É uma experiência similar ao primeiro jogo, e mesmo assim te encanta como se fosse a primeira vez. Se eu pudesse resumir em uma palavra Octopath 2: ENCANTADOR. Um aviso: Não é pra qualquer um, é um jogo de NICHO, você tem que gostar de um jogo mais lento, com muito texto e combate de turnos. São combates desafiadores, ótima variedade de inimigos, BOSSES incríveis, imensa variedade tática e de gameplay, exploração leve e gratificante/recompensadora, o dia/noite de forma dinâmica trouxe um grau a mais na exploração, sistema de jobs mais aprimorado, habilidades específicas de cada personagem E classe, gameplay intuitiva e incrível, adição dos poderes latentes trouxe uma variedade única, trilhas sonoras ABSURDAS, personagens carismáticos, a dublagem excelente ajuda a dar vida, as HISTÓRIAS cada uma com suas peculiaridades e com uma conexão final IMPORTANTE, está mais orgânico seguir de capítulo em capítulo sem precisar de grind. Resumindo, visualmente é deslumbrante, com uma ótima gameplay, e as histórias te prendem, a JORNADA te prende. OBS: foi removido algo frustrante no primeiro game (somente uma classe podia abrir os baús roxos que muitas vz estavam no FINAL da dungeon), agora as Path Actions são mais assertivas para dar variedade e não limitação.

Sobre pontos negativos, só consiso enxergar um: Ainda ter encontros aleatórios, isso é um baita ponto negativo para a exploração, principalmente no late game que não tem mais desafio e só atrasa a viagem, e te joga em um grind involuntário.

It's like the first Octopath Traveler, but every problem with it you could have possibly had has been fixed. Perfect sequel that expands on character interaction, story writing, and refines the gameplay formula while staying true to the game's core concept of 8 different stories. An amazing game from start to end, and a clear improvement over the first. If you didn't like the first Octopath Traveler because you got burned out by the repetitive chapter formula, consider giving the sequel a shot as it has been completely fixed.

Honestly y’all this game was fuckin great. This is basically just the first game but better in every conceivable way. The combat has been largely untouched, aside from a few welcome additions like skill balancing (you can still bust the fucking game dw).

I def think there’s layers to add and kinks to iron out regarding the combat. While this ultimately comes down to personal preference, I really enjoyed the sheer customization of games like bravely default and Xenoblade 3. Those games felt less rigid in team building due to the more flexible job system. I totally get that locking a character into their starter jobs is kinda the point and gives your characters some personality and strengthens your bond to these homies, but I think it leads to some characters getting left by the wayside late to postgame (Osvald and to a lesser extent Agnea). This in turn, just kinda leads to you becoming less attached to the characters you end up benching which felt a bit counterproductive.

Keeping characters unique skills or latent power or whatever you wanna do could be a step in the right direction- keeping characters unique but adding a layer of customization for the player.

My desire for customization extends to the over world as well. Postgame, I found myself getting a bit annoyed at the random encounters- the option to decrease the likelihood of encounters, like in BD, would be a welcome addition for the postgame (im not stupid enough to want it for the main story lol)

Take these gameplay criticisms with a grain of salt though- this game is turn based combat at its finest, especially at the boss fights.

I try my best to engage with the media I consume in a genuine and receptive way, and I’m happy to report that the step up between octopath 2’s stories and 1’s is a big one. Overall the stories are much more mature and the broad concepts in 6.5/8 are fascinating to see explored in a JRPG. The execution may be a bit formulaic, and if you aren’t privy to the classic “anime” tropes this won’t open your third eye, but for those that are willing to engage (no shade really if you can’t), they deliver some strikingly emotional moments. Big shoutouts to Castii’s, Tenemos’ and Ochette’s stories. You can see these turns in the stories coming for sure, but it doesn’t take away from the weight these pack.

Partitio (my chosen starter) I felt had the most consistent and satisfying story. Something about his infectious charisma and optimism really carried it for me. The idea is also truly fuckin great- a man so pure that he overthrows capitalism with capitalism is really fun and engaging. It lacks the same large or emotional moments found in the others’, but makes up for it with consistency.

Octopath 2’s stories tend to falter towards the conclusion of their main stories. Tenemos and Osvald’s in particular suffered the most imo. Tenemos’ in particular hurt because it was so consistently good until the payoff had me feeling a bit empty. Osvald’s starts really strong, but loses steam fast.

