When I reviewed the original Octopath Traveler almost five years ago, I loved it. I was completely enamored with its art style, its mental and artistic connection to the 16-bit JRPGs I grew up with, and its amazing combat system. I was playing Octopus Traveler 2 and was excited to see all the things I loved about the original return. But what is surprising is how little progress has been made in the last five years. In fact, apart from the specific story being told, Octopath Traveler 2 is almost indistinguishable from its predecessor. That means it’s just as great in many ways, but its lack of novelty makes it a little less magical the second time around.
Octopath Traveler 2 is so similar to its excellent predecessor that there’s no reason not to play the original first. However, the story isn’t directly connected, so if you’re looking to start your journey here, the name ‘Octopus’ also describes the eight playable his characters and the ways they travel through the world. You should know what you are referring to. You can choose to start with any of them, and after playing through his hour-long chapter at the beginning of the story, stick with that character for the rest of the campaign. After that, you can freely roam the beautiful Tilt Shift world, but areas are more or less locked out depending on the difficulty. If you enter the area and are level 5, you will be killed almost instantly on the first encounter. You might think, “Oh, but I’m his JRPG veteran with experience. He knows a thing or two about how to approach high-level zones.” I am here to tell you that you are wrong. If the area says 16, it’s best to have characters of level 16 or higher in your party.
As you start walking through areas according to your level, you’ll come across new towns with new characters. As you meet new characters, you can choose to play the first chapter or add them to your party. I liked being given options because I prefer to progress through the game and ask questions later, but it’s pretty late in the campaign that I discover how important it is to actually play each chapter for myself. You have to trust me to avoid spoilers, but I’m sorry it feels like a deceptive choice.
This time, each character has two special abilities, one for day and one for night. You can switch between day and night at will, so it’s more like switching modes rather than having to wait. You have to interact with characters that only appear at night, so instead of hanging around town and visiting inns and such, you can switch between different versions of the world, which is pretty cool.
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Sloane, the thief I chose as my first character, pickpockets people by day and “ambuses” them to sleep at night. The Ambush skill is useful, for example, if the doorway is blocked by his NPCs. wgile pickpockets are a good way to load items without going to the store. It’s a win-win! Other character abilities include recruiting townspeople to summon during battle, fighting townspeople to learn special combat moves, and capturing monsters to summon during encounters. to reskins of other character’s abilities. For example, recruiting followers is the most common of skills, but it’s useful when you have two or three additional sets of hands to summon in battle. I like this system because I can, but I can also steal their stuff and they don’t care!
The day-night cycle is most important in the city, but it also makes a difference in the world. Enemies are harder at night and experience points are higher, so if you’re feeling confident, it’s recommended to switch to night while traveling.
Travel between towns is via connecting paths rather than the open Overworld. It’s more like traveling through a mana game or chrono his trigger than a final fantasy or dragon warrior game. That’s not a bad thing. I like the game “Octopus Traveler”. It literally takes you on a road trip from place to place. Beyond towns and cities, there are temples to visit, blessing your characters with new “EX” abilities. I recommend tracking all of these temples. These abilities are very useful and make the late game a little less difficult.
Each character has its own story with multiple chapters, but I loved the completely different tone and scope. For example, Hiroki’s story arguably starts off the most epic and open, and is the most typical of what you’d expect from such a massive 80-hour JRPG, while Partitio’s story is much more humble though. , this simple merchant story blew me away and became my favorite of them all. I especially enjoyed the way he played Cassti. In fact, while the individual story conclusions were all satisfying, the journey leading up to them didn’t always resonate with me. Again, it makes sense if you complete them, but you savor the story of a clumsy dancer trying to become famous in the moment someone else is fighting to reclaim the throne of a stolen country. All the stories are at least an improvement over the original, but not so much that HBO would pick one of them for an immediate gritty drama.
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Luckily, I’ve been a big fan of the excellent turn-based battle system since the first game. Each enemy he has one or more ‘weaknesses’, revealed by hitting him with the appropriate weapon or elemental attack. (It’s not the glowing orb on the back of the head that could be considered a weak point in the game. weakness.) If you discover an enemy type’s weakness, it will appear in each subsequent encounter. I loved the system from the first game and wouldn’t be surprised if it returned. It can be frustrating. Still, trying to line up your weak point attacks in a way that stuns your target so that your most powerful normal attack can do more damage, and at the same time you don’t get your strongest enemy. I really enjoy the extra dimension that it brings to combat because it aims to be a chance to hit me.
However, my long playing turn-based JRPGs have meant that I’ve gotten used to the somewhat predictable nature of weaknesses, and enemy weaknesses here often feel completely random. If you encounter an enemy that’s clearly made of ice, JRPG vocabulary (and physics, you know) would suggest that the creature is vulnerable to fire, but in Octopus his Traveler 2, such things are Rarely. That frozen elemental is actually weak against light magic! Or ice cream for some reason! If there’s a connection between enemy types and weaknesses, it’s not immediately clear. This means that the first round of each combat with a newly discovered enemy becomes an exercise in guesswork (besides some character abilities that provide little starting information).Shooting arrows at flying enemies to expose their weaknesses is fairly safe, but it’s not everytimeIt seems very arbitrary.
Octopus Traveler 2 takes a lot of work, so I’m glad I didn’t have to find my weak spots every time. Opinions are clearly divided on this subject, but I think the grind in an RPG is mostly meditative, as long as you put in a little extra effort before the boss fight finally pays off. The leveling required to reach the part isn’t achieved by simply following the laid-out path, so without spending time on that grind, the party can’t progress. , need to level up.
That said, I was always conscious of how far away I was, as I should be able to defeat the boss if I entered an area with a “Danger level 14” and reached the boss with a party around level 14. As in any of his JRPGs, you’ll be able to brute force your way through some of the previous bosses, but the ability system, exploiting weaknesses, and battling his point bonuses make it pretty strategic to do so. I had to think. After losing a lot of boss battles, take a quick look at your party. What are their strengths? What complementary skills can they employ to improve their abilities? Are they equipped with the right sub-jobs and weapons? you can’t. Once I found the right balance of all the elements, even the trickiest bosses could be defeated with a second try, so it was more rewarding.
That being said, the final boss is pretty awful.
Without spoiling anything, I can say that I went into the final boss fight confident in my team’s abilities and strengths and defeated it again and again. Of these, Octopus Traveler 2 was the hardest. He was one more time until I created a spreadsheet. No, it’s not a joke. The only reason I finally beat the boss wasn’t because I was too leveled (I’m…a lot), but because I took a deep breath and literally wrote down my combat notes before my final attempt. It balances skills, weapons, character matches, and item usage, giving the final encounter more thought and organization than you think you’ve ever done in a game. No kidding, I failed over 10 hours to beat the final boss. It was the most amazingly brutal boss in his JRPG I can remember fighting, and the joy when I finally got that victory was like no other.It may sound silly, but how we actually had to rethink and plan our entire approach to the final battle Improved My opinion on this sequel.
