacks to find their weaknesses, before depleting their Shield Points by targetting these weaknesses, then using Boost Points to power up your characters' attacks to burst them down. The single addition to the combat comes in the form of a Latent Power, an ability unique to a particular character that can have a wide range of effects depending on the party member. Some characters get an entirely different, more powerful moveset for one turn, other characters get the ability to turn their AOE attacks on a single target, or vice-versa. These abilities, plus the game's signature mix-and-match job system (borrowed in part from the equally fantastic Bravely Default games), allow you to exploit the game's systems and break the game over your knee in a really, uniquely satisfying way. The game encourages experimentation with its job system, and like with the changes to the overworld actions, you rarely feel like you're missing out on anything by not having a certain party member with you.

All of these changes help to make Octopath Traveler II one of the most wholly satisfying RPGs I've ever played. I've thought about what they could possibly improve on for a third game, and I can't come up with a reasonable complaint. It's the first RPG in a very long time that's made me feel that way.

Octopath Traveller 2 is remarkable in the sense that I've never seen a game that went so far out of its way to sabotage itself to no apparent benefit. The improved strength of character of the cast and the addictive gameplay fall way to the astoundingly bad story decisions and almost mean-spirited nature of the messages this game is trying to project. I haven't finished a single storyline- but I am 35 hours in and I am so incredibly tired of every single character. I will talk about the game itself and then give a quick overview of how the game handled each traveller's story.

The gameplay itself is as great as ever, it's incredibly fun and a fantastic modernization of typical jrpg combat. For most of the game, battles feel quick and satisfying, and the break mechanic is an entertaining strategy to play around. I love the additions of the dual-story chapters, which help to make your cast feel like friends and build their character. The game is still visually gorgeous, in fact my favorite parts of playing Octopath have been exploring all the various areas and just taking in how beautiful everything looks. It feels like you're wandering around a little diorama set.. like you're on a real adventure. That's easily my favorite thing in this game... which is sad, considering Octopath 2 refuses to let you skip or turn off random encounters. There's a skill or two that reduces the rate, but it's still really annoying when you just want to go for a walk, listening to the calming music but every 3 seconds you're forced into a battle. Escape is not guaranteed, which makes matters worse.

I also said that the gameplay is fun at first, but towards the end of your party's storyline it gets harder and harder to raise your level. I hate grinding, and you apparently have to grind a lot- I'm level 40 and every final boss has a recommended level of 45... but you should be comfortably above this because the final bosses of this game are an absolute disgrace. I've only done Throne's and Agnea's but they are frustrating. Agnea's takes forever and it's split into two parts, and your opponent can steal your party members? Two of them? She stole Hikari who I made into an absolute powerhouse, so I basically just lost in a way that didn't feel to be my fault, with 30 minutes of my time out the window. It's so demoralizing and to be honest, makes me feel like quitting.

But I could power through it if the story was good. It started strong but slowly snowballed into being just utterly irredeemable in my eyes. I will go character by character and dissect each story, but first let me say that I can really, really, really feel the Shinzo Abe influence in this game. The biggest fault Octopath 2 has for me is this: every character is somehow connected to a parent or is doing what they're doing for a parent. By everyone, I mean it even extends to NPCs. There is even a very morbid underlying message to the way this game conveys parenthood. The children in this game are treated as an extension of their parents, no exceptions. Your mom is a dancer? You want to be a dancer. Your dad is a baker? You're a baker. There are no bad families in this game.... in the characters eyes. Because even when a mother WHIPS AND BEATS children en masse, and raises them to be assassins, she still deserves forgiveness because she was nice a few times and she's your mother! I can not overlook this philosophy the game is insistent on pushing onto the player. And that extends to the forgiveness part too, someone could kidnap a child, drug her, tell her ailing mother she should just drop dead so he can capitalize on the town... but it's OK! He had everyone's best interest in mind, murder is bad and we should forgive him!

