As a kid I remember investing a lot of time into JRPG games. Final Fantasy VIII, Legend of Legaia, Legend of Dragoon just to name a few. I never really got to experience 16 bit JRPG's until I was a teenager. Just recently I decided to indulge in a teenage nostalgic trip. This is my review for Octopath Traveler. As stated in the Title no story spoilers will be present within this review.
Pixel Paradise
The visual style in this game follows a 16 bit pixel art 2.5D masterpiece. I thought I was over the whole 16 bit nostalgic look but it turns out I have been craving it. Whether it's mountains, sewers or a desert, the environments look amazing and are fun to journey through.
Choices Choices Choices
I should mention that I did play the first few hours of this game through a free demo that was made available on the Nintendo Eshop. In saying that the progress was carried over to the full game.
So upon booting up the game and hitting that fantastic New Game option you are hit with a choice. A very important choice. Which of the 8 playable characters throughout the game do you wish to use as your main. Now I am one extremely generic guy and feel that my party should always be lead by a warrior. So my starting character was Olberic. I do not regret my choice.
Each character has a unique "Job" that has it's benefits as well as it's weaknesses which makes mix and matching vital to this game however I feel some characters are more valued than others I will get into that later. So upon choosing my main protagonist I started my journey into the world of Octopath Traveler.
Octopath Traveler gives you the freedom to explore the world at your own leisure and pick which order you pick up characters throughout the story. Here is where the choice gets tricky, for me anyway as I like to build a balanced party. So in that respect I am going to quickly list the other characters with their respective jobs so you can hopefully understand my initial predicaments. So we have Therion the Thief, Ophillia the Cleric, Alfyn the Apothecary, Hannit the Hunter, Primrose the Dancer, Tressa the Merchant and Cyrus the Scholar.
Each of these characters can join your main character on their journey but is it really your main's story?
Where Do We Go From Here
Now before this games release I was confused about how this formula was going to work as all of the games promotional campaign focused on the idea of having 8 individual stories so I wasn't sure how that would work. Octopath Traveler did an amazing job of executing this idea.
So as I stated above each character can join you on your journey but in saying that you are also joining them on their journey as well. Confused? Maybe not? Well either way I will elaborate.
When you meet a new character you get the option to view their introduction before setting out on their first chapter. After which they become a permanent member of your party. The game is split into 8 stories each consisting of 4 chapters. Now if my basic maths is correct that equates to a massive 32 chapters.
That sounds really excessive when I really think about it but each chapter has a formula which goes for every character. Story relevant scenes, dungeon with boss fight, more story content, end chapter.
This formula in my opinion was very straightforward but straight to the point. This made the chapters feel well paced. The order of which you do these chapters again, is left up to you. My personal experience had me playing each characters chapter 1, then 2 etc etc. Using my off characters followed by my mains.
So we know the formula and pace is well executed but what about character development and bonding experiences? Well I feel like this is where the game let me down.
Are we travelling together?
I am not going to beat around the bush with this particular topic as it left me feeling like each character was journeying alone and it just felt unrealistic. In each characters story only that character is present in all the cut scenes. For example in Therion's story only he is present during all of the story scenes even if some of them were taking place in a dungeon that we are all exploring. Where did my party go? Why aren't we doing this together? We are journeying together right?
Well maybe I am being a bit too rough on this. I mean we do get "Party Banter" scenes which take place after a story scene. So I guess we are all together but the individual stories just don't give that perception. The banter tries to relieve me from feeling that way but in my opinion it wasn't enough to convince me that this was a story of bonds.
Now I am going to sound a bit on the fence when referring to this problem because I know that the formula may not have worked as well if your characters were present in story scenes even if you haven't picked them up yet. But after every characters chapter 1 there is no reason not to include them in the remaining chapters. But that would mean it is mandatory to pick up all characters in the game but you don't have to because you are given the freedom to make that choice.
My Strength Is Your Weakness
Ok let's get down to the gameplay present within this game. The game uses a turn based system with a turn order displayed at the top of the screen. Personally this system is my favourite. I like being able to see the turn order and prepare accordingly.
The combat system also utilises a Battle Point(BP) system whereas you get 1 BP per turn with a max of 5. You can then use up to 3 bp in 1 turn to boost the power of your abilities or allows you to attack up to 4 times with a normal attack. If you are familiar with Bravely Default or Bravely Second this will feel all too familiar.
Each enemy you fight starts with a shield or guard that can be broken by discovering their weaknesses then exploiting it. I have a lot of praise for this feature because it made me utilise all of the characters at one point.
My memory is also a bit jumbled when fighting some enemies with different skins which have different weaknesses so luckily this game allows you to see the weaknesses of enemies after you have discovered them any time you fight that enemy. Each boss had a level of difficulty to it and was a welcome addition to my experience.
I was going to make a separate section for balancing but I will just talk about it a bit here instead.
After about chapter 2 for each character I found that some characters are way more overpowered(OP) than others and I opted to keep those characters in my party. Mixing and matching went out the window after I had found an OP party build.
Each character has a unique ability they can use outside of combat on NPC's which allow you to find out about NPC's and discover hidden items. Other skills involve buying items off of NPC's who aren't merchants, Thieving, Recruiting NPC's to fight alongside you and challenging NPC's to battle to access new areas.
So You Wanted To Find The Level Cap?
Ok this is going to be a quick section because if I talk about it too much I will lose my mind. Grinding EXP in this game, especially in the later levels is absolutely tedious and more reliant on RNG and I am getting Dragon Quest VIII flash backs. I am currently level 78 and it is taking me close to half an hour to level up once. I am a JRPG veteran but even I have my limits.
Other than EXP you also get rewarded Job Points(JP) after every battle in which you can buy abilities which can in turn unlock support abilities. I prefer to call them passive abilities. This system can make for some extremely powerful builds and is not nearly as tedious as EXP grinding which really annoys me. Even though it isn't necessary to hit level cap I always like going into post game content with a full powered party otherwise I don't feel like I have reached the full potential of my party.
What did you just say?
Ok I played the game with English voice acting and I loved it. The voice acting was absolutely on point in this game. I could feel the emotion when it mattered. However one slight issue is that this game replaces spoken dialogue in the not so important scenes with a couple of words or quick phrases.
It doesn't bother me too much but I feel like there were very few fully spoken scenes. I am nitpicking at this point.
In the same regard I would like to go over the Soundtrack present in this game. Every environment I was traversing, every town I visited and every battle I encountered had perfect music to portray the current situation. I found myself humming the battle music and I haven't done that since Final Fantasy X. Absolutely amazing job in my opinion.
At Journey's End
This game has a very solid post game with new dungeons, side quests and super boss fights. I myself haven't completed them yet because I really like to do post game content at level cap but I am struggling to do that.
Final Verdict
Octopath Traveler is a nostalgia driven Journey spanning over 8 very individual characters who prefer to travel alone but are travelling together anyway. The game has some difficulty spikes here and there and can be difficult if unprepared. Luckily weaknesses are not too hard to exploit and make fights more technical and require a lot more skill usage. The soundtrack is phenomenal and the voice acting is on the same level. This game is a perfect introduction to JRPG's and if you have been thinking about picking up this game I would strongly recommend it.
8/10
Pros: Technical combat system, Soundtrack, Voice Acting, Cyrus, Visual style.
Cons: Grinding eternally, RNG, Lack of bonding.