being a xenoblade fan is the jrpg equivalent of cult indoctrination, which is saying a lot because being a jrpg fan is like joining a cult in and of itself, so really it's like separating into an extremist faction of a larger cult that simultaneously infights at every given opportunity while taunting non-members for not finding Dunban "being over there" ticklingly hysterical even after the 167th time it's referenced in deeply brainrotted twitter circles.

I am allowed to say this and mean it endearingly because I am myself an unfathomably deranged xenoblade fan far beyond the brink of salvation. this game has irreparably changed me. I have been ruined. my brain is broken. I'm not sure it ever worked right, but my xenoblade fandom experience has ensured that it will always work wrong. otherwise innocuous terms such as "44 seconds" or "bestest" have pavloved me into laughing forever. when I see shulk take a bite of a sandwich and that bite does not animate on said sandwich, I emphatically applaud. the mere sight of Juju, a child whose only crime is loving his people, makes me black out with vitriolic rage. anytime I slice a hot knife through butter, I cry. anytime I walk on ice, I scream. when I check the time, all I see is Reyn's face on the clock - it is always Reyn time in my world now.

the other day around Reyn time (lunch) I was slicing open a bagel with a freshly sharpened serrated knife in order to make myself a toasted chicken salad sandwich. delicious. yum. bestest. unfortunately, the bagel slipped out from underneath my hand and I ended up slicing my own thumb instead. despite the alarmingly large amount of blood and even more abundant visceral pain, I luckily did not end up needing stitches. was I relieved? no. grateful? no. all that could cross my mind in that moment was that "your blade... it did not cut deep enough."

I mained Shulk competitively in super smash bros. for wii u because of my love and loyalty for this damned game. for those of you unfamiliar with Smash 4 - Shulk is booty buttcheeks doodoo dogass tier in Smash 4. he is fundamentally fucked. hopelessly hoed. maining Smash 4 Shulk is like marathon training for months only to tie a boulder to your ankle at the starting line, or maining Sharla in xenoblade 1. for four whole memorable-but-not-wonderful years I would mosey to local tournaments having extensively practiced my Arts Landing Lag Cancels and Monado B-Reversals and Purge 50-50s and Airslash Ledge Snaps (in AND out of Jump Art!) only to get utterly dicked and shitted and pissed and vomited on by some iron-deficient 14-year-old Kirby player who sucked the monado into his disgusting mouth hole and used Jump and Speed arts to Run The Fuck Away for 6 minutes. all that suffering to appease the cultish urge to remain steadfast in my xenoblade chronicles brainrot. peak fiction. I hate myself. I live for this game, and therefore want to die.

I am a shattered man. I come to you as a cautionary tale. I love xenoblade 1. it is a good game. some might call it a great one. I could even wager that it's a classic. but it is not worth a total fundamental collapse of the self. this game has significant faults that time has further illuminated. sidequests are trash. the game's third act is a disaster. characters have chemistry but very few have arcs. women don't exist in this game. why doesn't unfinished battle loop in that one fight. juju. I have heard it all. it is no longer cool or trendy or tasteful to praise xenoblade 1 as the jrpg bastion it once was.

I do not care. It is far too late for me to view this game objectively, yet I find I am more grateful to have loved a game to an extreme degree beyond objectivity even if it has cost me an entire lifetime of mental fortitude. I wish Dunban was my real dad and was "over there" instead of "forgetting me because of dementia." Riki eats your favorite jrpg mascot character for breakfast and still has time to canonically fuck his probably-smokin-hot-by-nopon-standards wife before lunch. expert worldbuilding dares to ask "what if we were all on A Guy and we climbed up his ass" and thats raw as fuck. expert OST dares to ask "what would it feel like if ears could cum" and then made my ears uncontrollably bust jumbo nut wads for over a decade running. I am one of the deranged freaks who mained Melia and therefore thinks the combat is Pretty Sick Actually. stop maining Shulk, losers. stop cradling that milquetoast monado like a security blanket and get in Melia's pain train, we're starlight kicking god in his Klaussy.

