octopath traveler was generally a game that I didnt grow enamored of granted I actually finished it even through all the fucking grinding and shit like that SO I may say that I liked it somehow
the HD 2D kinda of aesthetic kickstarted a lot of games that I do enjoy… namely live a live and thats it but that's still a feat . mixing high quality 2d pixel art and 3d environments with a lot of lighting tricks with unreal engine 4 made the game absolutely breathtaking to look at . the gameplay was also interesting for what it was a nice follow up to the raw combat system in bravely default with some incredible variety in classes and customisation and the story department was also kind of interesting dividing it in 8 parts and each telling a different story it was just incredible . until it was not due to 40 hours of grinding but that's another story
now I'm pretty happy to tell you people that all the issues I had with the original were addressed improved and expanded for a game that actually could shit in the mouth of its predecessor and leave it in a ditch if it weren't for the fact that octopath 1 still can boast the best storyline between the 2 games which is the one of primrose nothing can come close to that if you ask me thats a 10/10 and I wont even argue with people who don't think so too
let's get started with everything apart from the story since I know myself and I'm gonna get into heavy spoiler territory
listening to this again actually made me bawl my eyes out im sorry i got chills through my spine and i started crying i dont even like octopath 1 that much idk why that happened
most important part I had an issue with in the first game was the gameplay aspect and let me tell you people in the audience this game's gameplay is absolutely insane
largely the skeleton of the gameplay was kept the same as the original: its a traditional jrpg where you level up go through all the entirety of the world to get some new mates for your journey here and there listen to their story battle a lot and explore the shit out of every nook and cranny but the experience was enhanced to hell and back
the main combat is still fun as shit you can use that option to do a x2 x3 x4 enhancement of the action you will take or guard or attack to get more points or whatever this is fun and also makes for a great deal of strategising here and there where you can get 30.000 points of damage like nothing happened
so yeah whatever that's the main gimmick the other stuff is usual jrpg combat stuff PLUS the job system every single character has a class and unique abilities that you can use in battle and this also was present in the original one but got really upgraded to accommodate more interesting mechanics and not make some classes completely useless PLUS you can get a second class and really explore the incredible customization of this game also theres some new special classes which are really interesting and shrines here and there that can unlock special skills for each traveler and guilds to unlock new secondary jobs
that being said this is the combat now the other parts of the game actually concentrate on exploring and doing shit in the overworld here and there and when I tell you that after getting all the characters I spent like 40 hours just exploring and do dungeons I was so overlevelled that the chapter requirements were like LVL 15 and hikari was LVL 70 I went absolutely crazy I entered a trance like state and woke up with everyone getting 60 more levels whatever
so my main issue with the first game was 1) the incredibly slow leveling up 2) the super boring exploration 3) the tiring usage of characters abilities when interacting with NPCs and while not really a gameplay element 4) the samey dungeons
issue addressed you can level up pretty fast and with the new time mechanic you can generally travel the world during nighttime to make you level up faster (I basically had the night toggled all the time) so I could actually not kill myself this time
everywhere in the world map theres something to explore and it rewards your exploration sense and there's literally stuff to do in every corner side quests (they're still boring but they're something) challenging and interesting dungeons new towns to visit and literally chests on chests on chests
the skills of each character are still boring because you have to use them over and over again to steal get informations have steamy sex with someone and then use them in battle BUT since this game has the day and night thing at least theres some nuance to using particular skills for the day and others for the night do whatever
the designs of the dungeons for the original one were like 5 and reused for the entirety of the game this time theres a SHIT TON of different dungeons that have such a distinct feeling from one another so were so happy to be here
that being said we can talk about art design
this game is beautiful no point to argue about that and possibly even better than the first one in both art design art direction 3d environments and sprites theres literally NO bad sprite in this game and let's talk about boss sprites because those one are incredible im gonna talk about them during the route parts later you can't escape from hornyposting
in the first game those were usually just pngs moving a little to emulate movement but this time they actually have different sprites for different animations and thats cool as fuck I can remember vividly the mother in thrones route doing a gorgeous whipping animation and probably other stuff that I don't remember I played this some time ago I always take too long to make reviews
so anyway yeah every single part of the game is a painting the animation is great the towns and dungeons are filled to the brim with details and as I said the dungeons and also battle backgrounds are way way way better and diverse and I'm really happy about this
the music is also the one of the best parts of the entire experience but I don't have to be the one to tell you since octopath 1 had a lot of videos about the transitions between character themes and boss battles themes and YEAH theyre good as shit but wait a second I need to point out at least my fav themes or else I will explode
tempest on the battlefield was the very first song I heard in my experience with this game and it stuck with me so much so that I was always thinking about it in my playthrough and every time it would show up again I would cum all over my room I love this theme so fucking much its unreal I'm so glad I chose hikari