As a whole, these stories are great for what they are. Except Agnea’s. God. What the fuck? I was a big fan of partitio’s smaller scale and more personal story but Agnea’s literally just kinda sucks. Maybe I’m getting too old, but her character felt shallow, she has no real agency in the larger plot and these other characters are mostly unique takes on their respective class archetypes- except her lol.

I’d be remiss to not mention the crossed path stories. Give us more. They’re great bite sized intertwined stories between 2 characters, I just wanted more!

Basically, play the game. It won’t change your life if you’re not a JRPG fan, it’s roots are too deep in it’s genre. But it’s one of the best turn based JRPG’s to come out in a loooooongggg time and it’s worth playing for the soundtrack alone.

Almost everything about this game is better than the original. From the visuals to the music to the atmosphere. It's just better. This is what I thought I was going to get with the first game rather than a run of the mill JRPG with good visuals. The combat is an improvement from the original mainly due to the new "latent powers" mechanic. And the 2x battle speed is very helpful for mob battles. I have some problems with certain bosses but for the most part, they range from fine to great.

Despite how much this game does right however, it does a lot of things wrong. The dungeons are awful and very one dimensional. Barely feeling like dungeons and more like a big room with treasure and random encounters to make it seem bigger. And speaking of treasure, chests are still very easy to discover and obtain. There's no puzzle solving or anything to that extent to reach the treasures. At most they just have pathways that are hard to see due to the almost 2D camera.

And my least favourite aspect of the game is still writing. While it is an improvement from the previous game's. Most characters still feel very one note and lack flavour and originality. The two characters that had me engaged till the end were Partitio and Temenos. The rest range from boring to decent.

Even still, I'm very happy that they chose to create a sequel because it now shows me that it's worth investing to make this a long running series. I know for a fact that this formula can be used again with new ideas to reach greater heights and to create a JRPG classic.

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.

While this game still does have its issues, like how it probably should have some kind of shared EXP system, and the high random encounter rate... this game truly is a magical experience minus those qualms.


This is quite possibly one of the best JRPGs I've ever played. Every single improvement to the systems, the story (stories, at that), the GLORIOUS music, and some of the best boss battles I've played in a turn based JRPG. This is a major, major improvement to the first game. I actually cared about every character, every story, and the ending of the game.

That being said, they only improved stuff that didn't go against the game's vision. While there is way more interaction between the party members, they don't usually talk in each others respective stories. Mostly in the (improved) party banter, crossed paths, and the very end of the game. This is definitely not a party based RPG, and it doesn't try to be.

You can really tell that Team Asano put their all into this game. The game has love oozing out of all sides. It almost has those "last game" vibes where it feels like they felt this could be the last one in the series, so they went all out.

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."

Octopath Traveler 2 is one of the greatest JRPGS Square Enix has ever created. 101 hrs later, and doing nearly everything, I am reminded of just how phenomenal Square's turn-based RPG's are. Team Asano nails it every single time with every game they've developed, and Octopath 2 is the crown jewel. It's the greatest pixel art I've ever seen, and legitimately, it's one of my favorite soundtracks of all time. You fall in love with each character on their journeys, and no character is overlooked. Voice acting is superb, overall as well. The battle system is even more developed and fun, and the menus are even more manageable. I could go on and on about the game, but I'll say this is my favorite Square Enix game next to DQ11S and The World Ends With You.

Octopath Traveler 2

Un juego casi perfecto, si no os gustó el 1 seguramente esté si os guste, ya que arregla algunas de las cosas que tenía el primero. Y si os gusta el 1 este os va a flipar.

Si el siguiente arreglan lo de los gimmicks, será perfecto al 100%.

(9'5/10)

<3

Pretty much an improvement from the first game in so many ways. There are some nice quality of life features added, the final chapter was much more doable, and the most important thing to me was actually having this team feel like a team. The little things like saying each other's names during combat made the biggest difference. The combat, world design and OST were top notch as always. I found myself much more engaged with these stories than the first as well. There are definitely some aspects that could still be improved on, such as not having to go to a tavern to switch party members and maybe some more crossed paths? That one seems like a big ask.