I will go into more issues on it this next segment but you can feel the old conservative Japanese man blood flowing through this game, and it's a real shame. It's obsession with procreation and their visions on autonomy turns this game into something of a disgrace to read through. Octopath 2 has really amazing female NPCs but unfortunately all that progress is reduced by the inherent misogyny this game presents.

Now onto the character plot break downs:

Hikari:
Of noble birth, Hikari wants to free his country from the oppressive rule of his brother and become a king that ushers in an era without bloodshed. A pretty basic tale... I actually like the character of Hikari a lot, but if you know anything about history, his entire story is impossible to take seriously. First off, his evil brother... this goes for all villains in this game, but they are cartoonishly wicked. With no depth at all, he wants to rule because he desires the world to be his. He also wants to call for every lowborn in his country to be executed. What? Even soldiers pick on the poor folk, but aren't soldiers barely above peasants if we are going off patriarchy? Even the most tyrannical of kings ushered in debt-wiping "clean slates" because they KNEW their kingdom rode on the back of the farmers and the slaves that built their buildings. You're just going to have a kingdom with only an upper-class? Who is going to do your work?? Everyone seems to go along with this without thinking and it's impossible to even give a shit when everyone's dancing around, showing off how evil they are. Hikari himself has a major flaw, which is that his "cursed blood" is just embarrassing to watch and I'd never say this about anything. It sucks. I will not get into the fact that Hikari wants a kingdom of equality... but still strives to be a king, and doesn't seem to have an interest in actually changing the hierarchy of their social classes.


Agnea:
The best story in the game by far, warm-hearted and Agnea is just fun to watch. It is still plagued by the fact that apparently no one in this world is capable of doing anything without their parent doing it first, but I enjoyed watching her grow as a person with her new friends, and I love Giselle.

Throne:
Her adventure started out so good, ended up so bad. I... have no words for her final chapter... just revolting. I thought Throne would be a character that broke the weird parent thing this game had going on, because her metaphorical parents were the ones keeping her chained, but apparently even abuse is not enough to warrant hating someone. Her big reveal basically crushed anything she had going for her- relying on her heritage yet again more than her personal accomplishments. And that final boss? Had nothing to do with Throne's story, nothing! It was so revolting and misogynistic. And not to mention unfun to fight.

Castti:
My starting character and one I generally liked... till everyone started calling her "mother hen" cause she's an apothecary, though that's her job. Her big reveal too was not written with much care. I haven't done her last chapter but I can't imagine how it can get worse. Spoilers- this game really said to me that even the man who randomly decided to massacre untold amounts of people deserves forgiveness. Is he supposed to be mentally ill? Because that is some poor writing. A healer spontaneously turned bad because "life is suffering so I'll just kill everyone to free them" is so childish.

Ochette:
This character is unforgivable. Where do I begin? To start with, she is a race of humanoid beast that is very, very clearly inspired by island indigenous people. Already off to a bad start, but of course they talk in broken English. Ok. Do you not get it yet? Apparently not because there's human colonists that liken them to "dogs who can barely speak" and wants to take their territory. I could maybe, maybe see any of this as something in good faith but they couldn't even do any research into indigenous societies at all. Not in the way they are socially organized, not in the way they treat people, not in their philosophies, not even something as simple as what- if any- economy do they have. Ochette, the saying of your tribe is "the weak are meat for the string to eat?" and if that's not all, you're a hunter that feels as if they have direct control over the 'balance' of the forest. And of course, she can hear the trees and all that shit. You have to TRADE meat with the shopkeeper, instead of just giving them coin, somehow even going more out of their way to be ignorant. I don't know if anyone told them this, but the concept of money and exchange doesn't persist in every society from every time and place ever. I could go on, but this character just spits in the face of native peoples. A native character would of been interesting! In fact, Haanit from the first game might of been a better example than this girl.