side note every single character theme is great (ochettes perfect) but they get taken down by square super fast so it's pointless to give you a link just listen to the ultra compilation
normal battle III is the one that makes me sweat more out of the 3 themes and the combo of electric guitar and strings was purposefully made to make me orgasm so I cannot do anything else but surrender
critical clash I is probably my fav ones of the two and it's really just because it's more heavy tone and has so many different vibes thrown into it and the beat is fucking sick and the string is fucking sick and the song is fucking sick
i unironically listen to fierce confrontation everyday dont @ me
so whatever all the songs are sick just listen to the illegal soundtrack online or play the game the fuck
so I guess it's time to talk about stories so here's my completely unbiased opinion in a handy tierlist
Tier S
Ochette (10), Hikari (9.5), Castti (9)
Tier A
Osvald (8.5)/Temenos (8.5)
Tier B
Throné (8)/Partitio (8), Agnea (7.5)
Ex
Ochette x Castti > Hikari x Agnea > Temenos x Throné > Osvald x Partitio
numbers don't mean anything it was just a way to keep track while playing what stories I liked more than the others
for this I'll also talk about each characters ost so you can check them here in this mega ost stuff thing and talk about them from best to worst be advised that the ones on the bottom aren't to be considered as BAD I just needed to make a tierlist and some of them would've to be in the bottom
so there's gonna be spoiler talk so SPOILER WARNING youre advised
OCHETTE
starting with ochette i can tell you that shes absolutely my fav character out of the entirety of the cast every time she says がお I cry like a fucking bitch she's funny and charming and goofy but also definitely a sweetheart at core and cares for everybody so i was already biased to begin with but her story is such a fucking blast from start to finish and has some of the most interesting tropes I see in videogames
as a hunter I also had so much fun playing with her also BECAUSE she can capture basically every single enemy and use their unique skills in battle and when I tell you at one point in the game I captured the mega shark or whatever I was basically living my best life with an assured 9999 damage once per battle
ochette comes from a village of half beasts that inhabit a forest in an island and shes also the successor of the head of this clan who funnily enough is a fucking lion that talks whatever so shit happens and they find out there's gonna come a red moon and its gonna bring destruction and the rebirth of something something evil and thats it
IMPORTANT ! at the beginning of her route the head clan will ask you to choose between either an owl OR a … fox ? what's akala ? I think he's a fox but also I think he's HOT AS FUCK LIKE umg sorry maybe I should not say that here ok anyway hes really the best choice of the 2 since people told me the owl acts as a younger sister and akela acts as an older brother and im really … interested in this relationship like umh …. yeah
so whatever semi beasts are also fighting for their land against a bunch of humans trying to take this land from them whatever not important the important thing is to contrast the red moon war flashbacks of botw and anyway you have to get the 3 sacred beasts back to the main land and do shit and then you get like 3 chapter 2 for each beast thats cool as fuck I mean due to levels differences probably you will get the recommended order but apart from that so cool
the sea guardian made me cry even if the quest has zero tension since no boss battles its cool anyway the volcano guardian made me horny … sorry and has a super bomb design and boss battle and the ice guardian also made me cry and also has an incredible boss battle I really like every single one of these chapters honestly
then you get back to the main land and the guardians all gather while the red moon arises you fight with hordes of monsters until you face the beast that you left behind in the beginning of the story and now its up to ochette to give them a good ending … IM SORRY THIS IS TOO MUCH I LOVE THIS ROUTE SO DEARLY I CRIED LIKE A BITCH AT THAT FINAL ENDING I HAD GOOSEBUMPS ALL OVER UGHHHHHHH THIS GAME ISTG
anyway since I chose akala instead of mahina I had to face mahina and it was damn fucking epic but I gotta say that feral akala is kinda hot im sorry I should say these things here alright
anyhow ochette saves the day everyone is happy the sexy lion boss says ochette is gonna be the next head of the tribe and the humans say alright we're gonna stop this war between us or something and then the end
I loved this route from beginning to end there was no dead moment every single chapter was packed back to back back to back thats fucking absurd ok anyway moving on or else I'm gonna stay here forever
HIKARI
hikari was my choice as the protagonist and I couldn't be happier being a warrior I was already interested in getting him super buffed for some incredible damage each turn and WHAT THE FUCK he's a BEAST after you get the arms master class he's basically your main character for damage he's gonna get some incredible numbers after you remove the 9999 cap and he's also a hunk to boot im absolutely free and I could suck your dick all day long if you want hikari hmu
as a warrior you can guess whats gonna happen and 2 seconds in his route he gets in a battlefield with my FAVORITE SOUNDTRACK PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND UGHHHHHH I was already hooked I had no chance but Stan
after that shit you get a tale of betrayal between a royal family hikari is the successor of the current king of land of ku until his brother succeeds in a regicide and he's left to just run away
this was a great beginning for his story really full of hype I cannot really say that this hype will be up for the entire route theres some boring events here and there with hikari recruiting some people and the pacing gets back up probably when you have to get the girl from the other clan like that's probably where the events begin to unravel faster but this all pays out when you get to the final confrontation
