Overview
Following around eight different stories, select one character to act as the lead. The premise from here is simple, gather up all the characters and play through each of their stories. Battles focus on turn-based combat where exploiting an enemy's weakness to 'break' them. I won't get too much into the older mechanics of Octopath and mostly focus on talking about the new additions in this review.
Doubling Down on Path Actions Was a Poor Choice
Path actions were a bit of an odd mechanic in the last one. They are basic actions you can use on NPCs outside of combat. Taking items, gathering information, gaining a follower, and challenging to one on one duels. These were kind of underwhelming in the first game, and their expansion in this game wasn't a welcome change.
You can now switch between day and night, and each character has a different action based on the time of day. While I do like that Hikari can learn unique abilities by challenging NPCs, the majority of these actions just aren't all that engaging, and increasing the number you need to keep track of doesn't make the system better, it just means you are having to keep track of more mundane abilities.
EX Skills and Latent Talents add a lot to the combat
In contrast, the expansion of the battle system was very much appreciated. Octopath Traveler II allows you to equip a class to anybody as a secondary class, but each character chains unique class abilities that keep them feeling a bit more unique, while taking nothing away from the previous games' combat. It's a nice little touch to add some unique flavor to this game.
Latent Talents are also character-specific abilities that can be activated after filling the gauge in battle. Its only real issue is how unbalanced the skills are. It becomes obvious quickly some people have Latent Powers that are borderline useless, like Tenmos, when compared to the absolute monster of an effect that is Hikari.
These two aspects though do a lot to enhance the overall experience of the combat. It gives you more viable play stiles than even the last game had, so overall it's a nice improvement.
Character stories are a bit all over the place.
I will start by saying none of them were bad. That said, the stories are kind of meh when compared to others. The easy highlights in the game are the ones that get dark. I opted to start the game as Osvald, a Scholar who is searching for the man who killed his wife and child, and it was engaging and emotional. It was a great choice to start with. Similarly, the best stories in the game are the darkest ones like Throne and Temenos (My personal favorite).
There are still issues with connecting all the stories.
I like that the events in each story feel a bit more connected to each other in this game compared to the last, but there is no getting around how entirely disconnected a couple of them are. Agnea is the prime example of a character that has no business being here. Even the way it tries to connect her to the main plot tying everything together feels like an incredible stretch, it's not even about her but there is a side character that turns out to have played a minor role and that is all.
Not to mention there is no good reason for most of these characters to ever work together. Why does the person who just wants to be a famous dancer decide to join Osvald on his quest for revenge? Why is Osvald taking time out of his busy schedule of murder to help Particio cut a deal to make Phonographs a thing? There is just no attempt to explain why any of these people are working together.
Even though each story is really good, and there are a couple of absolutely fantastic twists, the narrative is hurt by this.
Endgame is a Big Improvement
As opposed to the first Octopath, there is an investing end-game here. It's not just a short list of side quests leading to the truth behind all the events, but an actual short story all on its own you follow and learn of all the events behind the scenes that were leading up to this. There are some cool twists I did not see coming, and I liked how well set up it was. They went into this game wanting to improve on what came before, and in most ways, I think they succeeded. This was a great showing for that.
Final Impressions
I love the 2DHD style set up by Octopath Traveler and it continues to look amazing here. That is the big takeaway here is that they wanted to improve on the base formula they set up with the first game. Now I think pushing path actions more was a mistake, but pretty much everything else worked in this game's favor. If you like turn-based RPGs at all, the game is one of the current generation's best.
Side note: MMM, Throne'.
I picked this one up this weekend, I enjoyed the first one but never finished it. I do love the retro-style graphics used here .If I find the time I will likely make some videos soon.
I have heard so many good things about the Octopath Traveller games. They've been on my list to try for a while and I keep forgetting!
I love games that are encouraged to use a 2D style. The first one made me fall in love for having that style, I haven't played it yet but I had it pending, I see that 2 still looks just as beautiful, now I have pending to play both when I can, haha.
That 2DHD looks incredible, it gives you a very good perception of the game, I find it interesting that the stories connect as in others, but not even though there are characters that have nothing to do with it, without a doubt a game that I would try, thanks for sharing it
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