Reviews from

in the past


I enjoyed the first game fine enough, but Octopath Traveler II manages to take everything about the first game that worked and improve upon it while dropping everything that didn't. Lowered encounter rate, day/night cycle, better stories and more consistent (and present) voice acting, auto progress for voiced scenes, better side quests, more interesting and varied towns and environments, improved upon "hidden" job classes, latent powers, the MUSIC! The list goes on.

What else can I say? It's the first game but so much better with much better stories, intertwined stories, better character moments, and an amazing climax where all the stories tie together into one last big bad.

I can't necessarily recommend the first game, but this is a must-play for old-school JRPG fans. Easily one of my games of the year and a soundtrack I'll be listening to for years.

It's objectively better than the first one, I'll say that. Unfortunately, its improvements are few and far between, and it still suffers from a lot of the same issues. It is impossible for me to trudge through this one after having already beaten the first. A shame, too, because it's BEAUTIFUL, and obviously lovingly crafted.

Osvald, Castti, Throne, Ochette, Partitio, Agnea, Temenos, and Hikari make the party for this game, and it's a great cast. The game surpasses the first one in almost every inconcievable way.
The world of Solista has so many neat little locations to find and it was always fun to explore and see how what the world was building to. The exceptionally beautiful HD-2D graphics made the world flourish and shine unlike anything else. To compliment that you have a beautiful OST to give everything even more life!
The party and their stories are the main event though. Each of the eight stories are great in their own way and have their own themes and lessons with them. They somehow had the stories connect in a big way, as the last chapter can possible make you shed a tear (i definitely didn't don't look at me!)
The fixed alot that felt missing with the first one with special chapters that had two of the travelers team up together with their own story, and some side quests that felt like they had meaning! The boss fights can also be very difficult, and also a little easy if you know how to cheese some of them(lol). Which i enjoyed that, it shows that the game has alot of flexibility within it.
I have no complaints, this was my GOTY for 2023 and has my highest recommendation!

It really is the most straight-forward and traditional JRPG experience refined into its best iteration yet.

The combat system is really satisfying during mob encounters, but still intense and creative during boss battles. Team building is also as fun as ever, as is figuring out some of the best combos you can pull off with your jobs and gear available at the moment.
Although the writing is a bit too silly for my taste most of the time, everything comes together nicely at the end. Some of the twists actually took me by surprise this time, and alongside some of the best soundtracks of the genre, I actually felt some goosebumps here and there.

It's the best parts of the first game combined with some actual decent story moments this time, highly recommend.

One of the greatest JRPG I have played, felt like those classic JRPG games, the story has a great message that since that moment I have marked in myself.


OT2 was fun. The beautiful sceneries mixed with hd-2d was something I've never experienced before and OT did it perfectly. Gameplay was extremely satisfying. My main party consisted of Osvald, Throné, Ochette, and Castti. Ochette and Throné's gameplay mechanics were some of the most fun I've ever had in videogames. I can't get over it. There were some banger music tracks as well. The only bad thing I have to say about the game is not caring for the other half of the cast's stories which in turn leaves me not fully completing the game. At least for now. There was a 5-year gap between OT1 and 2 so maybe when 3 is close to launch, I'll be motivated to finish. Grinding levels is not something I'm too fond of as I get older so having to do it over again for the others is kind of upsetting. Other than that, I definitely still enjoyed OT2 and I'm excited for the series.

Finally, I understand why everyone speaks so highly of this game. It truly excels in almost every aspect compared to the first one, or at least in most. The music and graphics remain in the same style without many drastic changes, but aside from that, the game has seen various improvements over the first installment.

One of the worst parts of the first game was the excessive grinding required between chapters, which made the game incredibly tedious. This aspect was significantly improved in this game, making it much more dynamic. Another disappointment in the previous game was the lack of interaction between characters and even stories involving two or more different characters. In this game, there are more interactions, including chapters that mix two characters from the cast in a different storyline.

Continuing on the theme of characters and story, there was only one character in this game that I didn't like and thought was inferior to the others. However, even this character had a more interesting story than the weakest link in the first game. For me, this game was superior to the first one in every way because it addressed all the 'problems' I found in the first one: lack of interaction, tedious grinding, and uninteresting storylines.

