Octopath Traveler (Nintendo Switch 2018)

Too late, I am committen to followeth a counter-clockwise octopath

you're the ohtapotc traveller

arrow rain is always nice to have around. it can help you break enemies quick

yeah i meant weakest link character wise, the 8 base classes are really well balanced imo

dunkey hated this and he is right what a generic boring jrpg

dunkey hates all jrpgs so thats not surprising

your excellency

i warned you guys it's a game with random encounters, grinding, and a terrible story/characters. maybe you've all found some value in the combat but i couldn't figure out why it was worth my while.

also dunkey liked persona 5 iirc so dude isn't just a hater

everyone likes persona 5 though. its like the rock critic with a kendrick lamar album in their eoy list. if you're only engaging with the most acclaimed thing in the genre then you're not really engaging with the genre

it's a very well designed game, particularly the map and locations and the ways of interacting with people, and that alone puts it beyond generic/boring. the characters and story are for the most part fine (outside of the cleric), above average for the genre ime anyway. the combat system is the most generic thing on the surface but they really hit a sweet spot, i'm still thinking about just why it does work so well. but there's something about jrpgs where, for all that they cleave to formula, personal experience varies wildly from game to game and if someone doesn't get a good feeling off the bat it's a fool's errand to try to talk them round.

fwiw i thought the dunkey video was uncharacteristically low on substance and lols and definitely came over as someone wanting to pull out an old axe for a fresh grind

dunkey is funny but his inclinations are basically the opposite of mine.

it's a game with random encounters, grinding, and a terrible story/characters

That is what I paid for. You may also know me as the guy who paid for Cat Quest, Lowlander and Lowlander 2: Lowerlander for the iPhone and enjoyed all of them.

i guess my final review of this game would go something like this:

excellent RPG system (both combat and the npc interactions)
excellent music
good presentation
characters and stories are a mixed bag, i thought tressa's was the best overall despite (because of?) having the smallest scope, h'aanit and therion were the worst, the rest were fine but only had a few great moments
i didn't burn out on the repetitive structure but i was playing in short sessions of 1-2 chapters at a time, i suspect this falls apart more if you marathon it. it lays its bones barer than most RPGs
i say this about most RPGs but overall the game is a bit too long for its scope, i think 6 characters would have been better for the structure/length though the combat system gets a lot of mileage out of those extra 2 jobs

the combat system succeeds because:
- it moves exactly as fast as you want it to, without any ATB shenanigans
- putting vulnerabilities on the HUD lets “System 1” thinking handle almost all the work instead of making you apply “System 2” mnemonics and deliberation in a fight
- as Silby noted, a successful boss battle with properly sequenced breaks and some fortunate RNG can be just as satisfying as maximizing your tax refund
- the sound design is top notch

breaking enemies and boosting abilities are both really satisfying mechanics and become exponentially so when you combine them. the presentation for them is great too, the HD rumble when you break a bunch of enemies at once...

fyi most of the ATB games let you turn real time off which i always do. which just turns it into a delay system where you can't see the turn bar, which is better than nothing

you're the ohtapotc traveller

- it moves exactly as fast as you want it to

yes i love how fast it is. i remember FFIX taking so long to just have the camera pan up to your character in battle. here you can instantly cue/commit to actions, it remembers where your last cursor was, and if you have to go answer a phone call or something you can just walk away and come back w no problem.

i really like the vulnerabilities & the break system, there is so much strategy to every fight: when to spend your BP, when to break (who to break/what order), on top of maintenance/buffing and discovering the vulnerabilities for new encounters. sometimes i fight a tough new enemy and think i may be under powered, but give it another shot w what i have learned, inevitably winning with the more strategic approach.

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

I know you corrected this to Quicken but this is hilarious, and a perfect description of why I don't have the patience for games like this anymore.

In retrospect, either works.

(it's more that I've never used Quicken but am intimately familiar with Turbo Tax hell, also sounds funnier)

closing out everyone's Chapter 2 with Alfyn, who is kinda my clean up hitter. during battles he tends to hang back and mix SP/HP curatives for the others while they do elemental damage, then when BP is built up and all is broke, Amputation comes in for the home run.

Having added the thief, I am not sure my party could get much more morally compromised. If you are a townsperson on this continent, you should run as soon as you see us coming, because you are about to be:
* attacked by beasts
* robbed in broad daylight
* press ganged into God's army, or
* all of the above
This is easily the worst batch of murderhobos I have ever led on any journey. If you don't see the fun in that, I'm sorry.

