Despite being far from perfect and having a lot of room for improvement, Octopath Traveler is a fascinating game. I wouldn't recommend it to everyone, as this game is mainly aimed at fans of more classic JRPGs, with all that implies, such as turn-based battles and random encounters. Still, it's not a game worth playing just for that nostalgic factor alone, but it's pretty good on its own merits, and being honest, I think I've found what is one of my favorite games.
Let's start by talking about the main appeal of the game, and that is the fact that we have 8 protagonists, each with their own path and journey to go on. The game gives you a choice of which story you want to start with first, and after finishing a short prologue with that character, you can explore the map to meet the other travelers and recruit them to your party. The character you choose first will become the party leader for the rest of the game, this serves as a balancing measure, as the fact that you always have that specific character in your party means that you somehow always have a strong character that can deal with tough enemies such as those above your level.
As such, each of the characters represents a typical RPG class, such as the mage, the cleric, the thief, the knight, etc. But what Octopath Traveler does to distinguish its characters from each other is by giving them exclusive abilities, each character is unique and has their own gimmick both in and out of battles, for example, H'aanit has the predefined hunter class, which gives her the ability to unlock useful support and attack abilities, but she also has the exclusive ability to challenge villagers to fight against them in towns and additionally the ability to capture monsters in battle, which serves to summon monsters and use their special moves. This is further expanded with the class system that makes the characters even more versatile by allowing them to access the classes of the other travelers, so the fact that everyone has their own unique ability is something I like, but still the game is permissive enough to not make a specific character indispensable in battles thanks to the class system itself, so any combination of characters in your party can be completely viable.
First of all, the gameplay of this game is excellent, it builds on the foundations of classic turn-based combat gameplay, but expands and modernizes it by adding unique risk-reward elements that add a lot of depth to the combat, it's simply amazing. The game is driven by the boost system, which serves to make the attack or ability you perform in one turn have the effectiveness of 2 or more turns depending on how many points you use, it's quite similar to the tension system of DQVIII and DQIX (just to make a quick comparison), only much more flexible and taken to another level. Also, another system that the game implements is to "break" your enemies, which is achieved by attacking them in their weak point until their shield indicator is "0", when this is achieved, you can take 2 turns away from the enemy, besides making him more vulnerable to all kinds of attacks. These two systems together make Octopath Traveler's combat system extremely fun and engaging, as well as satisfying, as it rewards the player's ingenuity and is very versatile which allows you to experiment with all kinds of strategies, as you can approach battles either by playing the traditional way, focusing on applying buffs to your party and applying debuffs to your enemies, or on the other hand, focusing on exploiting the weaknesses of your enemies, or even with a combination of both approaches. One of my favorite classes was the merchant, because it has the ability to donate boost points to other characters during combat and makes strategizing even more fun, because if you play well, most normal battles are over in 1 or 2 turns.
The game gives you a LOT of tools to get through combat, ranging from items you can steal/buy from villagers or find in the myriad of chests scattered around the maps, and there are even support abilities that can help you narrow down the range of random battles quite a bit. On that note, I like how Octopath Traveler really cares about making your experience as smooth as possible, as there are even save points scattered around at key points, such as before entering caves/dungeons and before any boss fights. I really like how incredibly well balanced this game is. Still, I can see less experienced players in the genre thinking that this game is very difficult and requires a lot of grinding. But even so, I was sometimes able to be in many fights where the recommended level was above my own, and I always tried to make it so because I liked the increase in difficulty that comes with it.
Even with all the good things, this game does not save itself from having some defects to highlight, for example, in each chapter the characters can have conversations with each other, similar to the party chat of DQ7, the detail here is that to get these dialogues you must take certain members in your party at specific times that the game never tells you, I had to guide me with this post to know which characters to take, and even so it is a drag that to change the members of your party you always have to go to a tavern. I think it's a big mistake that the interactions between the party are guarded in this way.
