REVIEW | Octopath Traveler
Written by Michael Richardson
Published 30 September 2018
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All trademarks are properties of their respective owners.
Opinions expressed in this review are of the reviewer alone.
Game Copyright 2018 Square Enix Co. Ltd.
NS Exclusive
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Not Enough Rations
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Olberic, Cyrus, Therion, Ophelia, Primrose, Alfyn, Tressa, H’annit. Eight travelers. Eight tales. Eight regions.
Let me ask you one question; Have you ever gotten tired of a motif? Because my pen is out of ink.
Tokyo based Square Enix is mostly revered for their role playing games. The Japanese developer received praise for releasing annual masterpieces, beginning with Final Fantasy on the NES and hitting their stride with their trio of SNES rpgs: Secret of Mana, Chrono Trigger, and Super Mario RPG. Therefore, gamers were disappointed for years when the developer strayed away from their turn based strategy roots. When Bravely Default debuted on the Nintendo 3DS, the game was critically acclaimed for, among other things, its innovative return to Square’s golden age. Four years after Bravely Default’s release Square Enix looks to please gamers once again with Octopath Traveler, a return to turn based strategy with a modernized pixel based art style. While Octopath Traveler’s memorable aesthetic and characters stood with me after ninety five hours completing the main game and side quests, its dull structure and intrusive mechanics result in a journey not worth finishing.
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Eight Stories in One
You begin Octopath Traveler by choosing one of eight playable protagonists. This character will stick with you for a majority of your journey, thus it is imperative that you choose the individual that best suits your play style. However, you can pick up the other seven travelers along the way and can listen to their tales at any time. Overall, I could not be more conflicted about the story of Octopath Traveler. There are only four characters whose stories I would say are genuinely enjoyable, being Primrose, Alfyn, Tressa, and Olberic’s tales. In contrast, H’annit, Cyrus, Therion, and Ophilia’s stories are poor. Whereas Octopath’s best stories incorporate believable character development, interesting backstories, mostly memorable villains, and insightful conclusions, the other four, especially Therion and Ophilia, include none of these. Ophilia's tale is particularly abysmal, with an annoying voice actor, dumb setups that feel like disparate vignettes, and a predictable final boss who is blatantly obvious to the point of redundancy. This is to say nothing of the fact that these characters do not fit together, which proves detrimental to the experience. Afterall, I cannot be fully immersed in a world where a thief is cooperating with a church cleric. However, the inclusion of a journal that keeps tabs on the stories is well appreciated, considering some chapters are incredibly forgettable.
All of the characters tales are separated into four chapters, and this is where the game’s repetitive structure begins to rear its ugly head. A vast majority of the chapters include the same pattern: enter a town, talk to a distinguished npc, determine the location of a dungeon, enter dungeon, defeat boss at end of dungeon before save point, listen to dialogue, exit town, rinse and repeat. For almost every chapter. With thirty two total chapters, Octopath Traveler gets predictable and boring far earlier than it should. Even worse, the regions themselves are repetitive. There are eight regions with three towns each, one for the beginning, middle, and end of a tale. Each chapter one takes place in the character’s home, second and third in intermediate towns, and fourth always in the end town. To add to the frustration, stories are always relegated to a single town and characters seldom interact with one another. When they do interact, its entirely optional and easily missable. While the dialogue is enjoyable and offers insight into the character's personalities, the protagonists should be interacting much more. If character dialogue were to occur between battles or chapters Octopath Traveler’s protagonists would have felt less awkward to be around, significantly improving the experience as a result.
Furthermore, while I like to offer advice to developers on how to improve a product, the structural issues present in Octopath Traveler are simply too big to patch. The stories would have to be radically changed, along with some of the character's personalities, the geometry of the world, and implementation of a sizeable amount of character interaction. Unfortunately, improvements seem unlikely considering all that effort would likely go towards a sequel.
While the characters barely interact with each other, there is a true final boss and dungeon that ties a lot of the lore excellently together and had me with goosebumps at some revelations. While the area does not excuse the lack of development from the rest of the game, it is still an enjoyable inclusion. Although I enjoy games with stories that convey a new meaning after lore development, the final dungeon is way too hidden and the payoff after at least sixty hours is not worth it. I enjoy secrets in games, but massively limiting polt understanding because of two non player characters completely dumbfounds. Additionally, the dungeon's horrendous structure makes the final encounter frustratingly more difficult. Furthermore, I only recommend reaching the final dungeon if you are willing to deal with a baffling structure and hours of character leveling for story revelations.
