Games Happy

I’ve had a rocky historical past with current video games by Sq. Enix’s Workforce Asano. The unique Octopath Traveler, Bravely Default II, and Triangle Technique have been all stuffed with potential, but in need of greatness. I’ve loved dramatizing it as a “curse” of kinds, even when most of these titles have been enjoyable regardless of their unevenness. The one one I wasn’t in a position to really get into was Octopath, and I’ve spent the previous couple of years making an attempt to restart playthroughs to provide it extra possibilities to impress me.

Octopath Traveler II is the uncommon sequel that improves nearly all the pieces with out altering an excessive amount of of the unique recreation’s core. It understands what made it work particularly for the individuals who fell in love with it, and it iterates on that with the clear intent to make them love this one much more. Along with that, the sequel irons out the formulation to make it extra approachable for individuals who didn’t gel with the unique. As somebody within the latter camp all these years in the past, I’ve discovered myself shocked at simply how a lot this second go to has fully captured my full consideration previously few weeks.

Throughout the first few hours, after enjoying by means of your chosen protagonist’s introduction chapter, you’re given entry to the sport’s open world with full freedom to discover it to your coronary heart’s content material. There are some restrictions relying on who you begin with, and it is a terrific thought to get no less than 4 characters of the sport’s whole of eight recruited, however the way you do that and the order you do it’s completely as much as you. This, proper right here, is the primary draw to the sport. The world of Octopath II is one in every of my favorites in recent times; exploring all of it will simply take gamers properly over round 50-60 hours. 

In my makes an attempt to play the unique Octopath Traveler, I had discovered myself bouncing off within the first 10 hours, discovering most of the character’s introduction chapters and their motivations boring. Chapters appeared formulaic, drawn out, and simply not that enjoyable. I’d usually fall off after getting round 3 get together members, and even after wanting into the forged extra on-line solely two of them really hooked me. This time round, nearly each single character’s story felt each better-paced and written. 

It is usually uncommon for a chapter to go over two hours in size, and every chapter feels dense with story beats which saved me invested from begin to end. I’m not going to let you know that these tales are the zenith of the medium, however they’re very properly written and infrequently stunned me with the place they went. The tone is often grim, exploring the darkness of humanity with out presenting its concepts as cartoonish oversimplifications. There are some really evil characters on this recreation, particularly in Throné’s story, however they really feel realistically evil and the sport likes to delve into nuanced conditions regarding them. 

The place the true strengths of Octopath II lay aren’t within the story, even with me having fun with it as a lot as I did. The gameplay is what really received me over, and all the pieces they’ve finished right here simply feels adjusted or tweaked sufficient to make it click on this time. On paper, numerous what Octopath II does feels identical to what they did for the primary recreation.

Path actions roughly boil all the way down to 4 approaches: Buying objects, studying about an individual, recruiting them, or knocking them unconscious. Each character has round two of those obtainable to them, which change relying on whether it is at present day or evening. For instance, Throné can steal objects in the course of the day and ambush individuals at evening. Temenos can recruit characters and interrogate them. Hikari can problem NPCs to a battle to realize new talents and bribe them to study extra about them. A enjoyable new addition to go with this can be a button that allows you to freely swap between the time of day on a whim, which may also be used to combine up the monsters you battle within the overworld.

I think about when it got here time to create a sequel to Octopath Traveler, the event group discovered it tough to determine what bits of criticism to take to coronary heart. I believe the most typical criticism was that the playable characters by no means interacted with one another’s tales. I too would voice this criticism typically when discussing the sport, and I believe many individuals shall be dissatisfied to listen to this hasn’t been immediately addressed. Having spent weeks enjoying Octopath II, nevertheless, I’ve a greater understanding of why it was essential to design the sport this fashion, and I really adore it rather a lot. 

As I discussed beforehand, Octopath Traveler is supposed to be a structurally open recreation that values participant freedom. The general association of eight particular person characters with eight distinct storylines might not match the extra conventional and anticipated construction of a unified JRPG get together and a unified aim, thus some concessions are made with a view to match that imaginative and prescient by way of character dynamics.   Possibly it took falling in love with the SaGa video games – which share some widespread parts – for me to start to grasp what Octopath was attempting to do all alongside, however I believe this was the suitable course to take the sequel in. I would moderately not see Octopath change dramatically and danger its identification with a view to conform to expectations it doesn’t attempt to meet. For those who’re in search of linear, story-driven, party-centric  RPGs, there are an abundance of them.

