Octopath Traveler (Nintendo Switch 2018)

i am loving all the environments in this game. the music is solidly amazing too, this is easily one of the better Square RPG soundtracks of the century.

I did not like olberic's voice acting in the demo

i subclassed tressa as a scholar and now she has a black mage robe and is blasting enemies for thousands of damage with her stupidly named 'trade tempest' spell and then saying pun one liners like 'you got more than you bargained for'. very good

tressa no

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DigGl5YVMAEBEPM.jpg

tristressa

ive been using Japanese voices/English text

I play all games with english voices unless the dub is really really bad or doesn't exist. Xenoblade 2's dub was heavily criticized but was still well above the line for me

if I'm only gonna get one of Xenoblade or Octopath, which one right now?

do you like big immersive weirdo anime RPGs or cozy retro rpgs? Xenoblade will take you for a ride, Octopath is more about just having a tight RPG system and nice aesthetics. theyre both good and bad in their own ways though Xenoblade is way more unique imo, there's not really anything else like it for better or for worse

nice, I should probably go for xenoblade for now then

be warned, it's extremely anime

well I'm gonna alternate this & persona 5 this fall so

ah yeah get both the cool and the uncool sides of the shonen anime rpg experience

i need to check out Xenoblade someday, it sounds up my alley. it is alongside Ni No Kuni and Beyond Oasis as games i need to play next.

OT is something special tho. i have been playing Final Fantasy XV and at around Chapter 9 just gave up. the level design, while gorgeous, became a nightmare to navigate, the quest system was just a menu of enemies to fight in an alleyway, combat was just holding down a button and moving the camera (it did look amazing, tho, certainly impressive for the first dozen or so hours).

this is easily the better Final Fantasy than that game. it really is like FF3 to me. in that game the character backstories were always a highlight, and it is neat to see those back, aggressively so. after so much confusing multi-syllabic cosmic bullshit, story is back on track, back to being about characters and their relationships.

these aren't incomprehensible CGI cutscenes, they are the classic pixel puppet plays of characters delivering lines of dialog and stage direction. even before FF6 this style of storytelling was in danger of becoming extinct, you had the anime comic book cutscenes of Phantasy Star IV, the animated cutscenes of Lunard and CD-ROM RPGs. especially alongside the Unreal Engine 4 graphical post production, it is almost frustrating how simple the story bits are delivered. but for that reason it must be a considered design choice.

ditching the cinematic realism of modern games, it allows the player to participate in the creative fiction that much more. imo a low resolution rendering of a mountain conjures an imaginative (idealized) image of the mountain in the mind of the gamer, since they are aware of "real" mountains and want to have an idea of how they would look if "real"y existed. this kind of interaction plays across all the low resolution elements of these games, from character models to background tiles to the low-production theatrical-style story bits. RPGs, ROLE playing games, are a particularly effective form of this immersive/interactive storytelling. maybe not as abstract and arcane of a ZORK or a text based but just on the edge of text + still image, putting it alongside books, rather than movies, in that realm of imaginative storytelling.

appy polly loggies for all the typos

this is Great

i'm planning on playing this after i finish Hollow Knight

one thing though - i heard that after each character's unique prologue, you're really only playing one character for the rest of the game, other than in battle? is that kind of weird to get way into a character in a prologue and then never hear back from them again afterward except in a generic way? or did i totally hear wrong about all of this?

15 hours in, 1 more character to discover. i am traveling counter-clockwise and just did Alfyn, Primrose, & Olberic's storylines so am wrapping up the first Chapter 1's with Tressa. just 8 of these missions took me 16 hours, and there are 3 more sets of these, meaning this is a big epic game for real.

hmm, actually from reading adam's post above i guess the character-specific structure continues throughout? sorry, i'm probably just asking about something that doesn't even exist, in a very confusing way

Each character has their own four chapter storyline to follow, in which only they appear in cutscenes etc. You can switch between following each character’s story whenever you want, more or less. The first character you pick can’t be removed from your party (until after you beat their last chapter, i have heard?).

The stories are told as solo character stories despite you having a party with you for combat, maybe that's what you saw. The characters weigh in on each others stories via Tales style optional conversations that pop up, that's the only real party interaction outside of combat.

i am just doing my first chapter 2 (Therion's) right now. each character has 4 of these narrative story sequences, each with a dungeon/town. this means 32 story sequences in the game, cutscenes along with towns, NPCs, dungeons, bosses, etc. to go along with them.

storytelling doesn't bother me in the least. every game does not need to have the exact same structure, it is refreshing. and tbh a lot of the older games highlights were just centered around one character and their NPC relationships - think Celes's post-World of Ruin personal drama, Gau's flashback to his relationship w his father, etc.

it is just now this is modularly implemented into an Open World like game where you can customize it to your liking. if you want you can just follow one character's story through to the end, rather than having them come at you in a linear order. the content of the games is more or less the same as it always has been. fwiw i have already seen 2 FFIX-style Active Time Event scenes where you can check in on other party members chatting it up. this is a nontroversy.

gotta say i like how story is tied to the geography of the game. you pull up the map and can see where all the story chapters take place. there is fast travel but it's a convenience and you still have to walk to get anywhere - exploring the map is key to uncovering the story.

cool, thanks for the explanations!

