Octopath Traveler

I picked up Octopath Traveler expecting “another JRPG,” and it ended up being one of those games I kept thinking about even when I wasn’t playing.

The HD-2D art style is gorgeous. Like, I stopped multiple times just to look at towns at night, the lighting, the water, all that. The music is also insanely good — it makes even random exploring feel important.

Gameplay-wise, the combat is the main reason I stayed. The whole Break/Boost system feels really satisfying, and it stays fun because you’re constantly planning turns instead of just spamming attacks. Each character having a “job vibe” and different tools keeps fights from getting stale (most of the time).

Story is… mixed, but in a way I still enjoyed. I like the idea of 8 separate stories, and some of them are genuinely great. But it can also feel a bit disconnected, and the “party” doesn’t always feel like a real group since everyone is basically doing their own thing. Also, the amount of random dialogue can be a lot if you’re not in the mood to read.

A couple negatives:

The grind can show up depending on how you play.

Some chapters feel slower/less interesting than others.

The world sometimes feels like a bunch of story bubbles instead of one connected adventure.

Still, if you like turn-based combat, pretty visuals, and a chill RPG you can play in chunks, it’s absolutely worth it.

TL;DR: Beautiful game, amazing music, satisfying combat, stories vary a lot but the overall vibe is great.

I played a demo of this game years ago on another system, and I thought it was generic. Years later, I bought it on a Steam sale(because I love Square Enix), and shoveled it into the backlog. Today, I am playing it, and I can't believe I thought it was generic. When I play this, I get the same sense of adventure that I did when I used to role-play Dungeons & Dragons. There is something about it that sparks my imagination. I am glad that I gave it another try. And, what is fun to think about... when I am finished with this game there is a second one already available with a third one on the way. Sometimes, things just happen like that... Sort of like how my whole life I never listened to Motorhead or KISS until a year and a half ago. Now, I have all of these albums to discover.

8.5/10 - if you like the combat, there is lots and lots of it.

Took me about 120-130 hours of playtime to finish each traveler's storylines. I'm in general a slow player so consider that.
The stories are classic anime-style stories about either betrayal, revenge or ambition, these stories don't reinvent the wheel but they are quite fun in my humble opinion with a couple of plot twists here and there.
For me it was a real feel-good game, it did have some dark things too but the quintessence is mostly optimistic and i found myself often deciding to play this game when i wasn't in the best place mentally and just escaping into this cool world, the game was never stressing me i could play at my pace and therefore it definitely has found a place in my gamer heart. Loved the characters, i was into all of the stories eventually and now I'm excited to play the sequel.

If you are not sure if you wanna play Octopath Traveler 1 or 2 first, definitely start with the first because i have already played the first chapter of the sequel and there are already so many improvements and quality of life changes that going back after two will definitely feel disappointing in some ways.

- What do you do in this game ? -

The game tells the independent stories of eight travelers who set out on a journey, each for their own reasons. You start with a single character (out of the selection of the mentioned eight) and you can theoretically ignore all other character and grind your way to the level of the next chapter of this character's story until you have finished all chapters but that would definitely be hard mode and probably not much fun.
The intended way to play the game is to travel the world to the starting areas of the other characters and pick them up to join your group, you will play the intro chapter for each character, no matter which is your first one, via a flashback, you will then make a group of up to four travelers at a time and fight the monsters of the world.
In cities you can mix and match your party to have the right weapons and elemental types for the given challenge you are facing.


- How does Combat work ? -

Enemies have armor stacks, the stronger the enemy the more armor stacks they have. They also have weaknesses to certain types of weapons and to magical elements. You use your weapons for free and your spells cost mana aka sp, there are also some few abilities that are free but they are usually utility focused and not damaging.
Every time you hit an enemy with a weapon or spell they are weak to you remove one stack of armor.
Now there is also a mechanic called Boosting, after each turn each character gets one point of boost. You can save up to five points of boost. Then you can use those boost points on attacks (with your weapons) or on abilities, attacks will be repeated once for each point spent so they can remove several armor stacks at once and abilities will become stronger much stronger but only hit once and therefore still only remove one stack of armor.
Once all armor is removed the enemy will be broken, taking more damage and being unable to act for the rest of the turn plus the turn thereafter, so that's when you will deal the big damage.
Buffs and debuffs can also be boosted to add two turns of duration for each spent boost point.

Pro:
Great looking gaming.
Very nice, fun take on turn based combat.

Con:
The 8 stories are completly seperate and not very deep/interesting.

An enjoyable game overall, but has some rough edges that were mostly fixed in the sequel. It's not for everyone though. The music is good. I liked the gameplay mechanics, but wasn't a fan of how they implemented the 8 heroes into it. You can only have a party of four, so you'll find yourself, changing the party to continue with the game; a bit chaotic. Some side quests are very vague and hard to follow or finish. You basically have to remember every NPC in the game. But those are optional. A speed up option would've been great, especially in combat. The interactions between the 8 protagonists between each other is kind of awkward. A good buy if the game is on sale, otherwise not worth the money.

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.

this game is great. After you have purchased it, now before you go ahead and drop 10+ hours into the game just to realize the game doesn't save your progress, I would suggest doing the following:

1. when you start the game and are doing the first chapter of your character's questline, try to find the first save point of the game (it would look like a book on a stand with the "!" icon) and save your progress.

2. Log out of the game or return to the title screen, then check if your "Continue" option is grey out or not. If it is NOT grey out and you can click on the option, then don't worry about the rest and you can go ahead and enjoy the game. BUT, if it IS GREY OUT, do the following (well, at least this method works for me, but feel free to check other methods through discussion forums).

3. Quit the game (close the game completely), go to windows bar and search "Virus and Threat protection". Scroll down till you see "Virus and Threat Protection Settings", click on Manage Settings. Scroll down to "Control Folder Access" header, then click on Manage Controlled folder access option. Then look for the "Allow an app through something something" then click on that option, click yes when a window pops up. Then scoll up and/or down to find an option called "Add an allowed app", then click recently blocked apps, then find the keyword OCTOPATH TRAVERLER in those folder paths, then click on that. THIS STEP ALLOWS YOUR SECURITY TO NOT BLOCK OCTOPATH FROM SAVING GAME FILES ON YOUR FOLDER (why is this an issue? Idk, but the devs just ignore without fixing it or some shi, idk).

4. After you have done the step 3, go back to STEAM then UNINSTALL the game, then REINSTALL it. Now you should be able to freely access the "continue" option, but of course your 'testing save file' above is gone, so you would need to play again up until whenever you saved the game to test. IT SHOULD WORK AFTER ALL OF THE STEPS ABOVE, BUT IF YOU STILL SEE THE "CONTINUE" OPTION GREY OUT, THEN CHECK OTHER METHODS FROM DISCUSSION FORUMS.

5. IF you have done everything you can, possibly can, and after a few more testings by saving files and logging out and into the game, AND IT IS STILL GREY OUT FOR THE "CONTINUE" OPTION, then just go ahead and ask for the refund. <3 THE GAME ITSELF IS GREAT, SO GOOD, FANTASTIC EVEN, BUT BECAUSE OF THIS BUG OR SOMETHING IT MAY STOP YOU FROM ENJOYING THE GAME, SO DON'T BOTHER,