here and there hikari will get delusions and voices in his head due to a homicidal other personality which is like due to his cursed blood or something so yeah when you get to battle against your brother its also gonna be a battle against hikaris self and shit so whatever this was really emotional and I ended up having goosebumps all throughout the final boss which was also the FINAL boss of all the routes I did so it was an incredible conclusion of the journey if you ask me
also can I say that hikaris brother is kinda hot like in particular his demon form
CASTTI
cassti is a weird case since I wasn't really vibing with her entire plotline until really late in the route not because it was bad but because I really didn't get what it was going to be
her being a whats the name ….. I don't remember the name in english ok anyway speziale is really half the character since she cares for others really tries her best to put people first and herself second and thats something in common with alfyn but the thing is alfyn was extremely hot and tempting and she is kind of an enigmatic character also due to the fact that her story revolves around her memory loss issues and shit like that so
slowly you begin to realise that she actually was part of a big group of potion people I still dont remember the name and after the chapter of the mother and daughter YKNOW THE ONE GOD FUCK LOED UGHHHHH I CRIED SO MUCH DAMN you realise that the girl who kept on following her and was allegedly one of her companions was a actually just her delusion and in reality the group of people she was a boss of was already dead and that point all my hair fell off everything made sense and my life and heart were completely ruined I hate this game with a passion
you get to know theres another herb user guy who just goes around spreading death because he's like omg why the fuck are we helping people out if they're gonna die anyway let's just kill all of them which is honestly kind of a weird statement to say but I guess it does make sense for the character whatever anyway cazzi goes there and says actually I didn't say this but I call her cazzi because it means dicks in italian and its pretty similar sounding to cassti moving on she battles with this guy saves the day and she's left with absolutely nothing but loneliness and the dread of recovering her entire memory and realising her companions all vanished from her life and so the team said ok let's just give them some more reason to cry and put her theme which is already sad as fuck and put an illustration of her surrounded by ghosts of her mates who the fuck im sorry
great story possibly my fav one in terms of how much mental distress it gave me 9/10 deserved
no hunks here unfortunately but the legion head guy sounds kinda hot yknow the one
OSVALD
osvald is such a weird contrast from what the cyrus route was in the first game there cyrus was actually treated almost like a prince he just fucks around all day being surrounded by chicks and studies everything in his damn books and then here ? they made osvald and said ok we are gonna put this guy through hell literally we are gonna ruin his life so much hes gonna be pitiful throughout the game and so scarred that the most character interactions he'll have they're gonna be pointing out him being silent af
this route begins with osvald making an escape from prison and this was caused by his bestie who he thought was genuinely sharing his knowledge for a research but was actually just trying to exploit him to take possession of the research and then just push him aside burning his house down killing his wife and daughter and then getting him arrested and put in jail honestly what a fucking master plan my guy that being said after escaping the entire route concentrates on giving more context to the relationship between this guy and dio brando which is kind of an homosexual relationship like the one jojo and dio have so it's all good and then just pursuing this guy all around the land until you discover that osvalds daughter actually alive and being mindbroken by dio so you go there and open his ass apart and everything is good until osvald just decides to live his little girl behind like why would you do that I'm sorry but anyway I still want to suck your dick … osvald please give me your junk I cannot do this anymore
anyway this route is kind of a mess but in a good sense I love how much they make osvald suffer im sorry if that sounds controversial teehee siamo ragazzi
I love men
TEMENOS
temenos is don matteo but japanese its literally that italian fiction but in a videogame if you for some reason know what I'm talking about you will get the reference that being said this is temenos just having a lot of gay sex
while ophilia was the pure and humble character you would expect from a religious figure temenos acts as an absolute contrast from that design he's shrewd he's malicious and he's cunning and all these are actually good aspects of his personality he's really a sight to behold since the religious person being actually fat from the canonic stereotype of the usual religious figure is one of the most interesting tropes around if you ask me
being a priest or something from a small town he lives his life as a town figure until obviously hell breaks and he has to cooperate with fellow knight creek to solve a political intrigue with some ties to cultist shit
now the investigative sequences were cool as fuck but what was actually cooler is the fact that temenos and creek have such a great chemistry like every time temenos calls creek little lamb you can really feel the sexual tension skyrocket I'm not even joking yall these 2 fuck and they fuck pretty hard while the hometown girlie friend of temenos gets cucked to hell and back
so whatever since square enix said too much homosexuality they killed creek and honestly I'm pretty mad about it since I wouldve honestly liked to suck his dick after the final battle but alright so anyway temenos goes to the guild master or whatever fucks her up and avenges her boyfriend back the end
interesting not too shabby
THRONÉ
femme fatale throné has some of the weirdest plot twists in history and I genuinely am still confused at what happened in her story but anyway
shes from a guild of thieves where orphans are trained into full-fledged ATTENZIONE PICKPOCKET and shit like that and the main figures are mother and father now throné at one point realises shits going down in this guild due to the fact that his bestie aka possible lover got killed (by her lmao) and so she goes on a quest to murder both father and mother