So far liking it at least as much or more than Octopath 1. Visuals and music are, again, stunning.

I really disliked the first game due to the insane grind, so I was hesitant on this one. However after David's praising, I knew I had to check it out.

Glad I did, it's a fantastic game. Each character's story was interesting and there were also cross path stories involving four sets of two. This addressed another another weak spot from the first game by making the characters actually interact.

Exploration was a lot of fun as the game opens up to you almost immediately. Exploring each area was always a treat with the breathtaking HD2D visuals and music to match. I always enjoyed searching areas to the fullest to find secret chests, shrines, and jobs along the way.

The battle system is almost perfection with a number of systems feeding into each other. Jobs allow you to unlock new powers and really beef up characters, tailoring them to your likings. The game tends to spike boss difficulty compared to the rest of the battles, so I did have to grind a little at times. But nothing close to the first games level of grind.

Couldn't recommend this game enough!

Ótima experiência. Os gráficos e a trilha sonora são um show a parte. Mas, a história fragmentada pode desagradar algumas pessoas

Very fun game, but some arbitrary level checks near the end are kind of annoying. The game is beautiful and made me love the 2D-HD art-style. Fully delivered on what the first game promised. The ending seemed kinda rushed.

fixes everything bad about the original, and adds new stuff that makes it 10x better than octopath 1, stories are all great, ost just as fire as the original (maybe more), and the gameplay is so addicting, it's just a perfect sequel. (agnea's story is the best btw if you don't agree you're just bad). (i respect liking castti's too).

esse jogo é bom, mas fiquei com preguiça de terminar

Un JRPG estupendo que, aunque apaña bastante bien muchos de los peores vicios del género, sigue cayendo en ellos (combates aleatorios, necesidad de parar a grindear, jefes frustrantes e injustos...). Aún así, es uno de los "clásicos" que más he disfrutado, y eso tiene muchísimo mérito.

La presentación es fantástica y los personajes protagonistas son todos interesantes a su manera. Algunas de las tramas se hacen algo más lentas o densas, pero en general son todas muy disfrutables.

El sistema de combate me ha gustado mucho. Quizá se hace algo repetitivo a la larga, pero es muy satisfactorio cuando consigues hacer una combinación buena de turnos y pegas un golpe de varias decenas de miles de daño.

Lo he disfrutado bastante a pesar de sus cosillas y lo recomendaría a cualquier fan del género. Si me ha gustado a mí, que tienden a cansarme, a vosotros os encantará.

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A fantastic JRPG that, despite fixing several of the worst vices of the genre, still falls on them (random encounters, need to stop and grind, frustrating and unfair bosses...). Still, it's easily one of the most enjoyable "classics", and that's worth something.

The presentation is fantastic and everyone in the main cast is interesting in their own way. Some plots are a bit slower or dense, but overall they're all very enjoyable.

I really liked the combat system. It's perhaps a bit repetitive near the end, but it's very satisfying when you manage to string a good combination of turns and you deal a several-tens-of-thousands-of-damage blow.

I enjoyed it quite a lot despite its flaws and I'd recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the genre. If I liked it while I tend to grow tired of them, you'll love it.

DIOS de lo mejor que he jugado nunca, me encanta todo (menos el ca**** de Galdera)

I both had a good time with this but also wish it could have been more. I really enjoyed the mechanics of the RPG battle system. I also really loved the art style. However, I just find the multiple character system limiting. I found it really hard to keep going for long stretches because there wasn't really a connective thread keeping me going.

Juegazo, un jrpg con una gran variedad de personajes y unas historias muy bonitas (que incluso pueden hacerte que llores)

PD: Ochette está rotísima

+ The npc bio writing is oddly very strong! Poignant, and terse; I felt very motivated to click on everybody and read a little two sentence life story, in a way that the likes of baldurs gate 3 or <any fallout> absolutely fail to do.