I don't care if this game is "overrated," or if i'm "scaring the hoes." I don't care if xenoblade 1 is "too anime" or "predictable" or "nonsensical" or "boring" or "not a replacement for proper nourishment." I love this game. I eat it up. I consume it in its totality - characters, world, combat, music, fandom, memes, merch, a decade of irreparably damaged culture and identity. like Shulk, it changed my future. Xenoblade Chronicles ruined my life, and I am forever thankful.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the definition of the word perfect

This game does everything it could have done right it did right and went beyond that. From the opening cutscene to the last frame of the credits this game is just a constant emotional ride.

The story and cast of this game are the best i've seen in a game. There is so much to be said about both the story and characters but i know someone else will do that and they will do it better than me so i will not go into it.

The gameplay is one of the big standouts from 3 aswell. I was worried for some aspects of it prelaunch but after actually playing the game it turned out to be perfectly smooth in all ways it could have been.

The open world of this game is brilliant too with it basically always having something for you to find and mostly not feeling padded out at all. All the quests you can find around the world genuienly feel like they were made with care and passion unlike the very repetitive sidequests of the previous games in the series.

This game really felt like the game Takahashi always wanted to make and which is why i believe there's probably never going to be a game like this one

It's late, you are sleepy and fighting an enemy; it is in the sky where you can't reach it, and suddenly you think, "Wait, what if I add a rocket to my shield? Will it get me there?". And it works. The physics and gameplay mechanics are there to give you total freedom. "Hey, these are the rules; use them". Do you want to lateral-think your way through a shrine without solving the puzzles? "Here is your Light of Blessing sir, I hope you enjoy it!"

The number of possibilities for making your way through Hyrule is infinite. Connecting with the mechanics is so rewarding and connects you to the world in a way that no open-world game has achieved. It just feels real.

Hyrule... In Breath of the Wild, it was the first contact for me and for LInk, as he had lost his memories. But now, we both know the kingdom, the paths, the mountains, etc. And the game knows it, in a way. There is always something waiting for you in a special place you remember from Breath of the Wild. The game always rewards that "I remember a shrine quest here" moment. Breath of the Wild allowed you to recover your memories about Hyrule, and Tears of the Kingdom uses those memories to bring you back to your previous adventure as you enjoy the new one. "The best way to make things travel through time is to make them remember".

It was in a Game Score Fanfare video that I saw the idea that Breath of the Wild is a story of redemption. Zelda and Link were meant to defeat Ganon a hundred years before the start of the game, but they failed. And, as you discover more about the game, you can see what this failure would mean to Zelda, given how afraid she was of not being worthy. The war was lost, and the flourishing kingdom is now in ruins. Link's goal is just to become stronger to finally defeat Ganon. To do what they couldn't, to pay their debt to the kingdom.

Tears of the Kingdom, instead, is a story about cooperation. As an unknown mystery threatens the kingdom, people are organizing themselves. Search and rescue, monster control, research groups...  All the effort Zelda has put into rebuilding the kingdom after the destruction has paid off. Link can be a fine swordsman and may be able to go into the sky or down into the abyss, but he is not an archeologist, and he is not able to understand the ancient ruins. He needs help, this is now about working together to solve the mystery. Your bombs are replaced with a tool that allows you to build whatever you want, because, at this time, rebuilding is more important than destroying.

But the game does not shine during the main quest; it shines when interacting with the locals. Finding the princess is important, but helping a small town debate between tradition, progress, and falling under the sharp claws of capitalism is more important. Helping people who have lost their homes, bringing fireflies to someone who wants to surprise a friend... The joy of the small things, the beauty of the ordinary. In the end, real heroes are the ones who dedicate their time to making others lives better. Nothing more, nothing less.

Everybody has their own problems, preoccupations, and struggles. Playing a video game is not going to make them go away, of course. But during the time you are exploring Hyrule, you are so immersed that you just forget for a moment about them. That's the power of videogames. Maybe that Nintendo ad was not wrong after all.

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.

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😩

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.