2 reviews liked by EggRollin


Fun ride. Some puzzles bring it down and the quirky rants/story twists range from interesting to boring. Characters are nice and memorable. Didn't hate any of them. That's a blessing in a story like this.
Voice acting in the steam version is fantastic (okay not a fan of Junpei tbh).

I didn't have to use a guide once but I certainly got close a few times. They give you a calculator to use in-game but you can't open it during puzzles...? I think? Useless.

I'm also not really a fan of replaying certain parts to get some true ending, it made certain events blend together and confusing when nearing the end. I wish the different branches were more distinct/interesting. Even when the branches DO feel unique and provide some answers, they feel the need to re-spell it out on the true ending path. I'd prefer if it was just 1 route with player choice being different doors- any bad end resulted in re-doing the last pivotal choice or whatever.
Still, I enjoyed the world of 999 and I am excited to play VLR soon.

i do enjoy experimentation in games. i swear i do! but i think having us follow eight different characters around was a bit more than the writers and the devs could handle.

as a result, every character's route feels more like a rushed summary, than an actual story that you can get emotional about. hikari's story is really very tragic! temenos's story could have been a great murder mystery! but we move around so fast, constantly swapping between characters, that it's difficult to get attached to anyone. the pacing is off, too. it's bad.

another thing: why are these characters all following each other? i mean, really. osvald was imprisoned for murdering his wife and child. one of his actions is mugging strangers. so why would relatively normal people like agnea or partitio even believe a thing he says? the group dynamics are so bland! bland, bland, bland! they accept each other without a single thought. they all come from different backgrounds, so why would they choose to travel together? fight for each other?

i think a game like dragon age origin does this better. these people all have a good reason for travelling together, but most of them can't stand each other. which is fun! i love seeing people bicker and argue just because they're petty! a manga i enjoy (dungeon meshi) does fun group dynamics really well, too. i like it when characters are weirded out by each other! it's even better if they don't bother to hide their discomfort!

all in all, my thoughts are: this is game is a mess, with some fun ideas. i would recommend it to others! the music is beautiful, the gameplay is fun, and if you're lucky, you might like one or two characters. but in the future, i hope the devs ignore the title OCTOPATH and let us follow... maybe four or five characters in total, with stronger, better written stories. that is my hope for octopath traveler 3.