Octopath Traveler 2 Catch-All

Octopath Traveler 2 is coming soon. Anyone planning to play it? What were your experiences with Octopath Traveler 1 and your hopes for the sequel?

I'm planning on it, with an asterisk. Since I don't have a Switch and don't like playing things on my laptop, my experience with the first one was limited to a cross-promotional event with one of SE's mobile app games (FFRK, RIP), so I'm glad 2 is coming to a machine I have. Unfortunately, I'm currently juggling 5 or so pretty hefty games, so I'm not sure when I'll get to it.

I am rapidly trying to move through all the games on my plate to make sure I have the room for both this and Redemption Reapers, which drops two days before. Will definitely be playing this right away though!

I'm definitely excited for this one. I liked Octopath Traveler 1 a fair bit, though I felt it kinda fell down in the second half: I was disappointed that there weren't significant interactions between characters or links between the stories until the very end, and the game balance also pretty much got chucked out the window by the mid point.

The 2nd one seems like it at least tries to address the interaction criticism of mine, and from the demo (which I have, somewhat dismayingly, restarted seven times to play through all eight stories' prologues ) the stories themselves seem stronger and more interesting too, so that's a happy start. No idea if the balance will be better in the later stages, but in what I will take as a positive sign Clerics no longer seem to have that ridiculous passive that lets you be healed past MaxHP that was capable of single-handedly breaking the first game.

Yeah, I enjoyed the early going of the original but I bounced pretty early because the story did nothing for me and the characters fell flat without having each other to bounce off of despite supposedly traveling together.

I'm very encouraged to hear that the demo was good enough to warrant digging into everyone's story lol.

Well, I admit I was less impressed with the Dancer and Hunter, but I kind of suspected I would be based on their character selection splash screens' info about them, which is why I saved them for last. Even then, the Hunter one was at least a little more interesting than I'd feared. The Dancer one... well, maybe it gets better? Or maybe in a game with eight stories I shouldn't expect to like all eight and I'm being unfair.

I enjoyed the other six though, and am eager to see how they continue next Friday.

I liked parts of OT1, and really disliked other parts. If they can polish it, make it less of a drag, there is plenty of potential though. Definitely a Wait & See, as well as Wait for Sale for me.

Huh, looks like reviews are out already?

At a glance, the reviews seem to indicate that what we're getting is a polished and improved OT1, more or less: better graphics, better sound, better gameplay, better stories.

Some minor to moderate (depending on which review you're reading) improvements on connectivity and interaction between different characters and stories, but it doesn't sound like OT2 is any kind of major upgrade in that area.

I didn't catch much about game balance other than some comments that progression gets a bit sluggish in the later game, so probably will have to see for myself if it has the same sort of issues I ran into with OT1.

I was leaning scholar but the merchant character design is great (less interested in that class but its hard to say no to someone who pulls off yellow with confidence and panache.)

I admit I have no idea who my starter character will be. I've got it narrowed down to 7.

If I went with my usual mechanics preference I'd probably go Scholar (I like wizards), Warrior (has 'blue mage' elements, which I usually like), or Hunter (also has 'blue mage' elements). But story/character wise, my favorite is probably the Cleric, mostly because of his sarcastic faith-doubting Winnie the Pooh personality, with Apothecary being a runner up due to what I've seen of her story far.

Merchant and Thief don't hit #1 on either axis for me, but are still strong enough that I'm considering them.

Octopath Traveler 2 Review

Soon!

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/fTrP0FZ.png)

Listening to this week's Triple Click, Jason Schreier was very big on Octopath Traveler II -- it sounds like he's carrying his Switch around the house, bingeing this whenever he has time. I generally feel like Jason has a great sense for JRPGs and he was also pretty critical of the way the first game felt monotonous / repetitive, and the stories didn't gel. He's much more positive on this one, and said he was about 30 hours in. So that's very promising.

I've been really enjoying it myself so far, at about 15 hours in or so.

I really like the unique traits of the characters (such as the Warrior's Blue Mage-esque ability to learn abilities from NPCs, which I've used to teach him a self- HP/SP recovery skill, some elemental magic, and a Cait-dropping "toss money" ability ) and the Latent Powers (current favorite is the Apothecary's latent power which lets you mix concoctions without using ingredients, which turns it into something you can unleash powerful effects with semi-frequently instead of always saving them and never using them.)

The jobs seem to have overall stronger/more interesting skill setups too. The Warrior for example can get an ability that counters physical attacks with a powerful always-Shield-reducing hit, another ability that draws single-target attacks to him, yet another ability that raises his own defense, and a support that gives him a physical attack buff when he Breaks an enemy. It is an interesting set because while all 4 together are ridiculous, all of the components are individually useful too.

I'm still running about recruiting all the characters, so I haven't been past Chapter 1 on anyone yet, and thus no new comments on the story beyond what I said before about liking most of them in the demo.)

I did the demo on the Switch with the cleric, and fell in love with his subversive wit. Ended up being one of the first to buy it at the Nintendo Store in NYC (as noted by the cashier, who said everyone else that day was buying Kirby). Unfortunately, my Switch is back at home, and I’m not.

The cleric is my main character; his personality is definitely my favorite of the cast.

Downloading.

Mechanically, I was interested in playing the Scholar, but everyone here is selling me on the Cleric. Not usually a class I gravitate toward, but I'm definitely tempted now.

Weighing Cleric for story/character reasons, Warrior because apparently they are Mechanically interesting, Merchant because the character design is good, and Scholar because I love me some mages. I have until lunch break to decide lol.

