Fantastic game! I recommend any JRPG fan play this. It is quite a haul. I clocked in around 60 hours. Didn't do all side quests or mega boss.
First off. I have to note there is a save game destroying bug. Happened to me once over 20 hours in. It was impossible to recover my game. It was overwritten on steam and gone on the PC. Internet tells me this isn't a rare occasion. So be weary of that and make periodic backups of your saves. To get around this I used a cheat engine to auto win battles, increase movement speed, set levels.. that kind of stuff so I could shoot my back back to where I was. Took about 4.5 hours. Not great.. it wasnt' the only bug I encountered either. One of my attempts at the end boss barely failed but a core mechanic of the game just.. stopped working. I couldn't view turn orders or use a special ability you gain for the fight at all.
Octopath 2 has a great battle system. Its focused around breaking enemies and piling the damage on. I'll admit i'm getting tired of break systmes as square really seems to favor them lately but I still enjoyed the game quite a bit. Charging up your attacks feels good. Theres no much of a risk reward, its just choosing when to take your reward. A tweak to add more risk and thought would be nice but still overall a really good system. Each enemy has a set of weaknesses that will lower its break game. All 6 weapon types and all the magic possibilities.
Every character has their own class to improve in but can also equip a secondary class. Classes also determine the weapons you can use. There were points I felt a little held back by this. The balance of the game is done pretty well but daggers feel largely useless. They felt by far the rarest weakness an enemy could have. This made using a character with a main class dedicated to daggers difficult. You had to use secondary classes that would grant them better weapon options instead of choosing what fun abilities you could have.
I enjoyed all the characters and storyline. I had my favorites of course but they did a good job making sure each one was entertaining. Even some I wasn't that interested in sucked me in in their second chapter with some nice surprises. I will fault the character progressions. All of them seem to have flat progression arks. I would have loved to see some real progress instead of just the static characters. (The dancers story is the weakest and really kinda falls apart in its final chapter. In somewhat of a hilarious way tho. Like they gave up and just added some wackyness to it that does work)
Speaking of story tho. The game frames itself as over after you've finished all 8 story lines. Altho it doesn't roll credits which is an excellent choice. There is a second they call "more stories" or something along those lines. Its the actual end of the game. I wish they didn't frame it as extend content when it reframes the entire game and is the real ending. This is mandatory if you're going to really understand the story and game itself.
I do have a complaint with how EXP is handled. Only your active characters gain XP and JP. I'm not a fan of that type of xp system even in regular JRPGs when I may never use that character sitting inactive anyways. Give them half xp, something. In a game like this tho its much worse. You will be using all 8 characters thru out the game. It makes some grinding to get your lower level characters up to snuff a must. Really bad decision by the designers on this part. I'm sure they did it to force you to mix your party up but it has the opposite effect. When I've got 4 real strong troops im less inclined to mix up the team and test things out. I'm only ever leveling and using those other troops up enough to just get past their story and keeping however man I can of my main 4. Just really bad decision making here. The game would really improve by xp sharing with your inactive members.
The visuals and music are great. Each character has their own theme music and I loved them. The game gets a lot of little things right it deserves a lot of credit for. There are 3 options for how to do cutscenes. press a button to continue after each dialog, continue on its own when the voice acting finishes, and an extra fast method that speeds up everything. You'll like be unable to read the messages as fast as they go. Probably not useful unless repeating after death or a second playthru. They are easily changed at any time. You can also increase the speed in battle to 2X. Thank you the game is long enough! Altho I do wish the 2x speed didn't effect messages mid battle. I did miss an important message in the final boss. When you open up your menu there is a healing options right there. No need to go into skills or magic or anything and find your characters with heals to use out of battle. Its just right there. There are others but thats good for now.
Overall great experience. Highly recommend. There are some more thoughts on the path abilities below but this is good for now. Enjoy!
This was some early thoughts I wrote down.
So far this game gets so many small things right. You can
make battle animations quicker, you can set dial boxes to do the standard RPG click when youre done reading, or automatically go to the next, or an extra fast speed without sound if you want to just read thru them quickly without the dialog. Just lots of little things like that that I love. I like emulating RPGs because I can make time run faster.
Once thing so far that has bugged me is out zoomed out your view is. I'd prefer it if the view was a little tighter so you could see the awesome sprites better. Also the map area map is too small. I've seen lots of complaints of that online. Just make everything a bit bigger. Not crazy but zoom us in some!
Combat system so far is good. I'm kind of tired of break combat systems. Square seems obsessed with them. Last couple games i've played from them have had it so its a little bit of a bummer to see it again here. The boost system is more unique and fun tho. I will say its not really a risk reward system tho its just all reward. You do have to use it strategically but it doesn't really leave you vulnerable.
So far i've loved all the characters. They all have unique personalities and play against some tropes. The cleric so far has been my favorite retelling of a cleric story. I can't wait to see where Osvalds story goes.
I am missing having a larger plot tho. So far every character has their own personal story and goal. I don't know if at some point everyone is unified with a common goal but i'm kind of hoping so. I'm still picking up characters but I hope and know that i'll see a shift after that. When I start advancing these beginning narratives with each character vs hunting out new ones.
Switching between day and night is a bread idea in theory but the way it works in this game is a little tiring. You get stronger monsters at night which is a nice touch but in towns it's annoying. I have different powers during the day and night and NPCs movr between the two. You basically have to go thru each town twice. During the day then at night while also using different powers. Less day/night would be better. It's used nicely here and there but ultimately its just too much.