Indeed, Octopath Traveler necessitates a leveling grind, because in yet another baffling decision, characters do not level up as you do. Frustratingly, this issue has been fixed in numerous games including Super Mario RPG. Chapters are gated off unless you meet certain level prerequisites, which are easy enough, but only for the few characters you prioritize. Therefore, you must level each character up manually which takes hours upon hours to bring up to strength. Additionally, the lack of options makes it so battles cannot be speed up and experience rates cannot be manipulated, unlike the Bravely series. Consequently, leveling up characters becomes monotonous and annoying. Even worse, characters cannot be swapped in or between battles, instead switching party members is relegated to taverns. This not only has an adverse effect of making it so some characters are used more than others, but equipment becomes far harder to compare and exchange. I do not understand this decision, because the developers could have come up with ways to affect the player for switching characters mid battle, such as less health or not being able to attack for a turn. And the game literally has a fix for comparing all character equipment in the final dungeon... Why was that feature not there all along?! If Octopath Traveler had characters level up outside of battle and switchable into gameplay, the game would have been much more convenient and hours of padding would have been shaved off.
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Modernized Ballet
Whew! That’s enough about the story. Time for Octopath’s most redeeming aspect - the gameplay. Like many turn based combat games, you take turns fighting against a varied assortment of enemies with up to four attackers. If everyone has their health reduced to zero, its game over and back to the last save point. After defeating an enemy, you are rewarded with a currency named leaves, job points, and experience that is used towards leveling up a character. Unfortunately, stats are not shown after receiving a level. Unless you memorize character statistics from the status menu, it's hard to determine what improved, making leveling feel inconsequential as a result.
The brake and bp system are what truly make Octopath Traveler stand out in terms of combat. Similar to the bravely and default mechanics from the Bravely series, after every turn players earn one battle point, accumulating up to five for each combatant. Battle points augment a characters strength for a turn and can allow weapons to be used up to four times or a devilishly powerful skill to be unleashed. Figuring out whether to break an enemy or deal massive damage presents a wonderfully complex risk versus reward system that only strengthens the further you progress. An enemy becomes broken after their gauge reaches zero upon successful hits from their weaknesses, resulting in loss of a turn and radically decreased defense. Together, the break and bp systems add a marvelous amount of complexity and fun into each battle. Figuring out an enemy’s weaknesses frequently satisfies and had me strategizing for future turns and beyond so I could best utilize my skills and bp.
Skills offer a level of customization that I adore about Octopath Traveler. Up to twelve jobs can be obtained inside of shrines that incorporate additional abilities into each character. However, not all skills are unlocked at once and must be purchased using job points acquired from battles, and the same job cannot be equipped on two characters, but they can switched whenever you like. Indeed, Olberic can be a dancer, complete with corresponding abilities and weapons. I love this, to the point where I constantly found myself experimenting with different job combinations to exploit enemy weakness or create optimal character builds. Each job feels unique, with skills ranging from powerful one hit strikes to area of effect damage, to character buffs and enemy debuffs, and more. While switching jobs is a chore, the system can feel overwhelming, and I wish there was an easy way to keep weapons permanently equipped to a character, I cannot undermine how the job system adds a layer of versatility to gameplay that evolves into a ballet not seen in most role playing games. Having a battle go exactly as planned feels incredible, and the rush of adrenaline from unleashing a thirty-thousand damage crusade is palpable. Furthermore, Octopath Traveler well balances risk versus reward to culminate in an innovative and fun combat system that I hope gets implemented into future series installments.
