Genre: RPG Developer: SquareEnix System: Switch
0000000It would be a mistake for me to give this game a high score. However the story is probably what I liked most in this game.
The story is necessarily fragmented, (into 8 different stories), however, the storylines that were good made up for the ones that weren't.
0000000 In particular, Primrose's story stood out as epic as well as pushing the envelope with respect to sex. Not that there's a lot there in that
regard, it's just that I was surprised that prostitution was such a central theme in her storyline. I sincerely hope that Octopath 2 has sexual themes as well. I will say I was
pleasantly surprised, though. I think there is a lot more that can be explored with regard to sexual themes in RPG storylines in the future. The ending of Primrose's story was
particularly epic, which I enjoyed. The story, the visuals and music all came together for a satisfactory experience.
0000000 The game clocked in for me at around 108 hours... but much of that was wasted on grinding and it could have been shorter if there was some sort
of AI controlled battle option. The game wants to justify not having this option by being a little more mature, than say, Dragon Quest, which always has that option nowadays, and
I can respect that, however the game was simply too easy to justify not having it. There were extra optional bosses at the end that were fun to try, but I think the game was long
enough that most gamers (including myself) are going to say "no thankyou"--especially when one of the bosses has a move called "War Cry" where it deals about 1500 damage to all of
your characters 4-5 times. The boss is certainly beatable-- there are abilities that will save you from a big attack like that, but I didn't have that equipped and had no interest
in trying to defeat that boss since it wasn't required to beat the game. Also a move like that is just overpowered anyway.
0000000 I did get Game Over probably around 5 times. It felt embarrassing to get Game Over in this game because the game overall is so easy. When
you did get a gameover, it was because the boss was unbalanced with respect to the enemies that were leading up to it. Or it was because it had some gimmick that was unexpected
such as giving your whole party the sleep or unconscious status ailments. There was no way (outside of looking it up online) to know ahead of time that a boss was going to do that
to your party.
0000000 The game did benefit in the gameplay area from passable level design (mostly due to the enjoyment of looking for hidden pathways to find
treasure chests, which was more fun than it sounds). I didn't find the sidequests to be that fun, since they all just involved finding an item and brining it back to the character
who started the quest, and there were way too many of these to keep track of, and the quest menu didn't help that much to give the player a clue on what to do. When you did
complete a quest, the reward was not worth the effort (which was a lot of effort sometimes). The games initial abilities were too limited; each character's class had 8 abilities.
At the very end of the game, there were hidden caves in which the player could find overpowered jobs such as Runeseer and Sorceror, but by the time you found these the game was pretty
much over and there wasn't much incentive to get these.
0000000 The game suffered from the game problems that literally every other JRPG suffers from... one-dimensional characters, terribly cheesy written
dialog, and money becoming useless at the end of the game. I think the design team could benefit from looking at the Fire Emblem series for some inspiration-- some more focus on
relationships between characters could add some interest.
0000000 Another annoying aspect was that Therion was required in your party at all times due to the need for his steal ability at all times during the
game. Even when you did side-dungeons there were special colored chests that only Therion could open. So your main and Therion had to be in your party at all times.
0000000 Overall, this game is better than the Dragon Quest series and has a lot of potential. Let's see what Octopath Traveller 2 has to offer.
~ Adam Henderson
Game Difficulty Rating:
7/10 DIFFICULT
80% Stunning visuals, paired with semipixelated graphics, it looked beautiful.
80% Epic music, almost as good as the greatest games in terms of music scores.
60% Not much that hasn't been done before.
87% Story was engaging, battles were challenging (until the end when it got too easy)
75% 108 hours.
80% It had its moments.
OVERALL SCORE = 82%
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