Octopath Traveler Series

[digitaldreams]

with the release of octopath traveler 0 in just a few days, i thought i would indulge a little bit and make a thread about it! i don't think one exists yet, and now feels like the perfect time for it! i'm a huge fan of the octopath series, and i'm curious about if there are any other people here on bulbagarden who are into it too. if so, then i want to hype up octopath 0 together.

starting things off, i've been playing through the demo for zero in the last few days. i'm very obsessed with octopath traveler, so i speedran the demo... which is also what i've done for the last two demos. even though i think zero has the hardest boss fights out of the three demos, i think it's the easiest one to complete, and it took me just under an hour to knock out everything for the main story that is available in the demo. since then, i've been running around and filling my time with anything else i can to grind and buff my party before release. i am very excited about this game, and i hope at least a few other people here on the forums are too.

octopath traveler forever! let's play video games together!

 

[The Mega Champion]

I've only played the first game thus far. It was a massive disappointment. For me anyway. It was a whole lot of nothing and the way you unlock the 'true' ending was so ridiculous that I never did it and just did the main stories for all of the characters.

I LOVED the demo for 2 though and it's quickly coming up in my backlog to play the full game. Hopefully it and 0 can be better for me. Time will tell obviously.

 

[Elusian Roserade]

I liked the first game a lot when it released, played it long enough to beat the hidden final boss. Tressa was my main character, playing as a merchant felt so unusual and different back then.

 

[digitaldreams]

octopath 0 day! i have been playing it on and off all day, and i'm having a bunch of fun. it's so nostalgic being back in orsterra after octopath 2 was on a different continent. i'm loving the game to bits, and i honestly can't wait to learn how to speedrun it when there's a consistent route finished

 

[digitaldreams]

i'm back with more octopath talk for funsies! i have been continuing to play octopath 0, and while it's definitely very different from what i'm used to after almost three years of ot2, i am greatly enjoying it. my one issue is that man, it is so hard to keep all of your characters properly equipped. i have finished the sixth chapter of the second arc of the game, and i'm hopefully going to wrap up the second arc later this week or over the weekend. i love these games so much. i missed octopath (guy who has been playing octopath a lot ever since it came out)

 

[digitaldreams]

okay. i have come back here after finishing the regular ending of octopath traveler zero. wow. i have no idea if anyone on bulbagarden is playing/has played this game, but i am going to write about it anyway because i had a lot of fun. and i'm feeling very normal (see: not normal at all).

this was one of the best ideas team asano ever had. i never played champions of the continent (the mobile game for octopath) because i don't like gacha games and couldn't really get behind the gameplay changes from the mainline games. it just felt too simplified for me, and the dependence on gacha mechanics just didn't sit well with me. this is SUCH a great way to experience the story of cotc without having to go into gacha hell or deal with playing a full length RPG on your phone. because even if you discount the content exclusive to zero, this is 100% a full length RPG. and now it is finally more accessible and being preserved just in case cotc ever hits end of service (which i think has a very distinct chance of happening because of how the game has fallen into disrepair since it began its second arc).

this game is definitely different from past octopath games, and it took me a while to get a hang of the new changes to the combat system, but i really enjoy it. i was having a ball when the game hit its end. you have to play it very differently from past games because of how the bosses work in cotc vs ot1/2. cotc has gacha powercreep, and that means the bosses kind of also have that problem. around the time you hit master of all, bosses start dealing a LOT more damage than you can withstand with your current equipment, especially since you need to eventually outfit the entire cast. you just don't have the resources for it in master of all, and that means you have to rely a lot more on offensive debuffs which... aren't really used all that much in ot1/2. i thought it was really interesting, and it changed the way i played a lot even aside from the two rows of characters combat.

Spoiler: octopath 0 full game spoilers

i got the normal ending first (since you need that in order to do the true ending), and it was really good. i love what they did with sazantos here, and i think they made him an even more interesting character than in cotc. i had gone wiki diving about cotc in the past to make up for the fact that i couldn't bring myself to actually play it, and somehow, i was still utterly floored by how amazing of a character sazantos is. maybe i'm just riding the high of having finished bestower of all, but... wow. he's so fascinating. everyone in the world should play this game just for the sake of getting to know more about him.

as for the specific arcs of this game, i was thinking i would rank them out here if i could, but i'd have to think on it. maybe i can do that if i come back to talk again after finishing the true ending. i can say however that master of power was my least favorite storyline (i loved velnorte and rinyuu, don't get me wrong, but i wasn't as huge on the way the story ended even if it was necessary for the later stages of the story) followed by bestower of power. i don't know what it was about the power storylines, but i just didn't really like them. i think that comes down to me not really liking tytos and tatloch as characters though. tatloch is easily my least favorite character in the game, and i didn't like having to play as her during bestower of all in the slightest.

then there are my favorite parts. i cannot say how much i loved bestower of wealth. oskha is a top three villain of all time for this series. i think he and sazantos really give some of the antagonists from ot1/2 a run for their money, and the villains from ot1/2 are already good. oskha really elevated bestower of wealth for me, and it's so fascinating to see where he went wrong when i agree with him in some ways only for him to twist it all so badly. his relationship with bargello is phenomenal. in fact, i would say wealth is my favorite of the three fame/power/wealth arcs. i love the family, and oskha and bargello are absolutely fantastic. wow.

i guess that leaves fame in the middle of them. it's funny because i think master of fame is the best of the original three master storylines, but it's also the least related to the rest of the story. there are no character carry overs from master of fame to bestower of fame other than simeon. it's really funny how everyone from master of fame is either dead or just... isn't present in bestower of fame so everyone from master of power can be there instead. bestower of fame is really good too. i prefer bestower of wealth ever so slightly, but bestower of fame is such a good arc right before the climax of bestower of all. also, the lore it drops is crazy. my only real issue with bestower of fame is that i found it very off-putting just how mean sazantos was to rondo, especially since he wants rondo to join him during bestower of all. if he was just a little bit nicer, i really wouldn't mind it. sazantos isn't supposed to be an antagonist yet, but it was very hard to enjoy him during bestower of fame with how he was treating rondo. so i guess that's the difference between bestower of fame and wealth for me: rondo and sazantos.

i want to talk about master of all next since it has my favorite character in the game: elrica. i did not expect to enjoy her as much as i did, but i loved her for the little time we had her. and her arc during bestower of all? chef's kiss. i miss her every single day. i think the writers of cotc knew they cooked with her too since elrica just... flat out replaced pardis during the refights in bestower of all. each of the other master final bosses showed up, but elrica stomped on pardis to get to the spot first. and she earned it. i love her to bits, and the flashbacks in bestower of all just made her more compelling to me.

bestower of all was such a great way to cap everything off. i just adored it from beginning to end. every piece of it was written so well. i knew boa7 was very different in zero compared to cotc, but i think it was a change for the better, and it goes a long way to making sazantos a more compelling character. i'm looking forward to playing through the true ending and getting a little more from him. also, the twist right at the end of the game with zero being one of the other children of pharamea? whew. i started suspecting it at some point during bestower of all, but it still caught me by surprise. they never said yusia was your mom, huh. or maybe they did and i'm just forgetting. that's not the point. in a perfect world, pharamea would be raising sazantos, zero, and signa far from the church. they deserve so much better. all of them.

deep breaths. very good video game. i had a lot of fun with it. this game really does remind me why i like octopath so much. and now i'm just waiting for a good speedrun route to come out so that i can learn how to run this game. i need it so badly. everybody should play the octopath series and join me in the insanity. i love you team asano you never let me down. now i just need to figure out how to do the secret boss fights without dying... haaaaaaa...