LastSurprise wrote:

Listening to this week's Triple Click, Jason Schreier was very big on Octopath Traveler II -- it sounds like he's carrying his Switch around the house, bingeing this whenever he has time. I generally feel like Jason has a great sense for JRPGs and he was also pretty critical of the way the first game felt monotonous / repetitive, and the stories didn't gel. He's much more positive on this one, and said he was about 30 hours in. So that's very promising.

Thanks for posting this. I fell off the first game hard after about 8 hours because I was so put off by the writing and the repetitive narrative structure. I remember Jason bashing the game for all for all of the same reasons I ended up disliking it, so seeing him flip to effusive praise for the sequel is enough for me to give it a look.

I went with the Cleric - no regrets so far! Storytelling feels a TON better than original in the early going.

grumble. I'm just going to have to come to grips with the fact that my method of playing everyone's Chapter 1, then everyone's Chapter 2, etc. apparently isn't intended for these games. I'm still on Chapter 2s and the main party is approaching Level 50, making them significantly over level for even most optional dungeons I run across, to say nothing of the main story content.

This happened to me last time around too, and just like last time around, I place the blame squarely on Caits. Once you get to where you can kill them 100% reliably (which can happen very early in this one), things go downhill fast.

I mean, I guess I could have not killed them.. I'd probably only be in the mid-high 30s then, which would still be over leveled, but not by so much that bosses get wiped in a couple of rounds. It's frustrating to have self-restrain in that way to fix game balance though.

The other thing I maybe could have done is switch out party members more? But kinda like with not killing Caits, it isn't great to feel obligated to do that in a game that seems to be about freedom of play.

Feels like the thing that is missing is leveling doesn't really get slower until you're way.... way.... waayyyyy over level for an area. Even when you have 10-15 levels on an area and are instant-nuking encounters, you still get decent experience relatively speaking.

Jason Schreier was over on Axe of the Blood God singing its praises, along with the regular hosts. I'd written this one off primarily on the decidedly middling Eurogamer review, but I guess I'll have at least give the demo a go now.

Okay, a few more hours in and I can confidently say this is a significant improvement over the original. Like, night and day (both literally and figuratively, actually.) Its not any one things magic bullet fix either, its just multiple effective adjustments across a variety of mechanics, design, and storytelling elements.

I am looking forward to trying it. Since they never seem to go on sale I put myself in the hold queue at the library. If I love it I might buy it but I love being able to try first

I've now done 7 of the 8 opening chapters (just the Dancer remains) and even the ones I was less fond of all had something worthwhile in them. (Even as silly as the merchant's "the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a capitalism is a good guy with a capitalism" story seems to be, the music in that chapter one whips.)

Sort of bummed to hear it isn't selling as well. Its leaps and bounds better than 1. I can't stop playing it lol.

I was pretty confident I was okay skipping this after being a bit meh on the first game, but all the good press has me thinking again. Maybe after I finish Chained Echoes...

zeroKFE wrote:

I was pretty confident I was okay skipping this after being a bit meh on the first game, but all the good press has me thinking again. Maybe after I finish Chained Echoes...

I was in the same camp (and finishing the same game.) I bounced hard off of the original OP despite liking the graphics and general combat a little bit. In the time since playing it, my opinion of it worsened.

Honestly, I almost skipped this one. I'm so glad I didn't. Its wild how good it is.

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:
zeroKFE wrote:

I was pretty confident I was okay skipping this after being a bit meh on the first game, but all the good press has me thinking again. Maybe after I finish Chained Echoes...

I was in the same camp (and finishing the same game.) I bounced hard off of the original OP despite liking the graphics and general combat a little bit. In the time since playing it, my opinion of it worsened.

Honestly, I almost skipped this one. I'm so glad I didn't. Its wild how good it is.

Yeah, that’s exactly my experience of it.

Damn, on the list I suppose.

Got the physical version; purchased online and am waiting for delivery. May not start anytime soon, but wanted to vote with my wallet so that we might keep getting games like this.

I finished all of the main quests, including

Spoiler:

the extra bit at the end that ties the stories together.

Pretty much what I'd been saying before held true: the stories remained interesting and entertaining, the gameplay balance remained a complete mess. By the end, I was Level 75 or so and the "Danger Level" of the content was only very low 50s. I'd been ending random encounters in a single round (often in a single action) for the past 30 game hours or so, and bosses were in most cases not much longer affairs.

It's actually kind of remarkable I kept playing at all given that, I'm usually pretty vulnerable to losing interest if the gameplay gets unchallenging, but the stories and characters were good enough to keep me around to see the end.

I will add one other note though: holy moley the random encounter rate is ridiculous sometimes. It is just as well that I was able to clear them so quickly, I'd probably have quit long ago stories or no stories if they'd actually required significant time investment. If you find it bothering you too, strongly consider adding Temenos and Throne to your party and traveling only at night. The combination of Moonlight Judgment's debuffs and Blessing of Darkness' buffs make it much easier to clear encounters quickly even if you don't end up way overleveled.

I'm excited to hear that the stories retain their pull, I've completed a few chapter 2's (both Thrones mother and father routes, Temenos, and Hikari) and I'm really digging the way they all build off of and fundamentally change the set ups in chapter 1 in the case of Temenos and Throne, and how Hikari is clearly doing a Mass Effect 2. Partitio's chapter 2 is next on my list and I was pleased with how quickly he got his level up to speed coming off the bench.

I have the evasive maneuvers skill equipped and they random encounters still feel frequent lol. I imagine they might be a bit much without that.