The first time I saw Octopath Traveler, I fell in love instantly It’s visual style, melding 2D sprites with a 3D world, was so striking that I just had to play the game

And that was fortunate as a demo was released at the same time, providing a hint of what I could expect once the full game was released Well, that day has finally come And while Octopath Traveler makes a wonderful first impression, is it good enough to hold your interest for more than a few hours? Octopath Traveler takes place on the continent of Orsterra where players are given the choice of eight different characters, each with their own stories and goals And it’s completely open with how you start You could choose Primrose and her story of seeking revenge, Tressa and her journey to become a successful merchant, Cyrus and his hunt for a lost tome, H’aanit and her search for her lost master, or any of the other four

Each one has their own characters, stakes, and even tone to experience making the game more akin to a collection of short stories rather than one grand epic like in most RPGs The only thing that really matters when it comes to choosing your first character is that they’re the one that has to be in your party for the entire game But that leads into the other aspect of this story You don’t start eight different times with each character Instead, you simply have to travel to the next area where their story is told and choose to pick up from there

It’s simple to keep track of them all as the World Map helpfully points where to go next in each characters’ case This decision to keep each characters’ story separate is not without its issues though In my 45 hours playing the game, I’ve only completed 2 full stories while reaching at least the halfway point with the others And in that entire time, the characters don’t really interact with each other or affect the outcome of their stories in any real way They’ll eventually chime in to comment about the happenings in a characters’ story, but it takes a while to feel any kind of real friendship

It’s just not the focus And while I can’t confirm it, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of final chapter either where they all come together As I said before, these are self-contained tales rather than an interwoven series of events And despite the wonderful first impression that Octopath Traveler provides, it’s actually the beginning that’s the weakest, at least the way I played it I wanted to experience every character right away, and the game encourages this, or pushes it enough for you to get a full party of four

The second chapter of a character is almost always on the opposite side of the map, which basically ensures that a player will check out all the other characters along the way This wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that the opening chapters are extremely repetitive The characters might all have their own unique goal, but every opening chapter features some backstory, a problem, a dungeon, and a boss until you move onto the next character and repeat the process It’s not so bad on paper but doing it eight times in a row dragged the game down considerably Granted, I had the option to just move on to a second chapter at any time

Octopath Traveler scales the levels of enemies based on the amount of progress you’ve made It really does open things up But because I was determined to meet all the characters and had to play in a short time, I ended up bogged down However, once those opening chapters were complete, the game really took off for me Enemies had more advanced strategies, the locations were even more vibrant and interesting, and the stories just kept getting better

And that’s the key thing for me Each of the eight stories is fantastic with well written characters that I couldn’t wait to see more of You’ll obviously have your favorites and some of the plots can be a tad formulaic, but seeing them come together over time felt worth it I want to see the endings of the other six characters It just became that compelling over time

And this gets down to how it feels Octopath Traveler wants to be played Every chapter can be completed within an hour or two This makes it perfect to pick up and play in short bursts while still feeling like you’re making progress However, this also means that the formula really starts to show if you play more than a chapter or two in a day But that’s just the story and characters, what about the gameplay? Well, I’d best describe it as simple with just enough twists to keep it interesting

The key features of combat are the bonus points and enemy weaknesses Every turn, characters will earn a bonus point allowing them to take an extra action Up to four of these can be used at once for a variety of options At their most basic, they allow a character to strike an enemy that number of times This is useful when it comes to enemy weaknesses as every enemy has a certain amount of armor

If that enemy is struck that number of times with their weakness, they’re left in a dazed state where their attacks are interrupted and yours do more damage Without them being put in this state, battles can take quite a while as most characters can only manage half of their potential damage, if that The enemy weaknesses are a mystery until the proper weapon or spell is used and most enemies have a variety of them to allow your party to whittle the armor down together This system, in conjunction with the bonus points, leads to a fair amount of strategy Do you expend your bonus actions right away to prevent the monsters from damaging you at all? Or do you slowly bring down the armor while building up your bonus actions in order to really lay down the hurt once they’re open? Like the story, this battle system is interesting at first then falls into a feeling of repetition as few other strategies are necessary early on

But as I reached later chapters, the difficulty increased and I had to think about how I would quickly and efficiently take down armor while keeping the damage I took to a minimum And bosses from Chapter 3 and beyond really drive these strategies home Oftentimes they’ll be protected by smaller enemies that have to be defeated in order to open up their weaknesses or they could actually shift their weaknesses to force you to change strategies within your chosen party There are other tricks that I won’t spoil, but both of the final bosses I faced in the character stories that I finished were some of the longest and trickiest enemies in the game I just had to reach a certain point for these advanced techniques to be necessary

