a pretty easy fire emblem game, even if you don't do any grinding (in general, it's recommended that you don't do any grinding missions in fe unless you're in a pinch). perfectly solid and playable just like the rest of gba fe. i do like the character designs here a lot more, likely thanks to the painterly style of wada sachiko and a nice use of color. everyone has a slightly unique flavor to them without feeling samey or boring, which i felt like a lot of the elibe games' characters struggled with.

i loved this game so much when it launched back in 2019 so i have a bit of a nostalgia boner for it admittedly. and i definitely get why people are super attached to this game, especially its characters. it has probably my favorite cast in the fe games ive played so far, and that can go a long way for a game's staying power and fanbase building. however, this is unfortunately a game i struggle to get back to, even with nostalgia goggles. for a more petty note, the game is just kind of ugly, or at least just does not appeal to my personal aesthetic standards at all. the characters' animations in battle feel rather standard and nothing special, and the models are sort of rough. the muted colors are an intentional part of the aesthetic which i like, but again not my thing. and while i do love the character designs of this game (mostly in the war phase), the character portraits feel rather bland. again, it's the colors and the paleness, it all feels kind of lifeless (i'm pretty sure the portraits were not drawn by kurahana but a different artist trying to ape her style cuz it sort of feels that way). i'm also not too big on the gameplay. i'm no scholar in TRPG map design, but the gameplay that occurs between the chapter maps is rather dull. the monastery is mostly just busywork that becomes more egregious as you progress further in the game and does not feel as skippable as something like the somniel in engage. i am also not super into the tutoring system. it's cool to have all the units be completely flexible with their own strengths that nudge you into an "intended" class for them, but i prefer fe games just give me characters as is and not make me build them from scratch i guess (it's also why i like the war phase's character designs since they're generally designed with their intended class in mind and thus don't feel like blank slates like they do in the school phase, if that makes sense. like they feel like a more traditional fe cast). the story... well it's been a while since i've experienced it so i can't really comment on that, and i don't really play fire emblem for its story anyway.
that said: best fire emblem ost. one of the best. so many bangers ranging from the cheery support music to the map themes that can be either calming or intense.

the main friend group is really charming and probably my favorite out of the big three persona games. i also really loved the overarching mystery--make sure you go in as blind as possible when playing. however i cannot stand the dungeon crawling, mainly because i hate how claustrophobic the hallways feel and the angle of the camera (i really hate feeling like something is behind me, and the intentionally eerie way the camera is placed just makes that fear worse). so unfortunately it's because of that that i cannot return to it like i can with other rpgs that have a different structure to their challenges. but it's still a really great game!

this is my favorite game ever. the travelers are more interesting as a whole than the previous game, and the ways all of their stories tie into the climactic final chapter feels more intentional and interesting. the music, like its predecessor, is simply incredible and one of my favorite video game osts of all time.
the combat, the original octopath's #1 strength, is pretty much unchanged. if it ain't broke don't fix it, and it was far from broken. the new latent power system adds an extra wrinkle in battle strategies without being overpowered or game-breaking, however there are some ways that you can trivialize battles (such as hired help).
the game is still not perfect of course. like the last game, the travelers don't interact with each other in the individual traveler stories outside of isolated travel banters that comment on events that were just watched. the crossed path stories are certainly nice, and there is an actual cutscene that depicts all eight of them interacting (plus a proper conclusion to their whole adventure!), but the other seven travelers' absence when playing through one storyline can get pretty distracting. so, if that aspect disappointed you in the original, the sequel might not be able to win you over. i also wish the difficulty was customizable. mainly because the game can get dummy easy once you figure out how to break it, which can be a bit of a shame, so i guess i would like a way in-game to make certain fights more difficult or encourage different strategies.
i could go on and on about about the good and the bad of this game, but that's all the important stuff. please play it if you love rpgs!! it's an amazing beautiful time!!!

this used to be my all time favorite game, and while it has its charms, it definitely feels hard to recommend now that the sequel exists, which improves on most of the common sore points this game has.
i ended up writing more than anticipated, so the tl;dr is: the game is slow to start, but the gameplay picks up once you get more characters. the boss battles are the most fun due to the underdog glory you can get with them, even if they can be easy when you know how to break the game. the characters and their stories are the biggest flaw and what make progressing through the campaign a hard sell due to how repetitious they are and the lack of meaningful character interaction or story overlap. the graphics and soundtrack are aces. all in all... play the sequel lol it improves on a lot of things this game got right and struggled with.
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its main weaknesses are how the eight stories, the main draw of the game, coexist. they're all sort of isolated from each other, a consequence of the very open design of progression and it not expecting you to have certain/any party members with you, so during story beats your teammates all evaporate temporarily while the actual character in focus takes center stage and befriends completely different companions in their story. repeat for 4 chapters across 8 stories, and that's the whole campaign. it does not help that every chapter is structured in the exact same way, so this game can get tiring to binge if you're trying to stay invested in the story. i do like the cast, but didn't find a lot of their stories super interesting and a lot of them could be boiled down to some pretty stock RPG archetypes without much else going on. the way all eight stories are connected is very loosely hinted at through each story (some more than others) and the proper pieces are revealed in eight giant text dumps during the final dungeon, which is definitely anti-climactic....
(while the sequel still doesn't fully mend the issue with characters being mostly alone in their individual stories, i found that it improves on the characters/stories/character interaction/plot that connects everything together much more elegantly than this one, so if that part disappointed you in this game, but you're still willing to give it a shot, please consider the sequel!)