While each character can equip class skills, path actions and talents are restricted to the original job protagonist. For instance, Primrose is the only traveler than can summon an npc into combat because she was originally a dancer. However, talents bring with them consequences in the form of noble or rouge path actions. A rogue character such as Therion can steal items at any level with a chance of failure and losing reputation, whereas a noble individual such as Tressa can buy those same stolen items at a certain level and her reputation will not suffer. If you lose enough reputation in a town then you will be unable to perform path actions until you pay the tavern keeper to completely restore your notoriety. Path actions and talents add a reason to utilize each character and offer an array of versatility, but result in similar party layouts. You are at a disadvantage if you decide to not have a character to initiate battles with, obtain items, summon npcs into battle, and question villagers since characters cannot be easily switched out. In particular, Therion is essential to bring along because he has a unique talent of opening up purple chests throughout the world, which often yield powerful rewards. While troublesome and restrictive to necessitate certain characters, I enjoyed the uniqueness and applications of each characters. I especially liked H’annit because she possesses an immensely creative and useful ability to capture monsters Pokemon-style. Gotta catch em’ all!
The continent of Orsterra is filled with things to do, with Octopath Traveler offering at least sixty hours of playtime. Locations are aesthetically varied and often breathtaking, with optional dungeons that litter the landscape and occasionally relate to side quests. Exploration is encouraged with constant rewards such as chests or hidden characters for venturing off, and the game incorporates a well balanced economy to make every purchase feel purposeful. The biggest issues I draw from the world design are the town arrangements and side quests. While town inhabitants include well written dialogue, the areas themselves are very similar and repetitious. Inns are always footsteps upon entering a community, and towns are only one to three screens each. Additionally, not always having the provision and armory stores together wastes time traveling back and forth for items.
However, the side quests are in another area of obscurity. They mostly boil down to scrutinizing or inquiring every character until one speaks what you need to hear and bringing that information back to the original quest giver. The side quests are necessarily vague because important side quest characters are not hinted at, so diversions begin to feel tedious and insubstantial after around ten quests. If you question every character, you will finish at least eighty percent of the side quests and they will be done within seconds. Furthermore, Octopath Traveler would have benefitted from fewer higher quality interactions that felt unique from one another.
I understand that I have been mostly negative about Octopath up to this point, which is likely getting degrading. Rejoice, however, for the presentation is unequivocally the greatest aspect of the experience. Octopath Traveler’s “HD-2D” premise truly shines through with excellent sprite work that beautifully reminds of SNES rpgs. The lighting effects in particular are a splendor to behold and having characters against 3D buildings works surprisingly well. The protagonists and enemies are well animated and memorably designed, which is too say nothing of the bosses. The sense of scale in boss battles impresses, and I grew to love these towering and nonsensical behemoths who genuinely strike fear into combat and provide a good challenge, alongside expert details and vibrant pixel art that reminds me why individuals adore sprite work. Also, Octopath ran smoothly in my experience with a snappy and intuitive user interface and occasional frame rate dips. I also want to commend the addition of nine save files, because in an industry where three files is the standard, Octopath stands out by allowing players to not delete their long journeys.
Octopath Travelers particularly excels on an audio level. Sound effects are great and voice acting is mostly good, with compliments especially going towards Yasunori Nishiki’s soundtrack. Nishiki successfully incorporates seamless melodies into each landscape that exponentially rise during boss fights. The boss battle themes are truly wonderful, with bombastic orchestral crescendos that had me itching to get to next boss fight and listen to the soundtrack outside the game. While other tracks stood out, a majority of them did not resonate with me because they heavily rely on atmosphere and had a tendency to put me to sleep. However, no track stood out as terrible, and since music is such a subjective preference my dislikes have no consequence on Octopath’s over three hours of compositions. I have been listening to this soundtrack for hours on end and will continue to do so. Nishiki has awoken in me a musical interest not seen since last year’s Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and for anything to approach that level of musical artistry is a remarkable feat. I look forward to Nishiki’s future projects because he has proven his compositional elegance with Octopath Traveler.
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Verdict
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Octopath Traveler is a fun but massively flawed experience. A very repetitive structure, intrusive mechanics, vague side quests, and some bland adventures impact the experience to the point where I cannot recommend seeing the narrative through to the final boss. However, the reason I remained in Orsterra was because Octopath Traveler invested me in a believable and beautiful world filled with rich combat and memorable protagonists that offered a myriad of customization options. Additionally, the soundtrack seamlessly incorporates itself into the story and exhibits a level of vibrancy seldom seen in gaming. Furthermore, Octopath Traveler stands out as a game whose ambitions could have been mostly realized had there been a seamless narrative incorporated into the experience and some quality of life improvements. I hope to visit Oresterra again, but massive political and geographical differences must occur to synthesize a modern turn based rpg reminiscent of the golden era.
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