Temenos:
An interesting character with a humorous and alright storyline, held back by the fact that the mystery present in his path is not strong, therefore making the investigation segments come off as stupid. I'm only halfway through with him so I hope this doesn't end badly like the others

Partitio:
He is blatantly stated to be capitalist that wants to end poverty.... through capitalism. I don't know what to say to that.

Lion Guy:
Haven't even started him though I am not really interested, at this point.

I truly do not know why the first Octopath got so much backlash. It had some flaws, but unlike this game it was very simple and did not go out of its way to seemingly destroy what is a very good base premise for no real reason. How the stories are now all connected in 2 does not matter to me, because the way they are connected is really insulting and ruins the quality of each characters tale. I want to have fun with this game so badly, but each time I try to appreciate something, for one reason or another, it gets in my way. I love Octopath and I see the ways in which this game shines, but it is so dulled by its final acts.

It was between this game and a hitachi magic wand and I think I chose wrong. Thank you so much for reading!

i've been playing this for a few days and while i would usually wait for me to finish a game before sharing my thoughts, i can not contain how elated i am at how much of an improvement it is over the original. almost all of my issues with the original game were addressed and i'm very pleasantly surprised. what stands out the most to me is how interesting the characters are and the beautiful and varied environments, it really feels like a rare instance of a dev learning from not only the issues of the original but the parts of it that worked. would not be surprised if this ended up being my goty. i'm going to be locking comments and ignoring this 'review' once i finish the game and get my actual review out, i just genuinely could not stop myself from gushing about this game

I'm happy to say this is one of the best JRPGs from the last few years.

Initially, I was a bit skeptical of how much marketing they kept placing on assuring everyone that the characters interacted. I didn't want to play 80 hours of a game just to see characters chiming in for every event because every other JRPG does it so poorly already... While the game does include new two-person chapters for some interaction, they are usually just extended party banter with little to no combat and only a few chapters. They have also added a final chapter to tie in all the solo and partner chapters, while also giving you a proper final boss and a nice little epilogue. What a final boss it was too, the mechanic was very unique and I wish more games attempted it. Sadly it was a bit too easy and died quickly. Of course, there is still a super boss to attempt, and I'm glad to say it's still doable with little to no grinding if you prepped well.

The new additions to Octopath 2 greatly improved some of the frustrating parts of the original. Gone is every story consisting of 1-4 chapters done in the exact same order with the almost formulaic "get to town, press path action, do dungeon, beat boss." Now, depending on the story, you can have multiple routes to tackle in any order, some having optional routes and others just varying in length compared to the strict 4 chapters. Some don't even have a dungeon or boss fight, adding some needed variety. Dungeons in general are similar to the previous game, but the number of them appears to have been reduced. Chests are also hidden a bit more both inside and outside dungeons, which I appreciated because there are still barely any puzzles. The overworld exploration is even better here, with a lot more odd places that end up hiding secrets. I played the game as 4 and 4 and got my boat (also new to the series) on the second playthrough, making that party even more enjoyable because there were so many new areas for me to explore.

Each character's story quality seems to have gone up as well, as I don't remember caring for half of them in the previous game. With the exception of Castti's, I was immediately engrossed in all of the stories here. My favourites have to be Partitio's easily and Osvald. The sleeper hit has to go to Agnea, who I initially thought would be the worst one. Speaking of the worst character, we lost Ye Olde English and in return got a Catgirl. Her story is nice, but I just can't stand the character at all. Just as before, each story does tie together at the end, with some of them being very obvious in their chapters.