That stated, the selection made to handle this element of Octopath was to pair off every of the eight protagonists with one other, and provides every pair an ongoing aspect story. I don’t suppose these paired tales stand out as a lot better than the person principal story paths, however they’re nonetheless very charming and it is nice to listen to the forged assist each other out clear up little issues alongside the way in which. These are additionally completely non-obligatory if gamers don’t want to search them out.

Even outdoors of the non-obligatory paired storylines, there may be an abundance of additional content material for gamers to search out. Actually, there’s an nearly overwhelming quantity of content material on this recreation. You have got your regular JRPG aspect quests, however very like the unique recreation, they’re typically hands-off and supply solely obscure hints at finest on methods to clear up them. That’ll be a flaw for some, however when all the opposite aspect content material within the recreation is equally mysterious and obscure, I believe it simply works. Probably the most peculiar moments in my playthrough was strolling outdoors a random cave and noticing the setting and music appeared darkish and murky. The music had modified, and my instant first encounter quickly after was an unknown and weird enemy that reset the world again to its unique state as soon as defeated. The sport drew no express consideration to this, and I used to be left giddy after I got here throughout it. I really feel like some video games aren’t courageous sufficient to be this mysterious anymore, and supply content material that may be stumbled throughout by pure probability. I nonetheless haven’t discovered what triggered this, nevertheless it set a precedent for me to uncover all of Octopath II’s secrets and techniques. There’s a lot to uncover, and I really feel like I’ve simply scratched the floor.

Whereas I like nearly each approach Octopath Traveler II lets the participant have interaction with it, there are some points that have been obtrusive to me. The primary one is that the encounter price is moderately excessive. You’ll be able to increase this with Job Class expertise (take characters down the scholar path if you’d like this), however doing so may make my second main challenge worse. Every character’s tales, together with each area map, have a really helpful stage. Gamers who’ve mastered these may possible get by under-leveled, however main story chapters on a personality’s path will typically bounce moderately excessive. 

This stage gating, particularly the additional you get into the sport, may result in some sadly lengthy grinding periods in the event you haven’t been often rotating your get together. I made the error early of discovering my favourite three characters to make use of in battle: Throné, Hikari, and Osvald. This left a fourth slot that I attempted to rotate, nevertheless it wasn’t earlier than lengthy that numerous my forged fell behind in expertise. There is no such thing as a passive EXP share for characters not in your lively get together, which truthfully appears a bit outdated, and this might result in tedium relying on the way you play. Fortunately, with the world being as expansive as it’s, with the addition of an explorable possibility accessible through a ship that may be bought by means of a Partitio aspect quest, there are greater than sufficient locations to go to stage up naturally alongside the way in which. 

The saving grace of my principal complaints is that fight is enjoyable, even moreso than the unique. It makes use of a mechanic impressed by the Bravely Default video games that allows you to replenish actions and use them in fast succession to attain extra hits or stronger particular assaults. Mix this with an enemy break system that asks you to hunt out and exploit weaknesses and an in-depth job system, and you’ve got the recipe for a unbelievable fight system. I don’t suppose a lot has modified right here from the unique, however tweaks beneath the hood appear to be made to make it circulate higher and it reveals.

Lastly, I believe what was most spectacular in my expertise is that the Change model is in a a lot better state than the final one. Although that is now being launched on a number of platforms without delay, I used to be dissatisfied at first that there weren’t as many graphics choices as Triangle Technique on Change. There’s just one possibility for graphic depth, and it didn’t even really feel prefer it modified a lot. Nevertheless, after having loads of time with the Change model I don’t suppose it was that wanted. They’ve toned down on the acute quantity of visible results and elevated the pool of colours used within the recreation’s palette.I’m completely happy this was addressed; it makes Octopath II one of many best-looking HD2D video games up to now. It looks as if inspiration was taken from the current Stay A Stay remake’s various aesthetics for every of the primary tales, and I’m glad it looks as if the suitable classes have been discovered and utilized right here. Sprites can nonetheless be a bit blurry undocked, however not any greater than Triangle Technique and I really feel it was cleaner than Octopath I. Total, I don’t suppose enjoying this on Change shall be a foul expertise for anybody who lacks a stronger console or PC.

Octopath Traveler II is a really assured sequel, realizing what labored with the unique recreation and sprucing these features. I really like the forged, fight, and exploration. It is greater and higher. Easy as that. It doesn’t actually take a lot explaining to sum up why this recreation is so good, and belief me I’ve tried. It takes a flawed but gratifying premise and improves on it so properly that it is one of many higher Sq. Enix video games they’ve launched in current reminiscence. Try the demo, there’s actually not far more I can say. It additionally provides one in every of my favourite open worlds I’ve explored in a recreation, a real achievement that’s discovered within the intersection of retro throwback and a contemporary innovation.

9