apart from mother being absolutely batshit crazy you can tell that father was actually the more full-fledged character since he got a damn good backstory if I do say so myself and thats like the highest point of the route for me like killing her father is something that reminded me of primrose so alls good
after that she has to follow leads to get to her real father which you find out is not only in a hidden village in the sky that you can only get with a whats the name in english whatever funivia and when you get there the huge plottwist is that his father is alucard castlevania and fucked a lot of human women for reasons ? so whatever you go there and fuck him up
now being a carbon copy of alucard he's pretty hot and I gotta say he also has one of the greatest boss sprites in the game so that's fine my real issue is that there was no foreshadowing to this ? like idk if I missed something but I don't think there's any reason to think that this plottwist has any sense in the plotline since the route was going completely elsewhere until chapter 4 but whatev3r I digress
still a great route and also the first one I finished so I had a good time with it
PARTITIO
now partitio is probably my favorite character of the bunch after ochette he's charismatic he's upbeat energetic and hunky hot and intelligent cunning and good willed and I am still looking for him on rule34 until I get satisfied
so why is he in the bottom mmmmm im not really a fan of the merchant stories in octopath traveler tressa was interesting but nowhere near some other routes in that game and the premise of yeah I do business usually falls flat for me since there's not gonna be a lot of plottwists or intrigue for a foundation like this one
you follow partitio since his childhood and his father's quest to build a village from zero after some sick timeskip you realise that 1) partitio became hot as fun 2) the village was completed 3) they are knee deep in debt so it's up to partitio to seek the one responsible to this which was also the business companion of his father
so yeah after some business ™ and really chill route progression you get to the ISLAND yeah the guy bought an island and fuck him up or better youre gonna fuck his locomotive up????? shits crazy I tell you what the hell
whatever you beat him you do some more business ™ and everyone's happy now that partitio is on top of his company and also on top of me god bless the end
this route is cool the side quests where you get the boat and shit are interesting and break the pace of the route but still it's not that much of a great route as I wanted it to be partitio as a character carried the route entirely and I still enjoyed my time with it anyway
partitio I'm single please
AGNEA
agnea is my third favorite character and it's pretty funny to me how both her and partitio are among the best characters and are both on the bottom
now before somebody comes for my neck no I don't think this route is bad in fact I think every single route in this game is delicious but of course someone had to be put in the bottom or else it wouldn't be a tierlist
maybe im biased by the fact that I wanted this to reach the same highs as primroses route but of course it would've not been possible and thats probably why they opted for another type of storyline entirely
agnea is a free spirited happy little girl with an incredible passion and talent for dancing and singing like her mother something that his father doesn't approve but of course in the hand he accepts that and its probably the most beautiful part of the route I cried like a fucking bitch at the end of the prologue and during the finale probably because an accepting father is something I don't have HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHQ LAUGH
so whatever she wants to travel the world and compose a song so here we go (she's not only very similar to tressa but also has similar motives as tressa) all around the world getting pieces and pieces
after this it's a total blank to me the route is pretty chill and steady throughout to the point that I fell asleep during the circus guys thing whatever anyway main antagonist is another dancer singer diva whatever and shes bad because plot so you fuck her up metaphorically in the final battle and boom agnea is the new diva everyones happy the end
now putting the story like this you understand how laid back it is compared to the other routes and its a shame since she's such a beautiful character I love her so dearly
idk the end
CROSSED PATHS
these ones was a great addition they put some cool ideas here and there and seeing the pairs interact was pretty interesting but its so weird how ochette and cassti are absolutely above every other
TRAVEL TALKS
i read every single one of them i went fucking crazy I love every and each one of them
SIDE QUESTS
they suck
POST GAME / FINAL QUEST
for me the finale was a big slip up in the original octopath traveler due to the fact that It was 90% retconning and infodumping on wall of texts that made me think that i wouldve just reread umineko entirely instead
now this is actually not really different but it felt more streamlined since they didn't make me fucking fight against every single boss in the game again and there's still some degree of infodump through notes but it's less than the first one so yeah whatever
the plot is not as thick as they'd like to make you believe since it's just some loose ends that they left in the main game and they connected them together also recontextualizing some characters like mindt being evil ? right whatever
that being said the lead up to the final boss was actually kind of intriguing and the final boss in itself is kind of both tough and visually stunning they hinted for vide to be the end boss and here we go its still a nice fight if you ask me
the epilogue made me a bit teary eyed I gotta say and seeing all the characters interact make for a great conclusion to this tale
i hate postgames
SECRET BOSS
i hate galdera
CONCLUSIONS
I came in my pants
the more I thought about this game and the more I loved about it not only because of the game itself but also how they managed to make such a great fucking sequel to a game that I felt was flawed in every single way and it managed to keep me returning to it every single day for the span of like 80 hours this game is fucking insane ochette get the adoption papers we're going home
