Octopath Traveler

Octopath Traveler is an awesome game. You don't need to play the first game if you are interested in playing the sequel game. I played and finished Octopath Traveler II (on the switch) before starting the first game and I kinda regretted it because I should've probably waited a bit longer before jumping straight into it. The first game is fantastic, but the sequel is just so much more polished in every single aspect (visuals, story and gameplay). If you are interested in the series then I recommend playing Octopath Traveler 1 first, if you want a more polished experience then I highly recommend playing the sequel.

This game is VERY, VERY GOOD.
Here's the deal. When making a game clearly drawing from older games, you can take it one of two ways.
1: Make a game that's as faithful to the original style as possible, up to and including being able to run on original hardware. This is admirable from an artistic perspective - it is a terrible decision, in my opinion, for making as great a game as possible.
2: You can do what Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler and Resident Evil 4 Remake and a lot of other amazing games do: capture the FEEL of the old thing, what it FELT like to play it for the first time back then, by combining what was back then with what we can do now.
Octopath Traveler is an excellent JRPG, and honestly? The only real problem with the game is that the sequel is an ENORMOUS improvemennt. There's a lot of minor gripes and things here and there with this game that are just wholesale solved in the sequel, and the sequel has no new flaws of its own.
Still, I highly recommend Octopath Traveler to anyone who has a love of JRPGs or wants to know what it felt like to play Final Fantasy on the Super Nintendo on Christmas in the 1990s.

Beautiful JRPG. 8 stories with 4 chapters each with incredible moments, the visuals and music are top notch. Do yourself a favor a do all side quest, the reward is really worth it. A must play, can't wait for the second one.

I think the sequel, which is also on Steam at astonishingly a similar price, is a better game that does not require knowledge of this game, but if you play this game first you may appreciate the QOL improvements in the second. I would comment that I enjoyed the cast of characters in this game a bit better than the sequel, they're all lovable individuals.
For the game itself, it's a solid RPG game with a fun combat system and an interesting story. I enjoy the graphic style as well immensely. I think the story did not have proper time to really blossom into something particularly evocative, but it was certainly still something that can be appreciated. I recommend going an all female roster because they're cooler than the guys, let's be real.

Octopath Traveler was a really fun game to play that has 8 mini adventures/heros to explore with clever lore that links them together in the end game content. The gameplay of the battles is where I feel the best part of the game lays, with clever builds needed and rotations of heros. Other reviews I've noticed have mentioned they get lost or forget about the hero stories with there being 8 in the game but I never came across this myself. The only issue I feel with the story is the repetitiveness of the stories, as in "oh this is the person this time to be evil and back stab you".
For the achievement hunters, the game has a few missable items which I was lucky to have collected on my first play through, which meant not having to do a whole second proper play through which would have pushed my total time of 100% over the 200 hours mark. I really hate speed runs but it was fun to learn and play the game in a different aspect. The game has no check list option for some of the achievements which meant I had to print off lists to keep track where clearing up the game after the main story.
Overall I give this game a 7/10. The lack of story depth and repetitiveness of chapters with all the heros made the game feel abit grindy in places, but the battles itself are really fun and enjoyable to play with good end game content to explore :)

Octopath traveler is definitely not a thoroughly fun experience, some parts of combat feel so slow some stories are unbelievably basic. The game has a looot of problems but it's still a pretty fun game with the awesome music and graphics. Some stories are pretty fun and the combat mechanics are one of the best ones i've ever seen with actual challenging bosses, even though the game is not for everyone i'd say it's worth giving a shot if you enjoy turn based rpgs.

It’s great and worth playing but I just want to add that if you only have time for one RPG I suggest just playing the sequel. Like this one’s good but that one is a top of the line RPG. Don’t worry they’re not significantly connected either.