Now for the main reason these games are sick, the combat is just amazing. There have been tweaks to each job, while some of the characters are way more enjoyable to use throughout your journey. For example, H'aanit was pretty annoying to use in the first game due to your captures having limited uses. You ended up needing to constantly catch your favourites or just stockpile them. In Octopath 2, your captures are permanent, and you can enable auto capture, which gives you a 25% chance of capturing the monster every time you kill it with Ochette. This really reduced a lot of the tedium for me and made me actually want to use her. A lot of other jobs have been changed too, like thief, hunter, and scholar. In addition, each character now has a couple of EX skills that are unique to them. Half of these are scattered around the world as shrines to find, whereas in the first game, these shrines were what gave you access to subjobs. Subjobs in Octopath 2 are instead learned by finding their respective guilds and meeting certain requirements if you want multiple characters to use the same job. They have also added a new latent gauge to each character which pretty much functions like a limit break with some insane synergies. Each character now has an additional path action depending on the time of day, giving you a lot more variety in how you choose to build your teams. My favourite part has to be the new buffed talents, such as warrior and rogue. Hikari is great for warriors in particular because you can now learn skills based on who you challenge & defeat, giving you even more freedom in teambuilding, though I do wish there was a bit of QOL in being able to remember old skills. It feels like they really went above and beyond to ensure each character is unique rather than just being able to use any character with a subjob for minimal difference.

The gameplay is largely the same as the first game, with you leveling up throughout the journey at a nice pace. Even playing through with the reduced random encounters, you will easily stay on level. I'm not sure how grinding complaints ever arose when you have to work really hard to stay under-leveled, and even then, levels don't really matter. I could see needing to grind if you truly fucked up your skill selections for random sub jobs. I was able to get nearly every possible skill in every job with every character here due to secret job changes. Random encounters this time do feel a bit easier, but I think that's mostly because you can get the secret job way earlier than in the first game. This is because the four secret jobs now aren't just boss fights like before, which does make me a bit sad because we miss out on a music track that was one of the best in the original. I did appreciate the variety in how you acquired the secret jobs, but I still felt like they should have added 1 or 2 more bosses for them.

The only criticism I have is that they have yet to address the only issue with the first game. Your first character is still locked to your party until you complete their story. I really wish this wasn't the case because it leads to over-leveling, as in the first game, or resorting to 4 and 4, as I did here.


I'm so delighted this ended up being everything I wanted and more. Team Asano is quickly becoming my favourite JRPG developers just for their consistent level of quality, and the amount of freedom they allow for combat. I'm even more excited to play Triangle Strategy, as I heard it has a good amount of challenge for the entire playthrough and I enjoyed the demo. I might even give Various Daylife a shot on the offchance it is good. I cannot wait for the next game made by this team.

When Octopath Traveler 1 came out in 2018, it was kind of a big moment for pixel rpgs. The "HD-2D" art-style was a stunning graphical wonder. There was some broad criticism by some people who considered it ugly or "lazy", but like most of the endless online discourse, it faded away once there was something else to focus on. But within the last five years, the HD 2D style has shown it might be here to stay. It encouraged Square Enix to consider bringing back lost pixel RPGs that players are still invested in. After several poor remaster attempts, the Final Fantasy Remasters have been really positively received. Bolstered by that, the Live A Live HD-2D remake was released to rave reviews across the seas. I think there's an argument to be made that those re-releases wouldn't exist without the existence of Octopath 1.

Still, the first game was burdened with some major problems. Despite its marketing around 8 party members, the cast virtually never interacts with each other across the entire game. The "travel banters" where they did interact was exceptionally easy to miss content. The game also became notorious for its exceptional difficulty, making progression daunting for new players. Even finding the final boss of the game was locked behind various obtuse, unmarked side quests. The game sold a million copies, but the actual story didn't seem to leave much of a cultural impact.

Its why its kind of sad to me that the initial sales of Octopath 2 don't seem too hot, when I really do think its something special.

It took me a long time to fully decipher the mechanics. The overworld and battle mechanics aren't entirely well explained and it was one of the reasons I bounced off the first game. I'd say it took me 15-20 hours into the system to grasp its fundamentals. But once the system clicks with you, it connects together in a really crunchy way. Balancing the job systems, the special skills, and all the other layers makes for a truly gripping combination of systems and gimmicks.

