I'm happy to say this is one of the best JRPGs from the last few years.
Initially, I was a bit skeptical of how much marketing they kept placing on assuring everyone that the characters interacted. I didn't want to play 80 hours of a game just to see characters chiming in for every event because every other JRPG does it so poorly already... While the game does include new two-person chapters for some interaction, they are usually just extended party banter with little to no combat and only a few chapters. They have also added a final chapter to tie in all the solo and partner chapters, while also giving you a proper final boss and a nice little epilogue. What a final boss it was too, the mechanic was very unique and I wish more games attempted it. Sadly it was a bit too easy and died quickly. Of course, there is still a super boss to attempt, and I'm glad to say it's still doable with little to no grinding if you prepped well.
The new additions to Octopath 2 greatly improved some of the frustrating parts of the original. Gone is every story consisting of 1-4 chapters done in the exact same order with the almost formulaic "get to town, press path action, do dungeon, beat boss." Now, depending on the story, you can have multiple routes to tackle in any order, some having optional routes and others just varying in length compared to the strict 4 chapters. Some don't even have a dungeon or boss fight, adding some needed variety. Dungeons in general are similar to the previous game, but the number of them appears to have been reduced. Chests are also hidden a bit more both inside and outside dungeons, which I appreciated because there are still barely any puzzles. The overworld exploration is even better here, with a lot more odd places that end up hiding secrets. I played the game as 4 and 4 and got my boat (also new to the series) on the second playthrough, making that party even more enjoyable because there were so many new areas for me to explore.
Each character's story quality seems to have gone up as well, as I don't remember caring for half of them in the previous game. With the exception of Castti's, I was immediately engrossed in all of the stories here. My favourites have to be Partitio's easily and Osvald. The sleeper hit has to go to Agnea, who I initially thought would be the worst one. Speaking of the worst character, we lost Ye Olde English and in return got a Catgirl. Her story is nice, but I just can't stand the character at all. Just as before, each story does tie together at the end, with some of them being very obvious in their chapters.
Now for the main reason these games are sick, the combat is just amazing. There have been tweaks to each job, while some of the characters are way more enjoyable to use throughout your journey. For example, H'aanit was pretty annoying to use in the first game due to your captures having limited uses. You ended up needing to constantly catch your favourites or just stockpile them. In Octopath 2, your captures are permanent, and you can enable auto capture, which gives you a 25% chance of capturing the monster every time you kill it with Ochette. This really reduced a lot of the tedium for me and made me actually want to use her. A lot of other jobs have been changed too, like thief, hunter, and scholar. In addition, each character now has a couple of EX skills that are unique to them. Half of these are scattered around the world as shrines to find, whereas in the first game, these shrines were what gave you access to subjobs. Subjobs in Octopath 2 are instead learned by finding their respective guilds and meeting certain requirements if you want multiple characters to use the same job. They have also added a new latent gauge to each character which pretty much functions like a limit break with some insane synergies. Each character now has an additional path action depending on the time of day, giving you a lot more variety in how you choose to build your teams. My favourite part has to be the new buffed talents, such as warrior and rogue. Hikari is great for warriors in particular because you can now learn skills based on who you challenge & defeat, giving you even more freedom in teambuilding, though I do wish there was a bit of QOL in being able to remember old skills. It feels like they really went above and beyond to ensure each character is unique rather than just being able to use any character with a subjob for minimal difference.
The gameplay is largely the same as the first game, with you leveling up throughout the journey at a nice pace. Even playing through with the reduced random encounters, you will easily stay on level. I'm not sure how grinding complaints ever arose when you have to work really hard to stay under-leveled, and even then, levels don't really matter. I could see needing to grind if you truly fucked up your skill selections for random sub jobs. I was able to get nearly every possible skill in every job with every character here due to secret job changes. Random encounters this time do feel a bit easier, but I think that's mostly because you can get the secret job way earlier than in the first game. This is because the four secret jobs now aren't just boss fights like before, which does make me a bit sad because we miss out on a music track that was one of the best in the original. I did appreciate the variety in how you acquired the secret jobs, but I still felt like they should have added 1 or 2 more bosses for them.
The only criticism I have is that they have yet to address the only issue with the first game. Your first character is still locked to your party until you complete their story. I really wish this wasn't the case because it leads to over-leveling, as in the first game, or resorting to 4 and 4, as I did here.
I'm so delighted this ended up being everything I wanted and more. Team Asano is quickly becoming my favourite JRPG developers just for their consistent level of quality, and the amount of freedom they allow for combat. I'm even more excited to play Triangle Strategy, as I heard it has a good amount of challenge for the entire playthrough and I enjoyed the demo. I might even give Various Daylife a shot on the offchance it is good. I cannot wait for the next game made by this team.