Speaking of the structure of the game, it is somewhat monotonous, as it consists of arriving at a town, starting the story of a character, watching cutscenes, defeating the dungeon and its boss and continuing in the same way with the other chapters, even so, I do not see this as something bad, as the game is not linear and allows you to approach the stories and explore the map in any order, although I think it is something that could be improved by making more variations to this structure.
The world of Octopath Traveler is large, as there is quite a lot of optional content such as dungeons and side quests, but still, I feel that in this section sometimes the game focuses more on offering quantity over quality, for example, on the map there are a lot of caves that are totally optional, You would think that completing them would reward you with a very useful weapon or something like that, but the truth is that most of the time the items you can get from these places are not that useful, being more useful the same items you can get by stealing/buying from NPCs.
At the end of the last chapters the game has post-game content with a good length, which gives closure to the stories of some of the secondary characters, besides having some secret bosses of high difficulty and 4 secret advanced jobs that will be necessary for the super-boss, which speaking of the super-boss, this one is very difficult, which I did not like, because although it is not essential, it is advisable to face it because it unveils a lot of relevant background to the history of each of the protagonists. The side quests are pretty generic most of the time, so it's surprising to learn that there's a side quest that unlocks the game's super boss and the hardest battle. I didn't entirely like this, as there is a lot of story-relevant information that is unveiled in this side mission, plus the battle song is great. I think it would have been better to have made this the final chapter of all the stories and made the boss a bit easier.
And of course, the graphic style is excellent and somewhat novel. If you like the pixel art that the SNES/PS1 games had, you'll love the art style of Octopath Traveler. It's a weird mix of pixel art and realistic high-fidelity effects, but it's quite well done and together they add a lot to the immersion by giving more depth and detail to the environments in this way. In my opinion, it revives and gives another chance to the pixel art style in current games, as it looks quite familiar, but at the same time modern enough for current standards. It's like seeing an evolution of the art style that games like Dragon Quest VII or Xenogears had on PS1, as it combines pixel art textures with 3D structures, this game in particular achieves the look of a diorama that looks pretty good.
Another thing to highlight about this game is its soundtrack, one might think that it would be in a 16-bit style like pixel art or synthesized, but no, each piece is made with real instruments, and this time the composer Yasunori Nishiki delights us with a soundtrack of extremely high quality. Without a doubt my favorite themes have to be the boss battles, both the first and the second are fantastic, so much so that I simply couldn't help but get goosebumps every time there was a boss battle. But there are other themes that also fascinate me because of how atmospheric they are, like the ones that sound when you explore the forests or the icy areas. Without a doubt there are a lot of quality songs, which show that the composer really made an effort not only to create melodies that are pleasant to listen to, but that also portray the personality of the game, because for example, the theme of each character encapsulates the personality of each one that is almost as if their themes had been composed for them and no one else, in the case of Ophilia, her theme captures that tenderness and kindness that the character has, while Therion's theme conveys very well her loneliness and affliction.
Finally, speaking of the 8 stories that the game has in store, each one is good, some have a somewhat slow pace, but each one ends up being a good story with interesting themes and characters. The bad thing, is that each story is disconnected with all the others, that is to say, when you are inside the chapter of one of the main characters, the other 7 will not have any kind of participation and in general, no story is related to the others. Somehow, by the end I felt a lot of attachment with each character and each of the stories resonated with me. If I had to mention my favorite stories, they would be Alfyn, Therion, Ophilia and Olberic, although I really like the others as well.
Conclusion
This game is important. In a time where even Dragon Quest wants to leave aside the traditional JRPG structure, it is comforting to see a game that stands up to the rest and reclaims styles from the past that are not necessarily "outdated" as many believe, but are simply another style of game that many of us still enjoy and want to continue to see. Octopath Traveler presents classic systems, but modernized with original mechanics and better balanced, with a unique pixel art visual style when nowadays almost any company wants to leave that style in oblivion.
