Community Review: Octopath Traveller

26 responses to “Community Review: Octopath Traveller”

1. 

   germinalconsequence

   July 16, 2018 at 11:44 am

   Ultimately, Octopath seems very much for the hardcore JRPG crowd who loved their old-school SNES RPGs, and less like the JRPG you give to someone to change their mind about JRPGs. But maybe I’m wrong about that. Somewhat true in terms of it’s intent but I’m still a huge fan of the old school JRPGs and have no real motivation to play this. I think a lot of the problem is that people were expecting the second coming of Final Fantasy 6 and it failed to live up to that.

   Reply
   1. 

      alexwalker

      July 16, 2018 at 11:49 am

      Yeah, expectation management seems like it was a problem here. Which I find a bit weird, because it’s not like there was immense hype (and there was a long gap between release + the demo dropping on the eShop).

      Reply
      1. 

         zico

         July 16, 2018 at 3:59 pm

         It’s an odd beast. I was totally not keen on it from first trailer. Something about it felt like it was made by a robot that was told to make something using Mitsuda Yasunori style music and FF6 graphics on the Unreal engine.
         Anyway, first hour playing felt like putting on a pair of worn-in leather boots. Well written and produced game with decent combat. I haven’t finished it, but I feel like the backlash may be a bit unwarranted.

         Reply
2. 

   Djonie

   July 16, 2018 at 11:52 am

   I started with Olberic and now have Tressa, Cyrus and Ophelia.

   Loving the game! Music is top notch and the battle system is so refreshing. Individual stories are cliched but with how endearing the characters are it doesn’t bother me.

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3. 

   comban

   July 16, 2018 at 12:00 pm

   I’ve finished Chapter 1 on all my characters, but have found they are all well under the recommended for their second Chapter, as well as the side quest dungeons.

   I assume at this point I just need to grind levels.

   The game is fun, but I’m hoping there’s not a large grind to increase levels between every single chapter.

   Reply
   1. 

      letrico

      July 16, 2018 at 2:05 pm

      I heard that if once you done first chapters, you should go for the shrines to unlock jobs and that should make your characters level enough for chapter 2. Probably intended to do be done that way since unlocking jobs will give more weapons to your characters and better breaking.

      Reply
      1. 

         comban

         July 16, 2018 at 3:27 pm

         Ahh okay. It doesn’t give any hint or indication that the job shrines are unlocked. Or I missed it.

         Reply
   2. 

      darren

      July 17, 2018 at 9:12 am

      I read one option it to just play the whole game with 4 characters, then switch out for the other 4 and play through all their stuff. Gets around mismatched levels between characters etc.

      Reply
      1. 

         jeztron

         July 24, 2018 at 5:36 pm

         You’d need to do a fair bit of grinding to do this though, even after playing all 8 stories I still had to grind a bit to get to the recommended level for chapter 2

         Reply
4. 

   claymore35

   July 16, 2018 at 12:15 pm

   Loved the demo and can’t wait to get my hands on it – but I need to finish Xenoblade 2 first. My backlog of shame is already too much.

   Reply
   1. 

      cubits

      July 16, 2018 at 12:46 pm

      Yeah same. I have like four games going right now, and I’ve still almost bought this game several times. :p

      Soon…

      Reply
      1. 

         shamrocks

         July 16, 2018 at 1:43 pm

         Couldn’t help myself. Still got Bayonetta 2 and Hollow Knight to get through. Hollow Knight first then octo path traveler. Sorry Bayonetta

         Reply
   2. 

      wonderingaimlessly

      July 16, 2018 at 2:03 pm

      Xenoblade 2 was bloody fantastic game gee it goes on and on and on and on and on and on….

      Reply
      1. 

         claymore35

         July 16, 2018 at 2:05 pm

         My OCD won’t let me stop upgrading my blades to max before moving on. It makes a long game nearly impossible to finish.

         Reply
5. 

   tehnoodnub

   July 16, 2018 at 12:16 pm

   I am enjoying it immensely. In my opinion it’s everything it promised to be and everything I expected it to be. So far, the main complaint seems to stem from Octopath’s characters/stories not meshing together at some point to become a unified adventure. I don’t recall any official word indicating in any way that this would be the case. Following from that, the next most common complaint is that it doesn’t make sense for the characters to join each other and there would be no motivation for, say, Therion and Olberic to work together. Yeh, I get that but when you start looking at character motivations more critically in a lot of games, even RPGs, they’re pretty nonsensical. Anyway, those who like it can enjoy it and nobody is under any obligation to enjoy it so each to their own, I guess.

