Octopath Traveler II is amazing, BUT. Here’s 7 things to make it even BETTER
So, first thing’s first: this is not a full Octopath Traveler II review. I’ll tell you right here, right now the game is fantastic and any self-respecting JRPG fan should play it. If you like turn-based games and/or gorgeous pixel art, it really doesn’t get much better than this. Octopath II is a complete drool-fest full of satisfying combat mechanics, addictive exploration, quirky characters, and jaw-dropping aesthetics of both the visual and audible varieties.
Square Enix’s HD-2D art has never been better. Octopath II surpasses even the first Octopath game and Triangle Strategy – from the use of lighting effects in the environments to the personality that exudes from each traveler’s sprite running around the world. (Some of my personal favorites include Castti’s bouncy hair and Partitio’s constant habit of making sure his hat doesn’t fly off.) Plus, water has never been sexier in a video game. That’s right, I said it. This water’s got mad drip.
The art style isn’t just for looks though; the developers have gotten even better since the first Octopath at hiding secrets in their rich environments. It’s been a while since I legitimately found myself worried about missing secret passages or cleverly hidden chests, causing me to run into every rockface like some drunken Dark Souls nut looking for illusory walls. And this time, the devs even gave us a BOAT. What more could you ask for? Octopath II is a genuine treat to explore.
In particular, the exploration is a treat of the highly addictive variety. My number one favorite thing to do every time I reached a new town was to completely ignore the story and instead run around and pick the pockets of every single character I could find. Path actions have returned from the first game and then doubled because here in Octopath II, each traveler has not one, but two path actions using the game’s new day/night cycle.
With the push of a button, you can change from day to night instantaneously and depending on the time of day, each traveler can interact with NPCs via a different path action. For example, Throne (your thief) can either pick someone’s pockets by day or ambush them to knock them unconscious by night. The day/night cycle also plays into various story events and combat via stronger monster spawns or higher XP yields but who cares about that – I wanna loot all the children’s favorite hiding places around town.
But on a slightly more serious note, combat is the star of this show and (besides the pretty, pretty pixels) was the thing that made me fall so damn hard for the original Octopath (which was, fun fact, the reason I bought a Switch). It’s your standard four-characters-stand-in-a-line-and-take-turns-hitting-the-monsters that is endemic to so many JRPGs – except that it’s not just so standard, it’s better.
Enemies have shield points that you break through by discovering and striking their weaknesses by using various weapons (sword, spear, dagger, bow, etc.) and elements (fire, water, lightning and so on). Nothing too revolutionary there but the tactile feedback you get when doing so via rumble combined with the game’s boost mechanic (which lets you bank added power levels each turn) makes for one of the most satisfying feedback loops in turn-based gaming.
(Just want to add in here that the boost system is one of my favorites in recent turn-based mechanics. Max level boost is basically like watching one of your little pixel buddies go Super Saiyan and it never gets old.)
That’s all layered into a classic and customizable JRPG class system in which each traveler can equip two classes ranging from the aforementioned thief to scholars, clerics, warriors and more, oh my! Each traveler has a set primary class which can then be paired with any other jobs you obtain licenses for around the world – including 4 special ones that are even more broke AF and fun to mess around with in the end game.
It’s a smorgasbord of class combination goodness, and scooped on top of this already delectable JRPG sundae is a new feature unique to Octopath II: latent powers. These latent powers take everything that OG Octopath did and basically adds an “overdrive” ability for each character. Each power is unique to that character and generally enhances the abilities of their primary class.
For example, Osvald the scholar (aka black mage) has the latent ability to take spells that hit all enemies and concentrate them onto a single target but with magnified damage. Combine this with a double or even triple cast buff on his most OP spells and you’ll basically have an early- to mid- game delete button for most big bad villains. Yay.
One complaint that I’ve seen about the game (or well, both Octopath games in general) is that they can be too grindy but honestly? The glory is in the grind with this one. If you don’t find yourself wanting to lose countless hours in the feedback loop of “find the things, figure out how to kill the things in the most badass but also most efficient way possible, and then do that on repeat til you’ve essentially broken the game,” then maybe you’re in the wrong place to begin with.
