Octopath Traveler (Nintendo Switch 2018)

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

the runelord skills are very strong. make sure everyone in your party has one elemental+ weapon and then suddenly everyone is doing 9999 with a single hit, ~6000 through shield even. the warmaster skills give a lot of options but the main thing is the divine skill, expensive but was hitting for around 40k each time for me.

So much to look forward to!

"Pray tell me more about From the Far Reaches of Hell."

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

https://kotaku.com/octopath-travelers-best-npc-is-this-reclusive-old-man-1827803634

I can't wait to recruit this creaky sob. sadly it appears my octopants have to go back in the closet for another week or more since there's a shitload of homework due next week

OK, is there any more unstoppable party comp than OOPC? because holy fuck

more like OP AF

thats a good party i always specced ophilia as a dancer and vice versa though so i never had both at once

I'm just getting into the secondary jobs and am glad you suggested that option. So how stupid was it for me to make H'aanit into an apothecary? Doesn't even gain a weapon type. Facepalm. Tell me I can fix this.

Yeah you can swap at will. Only one person can have a given secondary job at a time, so I always strip jobs from people when I deposit them to Bill’s PC leave them at the tavern.

yeah you can freely swap, the only limiting factor is you don't get your job points back so if you waste those on a job you end up not using you might have to go grind some up

i think i used thief on haanit mostly. nothing's particularly synergistic with her

I think since Ophilia is my protagonist I’ll go ahead and make her the apothecary, that way she can also deal with status ailments & it doesn’t matter much that she sucks at physical attacks.

H’aanit’s going to end up with warrior secondary, I think.

If I make Olberic a dancer will he announce THE PEACOCK STRUT with the same sultry, yet stentorian assertiveness as Primrose?

Not positive but his outfit is the same as Primrose’s

His fate is sealed

anybody else sing "Rufus, the Left-hand Man" to the tune of "Roland the Thompson Gunner" or just me

I feel like I already won the game when I introduced the textiles guy to the idea of making pants. The rest is adventure saga gravy for historians to ponder, while they wear variations on the theme of durable, yet fashionable pants.

ciderpress otm (as usual) that the miniature biographies of NPCs is the best part, but the travel banter between party members is all but tied for first, and I don't want to make a choice

There's so much nuance in these stories that got overlooked. Well, and there's a lot of stuff that's not nuanced at all!

As far as I can tell, this entire continent is a collection of failed states where hacks and charlatans and bandits do as they please, while the working folk die in poverty and the rich sit idle. Let's also put a nail on it - everyone who is rich got their via inheritance or theft. On top of that, you have a network of disgusting sexual abusers and pimps, highly politically connected, some Big Pharma, and I swear I had to fight one of the Koch brothers last night over the land rights to some shithole mine.

Who wrote this game? How is there not a MAGA chud outbreak of death threats against the people behind it? I'm only 42 hours in. Please tell me there's 100 hours more.