Current Events > I hear Octopath Traveler is a great old school JRPG.

(+) Yeah! (+)

I wish I was getting it for Christmas.

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You heard wrong.
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It's tedious garbage

First stage of the game is good, middle is tedious, final sections are great. I'm finishing it up now after playing it on and off since release, finishing the Act 4s and tackling the 4 gods for their advanced classes is really cool, I think if there was 8 advanced classes with a middle tier being obtainable midway through the game would have gone a long way for the midsection tedium.

I respect it mainly for some of the best puzzling and intricate combat from Square Enix in a while, while falling short on story flow and pacing. Falls short of being great overall, but definitely a better showing as an RPG compared to anything not named Dragon Quest we have gotten from square in a while. Much like Bravely Default, Octopath takes a lot of steps in the right direction (but plants its feet in a few pitfalls along the way).

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Godnorgosh posted...

It is a crime that that mediocre game got so much of the recognition as that year's "great old-school JRPG" that DQXI undoubtedly deserved

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Forget that game and get the superior Bravely Default

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I liked it a lot but I found myself being really frustrated with Ha'anit's main boss and giving up. The battle and job system, graphics style, individual plots and the side quest design are all really good. I never really felt bothered by the lack of party interaction.

My biggest issue with it is that it makes you want to level up everyone and do all their questlines, but it's a pain in the ass to swap around items and party members, and then like 2 of them will end up being overleveled from their own stuff. Just weird pacing

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It was tedious at points, but I appreciated what they attempted.

Except for the finale. They royally screwed up the final hours of the game.

Conflict posted...

Are you referring to the optional dungeon? Because yes, that was awful

Yup I am. Some of the worse game design ever. I struggle calling it optional though because of how integral to the plot it is. I never learned how the game ends because the final dungeon is so horribly designed.

I really like Octopath Traveller, but I see it as more of a tech demo for a game engine. I really want to see Final Fantasy 6 remade in it.

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Conflict posted...

That shit legitimately made me just ragequit the game. 8 bosses you gotta defeat in a row to attempt to fight the final boss, which has a massive and absurd difficulty spike relative to the rest of the game.

My thoughts exactly. And those 8 bosses, while not difficult, have to be beaten every single time you want to reattempt the final boss. Absurd.

Dont get me started on the final bosss difficulty spike. Its so over the top stupid. Again, I dont consider the boss optional as the fight is still integral to the main plot.

i just bought it

it's 40% off on Nintendoshop

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BroodRyu posted...

My thoughts exactly. And those 8 bosses, while not difficult, have to be beaten every single time you want to reattempt the final boss. Absurd.

Dont get me started on the final bosss difficulty spike. Its so over the top stupid. Again, I dont consider the boss optional as the fight is still integral to the main plot.

The 8 refights are easy. Just make it so that your final party & jobs are all set before entering so you don't have to do it again if you fail.

It was pretty hard relative to the rest of the game but I still beat it on my first try.

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Honestly, it's hard to call them mere flaws. The problem starts pretty much from the concept itself. There are so many things wrong with the way the game presents itself, and ultimately it barely evolves. The only really entertaining parts of probably the entire game is the HD rumble for opening doors, which you miss out if you play the PC version, and the extra class boss battles. Oh, the boss music cutscene transition into the boss music is also great, I guess.

But pretending the other party members don't exist in story cutscene was a terrible idea, and they should've made recruiting all 8 chars mandatory, as well as incorporate all party members into the cutscenes instead of just slapping on some extra dialogue that kinda makes some of the story cutscenes not make sense. (tbh nobody gave a shit about the speedrunning community probably about 3 weeks into the game's release when a guy figured out it was possible... then realized he already just about maximized it, and everybody went home)

The extra dungeon, on top of being unnecessarily sloppily designed, probably also has one of the worst tie ups to 8 individual stories I've ever seen. It felt a lot more like they saw what they had and just tried to pull random elements that might fit together somehow or another. Doesn't help that it still never feels like you have 8 characters adventuring together by the end, even tho gameplay wise, that's what's happening. Also some character's journeys were just worthless. Like 2-3 of them have so much heavier weight on the story that if the rest didn't happen, nothing would've particularly gone wrong.

I didn't even touch upon the battle system, but it gets repetitive after you've completed the first round of stories. I hated battling. I ran from everything and cheesed exp with dances. You also don't get that many tools early on. It felt like the extra classes are what you should've had fucking 2 rounds ago because they're actually fun to use. Also due to the limitations of what you get early on and what you pretty much keep for the rest of the story, despite side classing, some enemies are undeniably harder to break, which pretty much every battle boils down to how consistently you can break tbh, and some classes are just downright inefficient.

Yeah I wouldn't call it great. I would probably just flat out call it bad. It's a bad game, and I didn't quite understand the excessive praise. Oh, the graphics are definitely great, and so is the voice acting and script. But it felt like wasted effort

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octopath traveler is a trash game that only got propped up because it was one of the few jrpgs that the switch had at the time

I had a lot of fun with Octopath Traveler and was pretty addicted to it, though I thought its writing/characters were just on the "eh" side. but the combat, gameplay, and music are top tier imo.

I'm not sure I'd call it an old school JRPG though, but maybe my idea of old-school JRPG is flawed.

Conflict posted...