Octopath Traveler had a solid core to build off of and the sequel took it and ran with it. Truly a wonderful game and I hope there will be more of these in the future.

my advice? don't listen to reviews that try to tell you that all you're getting here is more of what was already given to you in the first game.

fundamentally, yeah, I'll admit that not too much has changed. game still stars eight protagonists identified by the same eight classes and it still has the same break-and-boost system. but this isn't a simple case of the devs not fixing what isn't broken. octopath 2 is easily the gold standard for everything a sequel ought to achieve. a great deal of refinement was put into every category here, to the point where I would consider this game and its predecessor different entities entirely.

I'll go ahead and run through all of these said categories, but the one that definitely needs to be talked about first is the story structure, which, if you've never played the first game or haven't read pre-release reviews for this one, remains the source of some contention

octopath features eight characters on separate journies who travel together under the banner of your usual JRPG party. you travel around the game's world to where the story chapters of your chosen travelers take place. it's a really cool system that lets you have complete freedom over where you go and which order these tales are told, and this, much like many facets of the short story structure, has gotten only better in the sequel.

having multi-part chapters that present actual choice beyond “go here because its the only thing you’re leveled up enough for l lol” is such a nice change. even better, these chapters no longer follow the unchanging formula of dialogue into dungeon into boss fight that definitely damaged the first game’s pacing. some chapters flip the order around. some don’t even have any sort of encounter and instead provided largely unbroken story bits for twenty minutes straight. it’s great! but it also reminds me that, for a game I would argue is masterclass when it comes to hyping you up for decisive battles, the first game could be so fucking boring sometimes.

look, I'm a big fan of the original octopath -- it's one of my favorite games on switch! -- but I'm also of the opinion that it was way overhyped on release. there are a scare few things to complain about in that game, but fact that the characters in it do not interact at all beyond non-voiced, non-canon travel banters has got to be easily the most disappointing thing about it. even in the endgame, where the eight stories finally come together, its not the characters who disclose the truth through communication with one another. no. it's eight walls of text and one big lore dump right before a superboss which, after beating, offers no epilogue or anything really to have made playing the game beyond those eight storylines worth it.

it sucks pretty bad, especially since these eight tales vary in overall quality, so I can't blame the fair few people out there who are skeptical about octopath 2 maintaining this structure, but let me just say this: this game makes the strongest case for short stories in video games that I have seen in a long time, and unlike the first game, it did not need to banish interesting character interaction from the game entirely in order to reach this state

a little goes a long way here. to start, octopath 2 has a ton of battle voicelines of acknowledgement, gratitude, and praise shared between the travelers. I found that a fair amount of these lines also reference the dynamics between these characters. i.e. temenos, the cleric, likes to say “bravo!” to the others a lot as a catchphrase, and throne, the thief, is to only one to say this exact word back to him in return because they’re besties who make fun of each other‘s mannerisms. I noticed how specific the compliments of partitio, the merchant, was whenever he witnessed an ally break through the defenses of the enemy. it would have been easy for the devs to record the same "thanks, (insert other character name here)!" line with only a few slight alterations, but the fact that the octo 2 crew actually reference each other's personalities is a baby step I can admire greatly.

it's an odd thing to praise, but I also think that the travel banters in general are a lot better here than they were in the first game. it helps that you can access all of these potential discussions immediately upon completing a chapter like its a Tales Of game, whereas before these banters could only occur between those currently in party. better in more than just frequency, I felt that these brief interactions also simply felt like actual l examples of empathy rather than just some one-off bit where the non-starring character somehow flexes their defining trait into the current context -- don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of those, but the point is that there's now room for more profound stuff here too.

for example, one of the banters that occurred during a story segment for castti, the amnesiac apothecary, straight up foreshadowed a later major reveal, I didn't realize this until much later, and when I did, it kinda blew my mind.

though the big advertised solution for the complaint of little character interaction is the new 'crossed paths' chapters, which star two characters as a duo investigating something else on the sidelines. and this mechanic turned out to be... okay, I guess? the crossed paths chapters themselves were pretty great -- I think they're pretty fantastic, honestly -- but I have to admit that they're not spread out evenly enough for them to not feel short lived. you unlock the first of these duo chapters very early in the game, and the second part very late, leaving an awkward gap in the midsection of my playthrough. I guess it could've easily been my bad for rushing through all of them but that's square's fault for creating so much value in the art of backtracking through areas previously explored.

