When the first Octopath game came out in 2018, it rocked my world. Even when the reception of the game online seemed very mixed, I couldn't help falling in love with the stellar orchestrated soundtrack composed by Yasunori Nishiki and the refined job and battle system that seemed to blow classic JRPG battle mechanics out of the water. The soundtrack in particular was a formative set of compositions that I showed to all of my friends, and to this day we perform arrangements of the pieces in our string ensembles. Even back then I acknowledged the game's narrative shortcomings, but I craved the game's lore and worldbuilding nonetheless. The endgame, while poorly explained and hidden behind minor sidequests, provided infodumps that captivated me. I itched to learn more about Orsterra's gods and minor bosses, optimized battle equipment sets and secondary classes, and the OST, including the wonderful Break and Boost Arrangements, was on repeat in my Spotify playlists. My love for this game is linked to my identity as a musician, and I can tell there's love and passion oozing out of every bit of this game's dynamic musical design. As I'm typing this, I'm sitting across from my shelf of vinyl records containing the Octopath Traveler Recorded Journey record alongside my various pop and rock records. Honestly, even if every other part of the octopath games were shit, I would still eat them up if they have soundtracks this good.
I'm thrilled to see the internet treat Octopath 2 more kindly than its predecessor, even if it makes me scratch my head a little. In my opinion, Octopath 2 is a marginal improvement on nearly every mechanic introduced in the original. Key word: marginal. Because I loved nearly every bit of the first game, I happened to love the second game a little more in every way. But it confuses me nonetheless when I see countless posts talking about how this game was such a big step up from the first.
Combat mechanics of the break and boost system are the same at their core - there are no new weapons or elements. OT2 added latent powers, overhauled concoct and beast lore, added use cases for summoned NPCs, added EX skills, added warrior skills, and did some overall balancing with the moveset of pre-existing jobs. We got just as many hidden jobs as before, but all of them feel like nerfed versions of the hidden jobs in OT1 except for inventor. This sounds like a lot, and all of these changes (except for removing warmaster smh) do improve combat. But not by much. The bread-and-butter setups are still there, you just need to tinker your level of micromanagement.
Individual characters' stories were always hit or miss, and that hasn't changed here. Hikari is just as much of a piece of cardboard as Olberic was, and Agnea's connection to the main story is just as irrelevant as Tressa's. Osvald's story starts strong but fizzles out with a laughably cliché villain, Castti's amnesia trope is also painfully cliché, and Ochette's story is bogged down by her one-note writing. I think the real standout story for me in OT2 is Throné's. It starts out as a combination of Primrose and Therion's stories from OT1 (they were my favorites from the first game) but unlike other stories in the series, after the predictable villain is defeated, the plot takes a huge left turn into unforeseen territory. The themes her story set up led perfectly into the dark twist, and I always love seeing this kind of stuff in JRPGs. Character dialogue and writing suffers just as much as it did in OT1, with the added benefit of not having to listen to H'aanit's fake old english accent. Each line of dialogue sounds like it was recorded on a separate studio day, and the writing of the dialogue is way too formal. These cracks show even more in OT2 given its more modern post-industrial setting. I have a feeling a big reason why the dialogue feels so unnatural is because each line is a separate recording in a separate speech bubble, which is required so the player can press the A button to advance dialogue at their will. It's customary of classic SNES-era JRPGs, but those games didn't have voice acting, so it wasn't a problem.
Crossed Path stories were an attempt to fix the most common point of criticism, which was that characters didn't interact outside of flavor text, but these chapters have very little substance or meaning until the buildup to the final boss. Temenos and Throné did feel like an awesome dynamic duo, though, so it was still fun to see their expanded banter. They're a welcome addition but I won't pretend like they fixed the problem.
While the Octopath games clearly draw heavy inspiration from 16-bit classic JRPGs, my wish is for the series to let go of a lot of those standards in order to grow. I want more seamless dialogue and deeper character writing, full uninterrupted cutscenes, more pretty camera angles (I still like the HD-2D visual style though), more jobs a la Bravely Default, less predictable story chapters, more party interactions...just more everything!
Complaints aside, the fact that OT1 even got a sequel is thrilling. While I don't think OT2's improvements are nearly as significant other people say, it won't stop me from coming back to New Delsta to hear that sweet marimba melody.
pleasedroptheOSTonspotifypleasemakeanewbreak&boostarrangementsalbumpleeeeeaaaaaseeeee
I'm thrilled to see the internet treat Octopath 2 more kindly than its predecessor, even if it makes me scratch my head a little. In my opinion, Octopath 2 is a marginal improvement on nearly every mechanic introduced in the original. Key word: marginal. Because I loved nearly every bit of the first game, I happened to love the second game a little more in every way. But it confuses me nonetheless when I see countless posts talking about how this game was such a big step up from the first.
Combat mechanics of the break and boost system are the same at their core - there are no new weapons or elements. OT2 added latent powers, overhauled concoct and beast lore, added use cases for summoned NPCs, added EX skills, added warrior skills, and did some overall balancing with the moveset of pre-existing jobs. We got just as many hidden jobs as before, but all of them feel like nerfed versions of the hidden jobs in OT1 except for inventor. This sounds like a lot, and all of these changes (except for removing warmaster smh) do improve combat. But not by much. The bread-and-butter setups are still there, you just need to tinker your level of micromanagement.
Individual characters' stories were always hit or miss, and that hasn't changed here. Hikari is just as much of a piece of cardboard as Olberic was, and Agnea's connection to the main story is just as irrelevant as Tressa's. Osvald's story starts strong but fizzles out with a laughably cliché villain, Castti's amnesia trope is also painfully cliché, and Ochette's story is bogged down by her one-note writing. I think the real standout story for me in OT2 is Throné's. It starts out as a combination of Primrose and Therion's stories from OT1 (they were my favorites from the first game) but unlike other stories in the series, after the predictable villain is defeated, the plot takes a huge left turn into unforeseen territory. The themes her story set up led perfectly into the dark twist, and I always love seeing this kind of stuff in JRPGs. Character dialogue and writing suffers just as much as it did in OT1, with the added benefit of not having to listen to H'aanit's fake old english accent. Each line of dialogue sounds like it was recorded on a separate studio day, and the writing of the dialogue is way too formal. These cracks show even more in OT2 given its more modern post-industrial setting. I have a feeling a big reason why the dialogue feels so unnatural is because each line is a separate recording in a separate speech bubble, which is required so the player can press the A button to advance dialogue at their will. It's customary of classic SNES-era JRPGs, but those games didn't have voice acting, so it wasn't a problem.
Crossed Path stories were an attempt to fix the most common point of criticism, which was that characters didn't interact outside of flavor text, but these chapters have very little substance or meaning until the buildup to the final boss. Temenos and Throné did feel like an awesome dynamic duo, though, so it was still fun to see their expanded banter. They're a welcome addition but I won't pretend like they fixed the problem.
While the Octopath games clearly draw heavy inspiration from 16-bit classic JRPGs, my wish is for the series to let go of a lot of those standards in order to grow. I want more seamless dialogue and deeper character writing, full uninterrupted cutscenes, more pretty camera angles (I still like the HD-2D visual style though), more jobs a la Bravely Default, less predictable story chapters, more party interactions...just more everything!
Complaints aside, the fact that OT1 even got a sequel is thrilling. While I don't think OT2's improvements are nearly as significant other people say, it won't stop me from coming back to New Delsta to hear that sweet marimba melody.
pleasedroptheOSTonspotifypleasemakeanewbreak&boostarrangementsalbumpleeeeeaaaaaseeeee