the gameplay is the best part as octopath's battle system has a lot of neat gimmicks that make it fun to strategize in, though it can also be really easy to break once you know the tricks. the combat is very slow to start, as your team will be very inflexible and weak with only one traveler, but it definitely picks up once you recruit the others and unlock secondary classes. the difficulty trends on the easier side, with a few bosses near the latter half of some characters' stories posing some actual challenge and the true final boss completely disrespecting your time and patience. in my opinion outside of prep for said true final boss, you never have to grind, which is a big plus in my books when it comes to jrpgs. the "recommended level" each chapter is assigned is nonsense, and i hate to see people write the game off as grindy because they can't meet these high level suggestions.
the bosses are the highlight of the experience and one of the reasons why i fell in love with it originally, as they're these massive threats that feel real good to triumph (especially if you go into them way under the recommended level, which i believe are intentionally high to make players feel good when they beat a boss earlier than the game seemingly expected). when you fail, you're moreso encouraged to work smarter not harder. so rather than bash your head in the wall trying to boost your parties levels, you can instead try reapproaching the battle with a different strategy or class setup for your team. or hell, if it's too much you can always just pause the story and do a different chapter, and then come back when you feel ready.

and lastly, the presentation is quite top-notch. i know the hd2d look is very overdone in this day and age, but i found it a pretty novel look for the game at the time it was released. and the music is simply incredible, from relaxing town themes to intense battle music that gets you energized to fight.

but as stated earlier, i think the sequel improved on both the best parts of this game and the parts it struggled in. that's not to say this game is totally worthless as i still found it an engaging enough rpg to play through front to back twice, and without it we would have never gotten the improved sequel. so yeah :]

played from launch to the addition of beast units. typical gacha stuff, currently plagued by some really funny power creep. i feel like it's one of the more generous gachas i've played, but i don't wanna give it too much credit since i don't play a whole lot of those. the art is really great though! i'm serious, i love the variety of artists and styles here and i still somewhat keep up with the news just to see new characters added. so, maybe just go to the wiki list for all the artists that have contributed.

i don't really like warriors-type games, so i won't likely revisit this game for a while, but this was a pretty good time. it felt like a pretty natural and faithful continuation of the base story of persona 5, and it's cool seeing the characters hang out again once you've gotten to know them in persona 5. though the gameplay isn't my thing, the sound track SLAPPPPS like no other, one of my favorite video game osts fr. honestly that helps motivate me to keep finishing the game as the game has so many bangers from start to end.

this is three houses' polar opposite in that it succeeds in places 3H struggled with and vice versa. 3H's story, while by no means perfect, had a lot of ideas it wanted to explore and put in greater focus in its world building. engage's story reads more like fire emblem mad libs (probably fitting since it was an anniversary game originally) and has a very unambitious and unconvincing setting. 3H had some dull meandering sections in between some underwhelming maps while engage has fluff sections that can easily be skipped and some really fun maps and gameplay systems that make the experience both challenging and fun. you get the idea
i get why people might not find this game appealing because of its weak story, but as someone who definitely does not play for story, i really love engage. it's one of the most fun fire emblem games i've played. the emblem ring fanservice might seem strange at first, but they really are some cool macguffins that actually FEEL as valuable as they do in the story because of how much they can change the tide of battle. and plus, it's just cool to see some characters rendered in crispy HD.
the character designs can definitely be garish and bizarre (mika pikazo has a wonderful style, though it does clash with the expected Look of fe characters), and it's unfortunate that pretty much all characterization is shoved into supports (meaning, if you want to learn more about a character rather than their main gimmick, you just have to hope you encounter The Right Support). however, the presentation and animations during battle are second to none. the ways characters move when attacking or dodging (or even parrying depending on how much an attack was going to hit, which is a great detail) or doing a critical hit is super dynamic and full of personality. it reminds me of the gba battle animations everyone loves so much but done in 3d. i think that presentation, plus the uber saturated color palette, helps make the game have more staying power for me, which is something 3H's more subdued graphics and colors lacked (apologies for comparing 3H and engage when theyre so different, 3H and engage are just adjacent to each other in the game series lineup so i can't help myself).
all around, very good and fun! an fe game is something special when i feel compelled to replay it a bunch

the story is really bad and its supposed plot [Revelations] hinder the experience of the rest of fire emblem fates (especially since the other routes feel like subtle advertisements for this one). the maps are gimmicky nonsense and it's also one of the less challenging fe games. but god dammit i still have a strange attachment to this game with all of its gnarly warts. maybe it's the satisfaction of having Almost every playable character in fates in your army, maybe it's the crazy sandbox breeding and character building you can do because of how big your army is, maybe i actually am a sucker for the stupid maps because at least it's some attempted weird variety in the campaign, idk. it's my most played fates route. i like building my super child soldier army to its fullest potential ok