There's nothing superior about that game

Story, characters, party interaction...

Don't lie, it's not a good look.

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It at least looks really nice unlike Bravely Garbage and it's shit ass 3D models.
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I sunk 50 hours into the game, not reading any of the story. One of the only JRPS I actually liked.

I would consider playing again with having the other 4 be my main party members and go through the main story.

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Conflict posted...

Nobody beat that shit on their first try lol. Unless you're using setups that are super overpowered and optimized for regular bosses that it kills them in 3 turns. I'll go as far as to say it's impossible to beat that boss on the first attempt just playing naturally and not looking up shit on GameFAQs or YouTube.

Nah. I beat it first try. Didn't even look up anything. Made some composition mistakes that I wouldn't have made if I did look up strategies and I still beat it first try.

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I've heard its real appeal is the music--in particular, its adaptive soundtrack.

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The big disappointment to me was the story and character interactions (or lack thereof). I was expecting it to be more like Live A Live

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Bravely isn't better imo. only things it has going for it are music and combat. Characters are trash, story is trash, gameplay outside of combat is trash. Octopath has a bland cast and story but at least it's not straight up offensively bad like Bravely.

Its pretty great. Hopefully Bravely Default II will take a few lessons from its battle system.

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I like it some, but I really don't care about the plot. Old school JRPGs never had amazing plots, and this one is no exception.

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scar the 1 posted...

school JRPGs never had amazing plots

And I thought my jokes were bad
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Spooking posted...

It starts off ok, but quickly tanks.

Tanks so hard

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Tyranthraxus posted...

Nah. I beat it first try. Didn't even look up anything. Made some composition mistakes that I wouldn't have made if I did look up strategies and I still beat it first try.

Well you must have conveniently fallen into the correct build because, even overlevelled the boss is basically impossible unless you have the correct combination of classes and characters

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The difficulty spike of the final boss is perfect. Its the last boss, it should be near impossible unless you've mastered the game. Of course, the tedium of fighting the eight bosses over again is a real flaw, but by that point you should be able to stomp them anyway, so its more annoyance than challenge.

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TheGoldenEel posted...

Well you must have conveniently fallen into the correct build because, even overlevelled the boss is basically impossible unless you have the correct combination of classes and characters

You're dramatically overstating how difficult it is. And I definitely had build mistakes (magic characters on the magic resistant half etc)

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scar the 1 posted...

I like it some, but I really don't care about the plot. Old school JRPGs never had amazing plots, and this one is no exception.

I still thought Octopath was bad even grading on a curve

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Balrog0 posted...

I still thought Octopath was bad even grading on a curve

I'll admit I have weird taste. Reason I like it is because I like the battle system

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If you want an old school classic RPG style of game then I recommend Secret of the Stars.

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DevsChum posted...

I've heard its real appeal is the music--in particular, its adaptive soundtrack.

The music is top-tier. It's seldomly adaptive, although it's very effective in the handful of moments where it is. The sheer quantity (and quality) of the music is amazing and all the characters have distinctly memorable themes and instrumentation.

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I put 25 or 30 hours into it, and didn't like it at all. The battle system and music was great, but the story felt uneventful, the dungeon design was samey and boring, and boss battles were unnecessarily long.

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I liked it. Never finished it cause I got busy with other shit, but I intend to one day

It's not goty material or anything, but it's not bad. The music is great, art style is a neat choice, battle system is interesting enough. The plot and party interactions leave a bit to be desired, as others have said, but there's nothing straight up bad about it.

It's not buggy or broken, nor is it unfinished or even unpolished. A solid experience imo
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The difficulty the final boss was at is absolutely moreso suited for a super secret optional and hidden boss. And, again, I dont include this boss as an optional one as it was absolutely vital to the overarching plot.

I still have a hard time believing anyone could reasonably beat the final boss not only on their first time, but with no prior knowledge or preparation.

Conflict posted...

Nah. In 99% of RPGs the final boss doesn't demand you look up ultra-perfect setups on the internet while the rest of the game is slightly challenging at best

You do not need an ultra perfect setup to beat it. And no it's not as hard as "optional superbosses" in, for example Final Fantasy games. Shinryu, Omega (FF5) / Ozma (FF9) / Yiazmat, Omega (FF12) are all way harder. Not every game had optional superbosses though. FF7's were easy. FF10 only had them in the international version, FF10-2 had Via Infinito though which had a whole floor of nothing but fucking bullshit monsters.

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It's a great game, and getting undeserved hate. I think people here just like to be hipsters. Let My Arrow Fly True!

Final boss was super fun, and a lot of the bosses were fun to fight as well. I didn't go in with super knowledge of the final boss, and beat it on my 2nd try.

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Conflict posted...

Nah. In 99% of RPGs the final boss doesn't demand you look up ultra-perfect setups on the internet while the rest of the game is slightly challenging at best

That's more of a design flaw in older RPGs than in this game.

Anyway, it took me three tries to figure out the best set up, and I never looked up a guide until later (their set up was different from mine; also the wolf gave me a harder time). The only real annoyance for me was having to beat the eight guys again beforehand. I'm not bragging or anything, and it was frustrating as fuck, but I do think all games' final bosses should be the ultimate challenge and push the player's knowledge of the mechanics in a similar fashion.

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