A game which had potential to be one of the greats with some amazing elements, however let down by the story side of things.
Octopath Traveler's 8 characters each get their own unique storyline. The quality of these individual storylines vary from character to character. Most are good, while others feel a bit "okish". My personal favorites were Temenos and Ochette.
The issues with the story are the pacing in between chapters, delayed grand plot buildup and lack of real interactivity with each other. 50ish hours in, I was getting burnt out and decided to use level grinding cheese strategies to improve my experience. I should not have done that, but the criticism about pacing stands.
The characters just party up with each other for no real reason and interactivity between them is limited. While I appreciate the unique feel of the individual stories, I'd have liked more campfire scenes and more interactions in general throughout the game for the characters to bond with each other. As it stands, even at the end it feels like a group thrown together for the sake of it.
The world is also a major issue here. Locations in the game do not interact with each other in any real way and major plot threats across the different stories are ignored completely outside of the related story sequences. There is also little lore buildup and any real relation between the different locations/factions. More interactivity and intrigue between the areas would have been appreciated.
The grand plot only builds up at the end, which was nice to be fair. However getting there takes you most of the game.
The gameplay is where the experience improves things a ton. I really enjoyed the combat in this game, especially with the boost poins and latent power abilities. Plus there is a ton of customisation to mix and match jobs/skills between characters. I especially liked the monster collecting for Ochette and the skill gathering challenges for Hikari.
I also really enjoyed the gameplay actions each character has with the NPCs in the world. Felt really great utilizing that system for the side stories, be it escorting NPCs to locations for their quests, getting items from them for quests or simply utilizing the NPCs' unique battle abilities for combat.
The exploration also was enjoyable. Battle wise, I'd say the boss fights were excellent. However the mob fights in areas did feel just ok as is the case with most RPGS.
Visually, the game is simply gorgeous. Every element of the presentation was superb and beautiful to take in. They really did put an incredible amount of detail into each area/scene. Shoutout to the boss designs in particular, which were amazing and always something too look forward to.
The soundtrack is simply godlike. Amazing work all around and especially loved the day/night variations of the area themes. Some town night themes really felt serene and I loved that!
Overall, I'd recommend people mix in other games while playing this game to avoid burnout. Play it in parts so that you get most out of the experience.