the HD 2D kinda of aesthetic kickstarted a lot of games that I do enjoy… namely live a live and thats it but that's still a feat . mixing high quality 2d pixel art and 3d environments with a lot of lighting tricks with unreal engine 4 made the game absolutely breathtaking to look at . the gameplay was also interesting for what it was a nice follow up to the raw combat system in bravely default with some incredible variety in classes and customisation and the story department was also kind of interesting dividing it in 8 parts and each telling a different story it was just incredible . until it was not due to 40 hours of grinding but that's another story
now I'm pretty happy to tell you people that all the issues I had with the original were addressed improved and expanded for a game that actually could shit in the mouth of its predecessor and leave it in a ditch if it weren't for the fact that octopath 1 still can boast the best storyline between the 2 games which is the one of primrose nothing can come close to that if you ask me thats a 10/10 and I wont even argue with people who don't think so too
let's get started with everything apart from the story since I know myself and I'm gonna get into heavy spoiler territory
listening to this again actually made me bawl my eyes out im sorry i got chills through my spine and i started crying i dont even like octopath 1 that much idk why that happened
most important part I had an issue with in the first game was the gameplay aspect and let me tell you people in the audience this game's gameplay is absolutely insane
largely the skeleton of the gameplay was kept the same as the original: its a traditional jrpg where you level up go through all the entirety of the world to get some new mates for your journey here and there listen to their story battle a lot and explore the shit out of every nook and cranny but the experience was enhanced to hell and back
the main combat is still fun as shit you can use that option to do a x2 x3 x4 enhancement of the action you will take or guard or attack to get more points or whatever this is fun and also makes for a great deal of strategising here and there where you can get 30.000 points of damage like nothing happened
so yeah whatever that's the main gimmick the other stuff is usual jrpg combat stuff PLUS the job system every single character has a class and unique abilities that you can use in battle and this also was present in the original one but got really upgraded to accommodate more interesting mechanics and not make some classes completely useless PLUS you can get a second class and really explore the incredible customization of this game also theres some new special classes which are really interesting and shrines here and there that can unlock special skills for each traveler and guilds to unlock new secondary jobs
that being said this is the combat now the other parts of the game actually concentrate on exploring and doing shit in the overworld here and there and when I tell you that after getting all the characters I spent like 40 hours just exploring and do dungeons I was so overlevelled that the chapter requirements were like LVL 15 and hikari was LVL 70 I went absolutely crazy I entered a trance like state and woke up with everyone getting 60 more levels whatever
so my main issue with the first game was 1) the incredibly slow leveling up 2) the super boring exploration 3) the tiring usage of characters abilities when interacting with NPCs and while not really a gameplay element 4) the samey dungeons
issue addressed you can level up pretty fast and with the new time mechanic you can generally travel the world during nighttime to make you level up faster (I basically had the night toggled all the time) so I could actually not kill myself this time
everywhere in the world map theres something to explore and it rewards your exploration sense and there's literally stuff to do in every corner side quests (they're still boring but they're something) challenging and interesting dungeons new towns to visit and literally chests on chests on chests
the skills of each character are still boring because you have to use them over and over again to steal get informations have steamy sex with someone and then use them in battle BUT since this game has the day and night thing at least theres some nuance to using particular skills for the day and others for the night do whatever
the designs of the dungeons for the original one were like 5 and reused for the entirety of the game this time theres a SHIT TON of different dungeons that have such a distinct feeling from one another so were so happy to be here
that being said we can talk about art design
this game is beautiful no point to argue about that and possibly even better than the first one in both art design art direction 3d environments and sprites theres literally NO bad sprite in this game and let's talk about boss sprites because those one are incredible im gonna talk about them during the route parts later you can't escape from hornyposting
in the first game those were usually just pngs moving a little to emulate movement but this time they actually have different sprites for different animations and thats cool as fuck I can remember vividly the mother in thrones route doing a gorgeous whipping animation and probably other stuff that I don't remember I played this some time ago I always take too long to make reviews
so anyway yeah every single part of the game is a painting the animation is great the towns and dungeons are filled to the brim with details and as I said the dungeons and also battle backgrounds are way way way better and diverse and I'm really happy about this
the music is also the one of the best parts of the entire experience but I don't have to be the one to tell you since octopath 1 had a lot of videos about the transitions between character themes and boss battles themes and YEAH theyre good as shit but wait a second I need to point out at least my fav themes or else I will explode
tempest on the battlefield was the very first song I heard in my experience with this game and it stuck with me so much so that I was always thinking about it in my playthrough and every time it would show up again I would cum all over my room I love this theme so fucking much its unreal I'm so glad I chose hikari
