Octopath Traveler 2 Catch-All

TheHarpoMarxist wrote:

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.

Yeah, the default rate seems borderline broken to me. In an age where there are many alternatives to random encounters, or systems for allowing players to control them to taste if you do still want to use them, it was a bit jarring to hit a game that feels like it lifted that part of the design from one of the old NES JRPGs.

It has made my forays into places that are above my level exciting. Especially because you can't just save. I suddenly felt like I was in iron man mode in a rough spot after pressing my luck one step too far in a level 26 area with a level 17-20 party. Successfully managing to limp back to the exit with two party members at single digit HP and everyone out of SP was quite the thrill!

Octopath Traveler 2 Left Me Absolutely SHOCKED... | Review

Just gave my 20 hours in impressions on Octopath 2 in the latest CC episode.

I also spontaneously wrote a beginner's guide to the game which will be published here soon.

Apparently I like this game a lot lol.

I've only had a chance to play a few hours, but I was delighted to find that pressing the shoulder buttons allows you to auto-advance the dialogue in cut scenes. I love it when a story heavy RPG does that.

I played the first chapter of Ochette and I am wondering if I should play the other characters or move on. In the first one you met the other characters and could optionally do their chapter 1 (I believe) is that still how it works?

Yeah, when you reach another character's location, they'll join you immediately (if you want) and then you can either do their Chapter 1 right on the spot or do it at a Tavern in the correct town (indicated on your World Map) later.

I think you definitely want to play each chapter 1 as well, as the stories are much better written than the first installment. None of them feel like a slog and they generally don't outstay their welcome.

Forgot to mention in this thread that the aforementioned beginner's guide is now live.

I did a bit of a daring foray into an area I was significantly under-leveled for north of Crackridge (my main is about level 30, with others throughout the 20s). Using evasive manuever and the cleric ability to improve fleeing chances, I snuck in and got some great loot. I found a banger of a sword for Hikari, but then I found a city up there and...

Spoiler:

Right near the entrance of the city I found the armsmaster job. Nice! I was about to equip it to Hikari, then I realized that the six-fold strike pairs INCREDIBLY well with Temenos's latent talent. Its like just insta-break 6 armor for 3 less BP than Elemental Barrage. I think I'm going to run with this for a bit even though intuitively the job makes more sense on Hikari. (I'll put him in as a Hunter instead when I find that guild, that'll give him bows and axes which will make him nearly as versatile weapon type wise.)

Man, I enjoy Partitio as a character, but his Chapter 3 is the first story that really fell completely and absolutely flat for me.

Spoiler:

The idea that a benevolent wealthy noble gave people some money and they stopped working is a a bit on the 'yikes' side.

I haven't done Agnea's Chapter 3 yet because she's the one I've been slowest to level.

I cleared away some tasks, events, and yes games, finally picked this up, and am quite enjoying it. I started with Ochette and then stumbled into Osvald, which was a bit of a jarring tonal shift, but I think a solid progression--Ochette seems to basically be free resources, which Osvald's opening chapters showed me he desperately needs. I just barely picked up Throne, and may pick up someone from the west and then proceed.

How spoilery is this spoiler-cast? I am sure I want to play OT2 at some point in the next year.

It is a two hour in depth conversation that digs into every character's individual story, the most relevant bits of the crosspath stories, and is about as spoilery as a spoilercast can get. We also have discussions about mechanics, hidden classes, etc.

If you want to be surprised by anything in the plot, definitely hold off.

If you want to slake your Octopath 2 thirst in two hours instead of a hundred and don't mind knowing where a story is heading, this can probably tide you over until you get around to playing (or even inform how you approach the game when you do play.)

I'd also recommend it for Octopath curious folks who have no intention of playing but want to get a sense for what its about. Andrew and I had a fantastic conversation and frankly it could have kept going lol.

Update - totally forgot that we did have a non-spoilery conversation for the first ten minutes or so. LOL. What is time?

So, Chained Echoes is in the bag and there's still about a month to go before Sea of Stars. Octopath Traveller, you're up!

However, I'd love to have some thoughts on one important topic before I start:

Are there standout performances in the English voice cast? Any characters that really come alive thanks to the voice work?

Or is this a game where I'm better off using the Japanese voices from the start and never looking back?

Oh man, it's absurd the degree to which Ochette's beast taming lets you sequence break in this game.

Haven’t played it, but I was curious if I’d recognize any of the voice cast. Looks like the A character is a big name: Xanthe Huynh, played Haru in P5, Marianne in FE 3 Houses, and Altina in the Cold Steel series, among many other roles.

I ended up going with the Japanese voices, for what it's worth. The English wasn't bad, but it's definitely in the territory where I'm more happy with the game's native language.

And, done!

I decided I'd better take a quick break from Baldur's Gate today and wrap up the last bits I had left before I lost track of where I was. Turns out I maybe had a bit more left than I expected, plus that final encouter

Spoiler:

caught me by surprise. Basically, I got WAY ahead of the difficulty curve of the game quite early and generally stayed there, so I was expecting the final fight to be just as much a cakewalk as a good portion of the later game already had been.

Wrong!

I was not prepared for that wrinkle. Thankfully I WAS prepared enough to not have to go all the way back to before the forever night section started, but man, I really had to put some effort into making sure all eight of my characters were set up and ready to go, and then had to stay on my toes to the very end of the fight.

Quite fun!

And actually, all around quite good -- very glad I gave it a chance, and very glad I didn't let Baldur's Gate keep me from wrapping it up.

(Very cool credits sequence too!)

I've reached the later levels, what would probably be considered the end game, and these later areas are really getting to be a slog--random encounters dragging because of the high shield points that must be broken, but also the weaknesses tend to be non-congruent, and many of these random monsters also have entire party attacks that can easily put even over-leveled characters at critical from full. I just fought a side boss in an area my main character was 20 levels above the recommendation, and I risked using an item that revived and fully healed my entire party, and its next action was an attack that hit everyone and killed a party member (who, admittedly, was 3 levels above the recommendation).