I started out with Ophilia the Cleric, recruited the blond guy from the tavern with the wind spell, and then got my ass kicked by the first boss who apparently has infinite HP. For the number of encounters and interactive elements involved, was it really necessary for all that to take longer than a fucking Marvel Cinematic Universe entry?

Maybe I’ve just been away from “real” JRPGs for too long and I forgot all the tedium. I’m willing to dive back in a few more times but I need someone to tell me that Ophilia has the worst starting story, because if she isn’t, ⌛️

ophilia's story is the least interesting through 2 chapters yeah, though none of them are grand world-saving plots. olberic and primrose's stories feel like they were written by a different person, they're more dramatic than the others.

oh Cyrus's is more dramatic too

I’m finally enjoying this but the rest of family is still making fun of me for it. “Do they ever stop talking? When is the game?”

Some people just don’t like doing the same thing over and over and they are entitled to their preferences I suppose.

Octopath Traveler’s battle system is like a cross between Magic the Gathering and TurboTax.

I mean Quicken.

if you think this game has a lot of text/dialogue, you should avoid every other jrpg made since about 2003

I am aware of all jrpg traditions, but it’s been a long time since I played one on a big screen where other people (namely, my 7yo) can watch

dunkey rates this

Played first 10 hours of this, good stuff. One of the kids just said "crivvens" which made me lol. Would play a FF5/6 remake in this engine.

dunkey hates jrpgs in general

I'm at like 35 hours and running out of steam now, haven't finished any of the stories yet but am about to attempt Alfyn's finale with a slightly underlevelled party. this game has not changed my theory that 6 is the ideal jrpg crew size, 8 is pretty common but always feels like it's stretching it.

have you been trying to level everyone equally or mostly sticking with a core 4 and just switching in and out for stories?

I've been using a core 2 and rotating the other 2 slots such that I have good coverage of weapon types and buffs/debuffs. the core 2 are level 45 now which is the recommended level for the last chapters, most everyone else is in the 30s and then poor Cyrus is still at 22

Cyrus is my first character and tbh getting that free weakness every fight is pretty great. I walked up to my first chapter 2 boss yesterday with a party at levels 14-20 or so and got my face melted off.

yeah I built Tressa as a scholar early on and liked it enough to stick with her which made Cyrus redundant. merchant has some good defensive abilities for glass cannon casters and the 4th merchant passive is halved SP costs so you can just spam the double hit spells once you have that.

I like how guessable a lot of the weaknesses are once you've seen enough of them - bow or lightning against flying enemies, fire against plant enemies, holy against undead, lance against armored stuff, etc. it's pretty consistent at meeting my expectations, and then they always are sorted in the same order so the remaining ones get progressively easier to guess

don't quote me on these but I think the sort orders are:
sword lance axe dagger bow staff
fire ice lightning wind light dark

more confident on the elements than the weapons

I've been using a core 2 and rotating the other 2 slots such that I have good coverage of weapon types and buffs/debuffs

yeah this is me too. Theroin/Cyrus are my mains. Cyrus elemental magic just too powerful, at this point he can one-shot many random battles in the areas surrounding Chapter 2s. did Cyrus's Ch2 last night, thought it was pretty great (levels in 30-35). the evil sorcerer capturing people & making blood crystals makes a great villain.

Ophelia's is next. i would have done that last night too but i stumbled on a random dungeon and spent some time in there. i like how this game has so much optional explorable territory. almost feels closer to Secret of Mana or Zelda w its explorable open world.

finished Alfyn's story last night. it was fine. so far there's still only been one truly unexpected story beat in the game.

I now find all the complaining people did about how the stories supposedly don't link up at the end pretty funny, given that the first 2 that I finished kind of did

cool! thats nice to hear. tbh i am enjoying the smaller scope.

the game really does things in a cool unique way. it is like going to one of the towns in one of the older JRPGs and playing as all of the different townspeople. you have the thief, the shopkeeper, the mage, the apothecary, etc.

you can follow the storyline of the hunter, someone who would probably introduce a dungeon to the main hero of a Final Fantasy game or something. you can follow the storyline and fight 4 bosses for the shopkeeper who sells the main hero his newest shiniest sword. this is a more democratic approach to storytelling.

it's not like the stories explicitly connect but the game makes it pretty clear there's something mysterious going on behind the scenes that relates to all of them in various ways

perhaps all the characters sense that they were all created by the same "company", and everything they choose to say seems like it was already chosen for them, somehow

which is kind of more interesting honestly since it lets each one still play out in its own way rather than swerving into the same lane suddenly at the end

would play a jrpg written by Larry David

I made it to the final boss last night, and it sucked. I haven't lost yet, maybe I can win it, but it's so tedious that I don't think I want to. I just put the machine to sleep after about half an hour, realizing that I have to somehow coordinate killing the dumb nodes it grows. Ah well, the game was pretty good until here! My party ended up in the 58-65 range, with Ophelia, my main, pushing 75 I think.

its more of a postgame challenge boss than a final boss. there's no dramatic conclusion or anything after it.