The actions that let you beat people up are great, everyone’s very upset about it.

Now I'm finally up to four characters and I can add
* asked for your short biography

the npc biographies are the best part of the game

the old woman in the graveyard looks like a motherfucker with some dark secrets

so many of the old people turn out to be godlike if you fight or recruit them

Only stands to reason they’d be higher level

most of the old people are just your PCs from 30 years ago

circle of rpg

this game doesn't seem to ever end. i finished the storylines and i figured i would clean a few things up but new npc encounters keep happening everywhere. i'm unlocking a new cycle of advanced secondary jobs that i don't even want to use. also, i just got absolutely annihilated by an optional boss and the dudes in my party were 2x level 60 and 2x level 50.

was it the wolf? that plus the secret final boss are the ones I never finished

yep

secret final boss???

it's kind of hard to explain without spoilers but if you've finished all the stories you may have noticed certain names popping up in more than one of them

there's a certain side quest chain that's worth pursuing though the game doesn't make it too clear that it's related to that at first

ok cool, thank you. i have a good idea what you mean. onwards!

luckily they put all of the lore dumps before the final fight so you don't really miss out on anything if you're not up for minmaxing all your chars to beat it. it is still technically a side quest, after all.

I’m still octopoking my way along. I’m a little worried none of the other bosses are going to be as fun to murder as pimp helgenish

OK I’m like three paragraphs into Olberic’s hammy ronin backstory and I officially love how gay he is

Now that I’m over the long-windedness of the backstories, there’s so many hilarious (to me) choices they made with the voice acting; in addition to the badass ronin being camp af, the coastal merchant family sound like they eat hot dish weekly and really look forward to the butter sculptures every year

wow this end end boss is really something. i feel like i wasn't far away and could definitely do it with a little luck but the whole process is too time consuming to go through the 3 or 4 times it might take. think i probably call it a day at this point.

trying to not be too spoilery here - but i will say, i did a final circuit of basically the whole map after i finished the chapters, just wanting to mop up all the optional areas, side quest stuff etc, and i cleared every area and got every side quest done except maybe 3 or 4, including the preconditions for the end chapter, and i would just have stopped there and missed the trigger for the end chapter if cider hadn't mentioned the secret end boss itt. and it's a really important capstone to the game imo! even if the tying together of the stories isn't done in the most satisfying or profound way, it is done, and if i had missed that then the games's failure to do more to connect the "paths" would've been my biggest knock against it. it sucks that a lot of ppl will probably miss that.

anyway, really terrific game, a pleasure to play, all the way through.

which story was your favorite? with a couple weeks of distance now i still think Tressa's was the best on the strength of her character and it making the best use of the condensed structure by telling a smaller scope story.

well, it's funny, despite the first chapter being the absolute worst thing in the entire game, i really liked the last part of ophelia's story. other than that, yes tressa and maybe cyrus too.

alfyn's story had a very interesting philosophical core that the game fudged at best, butchered at worst

i wasn't into cyrus until his finale when he out-final-boss-monologued his final boss in a satisfying way

wait ... there's a hidden final boss? dammit thought I was finished with the game. oh well guess I have some time before MH drops.

OK I am going to get this game!

I am tired of trying to teach myself how to play bridge

my final roster was:

cyrus-cleric
alfyn-warmaster
ophelia-sorcerer

therion-hunter
h'aanit-runelord

tressa-scholar
olberic-starseer
primrose-thief

i always wanted the first 3 active in the late stages because they can each do a ton of damage, have lots of shield-breaking flexibility, and they can each heal the whole party, and imo having redundancy for the latter is a huge advantage. i then had one of the hunters as my 4th, because leghold trap is the best skill in the game (altho also made sure to give my main 3 spellcasters sp saver). therion-hunter gave the best tactical options, whereas the runelord job feels busted when you get it going. starseer was the only one of the advanced jobs that was underwhelming, the other 3 are all OP used correctly.

i only really used sorcerer of the advanced jobs since that's a pretty straight upgrade to scholar. the others i got too late to bother with since i didn't have the JP handy

runelord Tressa kind of breaks the game because you can transfer sidesteps to your whole team and become immune to physical damage