And even if it does somehow start to wane a bit tedious, Octopath II has a turbo mode that lets you speed up combat encounters, and certain classes can even unlock the ability to reduce the rate of random enemy encounters even when running at top speed around the world map so do with that info what you will.
One final thing I’ll comment on quickly before getting to the main point of this article is not just the way this game LOOKS or how it PLAYS: but also how it SOUNDS because my god, they’ve done it again. The first Octopath had one of the best – if not THE best – soundtracks of 2018, and the music here does not disappoint. It keeps up and maybe even enhances that level of quality with callbacks to similar musical themes plus a whole smattering of new tracks that have a quirky personality all their own (music for Partitio’s character and story immediately jump to mind for this latter category).
And while music is definitely the star of the audio show here, the voices in Octopath II are strong as well. I still personally prefer the Japanese voice cast for this (and most all other pixel art JRPGs), but the English cast is almost surprisingly good as well so choose what you will and enjoy.
Now: I think I’ve effectively summarized the highlights of why Octopath II is a fantastic game that you, your mother, your brother and any other relatives you’ve got should play. From art and music to gameplay, combat, and RPG mechanics, I’ve listed out a bunch of things I think the game does exceedingly well.
But does that mean this game is perfect with no room to grow? No! Or course not. I am a greedy gamer and so I want more. To that end, here are 7 things that I think could take Octopath II (or I guess, a potential sequel) and elevate it from “near perfect” to “ungodly levels of perfection” status:
Of the 7 items on this list, you could potentially group 1-5 together under the umbrella of “difficulty options” and other “quality of life settings” as they all relate to giving gamers more flexible and potentially player-friendly options for how they want to engage with the game and its content. These 5 criteria are as follows: Level scaling, XP share, Auto battle, Side quest & objective tracking, and UX/UI/menu tweaks.
1. Level scaling
Unless you do everything that you possibly can to avoid combat and leveling up (aka fleeing fights, turning down encounter rates, ignoring XP bonus abilities, etc.), it’s highly likely that at least some of your characters will end up over-leveled by the end-game. (Emphasis on some – but I’ll say more on that later.)
Don’t get me wrong, being over-leveled can be incredibly fun and satisfying in its own way. I frequently enjoy JRPGs that turn you into a god that absolutely wrecks shop and ruins the day of any given trash mob by the late game.
But this dynamic does undermine some of Octopath’s story bosses. By the time I finished half or so of the characters’ stories, the game went from feeling like a well scaled challenge to a bit too easy. Maybe it’s the order I did the stories in, but it ended up making some characters’ final antagonists feel significantly stronger vs. weaker than others based (seemingly) on the order I tackled them in – getting easier and easier each time.
You could maybe argue that if you only use your first 4 travelers until completing their stories and then switch to the other 4 later, you can sort of level scale the game for yourself. But where’s the fun in that? Based on the game’s design around an 8-character party system, you should realistically be able to use any combination of travelers that you want.
Hence why I’m proposing level scaling as an actual in-game option. It doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing, always-on kind of thing – it can be a setting that the game offers to players so that they can choose the kind of experience they want to have.
For those that want the added challenge, they can turn on level scaling so that enemies scale to the party’s current level. But for those that want a more streamlined experience with less grinding and more wreck shopping, they can leave it as-is. It’s like having a difficulty option and quality of life setting all rolled into one.
2. XP share
Coming on the heels of my previous proposal about level scaling, this idea might seem somewhat antithetical, but I think that Octopath II would benefit from an XP sharing mechanic that lets inactive party members gain experience (whether that’s 100% XP share or even just 50% of the XP gained by active party members in a given fight).
This could help ameliorate the perceived grindiness for those who want a streamlined experience and maybe don’t have 80-100 hours to sink into every game they play. Plus, even for someone like myself who likes the grind, it can still be a bit demoralizing when you get to the late game and you have some characters that feel less viable because you (aka I) didn’t dedicate the time to leveling them up beyond the needs of making sure they could survive some hits vs. the bosses of their later chapters.