side note every single character theme is great (ochettes perfect) but they get taken down by square super fast so it's pointless to give you a link just listen to the ultra compilation
normal battle III is the one that makes me sweat more out of the 3 themes and the combo of electric guitar and strings was purposefully made to make me orgasm so I cannot do anything else but surrender
critical clash I is probably my fav ones of the two and it's really just because it's more heavy tone and has so many different vibes thrown into it and the beat is fucking sick and the string is fucking sick and the song is fucking sick
i unironically listen to fierce confrontation everyday dont @ me
so whatever all the songs are sick just listen to the illegal soundtrack online or play the game the fuck
so I guess it's time to talk about stories so here's my completely unbiased opinion in a handy tierlist
Tier S
Ochette (10), Hikari (9.5), Castti (9)
Tier A
Osvald (8.5)/Temenos (8.5)
Tier B
Throné (8)/Partitio (8), Agnea (7.5)
Ex
Ochette x Castti > Hikari x Agnea > Temenos x Throné > Osvald x Partitio
numbers don't mean anything it was just a way to keep track while playing what stories I liked more than the others
for this I'll also talk about each characters ost so you can check them here in this mega ost stuff thing and talk about them from best to worst be advised that the ones on the bottom aren't to be considered as BAD I just needed to make a tierlist and some of them would've to be in the bottom
so there's gonna be spoiler talk so SPOILER WARNING youre advised
OCHETTE
starting with ochette i can tell you that shes absolutely my fav character out of the entirety of the cast every time she says がお I cry like a fucking bitch she's funny and charming and goofy but also definitely a sweetheart at core and cares for everybody so i was already biased to begin with but her story is such a fucking blast from start to finish and has some of the most interesting tropes I see in videogames
as a hunter I also had so much fun playing with her also BECAUSE she can capture basically every single enemy and use their unique skills in battle and when I tell you at one point in the game I captured the mega shark or whatever I was basically living my best life with an assured 9999 damage once per battle
ochette comes from a village of half beasts that inhabit a forest in an island and shes also the successor of the head of this clan who funnily enough is a fucking lion that talks whatever so shit happens and they find out there's gonna come a red moon and its gonna bring destruction and the rebirth of something something evil and thats it
IMPORTANT ! at the beginning of her route the head clan will ask you to choose between either an owl OR a … fox ? what's akala ? I think he's a fox but also I think he's HOT AS FUCK LIKE umg sorry maybe I should not say that here ok anyway hes really the best choice of the 2 since people told me the owl acts as a younger sister and akela acts as an older brother and im really … interested in this relationship like umh …. yeah
so whatever semi beasts are also fighting for their land against a bunch of humans trying to take this land from them whatever not important the important thing is to contrast the red moon war flashbacks of botw and anyway you have to get the 3 sacred beasts back to the main land and do shit and then you get like 3 chapter 2 for each beast thats cool as fuck I mean due to levels differences probably you will get the recommended order but apart from that so cool
the sea guardian made me cry even if the quest has zero tension since no boss battles its cool anyway the volcano guardian made me horny … sorry and has a super bomb design and boss battle and the ice guardian also made me cry and also has an incredible boss battle I really like every single one of these chapters honestly
then you get back to the main land and the guardians all gather while the red moon arises you fight with hordes of monsters until you face the beast that you left behind in the beginning of the story and now its up to ochette to give them a good ending … IM SORRY THIS IS TOO MUCH I LOVE THIS ROUTE SO DEARLY I CRIED LIKE A BITCH AT THAT FINAL ENDING I HAD GOOSEBUMPS ALL OVER UGHHHHHHH THIS GAME ISTG
anyway since I chose akala instead of mahina I had to face mahina and it was damn fucking epic but I gotta say that feral akala is kinda hot im sorry I should say these things here alright
anyhow ochette saves the day everyone is happy the sexy lion boss says ochette is gonna be the next head of the tribe and the humans say alright we're gonna stop this war between us or something and then the end
I loved this route from beginning to end there was no dead moment every single chapter was packed back to back back to back thats fucking absurd ok anyway moving on or else I'm gonna stay here forever
HIKARI
hikari was my choice as the protagonist and I couldn't be happier being a warrior I was already interested in getting him super buffed for some incredible damage each turn and WHAT THE FUCK he's a BEAST after you get the arms master class he's basically your main character for damage he's gonna get some incredible numbers after you remove the 9999 cap and he's also a hunk to boot im absolutely free and I could suck your dick all day long if you want hikari hmu
as a warrior you can guess whats gonna happen and 2 seconds in his route he gets in a battlefield with my FAVORITE SOUNDTRACK PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND UGHHHHHH I was already hooked I had no chance but Stan
after that shit you get a tale of betrayal between a royal family hikari is the successor of the current king of land of ku until his brother succeeds in a regicide and he's left to just run away
this was a great beginning for his story really full of hype I cannot really say that this hype will be up for the entire route theres some boring events here and there with hikari recruiting some people and the pacing gets back up probably when you have to get the girl from the other clan like that's probably where the events begin to unravel faster but this all pays out when you get to the final confrontation
