While it feels a touch disingenuous to leave a negative review for a chunky game like Octopath after only ten hours, what I've seen in those ten hours was enough to convince me it wasn't cutting it (again).
If you are someone whose main criticism of Octopath 1 was something along the lines of: "The characters don't interact, and have nearly zero reason for teaming up with each other," then I'm here to tell you it's much the same. It would have been comical when aspiring merchant Partitio joins up with warrior Hikari on his quest for vengeance had it not been so stupid. Even better when hometown dancer Agnea joins the fray when her goal is to become a star performer.
The foundations of friendships and alliances in Octopath was always its achilles heel. No one is here to question its techical capability, so when such an obvious flaw (and one so vocally criticised!) is seemingly ignored like this, and the only notable changes thus far have been to combat I'm left feeling lukewarm.
I'm rarely satisifed by more of the same in media, so when a promising game like Octopath had a real shot at improving critical flaws with it's structure and characters I jumped at the chance to see it do so. Sadly however, it hasn't learned from its mistakes, and I'm not willing to roll the dice on another four individual stories of potentially wildly varying quality for forty hours.
If you are someone whose main criticism of Octopath 1 was something along the lines of: "The characters don't interact, and have nearly zero reason for teaming up with each other," then I'm here to tell you it's much the same. It would have been comical when aspiring merchant Partitio joins up with warrior Hikari on his quest for vengeance had it not been so stupid. Even better when hometown dancer Agnea joins the fray when her goal is to become a star performer.
The foundations of friendships and alliances in Octopath was always its achilles heel. No one is here to question its techical capability, so when such an obvious flaw (and one so vocally criticised!) is seemingly ignored like this, and the only notable changes thus far have been to combat I'm left feeling lukewarm.
I'm rarely satisifed by more of the same in media, so when a promising game like Octopath had a real shot at improving critical flaws with it's structure and characters I jumped at the chance to see it do so. Sadly however, it hasn't learned from its mistakes, and I'm not willing to roll the dice on another four individual stories of potentially wildly varying quality for forty hours.
10 Comments
@Radin0007
While I’m sure extra stories where the party actually have reason to interact would be fun, it’s not at all enough for me. My main gripe with Octopath is and was always a lack of any real reason for these people to be together in the first place, beyond the games need for them to do so. Anything that comes after thus starts on the wrong foot.
While I appreciate discussion, I much rather you don’t come at me with accusations of ignoring gameplay mechanics I did not know existed. It’s pretty clearly stated I only played ten hours and it that time I never got one of these join up stories—maybe if you tried mentioning it nicely and outline why you think it fixes my problems with the game we could get somewhere.
While I’m sure extra stories where the party actually have reason to interact would be fun, it’s not at all enough for me. My main gripe with Octopath is and was always a lack of any real reason for these people to be together in the first place, beyond the games need for them to do so. Anything that comes after thus starts on the wrong foot.
While I appreciate discussion, I much rather you don’t come at me with accusations of ignoring gameplay mechanics I did not know existed. It’s pretty clearly stated I only played ten hours and it that time I never got one of these join up stories—maybe if you tried mentioning it nicely and outline why you think it fixes my problems with the game we could get somewhere.
i feel like thats just an inherent issue with open rpgs that have ensemble casts where you choose the main character and your enjoyment of that type of game can really just depend on whether you care particularly strong about that one aspect or not. imo if you look past it the other issues the original had (which are a lot) all got a lot more attention because it was a lot more feasible to address them while still making a game like this but also as someone who loves games like these when theyre done well i completely understand it not being for everyone
@Papa_B
My apologies, I didn't wish to come off as rude or jump to conclusions but the crossover chapters appear on the map as soon as you get the duo required so I just assumed you were not taking them into account.
Personally I believe that the Duo stories are some of the best or if not the best part of the sequel, especially Osvald and Partitio's storyline together (I just love both of them so much).
These crossover storylines also lead to some great character development that otherwise couldn't be done with just their own storylines alone.
My apologies, I didn't wish to come off as rude or jump to conclusions but the crossover chapters appear on the map as soon as you get the duo required so I just assumed you were not taking them into account.
Personally I believe that the Duo stories are some of the best or if not the best part of the sequel, especially Osvald and Partitio's storyline together (I just love both of them so much).
These crossover storylines also lead to some great character development that otherwise couldn't be done with just their own storylines alone.
@junie
As someone who has pretty much only played Octopath in that space of RPGs I'd assumed it was problem specific to it, and that being the case, was something the team might address here. Going by what you say It makes a bit more sense then, that they don't want to mess too much with an inherent formula fans of the genre enjoy.
Still, I can't help but wish there was a middle ground they could come to. But not every game can be for everyone.
Hope you continue to enjoy!
As someone who has pretty much only played Octopath in that space of RPGs I'd assumed it was problem specific to it, and that being the case, was something the team might address here. Going by what you say It makes a bit more sense then, that they don't want to mess too much with an inherent formula fans of the genre enjoy.
Still, I can't help but wish there was a middle ground they could come to. But not every game can be for everyone.
Hope you continue to enjoy!
@Radin0007
It's all good =)
I guess I just got unlucky then with where I started on the map, because after getting the four western travellers in my party I hadn't seen any pop up.
It's good to hear the crossovers are satisying, maybe one day I'll revisit it if the urge strikes.
Hope you continue to enjoy the game ^_^
It's all good =)
I guess I just got unlucky then with where I started on the map, because after getting the four western travellers in my party I hadn't seen any pop up.
It's good to hear the crossovers are satisying, maybe one day I'll revisit it if the urge strikes.
Hope you continue to enjoy the game ^_^
it's less of a general rpg thing and more just this type of rpg, which admittedly i can't think of many other than SaGa and live a live so i dont think its a huge thing in a modern sense outside of octopath, so completely fair to initially assume its just an octopath thing. they definitely addressed it in 2 way more than those games ever did (whether that be to hardware restraints or game direction), its just hard to keep the games structure and fix it directly outside of what they do in 2 without limiting the character writing to give all 8 characters similar enough motivations that they'd all reasonably go with each other which i 100% understand turning most people off, i just personally think that the crossover chapters mixed with the characters (mostly partitio and the eastern continent cast tbh) being a lot stronger individually makes up for it
@Papa_B
Ahh... That's totally understandable then, one of the most interesting pairings are from the western continent (Agnea and Hikari) but their duo story doesn't seem to appear for a while.
Anyway I appreciate you being respectful about this, I hope whenever you do give the game another chance you enjoy it much more.
Ahh... That's totally understandable then, one of the most interesting pairings are from the western continent (Agnea and Hikari) but their duo story doesn't seem to appear for a while.
Anyway I appreciate you being respectful about this, I hope whenever you do give the game another chance you enjoy it much more.
I played three-quarters of the first Octopath (the first three chapters for each character). The completionist in me wanted to finish it but the gamer in me never felt compelled to. I'm disappointed to hear this is just more of the same. They're fun games but feel overly long at 60+ hours.
I kept hearing that supposedly this game is better in every way but having just finished OT1 I do not want to go through the same sort of gameplay and story I encountered. I needed to see this review to ground me away from trying it because I don't want to end up just skipping the gameplay only to be heavily disappointed again.
Robin0007
1 year ago