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Octopath Traveler Review
Octopath Traveler is a JRPG by Square Enix released exclusively for the Nintendo Switch. It stars 8 characters on their own unique journeys, seen above.…
Octopath Traveler is a JRPG by Square Enix released exclusively for the Nintendo Switch. It stars 8 characters on their own unique journeys, seen above. Ophilia the Cleric(dressed in white), Olberic the Knight(dressed in blue), Therion the Thief(dressed in purple), Primrose the Dancer(dressed in red), Tressa the Merchant(the character with a hat), H'annit the Huntress(the girl in the background), Alfyn the Apothecary(the boy in the background chewing on a stem), and Cyrus the Scholar(dressed in pure black). The game was released worldwide July 13th, 2018.
Combat is your standard turn based affair, with a few gimmicks here and there.
The most unique thing about it is the break system and boost system. If you hit an enemy with a weapon/spell theyre weak to, their shield amount will go down(seen above). When that shield hits 0, they'll be in a break state where they will be stunned for a turn and attacks do double damage. This adds a layer of strategy, as breaking an enemy or boss while they are charging up attacks makes them cancel that attack, or if you are low you could also break them to have a breather and heal up. The break system also ties in with the boost system. Every turn, you will obtain a boost point, or BP(seen above hp bar above). You can save up to 5 BP. When you hit the R button, you will "boost". This has varying effects on various techniques. Skills and Spells will gain boosted damage, buffs and debuffs will last longer, heals will heal more, and if you boost a normal attack you can increase the amount of attacks you hit. You can boost up to 3 times, allowing for a total of 4 hits, so theoretically you could break a 4 shield enemy in one turn. If you boost a previous turn, you wont gain BP the next turn, and if your HP hits 0 you lose all BP.
Theres also the Job system. See, each character has a job. Each job has its own skills and passives. You unlock new skills and passives with Job Points, or JP, that you obtain at the end of battles. After a certain point, you can unlock sub jobs. For example, I can give Olberic the Knight the subclass of Thief, allowing him to steal. Or Primrose the Dancer the subclass of scholar, allowing her to use strong spells. Each job has their own skills, spells, and weapon types they can equip, for example, only the Dancer can use dark magic and only the Scholar and the Cleric can use staves. When you equip a subclass, you gain access to all those skills, spells and equips of that class. It gives an extra layer of strategy, making you organize your party makeup so you'll be able to hit every weakness with every party, considering you have a party size of 4 with 8 total characters. Fortunately, you can switch characters in your party at any time at a tavern.
Each character has their own talent and path action. Unlike spells and equips, these aren't included in subclasses and are unique to each character. Each path action has a noble and rogue variation for the same purpose. For example, Therion has the rogue path action of obtaining items, Steal, where he can steal from NPCs, while Tressa has the noble version, purchase, where she obtains items by buying from NPCs. The difference is that rogue is based off percent(Therion has a 10% chance of stealing a Golden Axe) while noble is level based(Tressa needs to be level 35 to buy the Golden Axe). Don't worry if you want to be a rogue though, percent goes up with level. Like mentioned earlier, talents are also a mechanic. These don't have noble and rogue actions and are just unique. Some are in battle, some are not. Therion can lockpick purple chests, which no one else can open. Cyrus automatically learns a weakness of an enemy when he enters a battle with them. Olberic can boost his defend command, and take damage for other party members. The list goes on. These two mechanics make all the characters feel very unique and useful, making everyone useful to bring along.
This game is also unique in the way you can basically do anything you want. You can do 8 stories, you can do 1 story, you can do no stories, you can do rogue actions, you can do noble actions. You can do the final dungeons, or you can stick to the starting dungeons. This freedom can even be exploited a little, as stealing or purchasing from end game towns can give you end game equipment early on.
The graphics in Octopath are absolutely tremendous in my opinion. While everything is pixelized, the pixelized objects are incredibly detailed and colored. The particles are bountiful and beatiful. In battle and in the overworld, everything is animated, and overall the game just has a fantastic level of polish.
The music is very good as well. Especially the battle themes. The battle theme might just be the most important part of a JRPG, considering you hear it so often. And this game nails it. Every battle theme has a fantastically organized orchestra, and some of them have acapella and chorus. The other music is good too, matching each area and character very well, though it's not particularly memorable.
The framerate of the game never dipped for me, and the loading screens were quick too. Not much to say here as they work well.
In my opinion, this is simply just one of the best and most consistent JRPGs released recently, and has quickly shot up to one of my favorite games of all time. The amount of polish and effort put into this game is simply tremendous. After the shaky opinion of Final Fantasy XV, I highly recommend those who were put off by Square's antics give this game a go. Score: 9/10; Some music is unmemorable and the travel banter depends on who is in your party and not your total character count. Aside from those reasons, the game is perfect in almost every way. Greatly recommended.