First off. I have to note there is a save game destroying bug. Happened to me once over 20 hours in. It was impossible to recover my game. It was overwritten on steam and gone on the PC. Internet tells me this isn't a rare occasion. So be weary of that and make periodic backups of your saves. To get around this I used a cheat engine to auto win battles, increase movement speed, set levels.. that kind of stuff so I could shoot my back back to where I was. Took about 4.5 hours. Not great.. it wasnt' the only bug I encountered either. One of my attempts at the end boss barely failed but a core mechanic of the game just.. stopped working. I couldn't view turn orders or use a special ability you gain for the fight at all.
Octopath 2 has a great battle system. Its focused around breaking enemies and piling the damage on. I'll admit i'm getting tired of break systmes as square really seems to favor them lately but I still enjoyed the game quite a bit. Charging up your attacks feels good. Theres no much of a risk reward, its just choosing when to take your reward. A tweak to add more risk and thought would be nice but still overall a really good system. Each enemy has a set of weaknesses that will lower its break game. All 6 weapon types and all the magic possibilities.
Every character has their own class to improve in but can also equip a secondary class. Classes also determine the weapons you can use. There were points I felt a little held back by this. The balance of the game is done pretty well but daggers feel largely useless. They felt by far the rarest weakness an enemy could have. This made using a character with a main class dedicated to daggers difficult. You had to use secondary classes that would grant them better weapon options instead of choosing what fun abilities you could have.
I enjoyed all the characters and storyline. I had my favorites of course but they did a good job making sure each one was entertaining. Even some I wasn't that interested in sucked me in in their second chapter with some nice surprises. I will fault the character progressions. All of them seem to have flat progression arks. I would have loved to see some real progress instead of just the static characters. (The dancers story is the weakest and really kinda falls apart in its final chapter. In somewhat of a hilarious way tho. Like they gave up and just added some wackyness to it that does work)
Speaking of story tho. The game frames itself as over after you've finished all 8 story lines. Altho it doesn't roll credits which is an excellent choice. There is a second they call "more stories" or something along those lines. Its the actual end of the game. I wish they didn't frame it as extend content when it reframes the entire game and is the real ending. This is mandatory if you're going to really understand the story and game itself.
I do have a complaint with how EXP is handled. Only your active characters gain XP and JP. I'm not a fan of that type of xp system even in regular JRPGs when I may never use that character sitting inactive anyways. Give them half xp, something. In a game like this tho its much worse. You will be using all 8 characters thru out the game. It makes some grinding to get your lower level characters up to snuff a must. Really bad decision by the designers on this part. I'm sure they did it to force you to mix your party up but it has the opposite effect. When I've got 4 real strong troops im less inclined to mix up the team and test things out. I'm only ever leveling and using those other troops up enough to just get past their story and keeping however man I can of my main 4. Just really bad decision making here. The game would really improve by xp sharing with your inactive members.
The visuals and music are great. Each character has their own theme music and I loved them. The game gets a lot of little things right it deserves a lot of credit for. There are 3 options for how to do cutscenes. press a button to continue after each dialog, continue on its own when the voice acting finishes, and an extra fast method that speeds up everything. You'll like be unable to read the messages as fast as they go. Probably not useful unless repeating after death or a second playthru. They are easily changed at any time. You can also increase the speed in battle to 2X. Thank you the game is long enough! Altho I do wish the 2x speed didn't effect messages mid battle. I did miss an important message in the final boss. When you open up your menu there is a healing options right there. No need to go into skills or magic or anything and find your characters with heals to use out of battle. Its just right there. There are others but thats good for now.
Overall great experience. Highly recommend. There are some more thoughts on the path abilities below but this is good for now. Enjoy!
This was some early thoughts I wrote down.
So far this game gets so many small things right. You can
make battle animations quicker, you can set dial boxes to do the standard RPG click when youre done reading, or automatically go to the next, or an extra fast speed without sound if you want to just read thru them quickly without the dialog. Just lots of little things like that that I love. I like emulating RPGs because I can make time run faster.
Once thing so far that has bugged me is out zoomed out your view is. I'd prefer it if the view was a little tighter so you could see the awesome sprites better. Also the map area map is too small. I've seen lots of complaints of that online. Just make everything a bit bigger. Not crazy but zoom us in some!
Combat system so far is good. I'm kind of tired of break combat systems. Square seems obsessed with them. Last couple games i've played from them have had it so its a little bit of a bummer to see it again here. The boost system is more unique and fun tho. I will say its not really a risk reward system tho its just all reward. You do have to use it strategically but it doesn't really leave you vulnerable.
So far i've loved all the characters. They all have unique personalities and play against some tropes. The cleric so far has been my favorite retelling of a cleric story. I can't wait to see where Osvalds story goes.
I am missing having a larger plot tho. So far every character has their own personal story and goal. I don't know if at some point everyone is unified with a common goal but i'm kind of hoping so. I'm still picking up characters but I hope and know that i'll see a shift after that. When I start advancing these beginning narratives with each character vs hunting out new ones.
Switching between day and night is a bread idea in theory but the way it works in this game is a little tiring. You get stronger monsters at night which is a nice touch but in towns it's annoying. I have different powers during the day and night and NPCs movr between the two. You basically have to go thru each town twice. During the day then at night while also using different powers. Less day/night would be better. It's used nicely here and there but ultimately its just too much.