Games Happy

Job techniques in RPGs are one in every of my kryptonites. When a brand new sport lets me mess around and alter out a personality’s position, it mainly turns into an prompt purchase for me. With such a concentrate on jobs, I’ve been on board the Octopath prepare for the reason that authentic title’s launch, and at PAX West this 12 months, I received to spend a while with the upcoming Octopath Traveler 0. I’ll not have the ability to flip my Knight right into a Thief anymore, nevertheless it has nonetheless managed to sink it is daggers into me.

Octopath Traveler 0 is a reinterpretation of the cell sport Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Content material that (at the least within the hour-long demo I performed) has eliminated any noticeable feeling of being a cell sport. Operating by way of battles, talking with townsfolk, and questing by way of dungeons all really feel the identical as any of the opposite two most important Octopath titles. Along with the village constructing system, new to this launch, from what I might inform, essentially the most vital departure from the earlier video games has to do with its fight, which ended up not feeling as totally different as I used to be anticipating. Within the first two video games, you’ll decide 4 out of the eight potential heroes to type your lively celebration, every with a set job, and off you went. Zero ups this rely by now having your lively celebration encompass eight characters unfold between two rows, a back and front, with 4 characters in every, with further celebration members ready in reserve to be swapped out in the principle menu when not in fight. Solely the entrance row can act, however the characters within the again row will proceed to realize their traditional single BP every flip, and any passively activated abilities they’ve discovered will set off too.

When it’s a character’s flip, with a mere single button press, they’ll swap locations with whomever is behind them, permitting them to take full benefit of the flip. It doesn’t price a flip motion to carry out, nor does it spend a BP; nothing. It’s simple and fast, with no downtime, and I actually recognize this. Having these a number of characters take the place of the roles from the earlier video games, although your customized participant avatar will nonetheless have entry to jobs to swap round, and as painless as this new path is, I’m nonetheless on the fence about the entire change.

The precise fight behaves practically identically, although. Enemies have particular weak point varieties which might be hidden till they’re hit with them. Hitting an enemy with sufficient of their weaknesses will break them, inflicting them to take extra injury and miss a flip, and the participant can increase utilizing their out there BP to deal further injury or hit a number of instances. 

My most important concern is that attributable to mainly getting two BP a flip as a substitute of a single one (one on every character), we are going to see the shields of enemies getting surprisingly giant and bloated. Even within the demo I performed, bosses and robust foes had double-digit shields, with one enemy even having as a lot as 20. Perhaps it’s simply because it has been a minute since I performed the opposite video games, however that appears…excessive. For reference, the ultimate boss of Octopath Traveler 2 had three shields that, when mixed, added as much as 18. 

Going into my PAX Demos, out of Last Fantasy Techniques: The Ivalice Chronicles, Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake, and Octopath Traveler 0, this sport was by far the one I used to be extra excited to see and take a look at, because it was extra of an unknown amount. It was additionally the sport wherein my curiosity modified essentially the most in.  If you wish to get an thought of what to anticipate from a story standpoint, you’ll be able to play Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent which continues to be out there and receiving updates, although Sq. Enix has said that components of the story might be expanded on in Zero, and there’s nonetheless no point out on if any of the visitor character occasions from the cell sport, like 2B from Nier: Automata, will make the bounce. 

I’m not huge into taking part in cell video games, so realizing that Zero was based mostly on the Octopath cell sport, I used to be leery however open-minded, and after attempting the demo, had I not beforehand recognized what it was based mostly on, I might be satisfied it was a very brand-new sport. It feels (effectively, the hour or so of it I performed anyway) like a full console expertise, and I’m now simply as excited for it as another awesome-looking turn-based console RPG. 

Octopath Traveler 0 releases on December 4, 2025, for Nintendo Change, Change 2, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox Collection S/X, and PC.