Octopath Traveler
The story and character interaction - What is there to say about Octopath Traveler other than it was clearly made to appeal to retro JRPG fans like myself. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that but when it's your main focus to just make something that will sell and not truly do anything unique or eye catching then you have a problem. I will say that having 8 characters who's stories at first seem to have nothing to do with each other is fairly unique but has certainly been done before. As well as for them to have no characters interaction outside of the completely optional party banter and the very final hidden behind 2 side quests that you would have very little idea has anything to do with the final secret dungeon. Although I would be lying if i didn't say it was kind of nice to figure this out the old fashioned way like you had to so long ago. The story scenes to often feel way to drawn out and waters down the experience as a whole. Towards the final chapter of a few characters I found myself skipping the cut-scenes entirely just so I could get on with playing and the fact that you only some very thin connections between the backgrounds of the stories is made more frustrating by the fact they don't come together unless you find and beat the secret end-game dungeon.
The Battle System - The battle system isn't anything new or really eye catching as it's classic turn based and if you've played a decent amount of JRPGs but the Battle Point mechanic certainly earns some attention. Even though it could be argued that this is the reason the battles in the late game take far to long to finish in that you nearly have to have your entire party able to keep up their own SP and simultaneously spam group hitting attacks. The other big mechanic for the battle system is the vulnerabilities that all enemies have. This mechanic works in that the enemies vulnerabilities are hidden until you either hit them with something they are weak to or you have the scholar in your party either directly or with the secondary job. Every enemy also has a shield with a certain amount of points on it and hitting them with something they're vulnerable to will decrease this point total, in the same way that health works. Once this total is brought to 0 then they are in a vulnerable state that they take more damage for the rest of that turn and the next one. Doing this can be very important to strategy in the game as doing this right before the boss does an obvious heavy hit can prevent that from happening and reset them. This mechanic also makes the bosses a bit more unique than the traditional turn based style you'd be used to because many bosses will have special abilities to either change or block of their vulnerabilities. This usually happens after you've broken their shield.
Character Field Abilities - Every character has their own abilities that can be used in the open world. there's really only 4 genuinely unique field skills that are split between 2 characters each. The effectiveness of these skills are pretty heavily dependent on the characters level and be the difference between winning and losing to a boss. If you have the Merchant and thief in your party maybe you talk to an NPC that has a crucial piece of equipment to beating a boss and you don't have enough money for the merchant to buy it, well than you try your luck with stealing it. Assuming your level is high enough to even try it, you may have a high chance of getting caught. If in this case you get caught you lose reputation with that town and getting in trouble 5 times means you can't interact using any of your abilities with the NPCs and the only way to fix this is to go to the town bartender and pay him to spread good rumors about you and depending on how far out this town is it could cost you a pretty penny. As far as the abilities go there's a lot of pressure to keep your party diverse so you don't have to keep running back to the bartender to switch your party around just to get one thing done. Another thing to note is that the Thief has another unique skill which is to open the purple chests that usual contain pretty good loot whether it's money or a rare piece of equipment so there's pressure to have him in your party pretty much always because of the purple chests hiding in every dungeon. For me this wasn't so much an issue because early and mid game I used him to sustain everyones SP to use the much stronger attacks.
The fact that you can start the game as any one of the eight characters and that you don't have to go and get all of them to initially beat the game is a huge missed opportunity to have them interact in a more intimate way. The Battle mechanics put in place are clearly meant to bring more focus on the boss battles and consequently make the regular battles feel like they're over exaggerated, time consuming and not worth the effort. The battle system is also very reminiscent of the Bravely Default series. That series as well i found myself not finishing for the same reasons as Octopath Traveler felt like it just went on and on. The characters field skills are somewhat enjoyable but not something that would make you pick this game other another. Especially when you consider something like opening special chests in the middle or end of a dungeon with no short cut in or out. Overall I have to say that Octopath Traveler is certainly a good game but one that I have to say got more hype than it really deserved for what seemed to be no other reason than how the few and somewhat unique things about it came together. Like the fact that it has 8 main characters all of whom have nothing do to with each other which intrigued people on how they fit with each other in this world, the battle system which is just a newish take on something already done, the field abilities which again isn't entirely new but is changed enough that you don't think it's been done before, and the fact that it has that retro look and feel to it.
I have to say that Octopath Traveler is really only a game worth getting if you can either borrow it from a friend or get it at a discount but definitely not worth full price with all the extra work that you have to do just to get the full story experience out of it that they chose to hide and keep each characters story experience to themselves. I'd have to give Octopath Traveler a 7/10 good but not great.