   Reply
6. 

   mortok

   July 16, 2018 at 1:31 pm

   I’m disappointed to learn that the eight narratives don’t seem to converge into an overall plot arc. It would be far more satisfying for the character’s plots to be interwoven, giving them a compelling reason to work together. The dialogue also suffers heavily from over-writing. But I love the art style and the gameplay, and I don’t intend to give up on it.

   Reply
7. 

   yanhaot

   July 16, 2018 at 1:33 pm

   Just finished God of War and immediately started Octopath. Comparatively, the gap in inter-character banter is extremely jarring, but everything else is really good.

   I like the pacing – finishing a chapter then putting it down, doing something else then still curious and interested to come back to it. It’s the kind of game that you should have if you have a switch, but not the kind of game you should buy a switch for. Unfortunately, people judge the game expecting it to be the latter.

   Reply
   1. 

      3dollarftpos

      July 16, 2018 at 4:05 pm

      I was seriously considering getting a Switch for this game, but I’m glad I waited for the reviews.

      Reply
      1. 

         eklom

         July 17, 2018 at 1:12 pm

         Alot of people are really enjoying this game if you buy a switch there’s a free 3 hr demo for this game I suggest if you are interested in this game play it for yourself and dont let reviews give you a predetermined bias. Also mario odyssey, splatoon2, and the upcoming smash bros are great reasons to get one

         Reply
         1. 

            3dollarftpos

            July 17, 2018 at 5:50 pm

            I still don’t think it’s worth the price as I already have an Xbox to play AAA games, and my laptop for indie ones.

            As for the exclusives, Splatoon doesn’t interest me (not really a fan of non campaign shooters). I have played quite a bit of Odyssey but don’t like how power moons are so common, as that removes the fun of finding them.

            BOTW looks cool, but I’m happy to wait (or buy a cheap second hand Wii U to play all the games getting ported).

            Reply
8. 

   irvyne

   July 16, 2018 at 1:44 pm

   I’m in the process of collecting my 7th character at the moment, and while yes it is repetitive, I’m loving it! The battle system perfects what was experimented with in the Bravely games. It’s extremely tactical, without being overly complicated.

   Reply
9. 

   mrbs

   July 16, 2018 at 3:22 pm

   I’m having fun with it so far, long ways to go though!

   Reply
10. 

    Vi

    July 16, 2018 at 5:07 pm

    I was hyped about this game when I first heard about it. I played both the original demo and the prologue demo. I really love the aesthetic and the battle system is great. But, I found d the character interaction in the prologue to really off putting. I know that party formation in jrpgs is often pretty tenuous, but in this game it seems to not be acknowledged at all. Even some basic dialogue written for each character combination at first meeting would have been better than what has been done. As a story first sort of person when it comes to RPGs, this has led me to keep it on the wish list for now while I finish off some other games. I expect I’ll come back to it at a later date because everything g else about the game feels Rock solid.

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11. 

    lf1mtank

    July 16, 2018 at 6:39 pm

    I think this is case of the community and media hyping the game into something at no one point the developers said it would be. I don’t recall any of the promotional material or any developer interview saying the 8 stories would converge into an overarching plot. The tagline for the game is literally “eight characters. eight stories to discover”. So not overly surprised the individual stories and characters all seem separate and disconnected from one another. I’ll need to play it myself but I think the game achieves what it says on the tin from all the “negative” comments the past couple of days.

    Reply
    1. 

       ferret

       July 17, 2018 at 7:11 am

       I don’t understand this thought process.

       Sure the devs never said the stories would work together, but should they have too? No.

       In this day and age it is expected that games of this level of development would have an integrated story. I’m not talking fully integrated either, just asking characters to acknowledge each other. Cause you know, they are willing to fight together.

       It’s serioualy not a lot to ask for in 2018 for a game of this price. Stop making excuses.

       My take on the marketing is this…..8 stories, one world.

       Reply
12. 

    jeztron

    July 24, 2018 at 5:39 pm

    I was pumped after the demo, mostly because I thought the 8 stories would intertwine in an interesting way at some stage. I’m still playing and still enjoying it though, just not as obsessively as I played through zelda.

    It’s not bad exactly, but I started skipping through most of the stories. A few are more interesting and there are a couple of real dark ones.

    Reply