One of the major criticisms of the first game was how little the cast interacted with each other. In 2, the Travel Banters are easily collected in your journals to view any time, even the ones you missed. It helps you get a good sense of each character's dynamic. This is expanded upon in "Crossed Paths", where two characters pair up to their own sidequest and bounce off each other more directly. Not only does it alleviate the concerns of the first game, it also helps flesh out the cast. How they act around different people and how their behaviors change in circumstances. It helps them feel more real and defined. And that's crucial for the kind of story Octo

The core theme of the game, as with many rpgs, is this idea of lightness versus darkness. Straight-forward enough. But how the game delivers that message is through this idea of the overwhelming horror of violent history. The cycle of betrayal, heart-break, corrupt systems, and how they make future seem so horrifically bleak. Its a hard topic to really deliver if the writers don't fully understand those systems. But for the most part, I think Octopath threads the needle. Its in the stories themselves

Castti the Apothecary

I don't often go for healer girls or amnesia stories. Healer girls are often a bit too soft for my liking, a bit too deferential and "traditionally" cute. So much of what makes Castti work is how tired she seems beneath the surface. She's treated as and performs as the "mother hen", fussing over the other characters. But she's old, she's seen things. A nightmare sequence features her chased down by all the people she's failed to heal. All the blame she places on herself for those deaths. It makes her decision to keep working all the more powerful and heart-breaking.

There's a narrative beat about the Book of Night. It appears to detail the worst of history, every nightmare-ish act of human villainy ever written down. Most characters go nuts and decide to burn the world down after they read it. Castti's just like "...yeah? And?" She's seen the worst and doesn't care. That's just more people to heal. She signed up for that. Seeing the worst and building something better comes with the job description. Its the kind of characterization the game needs for its core theming to work.

Throne and Agnea

I liked Primrose in 1. But, there was weird stuff too. Her "Seduction" mechanics as the Dancer just felt uncomfortable when paired with her history. Trafficking, exploitation... it doesn't mesh well.

Primrose's main traits are diverged into two characters. Agnea is the Dancer and she's portrayed as a joyous inspiration chasing her dream. I never quite fell in love with that story, but its a nice way to balance the game's darker tones and its a much better characterization for the Dancer type.

Throne gets the bulk of the darker storytelling. For the game's narrative of "finding hope in the future," they need a story about someone who seemingly has no future. No control. No options. The Blacksnakes are a team of criminals who are kept in line with their poison collars. The Mother and Father of the guild can activate the poison any time, killing their unruly children. So Throne's goal is simple. Kill her "parents", unlock the collars, gain freedom.

Through this darkness, we dive deep into the idea of freedom and control. What it means to fight for something everyone else has, discovering your identity when your identity has been determined since birth. What you have to sacrifice to win that fight. Its bleak, but its perhaps the most thematically interesting of the batch. It swerves into so many fascinating directions, none of them quite what you'd expect. How it establishes the systems a parent sets up for a child, what that child grows into, and all the complications through it all... its such a fascinating picture. The darkness works here. Its pointed and purposeful. I adore it.

Hikari

Takes a lot to sell me on a Royal Prince Must Win story. But Hikari's story really works for two reasons.

1. The nation of Ku has subjugated and massacred its neighbors for generations. Its a horrific place. Hikari is the only political force with the support to rework it into something better.

2. Hikari's power doesn't come from his royal bloodline. It comes from his humble roots. While the Ku family mocks him as part-royal/part-lowborn, his connection to the average civilian gives him a perspective the nobles lack. While the Ku Family embrace this weird demon power that encourages bloodshed, he can actively resist it by knowing the consequences of such violence on the average person. Its great. Its a good hook. Hikari's a good kid.