Initially, I was a bit skeptical of how much marketing they kept placing on assuring everyone that the characters interacted. I didn't want to play 80 hours of a game just to see characters chiming in for every event because every other JRPG does it so poorly already... While the game does include new two-person chapters for some interaction, they are usually just extended party banter with little to no combat and only a few chapters. They have also added a final chapter to tie in all the solo and partner chapters, while also giving you a proper final boss and a nice little epilogue. What a final boss it was too, the mechanic was very unique and I wish more games attempted it. Sadly it was a bit too easy and died quickly. Of course, there is still a super boss to attempt, and I'm glad to say it's still doable with little to no grinding if you prepped well.
The new additions to Octopath 2 greatly improved some of the frustrating parts of the original. Gone is every story consisting of 1-4 chapters done in the exact same order with the almost formulaic "get to town, press path action, do dungeon, beat boss." Now, depending on the story, you can have multiple routes to tackle in any order, some having optional routes and others just varying in length compared to the strict 4 chapters. Some don't even have a dungeon or boss fight, adding some needed variety. Dungeons in general are similar to the previous game, but the number of them appears to have been reduced. Chests are also hidden a bit more both inside and outside dungeons, which I appreciated because there are still barely any puzzles. The overworld exploration is even better here, with a lot more odd places that end up hiding secrets. I played the game as 4 and 4 and got my boat (also new to the series) on the second playthrough, making that party even more enjoyable because there were so many new areas for me to explore.
Each character's story quality seems to have gone up as well, as I don't remember caring for half of them in the previous game. With the exception of Castti's, I was immediately engrossed in all of the stories here. My favourites have to be Partitio's easily and Osvald. The sleeper hit has to go to Agnea, who I initially thought would be the worst one. Speaking of the worst character, we lost Ye Olde English and in return got a Catgirl. Her story is nice, but I just can't stand the character at all. Just as before, each story does tie together at the end, with some of them being very obvious in their chapters.
Now for the main reason these games are sick, the combat is just amazing. There have been tweaks to each job, while some of the characters are way more enjoyable to use throughout your journey. For example, H'aanit was pretty annoying to use in the first game due to your captures having limited uses. You ended up needing to constantly catch your favourites or just stockpile them. In Octopath 2, your captures are permanent, and you can enable auto capture, which gives you a 25% chance of capturing the monster every time you kill it with Ochette. This really reduced a lot of the tedium for me and made me actually want to use her. A lot of other jobs have been changed too, like thief, hunter, and scholar. In addition, each character now has a couple of EX skills that are unique to them. Half of these are scattered around the world as shrines to find, whereas in the first game, these shrines were what gave you access to subjobs. Subjobs in Octopath 2 are instead learned by finding their respective guilds and meeting certain requirements if you want multiple characters to use the same job. They have also added a new latent gauge to each character which pretty much functions like a limit break with some insane synergies. Each character now has an additional path action depending on the time of day, giving you a lot more variety in how you choose to build your teams. My favourite part has to be the new buffed talents, such as warrior and rogue. Hikari is great for warriors in particular because you can now learn skills based on who you challenge & defeat, giving you even more freedom in teambuilding, though I do wish there was a bit of QOL in being able to remember old skills. It feels like they really went above and beyond to ensure each character is unique rather than just being able to use any character with a subjob for minimal difference.
The gameplay is largely the same as the first game, with you leveling up throughout the journey at a nice pace. Even playing through with the reduced random encounters, you will easily stay on level. I'm not sure how grinding complaints ever arose when you have to work really hard to stay under-leveled, and even then, levels don't really matter. I could see needing to grind if you truly fucked up your skill selections for random sub jobs. I was able to get nearly every possible skill in every job with every character here due to secret job changes. Random encounters this time do feel a bit easier, but I think that's mostly because you can get the secret job way earlier than in the first game. This is because the four secret jobs now aren't just boss fights like before, which does make me a bit sad because we miss out on a music track that was one of the best in the original. I did appreciate the variety in how you acquired the secret jobs, but I still felt like they should have added 1 or 2 more bosses for them.
The only criticism I have is that they have yet to address the only issue with the first game. Your first character is still locked to your party until you complete their story. I really wish this wasn't the case because it leads to over-leveling, as in the first game, or resorting to 4 and 4, as I did here.
I'm so delighted this ended up being everything I wanted and more. Team Asano is quickly becoming my favourite JRPG developers just for their consistent level of quality, and the amount of freedom they allow for combat. I'm even more excited to play Triangle Strategy, as I heard it has a good amount of challenge for the entire playthrough and I enjoyed the demo. I might even give Various Daylife a shot on the offchance it is good. I cannot wait for the next game made by this team.