here and there hikari will get delusions and voices in his head due to a homicidal other personality which is like due to his cursed blood or something so yeah when you get to battle against your brother its also gonna be a battle against hikaris self and shit so whatever this was really emotional and I ended up having goosebumps all throughout the final boss which was also the FINAL boss of all the routes I did so it was an incredible conclusion of the journey if you ask me
also can I say that hikaris brother is kinda hot like in particular his demon form
CASTTI
cassti is a weird case since I wasn't really vibing with her entire plotline until really late in the route not because it was bad but because I really didn't get what it was going to be
her being a whats the name ….. I don't remember the name in english ok anyway speziale is really half the character since she cares for others really tries her best to put people first and herself second and thats something in common with alfyn but the thing is alfyn was extremely hot and tempting and she is kind of an enigmatic character also due to the fact that her story revolves around her memory loss issues and shit like that so
slowly you begin to realise that she actually was part of a big group of potion people I still dont remember the name and after the chapter of the mother and daughter YKNOW THE ONE GOD FUCK LOED UGHHHHH I CRIED SO MUCH DAMN you realise that the girl who kept on following her and was allegedly one of her companions was a actually just her delusion and in reality the group of people she was a boss of was already dead and that point all my hair fell off everything made sense and my life and heart were completely ruined I hate this game with a passion
you get to know theres another herb user guy who just goes around spreading death because he's like omg why the fuck are we helping people out if they're gonna die anyway let's just kill all of them which is honestly kind of a weird statement to say but I guess it does make sense for the character whatever anyway cazzi goes there and says actually I didn't say this but I call her cazzi because it means dicks in italian and its pretty similar sounding to cassti moving on she battles with this guy saves the day and she's left with absolutely nothing but loneliness and the dread of recovering her entire memory and realising her companions all vanished from her life and so the team said ok let's just give them some more reason to cry and put her theme which is already sad as fuck and put an illustration of her surrounded by ghosts of her mates who the fuck im sorry
great story possibly my fav one in terms of how much mental distress it gave me 9/10 deserved
no hunks here unfortunately but the legion head guy sounds kinda hot yknow the one
OSVALD
osvald is such a weird contrast from what the cyrus route was in the first game there cyrus was actually treated almost like a prince he just fucks around all day being surrounded by chicks and studies everything in his damn books and then here ? they made osvald and said ok we are gonna put this guy through hell literally we are gonna ruin his life so much hes gonna be pitiful throughout the game and so scarred that the most character interactions he'll have they're gonna be pointing out him being silent af
this route begins with osvald making an escape from prison and this was caused by his bestie who he thought was genuinely sharing his knowledge for a research but was actually just trying to exploit him to take possession of the research and then just push him aside burning his house down killing his wife and daughter and then getting him arrested and put in jail honestly what a fucking master plan my guy that being said after escaping the entire route concentrates on giving more context to the relationship between this guy and dio brando which is kind of an homosexual relationship like the one jojo and dio have so it's all good and then just pursuing this guy all around the land until you discover that osvalds daughter actually alive and being mindbroken by dio so you go there and open his ass apart and everything is good until osvald just decides to live his little girl behind like why would you do that I'm sorry but anyway I still want to suck your dick … osvald please give me your junk I cannot do this anymore
anyway this route is kind of a mess but in a good sense I love how much they make osvald suffer im sorry if that sounds controversial teehee siamo ragazzi
I love men
TEMENOS
temenos is don matteo but japanese its literally that italian fiction but in a videogame if you for some reason know what I'm talking about you will get the reference that being said this is temenos just having a lot of gay sex
while ophilia was the pure and humble character you would expect from a religious figure temenos acts as an absolute contrast from that design he's shrewd he's malicious and he's cunning and all these are actually good aspects of his personality he's really a sight to behold since the religious person being actually fat from the canonic stereotype of the usual religious figure is one of the most interesting tropes around if you ask me
being a priest or something from a small town he lives his life as a town figure until obviously hell breaks and he has to cooperate with fellow knight creek to solve a political intrigue with some ties to cultist shit
now the investigative sequences were cool as fuck but what was actually cooler is the fact that temenos and creek have such a great chemistry like every time temenos calls creek little lamb you can really feel the sexual tension skyrocket I'm not even joking yall these 2 fuck and they fuck pretty hard while the hometown girlie friend of temenos gets cucked to hell and back
so whatever since square enix said too much homosexuality they killed creek and honestly I'm pretty mad about it since I wouldve honestly liked to suck his dick after the final battle but alright so anyway temenos goes to the guild master or whatever fucks her up and avenges her boyfriend back the end
interesting not too shabby
THRONÉ
femme fatale throné has some of the weirdest plot twists in history and I genuinely am still confused at what happened in her story but anyway
shes from a guild of thieves where orphans are trained into full-fledged ATTENZIONE PICKPOCKET and shit like that and the main figures are mother and father now throné at one point realises shits going down in this guild due to the fact that his bestie aka possible lover got killed (by her lmao) and so she goes on a quest to murder both father and mother