The thing I really had to let go of while playing this game is the wider political ideas of Ku. Hikari's goal to return to power kind of dances around the idea of what the public sentiment is. Ku massacres any dissident, yeah, but it never quite examines if there's a major political body that likes the murders. People kill because the royal family orders murders. Once Hikari's in power, everyone will happily not murder peasants anymore. That's the only logic we need to follow. Trying to overthink it past that? Not what the story is about. Sometimes, you just gotta accept what the story's doing.

Ochette

Ochette's just fun. In the midst of these darker tales of depravity and corruption, here's a shonen protag. I love it. Good tone balancer.

Osvald and Temenos

These are pretty good. Osvald's story is gripping enough, even if it just checks some boxes in my eyes. Dead family. Get revenge. Find a new way to live.

Temenos' story is probably the most connected to the Overarching Plot of the cast, which makes his murder mystery plotline a little difficult to follow at times. The narrative has to hide some of the cards for the finale. What you're left with is a Twink Church Cop who dances his way through some murders. They try to balance out the whole "I'm an inquisitor for the church chasing down heretics" tension with the characterization that Temenos himself doesn't... really care about religion. He likes to solve crime. Finding "heretics" is how he does that. Since the people that hate the Church in this game miraculously end up being murderers, it works out. Weird tension there. Hard to grapple with it.

More than anything, both of these lads just really excel as Travel Banter characters. Osvald is the grumpy straight man, gloomy and miserable and baffled by the wackier antics of the other characters. Temenos is the perpetual tease, needling others, getting under people's skin. For the dynamics to work, you need these guys! Essential for a large party! If everyone gets along too well, they become less interesting. With a grump and a jackass, you get good variety. Its perfect.

Partitio

A Kentucky-fried traveling salesman decides to end poverty with 1. the planned assassination of oil barons and 2. department stores.

Its weird.

Don't look to media for politics, its never a good idea. But its hard not to look at Partitio's weird balancing act between loving and hating capitalism. The villains use the word capitalism. They spew off hatred for worker's rights. The villain's final monologue involves proclaiming "money is meant to be hoarded by people like me!" The game's very intentional with this! The industrial revolution and its impact on society is the key center piece of what this story path is about. There's no denying that.

But I think fans who put Partitio as a socialist king are sort of missing the mark of Partitio's character. Because honestly, I'm not even sure the game knows what Party's beliefs are. Partitio likes trade and he likes money. He's fervently in favor of the industrial revolution and generally seems to like capitalism. But he wants a nice capitalism. An equitable enough capitalism. Fair wages and good bosses. Its a really specific needle the story is trying to thread and I can't say they succeed. Cause at the end of the day, Partitio's plan is to be a Good Billionaire. The only path out of capitalism is Good Capitalism. Its a really odd piece.

But he's fun. He says goofy folksy quips. He... offers to buy Throne's poison collar and find a way to make a "good" version of it, which seems like a loaded concept to drop casually in a travel banter. But he's fun. The charm overrides most of the head-scratching.

Ultimately

This kind of game has a lot to prove. Investing time into a huge rpg, especially right before Zelda ToTK release, is tough. And I think a lot of people passed on this for so many complicated marketing reasons. But despite my reservations on some story aspects... the game really hooked me. I dedicated a whole month to this monstrosity, after I expected to drop it from the first 10 hours. It grabs you. Its exudes charm and passion. It grows from the first game in such smart ways. And more than anything... I want more of these games. I want the Octopath franchise to keep growing and improving. They've got so much to show off and I think they have a lot more stories to tell. I loved this game. I hope to see more of it.

JRPG in 2.5D beauty.

Octopath Traveller II took me by surprise when I first played its demo, as I remember disliking Octopath Traveller I's demo. This led me to purchasing the game and it was pretty good. The score and graphics are very pretty with nice game direction.

