Before the release of the game, we had the opportunity to ask some of the members of the same team about the revival of the sequel. We spoke with producer Masashi Takahashi, character designer Naoki Ikushima, and writer Kakunoshin Futsuzawa about topics such as drawing inspiration from the game’s predecessors, the evolution of the HD-2D style, and who everyone’s favorite character is…
Nintendo Life: Octopath Traveler was a huge success for you, what inspired you to rethink the concept for the sequel and how faithful did you want to stay to the core of the original game?
Masashi Takahashi (Producer): We were absolutely thrilled that the first Octopath Traveler was a huge hit and that so many people played it! Although we were very grateful for that success, he was honestly under a lot of pressure for the second game. When we released the original Octopath Traveler, I said it was “a fight against people’s memories of the pixel games they played in the past,” but this time it was a fight against the first game we created. We set out to develop the formula, not change it, keeping as much as possible of what people liked from the first game and trying to fully realize all the things we couldn’t do in it.
Octopath Traveler II takes place in a brand new world, Solistia, and looking at some of the characters, it looks like we’ll be exploring environments inspired by different historical periods. Why did you want to create an entirely new world and what possibilities did that open up for the development team?
Takahashi-san: As the title implies, this is a game about traveling and enjoying the journey. We felt it was essential to set Octopath Traveler II in a brand new world to give the player that sense of excitement and anticipation as they explore it, wondering what lies down the next path or who might live in the next town.
Time has passed very quickly, and now it’s been five years since the first Octopath Traveler was released. I’m sure there are still people who won’t play the first game, as well as those who did but have already forgotten the story, and that’s why we deliberately didn’t have links to the story of the first game, so I can safely say that fans of the series and new players will enjoy it. in the content of Octopath Traveler II without worrying about the events that happened before.
In Octopath Traveler II, one of the biggest talking points is that there is “more interaction, along with ‘Cross Paths'”. Can you tell us more about how this plays out in the game and why you decided to improve the interactions?
Takahashi-san: Half the reason for including these interactions was because we saw a lot of fans asking for them in Octopath Traveler. The other half of the reason came later when elements along those lines took shape naturally as we put together the structure of the game.
I hope players will appreciate the new interactions in Octopath Traveler II that will open up opportunities for players to explore more and discover interesting facts about the citizens and characters.
The original Octopath Traveler was the first HD-2D game, and Octopath Traveler II is the fourth game in this art style. What did you learn from working on the first game and watching the style evolve in Triangle Strategy and Live A Live that helped shape the art direction of OTII?
I tried to write these characters by separating different aspects of my own personality and then building them up.
Takahashi-san: All the games were produced by the Asano team, but Triangle Strategy and Live A Live were actually developed by different studios. The genre and style of each is completely different, so we encouraged the teams who worked on them to challenge themselves in their own ways without getting caught up in sticking too tightly to the HD-2D style of Octopath Traveler. So I feel like there wasn’t too much looking at other games when making those titles.
For Octopath Traveler II, we were able to ask ACQUIRE Co., Ltd, the developer of the first game and where the series originated from, to make the second game, so I think you can see a lot of evolution in it. When we put the “HD-2D” logo on the official pages for these games, we update it every time, so we used version 1.1. for Triangle Strategy, version 1.2 for Live A Live and moved to version 2.0 for Octopath Traveler II.
The sequel features the same eight starting jobs as the first game. How did you want to change the character designs and personalities of the cast? Do you have a favorite?
Naoki Ikushima (character designer): The original game was set in a fairly small area with a strong medieval European theme, but this time one of the main design concepts was to have a larger world to explore, so we paid attention to depicting changes over different periods and a diverse variety of cultures.
This diversity is also represented in the characters themselves, so we have characters like Thronè and Partitio who wear more urban clothes, Hikari who is from an Asian style country and Ochette who lives with beasts. On top of that, we also wanted differences between the characters in Octopath Traveler II and their predecessors who performed the same jobs in the first game that were consistent with the new setting. For example, the warrior from the first game was Olberic, who was physically imposing and used his great strength to swing his sword, but in contrast, the warrior in Octopath Traveler II is Hikari, who is physically small but wins his battles using technical skills. but raw power.
The characters of the dancers are also very different, so where Primrose had a dark and troubled face, her counterpart Agnea from Octopath Traveler II has a completely different personality and is a bright and sunny woman. I’m strongly attached to all eight new heroes, so I really can’t pick a favorite among them. I’m sorry!
Kakunoshin Futsuzawa (screenwriter): I tried to write these characters by separating different aspects of my own personality and then building them up. If I just made characters based entirely on me, then people probably wouldn’t warm to them as much, so I made sure to revamp them to make them all likable. I like them all, so I would be happy if the players liked them too. If I had to pick a favorite then I would probably say Ochette. She is a simple person at heart and is happy as long as she has dry meat to eat.
I’ve written about various greedy and materialistic characters (especially villains), so I might find the uncomplicated Ochette somewhat comforting.
Can you let Square Enix know that we want to see a lot more Octopath music in a future Theatrhythm DLC? Or even an Octopath rhythm game!
Takahashi-san: Thank you very much!
Five songs from the original Octopath Traveler will be released as DLC for Theatrhythm Final Bar Line! They range from the main theme to battle music, so enjoy these songs filled with passion from Mr. Nishiki while you dance to the beat!
This interview has been slightly edited for clarity.
We thank Takahashi-san, Ikushimi-san, and Futsuzawa-san for taking the time to answer our questions. Octopath Traveler II is currently available on Switch.