-job system is extremely dry and boring. so many things wrong with it. just steal from FFT if you can't be bothered to do it right.
-narrative driving force is non-existent; this is just a collection of 8 character arcs that are totally unrelated to each other
-as such, the texture of playing the game is much like hitting speedbumps over and over, as you get a new character and have to train them up from 0 again (and if you play their initial chapters, that's basically a whole hour where the net power level of your ACTUAL party has ZERO delta!!)
-whats the point in having 8 characters if i can only ever use 4 of them. this is a problem thats been solved for 20 years, embarassing to stumble into it again.

if you're going to invest a bunch of time / money into developing a character the feeling i get when i pick one up can't be:
1) great another bench warmer
or 2) make me feel negatively about replacing another character that i've already put a bunch of levels into

bunch of other mechanical issues with it that are deeply annoying but are too nitty gritty to want to get into here, and the character stories are simply not good enough (and often not good at all) to cover for it.

Meh... Might come back to it one day but I got quite far in and nothing was really grabbing my attention.

A MUST PLAY for every JRPG fan. Amazing visuals, amazing music, amazing characters. Each character has so much life to them from the voice acting to the way they interact with each other.

Eight paths directly into my heart.

Do you like lavish retro-esque art? Do you like strolling around a cozy town talking to charming little people while listening to a soothing song? Do you like solving strategic puzzles to defeat gargantuan foes in mortal turn-based combat? This games takes all these disparate elements and puts them together into a single composition. The result has moments of elevated intensity, but this adventure is most remarkable for just how very comfortable it is. You can really spend a lot of time in here (and I did) because the experience is almost soothing. The variety of emotional tones and excellent pacing provide a refreshing rhythm to the experience. It’s never too one note. In the narrative, the sad stories are balanced out by the happy ones. In the gameplay, the cognitively engaging combat challenges contrasts with strolling through the cozy towns. In light of all this, I found Octopath II to be the most impressive retro-inspired JRPG to date.

In the abstract, it’s a strange mixture—fighting monstrous superbosses then dipping back into a flaneur-like existence in an adorable town. The chilling and the killing take turns on center stage—so to speak. It’s almost a paradox at the heart of the genre. (On the other hand, there’s something so charming about fighting all those wonderfully drawn sprites that it barely even registers as an act of virtual violence.) I can imagine that some people might intensely love exactly half of the experience and intensely hate the other. And which half you like depends largely on your disposition. But that contrast, that range of emotional intensity, that almost paradox, is an almost essential characteristic of this genre. If you like that mixture, then this is one of the very best examples.
If so, then go ahead and collect your tiny characters, get in your little battles, walk around the tiny towns and talk to all (yes, all) the other chibi people, then get in a little boat and sail across this vast miniature world.

Now let’s talk about some details.
The HD-2D style is even more stunning this time around. The detailed sprites, varied environments, and cozy towns are all lovingly crafted in their own way. Even the menus and text boxes and fonts have a certain tasteful, classic, restrained, Square look. The soundtrack is almost unfailingly good—and when it’s not to my taste, it is thematically appropriate.

The combat is excellent and consistently engaging. It’s smooth, it’s fast, it’s puzzle-like. There are resources to manage and strategies to ponder. It is similar to much else in the genre. Exploit enemy weaknesses, pick your attacks, use your boosts and specials wisely, manage your health and mana and status effects well—and you’ll eventually win. That sounds simple enough, but way it comes together is one type
of turn-based perfection. For comparison, the only (non-tactical) turn-based combat I’ve found this cognitively intriguing and would probably be SaGa Scarlet Grace, FFX, and X-2.
And these encounters are designed for speed. It’s like the designers asked “Can we make turn-based battles blazingly fast?” And they did . The transition to the battle screen is fast. The menus are responsive. The action animations are quick but impressive. The rewards screen is brief and takes a minimal number of clicks to get through. If you’ve never experienced some the molasses like battles during the PS1 and PS2 days, know that these are some high compliments. Trash mobs can usually be dispatched within a minute or so. Bosses and superbosses are appropriately challenging and will take longer. The progression systems (which are a mix of leveling, skills, jobs, and gear) are rich, interesting, and breakable in the best possible way. The towns are memorable and filled with charming npcs (often with hidden lives that range from comical to sinister.) The world feels vast and mysterious and rich. The way the world map is designed avoids those all too familiar boredom inducing vast empty spaces. There’s a SNES or PS1 openness—where the vastness of the world done in miniature just like the chibi sprites.