all of this aside, the true reward that proves the solidarity between these characters is in the endgame + epilogue, which I won't spoil anything about, but man... that build-up into title drop had me emotional.

so that's that. characters actually interact in this one. is as much as some people wanted? maybe not, and its still a fair complaint for those still unsatisfied, but I have to say that immediate assumption I kept seeing that giving everybody the role of protagonist somehow undermines overall story of octopath 2 really annoyed me.

even more so when one pre-release reviewer tried to tell that hikari, a dethroned prince desperate to take his kingdom back from the clutches of his enemy, having the option to stop and spare some time to help agnea, a dancer who has want for stardom and nothing else, was bad storytelling. bro you're playing a fucking RPG. by your will as the player, hikari would just as easily prioritize eight fishing sidequests over arriving on the scene of his burning homeland.

having different stories that contrast in stakes and tone is a good thing so long as they all have proper pacing that each leads to a satisfying climax, which they all do in this game. this is how you make the player feel different things, which is how you build investment. the eight tales of octopath 2 is such a brilliant step-up from those of its predecessor, and it finally feels like square is taking full advantage of the framework they've built here. I, personally, couldn't be happier with the end result achieved here, and am extremely eager to see what they cook up in the future.

the rest of this review will no doubt be much shorter in comparison because everything I have talked about thus far is the subjective half of the game. the rest of it, from gameplay to world to music to literally everything is objective perfection that I have no doubt every other review on this website has already detailed a thousand times over.

let's start with the gameplay. HOT DAMN DO I STILL LOVE THE BREAK AND BOOST SYSTEM. I love being able to pick a damage class disguised as a healer and watch as my character goes through various dragon ball-level powerups before screaming "WITH THESE HANDS" as she decimates some random guy in town who was literally just minding his own business before strolled in and ruined his life.

but for real though, I don't know how anyone can be upset that we're using the same eight classes with the same general arsenal as the first game when there are so many changes present that equalize potential and do away with the dominant playstyles of the first game.

want to make your scholar a catboy? sure! feeling horny enough to class your warrior into a support-class dancer? why the fuck not! who cares about the job point economy when you got like four different skills in the game specifically made to do away with tedious grinding and all your stats are dictated by the gear you equip rather than the characters you put them on. being punished in RPGs for using your level-up points to explore possibilities is stupid. but that's beside the point.

gameplay is awesome. each class has the unique progression of unlocked 'EX skills' that I'm continuously finding out about new build possibilities, even now. my only regret is accidentally becoming too over leveled and defeating each character's final boss too quickly for them to show off all their unique gimmicks.

but the world of octopath is simply too easy to get lost in. having a day/night cycle that affects the location of townspeople as well as how you interact with them adds a surprising amount of depth, especially when I argue that NPCs that one of the best things about this series. the sheer amount of backstory, environmental storytelling, learnable skills, potential high quality gear hiding in plain sight, and overall depth hidden within each and every random bozo you come across is simply unparalleled by any other RPG. I love how most sidequests have multiple solutions, like that one guy in New Delsta who wanted a charm made somewhere else in the continent so that he might have something to calm his nerves through placebo alone. instead of doing that, I sought out the true source of his anxiety: a female stalker, and confronted her with my hunter after capturing an array of monsters which were just barely enough to beat an NPC that was stronger than most of my party, exposing the woman's deeds to the man, to which they got together in the end and I was rewarded for my outside-the-box thinking.

not only are the cities populated and teeming with unique life, the areas in between are beautiful as well. I'm not just talking about the usual coat of bloom filters; the lighting in this game is far more deliberate. moving clouds create overcast, colours are constantly reflecting off the vibrant environment, and the previously mentioned day/night cycle that can be altered with the press of a button also occurs naturally overtime, with a few secrets hiding in the periods between dawn and dusk (go to gravell and stakeout the area beyond the left exit as temenos, wait until morning).

traveling through the different areas of the eight regions in this game was a real treat. from the rooftops of a factory town in the brightlands, to boating through the overflown ruins in toto'haha, every little nook and cranny, even the optional dungeons, had at least a few assets I never saw reused anywhere else, which is an impressive feat for a game as long as this one.

and the soundtrack. oh man, the soundtrack.

