Octopath Traveler II (2023)

RATING: GAMEPLAY : 9

• Boss fights and gameplay are gripping
• Requires a bit of patience but rewarding nonetheless
• A Turn-based RPG STORY & THEME : 10
• Truly memorable characters and narratives
• World and atmosphere are incredible
• A masterpiece when it comes to music VALUE : 10
• 100+ hours into the game and still not completed all content.
• 2D/HD game at its peak A solid 9.5/10, one of my all time favourites. The game has a very strong cast, well crafted plot-twists and a sense of mystery that keeps you invested from start to finish. You can watch my own playthrough on my YOUTUBE CHANNEL HERE:

Finally started this up yesterday.

I was going to start as Osvald (scholar) since I chose Cyrus in OT1 and found having elemental magic and the ability to identify weaknesses from the start to be a solid choice. However, you have to complete his first two chapters back to back, and I wanted to go into this a bit less constricted. Decided on Temenos instead, and that worked out. Can't go wrong with a cleric who coerces people into giving information by breaking their shields in 1v1 combat.

After his first chapter, I did Osvald's first two, and then went to start Throne's. I added her to my party and backtracked a bit to previous areas to steal from townsfolk and whatnot. Until I sat down to write this, I'd forgotten that you couldn't add the characters to your party without completing their first chapter in OT1. I might just snag one more before I go back and start Throne's story.

Overall having a great time. I like the day/night feature (and how you can just switch at will with a single button), the expansion of path talents, etc.

Defeated the secret boss, and that was tough. I followed a strict guide to win, but I want to try again in my own terms. Might need to level up my characters a bit more to manage.

Got all the gramophone records and the 'best' weapons. Shoutout to Osvald for mostly doing the work there with his mugging path action. I underestimated how powerful he's become.

After about a year of exclusively playing on the TV, the experience feels a bit lacking when I'm using my Switch in handheld mode. I don't intend to get an OLED version so might just wait it out until my living room is free again. On the other hand, I have a lot of free time now to play so that's kind of a pity.

Got all job licenses and divine weapons. I think I'm also going to collect all battle-tested equipment and gramophone records. Then there's only two crossed path chapters left and one seemingly foreboding side story. This is the most I've done for a game but I really like their world and I don't want to leave yet.

My TV (and living room) will be out of commission for a few months starting this Wednesday, which means that if I want to play, I can only do so on handheld. I do not want to play action games that way so I might just push playing Nier: Automata until it's nearly fall.

Anyway, two days left to finish this game in a big screen, and I think I can accomplish that but do I want to rush? No.

Attained greater appreciation for the world's NPCs and side stories. NPC descriptions convey a variety of tales that can be - among other things - amusing, chuckle-inducing, or heart-breaking. I especially like how, if you pay attention, you find that a lot of them are connected and these characters lives are interwoven.

Got to finishing 'The Washed-Up Letter' side story, and that was a nice suprise. My soft spot for sad stories involving mothers probably played a big part there. I didn't expect I'll ever hear about Emerald again, but I'm glad to know the rest of their story.

Now what I'm most curious about is the House Wellows Manor incident. I really like how they've set up that area.

Finished Throné’s story. Two things of note: (1) I thought it was effective storytelling how, when you try to coerce them, the vessels in Lostseed hurt themselves instead of fighting back at Temenos. Like okay, they really are broken [for some reason that I do not know yet]. (2) The revelation that the leader of the Blacksnakes impregnated all those women, and all the members, including Mother and Father, are literally brothers and sisters disturbed me.

Four more stories to finish. I kinda don't want this game to end but there's not much left to do anymore with my characters in terms of skills progression. I'm considering changing their secondary jobs to spice things up. I wish there were advanced jobs to upgrade to.

Rolled credits on this finally, and I'm left feeling that it's sort of a modern take on Trials of Mana/Seiken Densetsu 3. Which is to say that it's a very pretty, compulsively playable game with a broadly charming cast of characters and almost zero narrative or combat depth.

A couple of the more lighthearted stories are simple fun, but all 8 are let down by their mustache twirling villains and the near-total lack of interaction between your party members. The combat runs out of ideas after you've recruited all the characters early on, with even less decision making in its class system than Seiken 3, and can be sailed through all the way to the end by spamming the same couple moves over and over.

The open world has perilously few secrets to find, both in the barebones dungeons and the narrow hub-and-spoke overworld, and actively punishes exploration by further flattening the already gentle difficulty curve. The 2 dozen or so towns you discover are impressively varied and lovely to look at, but for me the ability to shake down every villager for resources reduced them to giant compulsive loot boxes.

It's never unpleasant, there's always a clear goal in front of you, and you're always picking up more stuff. But there's not much to it beyond the comfy progression fantasy.