I think what the development team did for classic JRPGs and pixel art games is to be admired, because thanks to Octopath Traveler games like Triangle Strategy, Live A Live Remake or Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake can exist. This game not only serves as a tribute to the classic era of the genre, but is original enough to be considered its own thing.
Let's start by talking about the main appeal of the game, and that is the fact that we have 8 protagonists, each with their own path and journey to go on. The game gives you a choice of which story you want to start with first, and after finishing a short prologue with that character, you can explore the map to meet the other travelers and recruit them to your party. The character you choose first will become the party leader for the rest of the game, this serves as a balancing measure, as the fact that you always have that specific character in your party means that you somehow always have a strong character that can deal with tough enemies such as those above your level.
As such, each of the characters represents a typical RPG class, such as the mage, the cleric, the thief, the knight, etc. But what Octopath Traveler does to distinguish its characters from each other is by giving them exclusive abilities, each character is unique and has their own gimmick both in and out of battles, for example, H'aanit has the predefined hunter class, which gives her the ability to unlock useful support and attack abilities, but she also has the exclusive ability to challenge villagers to fight against them in towns and additionally the ability to capture monsters in battle, which serves to summon monsters and use their special moves. This is further expanded with the class system that makes the characters even more versatile by allowing them to access the classes of the other travelers, so the fact that everyone has their own unique ability is something I like, but still the game is permissive enough to not make a specific character indispensable in battles thanks to the class system itself, so any combination of characters in your party can be completely viable.
First of all, the gameplay of this game is excellent, it builds on the foundations of classic turn-based combat gameplay, but expands and modernizes it by adding unique risk-reward elements that add a lot of depth to the combat, it's simply amazing. The game is driven by the boost system, which serves to make the attack or ability you perform in one turn have the effectiveness of 2 or more turns depending on how many points you use, it's quite similar to the tension system of DQVIII and DQIX (just to make a quick comparison), only much more flexible and taken to another level. Also, another system that the game implements is to "break" your enemies, which is achieved by attacking them in their weak point until their shield indicator is "0", when this is achieved, you can take 2 turns away from the enemy, besides making him more vulnerable to all kinds of attacks. These two systems together make Octopath Traveler's combat system extremely fun and engaging, as well as satisfying, as it rewards the player's ingenuity and is very versatile which allows you to experiment with all kinds of strategies, as you can approach battles either by playing the traditional way, focusing on applying buffs to your party and applying debuffs to your enemies, or on the other hand, focusing on exploiting the weaknesses of your enemies, or even with a combination of both approaches. One of my favorite classes was the merchant, because it has the ability to donate boost points to other characters during combat and makes strategizing even more fun, because if you play well, most normal battles are over in 1 or 2 turns.
The game gives you a LOT of tools to get through combat, ranging from items you can steal/buy from villagers or find in the myriad of chests scattered around the maps, and there are even support abilities that can help you narrow down the range of random battles quite a bit. On that note, I like how Octopath Traveler really cares about making your experience as smooth as possible, as there are even save points scattered around at key points, such as before entering caves/dungeons and before any boss fights. I really like how incredibly well balanced this game is. Still, I can see less experienced players in the genre thinking that this game is very difficult and requires a lot of grinding. But even so, I was sometimes able to be in many fights where the recommended level was above my own, and I always tried to make it so because I liked the increase in difficulty that comes with it.
Even with all the good things, this game does not save itself from having some defects to highlight, for example, in each chapter the characters can have conversations with each other, similar to the party chat of DQ7, the detail here is that to get these dialogues you must take certain members in your party at specific times that the game never tells you, I had to guide me with this post to know which characters to take, and even so it is a drag that to change the members of your party you always have to go to a tavern. I think it's a big mistake that the interactions between the party are guarded in this way.
Speaking of the structure of the game, it is somewhat monotonous, as it consists of arriving at a town, starting the story of a character, watching cutscenes, defeating the dungeon and its boss and continuing in the same way with the other chapters, even so, I do not see this as something bad, as the game is not linear and allows you to approach the stories and explore the map in any order, although I think it is something that could be improved by making more variations to this structure.