apart from mother being absolutely batshit crazy you can tell that father was actually the more full-fledged character since he got a damn good backstory if I do say so myself and thats like the highest point of the route for me like killing her father is something that reminded me of primrose so alls good
after that she has to follow leads to get to her real father which you find out is not only in a hidden village in the sky that you can only get with a whats the name in english whatever funivia and when you get there the huge plottwist is that his father is alucard castlevania and fucked a lot of human women for reasons ? so whatever you go there and fuck him up
now being a carbon copy of alucard he's pretty hot and I gotta say he also has one of the greatest boss sprites in the game so that's fine my real issue is that there was no foreshadowing to this ? like idk if I missed something but I don't think there's any reason to think that this plottwist has any sense in the plotline since the route was going completely elsewhere until chapter 4 but whatev3r I digress
still a great route and also the first one I finished so I had a good time with it
PARTITIO
now partitio is probably my favorite character of the bunch after ochette he's charismatic he's upbeat energetic and hunky hot and intelligent cunning and good willed and I am still looking for him on rule34 until I get satisfied
so why is he in the bottom mmmmm im not really a fan of the merchant stories in octopath traveler tressa was interesting but nowhere near some other routes in that game and the premise of yeah I do business usually falls flat for me since there's not gonna be a lot of plottwists or intrigue for a foundation like this one
you follow partitio since his childhood and his father's quest to build a village from zero after some sick timeskip you realise that 1) partitio became hot as fun 2) the village was completed 3) they are knee deep in debt so it's up to partitio to seek the one responsible to this which was also the business companion of his father
so yeah after some business ™ and really chill route progression you get to the ISLAND yeah the guy bought an island and fuck him up or better youre gonna fuck his locomotive up????? shits crazy I tell you what the hell
whatever you beat him you do some more business ™ and everyone's happy now that partitio is on top of his company and also on top of me god bless the end
this route is cool the side quests where you get the boat and shit are interesting and break the pace of the route but still it's not that much of a great route as I wanted it to be partitio as a character carried the route entirely and I still enjoyed my time with it anyway
partitio I'm single please
AGNEA
agnea is my third favorite character and it's pretty funny to me how both her and partitio are among the best characters and are both on the bottom
now before somebody comes for my neck no I don't think this route is bad in fact I think every single route in this game is delicious but of course someone had to be put in the bottom or else it wouldn't be a tierlist
maybe im biased by the fact that I wanted this to reach the same highs as primroses route but of course it would've not been possible and thats probably why they opted for another type of storyline entirely
agnea is a free spirited happy little girl with an incredible passion and talent for dancing and singing like her mother something that his father doesn't approve but of course in the hand he accepts that and its probably the most beautiful part of the route I cried like a fucking bitch at the end of the prologue and during the finale probably because an accepting father is something I don't have HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHQ LAUGH
so whatever she wants to travel the world and compose a song so here we go (she's not only very similar to tressa but also has similar motives as tressa) all around the world getting pieces and pieces
after this it's a total blank to me the route is pretty chill and steady throughout to the point that I fell asleep during the circus guys thing whatever anyway main antagonist is another dancer singer diva whatever and shes bad because plot so you fuck her up metaphorically in the final battle and boom agnea is the new diva everyones happy the end
now putting the story like this you understand how laid back it is compared to the other routes and its a shame since she's such a beautiful character I love her so dearly
idk the end
CROSSED PATHS
these ones was a great addition they put some cool ideas here and there and seeing the pairs interact was pretty interesting but its so weird how ochette and cassti are absolutely above every other
TRAVEL TALKS
i read every single one of them i went fucking crazy I love every and each one of them
SIDE QUESTS
they suck
POST GAME / FINAL QUEST
for me the finale was a big slip up in the original octopath traveler due to the fact that It was 90% retconning and infodumping on wall of texts that made me think that i wouldve just reread umineko entirely instead
now this is actually not really different but it felt more streamlined since they didn't make me fucking fight against every single boss in the game again and there's still some degree of infodump through notes but it's less than the first one so yeah whatever
the plot is not as thick as they'd like to make you believe since it's just some loose ends that they left in the main game and they connected them together also recontextualizing some characters like mindt being evil ? right whatever
that being said the lead up to the final boss was actually kind of intriguing and the final boss in itself is kind of both tough and visually stunning they hinted for vide to be the end boss and here we go its still a nice fight if you ask me
the epilogue made me a bit teary eyed I gotta say and seeing all the characters interact make for a great conclusion to this tale
i hate postgames
SECRET BOSS
i hate galdera
CONCLUSIONS
I came in my pants
the more I thought about this game and the more I loved about it not only because of the game itself but also how they managed to make such a great fucking sequel to a game that I felt was flawed in every single way and it managed to keep me returning to it every single day for the span of like 80 hours this game is fucking insane ochette get the adoption papers we're going home