The gameplay is very much traditional JRPG turn-based combat but its own unique spin. This is in the form of enemy shield points where you have to break them down with the correct weakness of a certain weapon type or spell type. It also has a few other systems where you can power-up your attacks and have unique abilities to each character, which help make the game more strategic at times, especially with boss battles. Plus, the exploration is fun and you can interact with NPCs differently based on the characters' unique abilities. Also, the secret jobs were pretty cool to discover and to play with during battles. However for the most part, the game is quite easy with decent pacing as I never had to grind once during the character stories. The only time I had to grind was the final chapter of the game and the final chapter didn't have great guidance towards what your suppose to do which left me quite lost.

Story-wise it was pretty good for having 8 different stories in one game. Each story I found to be good and it had a mix of genre and themes, which allowed it to be a refreshing change of pace at times. Although, it did feel weird that party never really interacted with each other properly in each others main stories, outside the side stories. The only bad writing was the final chapter which felt like it was trying too hard to involve all 8 characters in a rushed way.

All in all, Octopath Traveller II is a very good and well-made JRPG due to the lack of grinding, good story, score and graphics but suffered from a lacklustre final chapter.

Top Games of 2023: https://www.backloggd.com/u/Aj_Waran/list/top-games-of-2023/

“May the roads ahead of you be filled with fortune and smiles.”

Octopath Traveler was a game that promised to deliver an experience akin to Final Fantasy VI, a sprawling adventure with an incredible cast of characters that develop strong bonds throughout their journey.

However, it suffered from crippling structural issues that belied its admittedly good combat and music.

Octopath Traveler II rectifies this issue by writing exciting characters with relatable motives and struggles and having them actually interact with one another throughout the game.

II is also improved at nearly every other level. The combat is even better than in the original, with an even more fleshed-out ion system that allows for player expression and satisfying job synergy, and the visuals benefit from an improved color palette and lighting.

These elements come together to create a game that actually succeeds in feeling like a grand undertaking. Over dozens of hours, you experience these characters grow and bond with satisfying conclusions to their own arcs and a surprisingly coherent finale.

Watching the cast say their goodbyes to one another captures how it feels to say farewell to friends, which is always bittersweet. Whether it’s college buddies, coworkers, or family members, anything can happen, and you never know when the last time you see them will be the last time you see them.

You never know how much of a role you play in someone else’s life. Cherish those you hold dear and enjoy the time you have with each other.

I desperately wanted to like this game - it's gorgeous, it sounds great, it has an undeniable charm. But it's not scratching that one itch that's most important to me in an RPG - the plot.

I've put in around 40ish hours, finished 4 character stories, I'm sitting on the last chapter of Castti's story, and it's just become a struggle for me. I don't think I can continue.

The 4 stories I finished were the ones that peaked by interest from the start, and not one of them has satisfied me at all. I don't think the handful of chapters format is enough to fully realize the potential of some of these stories, and honestly, the writing isn't particularly great anyway (Throne's story in particular left a bad taste in my mouth).

Gameplay wise, it's fine. It's serviceable. I'm a sucker for a job-based battle system, so that's probably the best part of the actual game for me. Everything else feels quite shallow, the exploration, side quests, and especially the path actions. The grind really starts to kick in after a while aswell, and when you're grinding for plot that you're not even enjoying, it becomes a case of what's the point?

So yeah, I think I'm done with it. I don't think this series is for me, it reminds me of the SaGa games and those don't gel with me either, so it is what it is.

2 stars felt too low, and 3 stars is too high for me personally, so taking everything else into account, 2 and a half feels fair. I'm most certainly in the minority here. Pretty much everyone loves this game, which I can respect. It's nice to see an RPG do well.

Rarely do games enthral me so much. I was in a state of constant (positive) bewilderment and fascination playing this game. It was frankly is one of the most magical experiences I've had in a while. It really has one of the most challenging but rewarding battle systems ever. The gameplay was insanely rewarding and addicting from top to bottom. It had some of my favorite boss fights ever. And the final boss? I was floored with how much they pushed the battle system to it's limit, it was truly an unforgettable moment for me. The gameplay was special. The stories? They were fantastic, they felt really diverse and each protagonist offered something unique. And they all tied together really well, especially in the end. My personal favorites were Ochette, Osvolds and Temenos'. Finally, I want to talk about the music. Frankly, this might be the best OST I've ever heard? No other game can reach the heights of this soundtrack. When I saw how they remixed the Journeys End theme with each character theme I just knew this was special.