You see, while bonus points can be used to hit an enemy multiple times with a chosen weapon, it doesn’t do this with spells Instead, it increases how potent that spell is In the case of damaging spells, they’ll be far powerful than usual but still only count as one hit to the armor, making them potentially better suited for when the enemy is weakened Healing spells work the same way, recovering more hit points than they would normally But for buffs and debuffs, these are extended to last longer

Normally, raising your own defense would only last two turns, but if you use the maximum bonus points, it could last eight turns It’s in this way that you have to keep your bonus actions in mind at all times though it never becomes overwhelming Otherwise, each character has their own class that comes with special abilities, spells, and specific weapons which dictates how they have to handle certain enemies Each character feels unique although some do fall into the common tropes of warrior, thief, black mage, and white mage As you battle, you’ll earn Job Points alongside your experience and these can spent to expand your Job’s Skills

Any of these abilities can be chosen at any time, but as you choose, the price for each one increases making you consider your playstyle in order to optimize it quickly But as you unlock more skills, passive bonuses are unlocked as well encouraging you to spend these points immediately This becomes even more important once Secondary Jobs are introduced Around the world are special shrines to find that will grant one of the characters’ Jobs Only one character can equip any extra Job at a time, so you can’t have an entire party equipped with Warrior as the second Job for example

And these can be quite helpful as they can potentially increase the variety of weapons available at that character’s disposal However, this extra Job still uses the same pool of Job Points, forcing you to choose which Skill you want more While you won’t have access to the Abilities of the Secondary Job when its unequipped, you can still assign the passive bonuses and potentially cover any weaknesses your primary Job has It’s an uncomplicated yet fun system that provides something for players to work toward There’s also special Jobs that can be found but these are guarded by some extremely tough bosses, making them more of a late game consideration

Otherwise, each character has a Passive Action that can be used with NPCs This allows them to steal or barter with them, glean information, challenge, and even recruit NPCs to your side It’s a great way to flesh them out and potentially earn some extra items These Passive Actions also tie into the sidequests and are usually necessary to complete them Sidequests don’t provide a ton of bonuses, but they are a good way to earn money and extra items

Even better, some can be completed in multiple ways making for a good way to break up the chapters The world of Octopath Traveler is open yet linear Any character’s story can be done at any time yet the paths in-between towns are mostly straightforward with only a few sideroads leading to chests There are some extra dungeons to explore as well with a miniboss to face at the end before a chest with a good item But not even the dungeons are that complex

That said there is a mini-map that helps point players toward towns, save points, or even these extra dungeons and shrines It helps make things a bit easier to find though it can be turned off if you’d prefer exploring without any direction Even though there might not be a lot to explore in any one path, the vistas in Octopath Traveler are breathtaking It might be reminiscent of a 2D artstyle, but the way trees blow in the wind or the snow sparkles from the light is incredible to behold Each location really stands out from the rest and never feels like a retread

The only issue I ever had was that sometimes the world felt a little dark and didn’t allow me to appreciate the sights as much as I wanted But as time went on, I noticed it less though it was still an issue The character sprites are a great throwback to the 16-bit era with the same kind of expressiveness as Final Fantasy 6 The amount of emotion that can be wrung out of certain scenes with just this simple sprite style is awesome to see and sells many of the big moments But these scenes are also helped by the wonderful voice acting and soundtrack

Every character is sold by their actor with some side characters even stealing the show at points While not every line is voiced, the big moments are, punctuating what they mean to the story And the music is just incredible Haunting melodies, emotional crescendos, light and fluffy beats; it all comes together in a way that made me just want to sit back and listen It really is a standout soundtrack

Really the entire presentation is topnotch Octopath Traveler is different kind of RPG In focusing on individual stories rather than a grand tale, the developers made something a little more personal But because of the structure, this could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the player When I played through all eight of the first chapters in a row, I was left disappointed

Things felt too repetitious and samey without any of the depth I was craving But when I reached Chapter 2 and beyond, I started to appreciate the way the game was structured This really is the player’s story to tell, but I recommend experiencing a later chapter if things start to feel bland It’s there that the game stands out Despite a rocky start, by the end, I liked it a lot

Repetition is the game’s greatest enemy but the way Octopath Traveler allows for short play sessions while still accomplishing larger goals helps this issue I love the characters, the combat is simple yet layered, and there’s just enough exploration to keep me satisfied Now I just need to see how the rest of these stories end Thanks for watching and be sure to subscribe to GameXplain for more on Octopath Traveler and other things gaming