I kneel to nishiki. the man's a legend. there's nothing quite like hearing the leimotif of your chosen character play right before a boss fight and then seamlessly transition to the most amazing orchestral pieces to grace our current age. go listen to the entire soundtrack on soundcloud. you won't be disappointed.

I want to go on, I really want to, but the truth is that if everything I've described thus far sounds good to you, there's no reason not to pick this game up. don't play the first octopath, it's an overpriced waste of your time compared to this. the feeling of that game might have decayed overtime for me but I already know for a fact that octopath 2 is my game of the year and will forever be one of the best rpgs I've ever played

Octopath Traveler II is a large improvement over the already charming original. With more voice acting (also much better performed and directed), charming characters, fun jobs, thrilling sidequests and interesting stories I was hooked for almost 90 hours! Without going too much into spoilers one of the big complaints about the original is that the stories did not intertwine well and this game fixes that in spades in my opinion. Each story is still "standalone" but they all combine very well eventually. This honestly might be one of my favorite JRPGs ever now.

I dropped the first Octopath after 15 hours but ended up finishing this one all the way through. A big step up from the original but still has some of the issues. My main complaint is how the stories are still disconnected but they do come together at the end which is very nice. Otherwise, there were a lot of odd moments in the story due to the game pretending the other characters don't exist during someone's story. In terms of character writing, I enjoyed half of the character stories and thought the other 4 were just decent - mid.

The gameplay, exploration, and combat is a ton of fun and carried this game hard. The random encounter rates can get annoying at some points and it did feel like the mid game level progression (lvls 15-30) was a slog. The end game is also ridiculously easy if you know what you're doing but its very fun to break. Aside from that, this is one of the best JRPG combat systems out there.

Overall, one of the best games of the year.

Yeah this game is great, it improves on the original in almost every conceivable way. The writing is better, the gameplay has more QOL features and is faster and smoother, the world is more interesting to explore, there's a better overarching story that's surprisingly emotional by the end amongst other things.

I do wish they'd gone a bit heavier on certain quality of life features. I'd like to be able to turn off random encounters later in the game when I'm exploring some of the earlier zones and I do think the game is maybe a bit too easy up until the very, very end game. There's so many ways to get strong and absolutely dumpster bosses, which is fun in its own right, but nothing will really challenge people who interact with the game's systems and mechanics until the end game. That said, I loved this game from beginning to end.

I remember barely anything about the first Octopath Traveler so some things I praise or complain about here might just be holdovers.

When I played the first game I only went through it with my chosen 4 members, this time I went through the game with everyone on top of just going for the whole platinum so that means all sidequests, locations and whatnot on top of getting everyone all the job skills for the hell of it. Unlike the first game, if I'm remembering correctly, you need to go through everyone's stories in order to hit credits. Speaking of credits, it was a really nice ending without going into spoilers. It honestly got to me, maybe I'm just continually softening up as I get older.

The battle system is mostly the same as the first entry but now they added passive abilities and limit breaks I mean latent powers which add enough to the combat flow. Ochette is been the beastmaster job I have wanted in jprgs for a long time. You catch a monster and (barring some special cases) you can use it in every single battle and will not leave your roster until you choose to get rid of it. To balance that she can only carry 8 non story related ones. Her latent power I think was was the best cuz has versatility. Do you want an aoe, high single target damage or an aoe debuff? She got it all

In terms of story, like the first game, they are unfortunately still very much isolated. You might as well not even have a party and it should have been done in in the way of Live A Live where its all separate until the end. They tried to alleviate it by having optional banter you can view depending on story progression, location and party composition which are unvoiced. There are also these paired stores between 2 characters where they actually speak to each other, interact, the whole 9 yards. Great, should have been the whole game. Then the epilogue has all 8 actually exist on screen at on time and speak to each other! I couldn't believe it! Again this should have been the whole game.

Still no bench party experience so I was dreading going through the more unused characters but it was pretty painless especially when my stronger characters could carry them through thing easily. Not that the game itself was difficult outside of maybe 3 or 4 fights and only cuz of those bosses being really annoying and doing things like giving themselves extra turns, bonus turns after brining a party member to 1 hp, and locking out basic actions like healing (both via magic and item), attacking (via regular action and skill) and blocking boosting. You also needed to go to a tavern to swap characters which was annoying. There were things in the world map that required certain characters so if they weren't with you then you had to either come back later or if you're like me and worry you'd forget, go back to a town, swap characters, walk ALL the way back to where it was and through the considerable high encounter rate this game has even with the reduced encounter skill to get back to it. The fact the option to swap party members out via the menu was locked to the epilogue is cruel and unusual punishment.