This game truly achieves greatness for me in more ways than one. Games like this remind me why games will always be my favourite medium. A damn masterpiece thats for sure.

OCTOPATH TRAVELER II is one of the greatest JRPGs of all time.

I adored the original OCTOPATH TRAVELER, and the sequel is everything that I could've hoped for. Each story immediately grabbed my attention and held it throughout, from Agnea's lighthearted wishes for stardom to Osvald's much darker plot for revenge, and the resolutions to each not only felt satisfying in a standalone sense, but each tied very well into the overarching major plot extremely well— not a new feat for the series, contrary to popular belief, but one that I nonetheless feel was done much more satisfyingly here compared to the previous entry. The new Crossed Paths make for interesting new scenarios involving two characters directly working together and interacting, which I definitely feel scratches the itch of those wishing for more interaction between characters. I won't spoil how everything all comes together in the end, but I will make one thing very clear: I cried during the credits. Not something that happens often for me, but Team Asano has found a way to do that to me twice within the past year (the other time being with LIVE A LIVE's remake on Switch). Absolutely lovely madlads over there.

The gameplay mechanics have been refined, upgraded, and otherwise made practically perfect— the Break and Boost combat is still as addictive as ever, the Path Action system continues to encourage exploration of every nook and cranny in each town (including new nighttime Path Actions!), and the characters overall feel much more balanced this go-round, all without taking away anything that made them fun in the first entry! Being a big fan of Merchant in the first entry I chose Partitio, and I was delighted that he was not only just as fun to use as Tressa from the first game, but the rest of the gang was incredibly enjoyable as well, with some of the more complex classes like Hunter and Apothecary getting fantastic reworks so that the Beast Lore and Concoct systems respectively are much easier to use. With the first game I felt like I had to push newcomers towards Tressa in fear that they'd pick someone else and end up dropping it because of their imbalances, but in 2 you can really pick anyone and have a blast without prior knowledge of the game, which is exactly what I was hoping for! (Still don't regret picking Partitio though, gotta love the funny Texan money man.)

The soundtrack is possibly Yasunori Nishiki's best work yet, continuing in the thematic style of the first game's soundtrack but getting very experimental with instrumentation and vocals in ways that the original didn't quite explore. The overworld themes had me excited for the next adventure, the nighttime themes had me relaxed and serene, and of course, the battle themes will have me tapping my foot for years to come. I won't get into too many specifics on the soundtrack since that touches on spoilers, but I will say that the saxophone in Partitio's theme was unexpected but works extremely well.

The world of Solistia is beautifully varied in culture and environment, allowing for a much more distinct look and feel for each of the storylines— you'll be going back and forth between the lush countryside of the Leaflands to the streets of the bustling New Delsta in a flash, and it's always a joy to look at no matter where your journey takes you. It's a beautiful celebration of how far the HD-2D visual style has come over the years, and whether you've followed every new Team Asano release or are just jumping in for the first time with Octopath 2 (which is totally okay to do, it's not connected to the first entry story-wise!), you're in for a treat.

"The places you go… The deeds you do… The tales whose hero you become… Every road is yours to take."

Originally, I wasn't a big fan of the first installment, with its
cloying setting and uneven storytelling. I wasn't expecting
this game to be as good as it is, but I'm happy to eat crow.
on the one hand, the writing is exceptionally good, with a
particularly darker bent than the first game's feel-good tone.
and on the other, the combat is exponentially cleaner and
tighter than any of its modern jrpg contemporaries.
hot take: Temenos and Crick are boyfriends, right?