15 hours in Octopath Traveler II: Good but incoherent stories

I put it hard in Octopath Traveler IIThe first hours. As someone who loves RPG parties the most when they feel like real units of friends and have found family, octopathI didn’t like ‘s anthology-style storytelling. Its eight playable characters felt more like islands to walk to and from than a group to watch. Now that I’ve collected more of these heroes and formed a party, I’m reflecting on the early hours of the game and all of my conflicting feelings. I’ve come across its structure and how it allows each member of his party to have a specific origin, but I’m still looking for a collective meaning that ties all of the characters together.

I started Octopath Traveler II—now available for Switch, PlayStation and Windows—as Partitio, a merchant who helps establish a church in the city of Orerush, where miners have turned a piece of land into a prosperous home. However, over time, it falls victim to a landowner’s scheme to amass all the wealth from what the people have built. The story ranges from Partitio, who is wholeheartedly committed to the benefits of capitalism, to becoming so disillusioned that he leaves his town to fight poverty. We love seeing a man wake up to learn how he’s previously benefited from a system that only really helps the fat cats at the top.

Each character is given their own origin story, serving as an introduction to their place in the world, why they choose to leave their homeland, and what abilities set them apart from the seven other heroes. Partitio was my anchor because I started the game when he did, but each character’s first chapter feels like it could be the beginning of a completely different game.

While I started this game in a western that felt like a western steeped in anti-capitalist commentary, Ochette’s opening deals with fantastical elements like making magical connections with talking animals and exploring the racial relationships between humans and their own kind. Castti, on the other hand, is an amnesiac pharmacist, and her first chapter feels like a medical drama as she tries to save a town from a mysterious disease. While neither of these characters begin their journey together and their interpersonal relationships feel like an afterthought in the wee hours of the morning, there’s something compelling to me about how this separation allows for it Octopath Traveler II Immerse yourself in different types of topics and fiction genres.

G/O Media may receive a commission

SAVE UP TO $150

Contractual private sale event

Save on super comfortable seats
Save up to $150 on your chair of choice during Vertagear’s private sales event. Get ergonomically sound models like the ContourMax Lumbar and VertaAir Seat, both designed to provide lumbar support, comfort and relieve chronic back pain.

Each character with their own original mechanics makes the uniqueness of each of these intros even clearer, e.g. B. Partitio being able to hire NPCs to help you in battle, or Castti being able to ask the locals for information. This keeps those early chapters fresh from a gameplay perspective and makes you think about each one in ways you wouldn’t have thought about the others. With each new origin story Octopath Traveler II What I felt the game was about completely undermined the game and ended up giving me eight characters that I feel personally invested in. With every intro I played I found a new center although I started my story as a merchant who learned that being poor is bad.

My biggest point of friction, at least in those first few hours, was that the anthological structure meant that the cast broke off despite traveling together Octopath Traveler II didn’t really seem to know or care about each other. Each party member has their own different stories that I’ve tinkered with, but those stories don’t pertain to the rest of the cast. It makes sense because you don’t have recruiting these characters as you meet them on your quests, and it just isn’t sensible to write around people who may or may not be present. But more than other mediums, I go to RPGs in search of camaraderie and banter, and the lack of that has made it harder to feel moment-to-moment invested in the game as I hardly ever feel like these eight travellers, even if I’ I’ll get to know them myself.

Thank God, Octopath Traveler II has some semblance of relationship building thanks to the crossed paths feature that’s new in the sequel. These are short, playable mini-stories that feature various pairings of party members, which to their credit are pretty awesome so far. They’re not quite the epic team building exercises – in the sense of Mass Effect 3‘S citadel DLC – I’d prefer that, but the pairings feel purposeful in how their writing contrasts the characters’ clashing worldviews and builds on their charming and compelling main stories. Combining the charming and bubbly Partitio with the brooding Osvald leads to plenty of delightful banter and an engaging side story; I just wish this dynamic was evident throughout the game.

I’m still struggling Octopath Traveler II and while it focuses on eight characters, it can feel a little lonely at times. The solitude gives the game an opportunity to paint really different pictures of its world and cast, but I wish there were more moments where all of these travelers felt like one. In a way, the game feels analogous to something like that The Canterbury Stories, with a caravan of people from different walks of life delighting each other with their stories. I just hope that as I delve further into these stories, I find more opportunities for these characters to bond in ways that go beyond just combining attacks on the battlefield.