Speaking of skills, the game outright tells you what skills don't stack. Limited the fun a bit but I appreciate the game telling me it won't work so I wouldn't waste time. Since the game was so upfront about labeling things as unstackable, I assumed the items that don't have the disclaimer stacked as they should. Considering how often I was running into the metal slime equivalents while wearing the increasing items as I was power leveling for the last bit of the game, they were working. I also liked that there was an npc who only did the exp/jp buffs, so that way I didn't have to play russian roulette with the dancer class and have a chance to wipe my party.

Music was phenomenal, I adored the night versions of the tracks. This was another Xenoblade situation where I listened to everything at both times of the day. Partitio's theme is GOATED, fantastic and I'll be considering buying the ost just cuz of it. The whole time I've been writing this review I've been sitting in a tavern in game with it on loop.

I am also not tired of the HD2D style, its just so beautiful. Granted I did skip the more recent releases like triangle strategy and diofield chronicle so I haven't been as exposed to it as some others. Can't wait for that Dragon Quest 3 HD2D remake.

So given my, admittedly, lacking memory of the first game from what I remember I think this game is an all around improvement. I recommend it, unless you're a tryhard who only cares about difficult cuz then you have nothing here. Only things I ask in the future is, if they can't feasible have more interaction between the characters in each of their stories due to the sheer amount of variable its openness comes with, then do it like Live a Live and have everything be completely separated until they meet up at the end. The second ask is please allow bench exp, even if its at a reduced rate. It doesn't have to be from the get go, you could have that happen after you beat the character's story since you do have set levels of the encounters for each sequence. The third is allow party swapping from the menu or at save points. There is no good reason to not have it to lock it to the tail end of the game.

There isn't much to say here that hasn't been said, but regardless, Octopath Traveler II is one of my new favorite turn-based JRPGs.

I have some small nitpicks and think it could have perhaps been a bit more adventurous as a sequel, but it made good on nearly every promise the first game couldn't. The game systems are much tighter and more well-balanced, the pacing is better, the writing is much more interesting, there's a lot more voice acting, the structure of each character's stories is much more thoughtfully crafted with a vastly improved extended cast... you really get the sense they put their all into this one.

And oh my lord the soundtrack. This is easily one of my new favorites, Yasunori Nishiki never goddamn misses. Some of the tracks in this game got such a visceral reaction out of me.

I feel as though a common complaint is that the stories still don't cross over enough, but between the excellent final chapter tying it all together, the countless unique voice lines between characters, the wonderful crossing paths chapters, and the leaps and bounds better written party chats, there was enough of a sense of camaraderie amongst the party to satisfy me, personally.

I could go on, but I'll leave it at this: the game is absolutely wonderful. Could not have imagined this being as good as it is. Team Asano, I kneel.

Octopath Traveler II is a wonderful RPG with stunning art direction, a phenomenal ensemble of characters, engaging turn-based combat, fun bosses, a flawless OST, and an overall interesting world to traverse. The 8 travelers stories all come together in a surprising, but satisfying concluding arc that made for a meaningful ending to an overall phenomenal experience. Their stories were varied, but were mostly of excellent quality. Castti, Osvald, and Throné were highlight characters for me personally. "Travel banter" between the characters was appropriately endearing, and by the end it is easy to become invested in the relationships of the cast members as well as their individual personalities. The world of Solistia is unapologetically gorgeous: HD-2D has made a triumphant return in Octopath II, and I can only hope to see it further employed in the future, hopefully with equally intriguing writing accompanying it. The pixel art on display here, including a gargantuan effort to create the game's day/night cycle, is amongst the best you will witness in any video game. The only thing in Octopath Traveler II more stunning than the art direction is the music: it is simply, sublime. Without a shadow of a doubt, this game's OST is one of the best I have ever heard in any video game. It ranges from uplifting to haunting, graceful to chaotic, and I would wager is nearly perfect. For fans of traditional, ensemble-driven turn-based RPGs, Octopath Traveler II is an indubitably easy recommendation.