The way I'm going to review this is from the POV of a guy who had already played this game 5 years ago, enjoyed it just as much then, and decided to go from Easy to Hard for this particular playthrough, after waiting just as long to play the OG SMT IV for... some reason. For anyone who wants my thoughts on base IV, a review of the game in question is sequestered hence within my profile.

I'll frontload this review with a few quick, minor complaints - primarily the existence of compendium premiums for resist/null passives (one of my favourite ways to play SMT games to this day, and a type of skill I'd argue is just as, if not more important, than buffs), and a few other daft skill distribution decisions (iirc the earliest level you get any buff or debuff is Angel at Level 12-15 or so). So going through some of the early areas, you're liable to get your shit kicked in. I ended up dropping the difficulty for Fusion and Compendium purposes, because otherwise you're forking out about 170k+ for mid-Lv. 40ish mons with resist passives, whilst waiting for the best relic spots to respawn.

What do I like about this game?
...Yeah, well... EVERYTHING ELSE.

Once you get over the minor skill optimisation hiccups, when battles start giving you momentum, they REALLY give you momentum. While you could argue that the reworked Hama/Mudo spells are a bit of an overcorrection from base IV, given their coverage, I... honestly fail to care (especially what they can do vs hordes, and how Smirking was handled here). And (I know this isn't gameplay, but it certainly helps) it's partnered with honestly my favourite regular battle OST in the entirety of SMT (before anyone asks, DDS2 isn't far behind).

QUICK EDIT: something I neglected to mention was that on the overworld, you actually have an idea of where the hell you're going this time. QoL and all that.

Now, let's touch on the story and characters. "There's too much power of friendship!" So I've heard. "It's not nuanced or fleshed out enough!" (even though base IV's approach to the topic was kinda :kek:).

OK, and?

For one, I fundamentally disagree with the lack of nuance. For as much as I'd love to deconstruct individual examples (Danu remaking Dagda, and a lot of aspects of the Divine Powers come to mind), I'd argue that this is one of the better narratives in the series, and I do mean that. And yes, my BOI Hallelujah is a personal channel mascot of mine for a reason.

Something else I want to tip my hat to before we end off, and one thing I don't think people give Apoc' enough credit for, is how genuinely funny this game is. Dagda is a no-nonsense middle finger to existence that I actually find genuine refreshing, not to mention Xander Mobus capturing his personality so well I'd make the claim it's among his best, if not his best, voice work. Yes, even better than Joker, Stocke, or even DBa Superman. It's damn close to my favourite, that's for certain. I also caught myself laughing for minutes on end at stuff like Navarre getting brutally roasted (ftr: I disagree with Nam's Compendium that his character only 'existed for jokes at his expense' or whatever, mostly for reasons of ludonarrative dissonance (him being one of the best partners from a gameplay standpoint) as well as Sean Chiplock sounding like he was having a lot of fun playing the role).

I'll admit I didn't have as much to say about this game as I thought I would. But all's fair in love and war, I suppose.

The art is beautiful! The battle system is (mostly) good! The music is stunning! But it's all ruined because the story is awful with no resolution because it's a prequel for absolutely no reason, and the characters are awful and generally unlikable. The two main characters are default Good GuyTM archetypes with absolutely no soul, and their best friend that the game desperately wants you to care about is just a generic nice guy. The story stumbles over itself and fails at a base level, and I can't understand why people praise this game as if it's better than the things it's pulling inspiration from. This game could of been a genuine classic if the person writing it understood even the most basic elements of writing an engaging story with likable characters, and that's what hurts the most. It genuinely drags down every other aspect of an overall decent game.

This is the game of my life, i love everything (maybe not Mementos?), i just love the art, the UI, the characters, the story, the music in this game was what dictated my musical taste throughout my life, is the better OST i've ever heard (and i played Nier). I can't express the love I feel for this game.

I know it's stupid from an objective point of view, but I find this version so much more exciting than the Royal one.

That's it, I just wanted to express how much I love this game, it took me from rock bottom in the worst phase of my life, that's all.

"The characters only have a few conversations with each other!" pop quiz, in no fewer than 200 words describe the fleshed out and engaging relationships between Garrus and Liara or Astarion and Wyll

"It's so grindy!" unironically skill issue, sorry the combat system expects you to learn it instead of brute forcing the entire game with Big Number

"The stories and characters are boring!" you are not worthy to be a worm in the dirt upon which Primrose Azelhart walks

Okay, so I've been militant about this game as like... 5-10% a joke for years. In seriousness, I can acknowledge it's a flawed gem, especially now that it has a sequel that absolutely transcends it.

But I love the anthology-style story, as uneven as the characters are some of them (see above) are great, the artstyle and especially the music should be the stuff of legends, and the Octopath combat system is simply my favorite for a pure RPG, all time. It has a ton of depth but it's also so punchy and bombastic, the sound design alone on the break and boost mechanics is satisfying on an almost indecent level. There's no dopamine rush quite like fighting a group of enemies, systematically wearing down their shields so that they all break on the same turn, and vaporizing them with a fully-boosted AoE spell. It's a system that's tense and challenging and asks a lot of you strategically, and at the same time routinely makes you feel like a wrathful god if you use all the tools at your disposal and meet those demands. Absolutely peak.

The worst thing you can say about Octopath Traveler is that it's not Octopath Traveler II, but that's a devastatingly cruel comparison to make for most games.

Contains probably the most believable being found in the medium so far, and I think that's worth a lot. The game is built around you understanding it and it understanding you, and it achieves this with an elegant mix of writing and game design. The story is intelligently presented; it's beautiful and moving---perhaps moreso than Ueda's other games.

And while it gets scale and detail right, with a vertigo-inducing world of towers and dilapidated ruins, it can feel like a series of puzzle rooms at times. A less contrived or even slower sense of progression would have been more welcome in my view, as its instances of stillness and idle behaviour were among my favourite moments.

Common complaints about this game seem to align with a common idea of what a good game is (smooth, responsive, agreeable), but the ways in which this game underperforms, or performs in an unconventional way, all strike me as either artistic choices or technical bargains that preserve or enhance what the game is doing that is exceptional. It's imperfect to be sure, but it achieves something no other game has and still feels ahead of its time.