The world of Octopath Traveler is large, as there is quite a lot of optional content such as dungeons and side quests, but still, I feel that in this section sometimes the game focuses more on offering quantity over quality, for example, on the map there are a lot of caves that are totally optional, You would think that completing them would reward you with a very useful weapon or something like that, but the truth is that most of the time the items you can get from these places are not that useful, being more useful the same items you can get by stealing/buying from NPCs.
At the end of the last chapters the game has post-game content with a good length, which gives closure to the stories of some of the secondary characters, besides having some secret bosses of high difficulty and 4 secret advanced jobs that will be necessary for the super-boss, which speaking of the super-boss, this one is very difficult, which I did not like, because although it is not essential, it is advisable to face it because it unveils a lot of relevant background to the history of each of the protagonists. The side quests are pretty generic most of the time, so it's surprising to learn that there's a side quest that unlocks the game's super boss and the hardest battle. I didn't entirely like this, as there is a lot of story-relevant information that is unveiled in this side mission, plus the battle song is great. I think it would have been better to have made this the final chapter of all the stories and made the boss a bit easier.
And of course, the graphic style is excellent and somewhat novel. If you like the pixel art that the SNES/PS1 games had, you'll love the art style of Octopath Traveler. It's a weird mix of pixel art and realistic high-fidelity effects, but it's quite well done and together they add a lot to the immersion by giving more depth and detail to the environments in this way. In my opinion, it revives and gives another chance to the pixel art style in current games, as it looks quite familiar, but at the same time modern enough for current standards. It's like seeing an evolution of the art style that games like Dragon Quest VII or Xenogears had on PS1, as it combines pixel art textures with 3D structures, this game in particular achieves the look of a diorama that looks pretty good.
Another thing to highlight about this game is its soundtrack, one might think that it would be in a 16-bit style like pixel art or synthesized, but no, each piece is made with real instruments, and this time the composer Yasunori Nishiki delights us with a soundtrack of extremely high quality. Without a doubt my favorite themes have to be the boss battles, both the first and the second are fantastic, so much so that I simply couldn't help but get goosebumps every time there was a boss battle. But there are other themes that also fascinate me because of how atmospheric they are, like the ones that sound when you explore the forests or the icy areas. Without a doubt there are a lot of quality songs, which show that the composer really made an effort not only to create melodies that are pleasant to listen to, but that also portray the personality of the game, because for example, the theme of each character encapsulates the personality of each one that is almost as if their themes had been composed for them and no one else, in the case of Ophilia, her theme captures that tenderness and kindness that the character has, while Therion's theme conveys very well her loneliness and affliction.
Finally, speaking of the 8 stories that the game has in store, each one is good, some have a somewhat slow pace, but each one ends up being a good story with interesting themes and characters. The bad thing, is that each story is disconnected with all the others, that is to say, when you are inside the chapter of one of the main characters, the other 7 will not have any kind of participation and in general, no story is related to the others. Somehow, by the end I felt a lot of attachment with each character and each of the stories resonated with me. If I had to mention my favorite stories, they would be Alfyn, Therion, Ophilia and Olberic, although I really like the others as well.
Conclusion
This game is important. In a time where even Dragon Quest wants to leave aside the traditional JRPG structure, it is comforting to see a game that stands up to the rest and reclaims styles from the past that are not necessarily "outdated" as many believe, but are simply another style of game that many of us still enjoy and want to continue to see. Octopath Traveler presents classic systems, but modernized with original mechanics and better balanced, with a unique pixel art visual style when nowadays almost any company wants to leave that style in oblivion.
I think what the development team did for classic JRPGs and pixel art games is to be admired, because thanks to Octopath Traveler games like Triangle Strategy, Live A Live Remake or Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake can exist. This game not only serves as a tribute to the classic era of the genre, but is original enough to be considered its own thing.