Cool

Any suggestions on another rpg on switch or ps4 if I dug this?

which elements of this are you looking for? turn-based? 'retro'?

turn based, retro not a pro or con really

I should add that I haven't played a Final Fantasy since II. I played Dragon Quest IV and V on DS a while back, but I don't know that series otherwise.

dragon quest XI is pretty good, its on ps4 and has a switch version coming out in a couple months

the FF games on switch are all from the PSX/PS2 era and i don't know those ones very well

FFX is turn based but very linear, FFXII is not turn based but really interesting imo
most of the modern turn based JRPGS that I liked were on 3DS, going to take a while for them to turn up on Switch

i am playing this in quarantine. the bad Middle English for the hunters is doing my head in.

is this ‘badly written’ by video game standards or is it just a long time since i played this type of video game

just went through the dancer’s prologue and oh lord everything about that was a bad idea, executed poorly. (i did actually download the demo and start with that one, two years ago? and i deleted the demo before i even made it to a battle)

(battles are tite tho. i went and did a level two quest and some random dungeons once i had a team of four because i couldn’t deal with any more inept first chapters)

i wouldn't call it a well written jrpg but a few of the stories have their moments

strength of the game is mostly the combat especially the boss fights. also the music

Imo if you’re playing a JRPG for the writing read a book

unless that book is the novelization of octopath traveler in which case play the game

Imo if you’re playing a JRPG for the writing read a book

lol i thought this was 'lamo' but i see it is 'imo' -- idk, i'm playing it for the battle system but i do wish the writing was less bad, one doesn't go to action movies for 'the writing' but the first couple terminator movies are a lot better written than suicide squad

Fair enough

the book version of the game of the novelization, though. Best in class

yeah i don't think a novelization of, say, ff7 would be very good but as a rpg scenario it lands its story beats strongly

octopath is mostly doomed from the start because the 8 short stories thing doesn't really work

idk it worked fine in dragon quest iv

i've never played any of the SaGa games w/ this gimmick or Live A Live, and i am curious now to see if they tick me off any less. the tonal inconsistency is what does it, the gross slippage from 'what if the merchant was the protagonist of the rpg?' (n.b. this is the fifth time i have seen this question answered) to the revenge thriller ft. human trafficking

I have 70 hours in this but I am doomed to never finish it

dear lord, does it get slower? i'm 18 hours in with 12 quests done

No I just “took a break” after getting crushed in a boss fight and then our daughter took over the Switch for Minecraft and Splatoon purposes. I got another Switch for the adults and moved my game over, but have been anxious about diving in again. I feel like at this point I’ve forgotten how to win and it’s not going to be like a bicycle and the boss fight isn’t going to be any easier even this I’m intellectually 100% sure of what I got wrong. And so forth. Ugh.

live a live is cool

all the other games that do this thing have you play each story separately rather than putting all the protags in the same party (or else they do that much later in the game)

And 70 hours seems like such a sunk cost I don’t want to start over. Double ugh.

My ex played this, sunk ~100 hours into it and didn't bother for full completion because... ~boring~

Me I'm gonna finally play Secret Of Mana and then Seiken Densetsu 3

most things are boring after 100 hours!

i hit full completion in 55 hours, and its not like you can rush in this game since its got random encounters..

Yeah but you’re, like, actually good at video games I think

only the ones that don't require dodge rolling

thirty hours in, about to finish my lead character's level 4 so i can swap her out. is this about when i ought to go looking for the other job shrines or are those really just a post-game thing?

you can beat the bosses for those when your party is around level 40 iirc. or maybe a bit less even but they're tough

thx. i did one of them that seemed fairly straightforward and now the game seems to have some more interesting tactical decisions available. i do feel like if i focus on clearing the rest the remaining lv 3 and lv 4 quests are going to be entirely trivial, tho

this game is super chill. i picked it up again and have been enjoying it

also, i didn't have to fight any bosses in the job shrines?? i've only just finished chapter 2 and i've found 5 of them

still slowly working my way through this every few months. an enemy just used a move called "These Nuts" on me

top 5 Switch game

before i argue, what are your other 4

and why!

I am planning to say why. However i've been playing more, and Tressa's story has turned into Karate Kid but where the karate is replaced with "selling geodes". well, i'm not so confident anymore.

hahaha