And this world is bursting with side quests and secrets. Dungeons are just about the right size—long enough to present some challenge, but brief enough to avoid degenerating into a slog. And, like in the original, there’s a neat visual search and path finding mechanic when it comes to side paths and treasure. This is a simple and common diversion in classic JRPGs— see the treasure chest and then puzzle out how to get to it. But due to the fixed camera angle and HD2D art style, there’s a bit more depth in the scene. This means designers can make the most of occlusion to misdirect and confuse the player. (This wayfinding element plays sort of like Toad Treasure Tracker if you couldn’t rotate the camera and there were fewer puzzles.)

The designers also introduced a day/night cycle along with the ability to shift between the two times at will. By changing day to night or vice versa, you can adjust the encounter rate seamlessly. And it makes for some puzzles here and there in the dungeons. The day/night cycle also made the towns feel even more lively because the npcs have different habits.

The stories on the individual paths vary in tone and quality. The tone goes from comedic to melodramatic to darkly tragic. The quality ranges from not so good to okay to alright to cute to that was sort of poignant to the absurdity of that made me laugh. And yet I played every story because it’s just a pleasure to spend time in this world. And besides, many of the characters are likable enough— and when they weren’t, the combat mechanics kept me going. The creativity on display in the boss fights made it worthwhile to me. Each boss is an oversized pixel art spectacle on the outside with some intriguing puzzle box mechanics on the inside. These boss fights were really their own reward. And then they typically rewarded you with something interesting.
This review began with the phrase “Eight paths directly into my heart.” More accurately,it could have “eights paths set in a world whose systems and atmosphere lead into my heart no matter how much I did not resonate with the narrative in the path I chose.” That’s a bit too long for an opening line though.

There’s quite a bit of depth in the progression systems here. Interesting gear, job classes, and special secondary classes. Hunting for synergies in the menus is fun if that’s your sort of thing. Grinders should find plenty to do here: superbosses, ultimate weapons, hidden dungeons. For the first time since probably the PS2 era, I personally did every bit of optional content. And I was still sad to see it all come to an end.


This review contains spoilers

Fuck you Evan.

Such a beautiful ass game, you just see the world that was lovingly crafted in this beautiful art style and won't stop exploring until you've seen it all. The story here is such a step up too with each character being extremely compelling, my favorites are Osvald, Throne, and Partitio. Throne gets special mention for having incredible Bazongas for a pixel art game, I'll also give a shout out to Agnea's "peaches".

I wrote a more thoughtful review but accidentally deleted it.

Long story short - I don't like the way this game makes you get invested in multiple characters' stories totally independent of the other characters. It's like playing multiple different single player games at the same time. It's mentally exhausting.

Octopath Traveler 1 also had this problem.

I will try to do some single-character runs eventually. Might suit me better.

I promise! I tried it! I wanted to like it. Nice graphics and actually nice gameplay, but at some point it can't hold me like the first game. I'm sorry to say but I need to cancel it.


This is how you do a sequel. It keeps all the charm, visuals, and base gameplay from the first game while also improving on each category in many different ways. It allows the travelers to interact with each other more than ever before which was a big complaint for me for the first game. The gameplay has been enhanced as well with new additions added to the battle system that makes the fights that much more entertaining. The characters are all lovable and each has their own compelling story to go through. The final segment of the game is what takes it cake though. Throughout each of their own individual adventures, you slowly start to piece a connection together between them all, and by doing all of the side stories, you unlock the final chapter of the game. This is by far the most thrilling part of the game, and allows for the story to reach the heights that I was looking for the entire time. Seeing it all come together was so gratifying and made everything feel that much more impactful. This is another section in which I believe they improve upon the first game. Overall, while it's not perfect in my eyes, as I wish there were more side stories or cutscenes that could've eluded to the overarching theme throughout the game, it is very close and I enjoyed every second of the adventure.

I can't say much here without spoilers, but it's definitely a contender for the title of Best JRPG.

Cassidy's Favorite JRPG

Early and mid game were awesome. I laughed, I cried, I had a really good time. Late game became boring, I felt like I had to grind. End game really picked up and was awesome again especially the last fight.
The soundtrack is awesome, the art style as well.

A massive improvement over the first game.