(Side note: is there really a reason why the first traveler you choose needs to be locked into your party until you finish their story? My Osvald was 5, 10, or even 15+ levels higher than other party members because I hopped from story to story trying to finish all chapter 1s, 2s, 3s, and so on rather than just beat a path to his end game. Basically, he was a god amongst men by the time I could remove him from my active party…)
Like level scaling, XP share could be an option in the game’s settings rather than an all-or-nothing, always-on or always-off kind of thing. I appreciate that the Octopath games are made to pay homage to the classic JRPGs of the 80s and 90s where XP sharing was not a thing. If a character didn’t participate in a battle, they weren’t getting the XP equivalent of a participation trophy to bring home and show off to their parents.
But in this day and age, why not let players choose the kind of experience they want to have? You can have a default setting of no XP share for inactive party members, but include an option to change that for those players who do want a more streamlined experience.
3. Auto battle
Auto battle would be another great option to give players for aiding in the level grind. Other Square Enix games have recently demonstrated an increasing intent to offer players a more “story-focused” mode (albeit in action games like FFXVI) so the precedent is there and translatable to the turn-based side of their portfolio too.
Again, auto battle is an example of something players could choose to engage with if they wanted to, and ignore if they didn’t. Do I personally need an auto-battle feature in the game? No, but I’m not just making this wishlist of features with myself in mind because – as our tagline here at Dear Gamers says – it ain’t all about me or you or any one gamer in this wide, wide world.
All that said, Octopath II does have a “turbo” or 2X speed mode for accelerating animations in fights, but a full auto battle feature could take this a step further either by selecting combat actions for players (maybe letting you choose a “be conservative with MP” or “go all out” setting etc.) or skipping fights entirely and determining the outcome based on stat matchups.
At the end of the day, this would just be one more option that increases the game’s inherent flexibility by giving potential players more ways to engage with the content.
4. Side quest objective tracking option
Moving on to something a little bit different, Octopath Traveler II has a hefty dollop of side quests. Aaand I ignored most of them (minus the ones that I figured out pretty easily or happened to complete without even realizing it during my travels).
While I fully respect Square’s dedication to creating modern JRPGs that pay homage to the classics (I’m even personally on board with the random enemy encounters), I think the approach to side quests is a slight miss here.
I think the way that quests are implemented in the game is “fine,” and there is a journal that logs the main quests, side quests, and so on, but there’s no actual objective tracking for side quests. And on the one hand, I do like the sense of critical thinking and engagement created by having to figure out where to go next to resolve optional quests. But on the other, sometimes I just want to shut my brain off and follow the nice green indicator on the screen telling me where to go (which is how the main quests work in the game).
Plus, some of the quests can be genuinely hard to figure out where to go. Like how am I supposed to know that random NPC 1 needs me to go find denoted NPC 2 in a different (but unnamed) town and bring them back to have a chat? Or even worse, how am I supposed to divine where in the world hidden items A, B, and C are that Joe Shmoe needs in order to make the even special-er item D?
I do like that different characters’ path actions give you different ways to tackle these scenarios, but again: implement an objective tracking option! It doesn’t have to detract from the experience for old-school, die-hard purists who want no added help with completing these side tasks, but it’s there as an option to streamline the experience for other scrubs like myself.
5. UX/UI/menu tweaks
I’ll wrap up this section of features by saying small tweaks can translate to big tangible quality of life payoffs and even extend to the all-important topic of accessibility (which has been a running theme behind a lot of my wishlist items and is something I think we as a gaming community always, always need to push ourselves to keep in mind). Here’s a quick rundown of possibilities:
Text size and background options
More mini map size/blow up options
Additional audio-visual accessibility options (i.e. color-blind mode)
More details in post battle screens (i.e. not just XP level up notifications, but available JP skill unlocks)
Class/equipment loadouts (so that when changing classes to learn skills or even just experiment, it doesn’t forget your equipped weapons and so on)
And probably a few others I haven’t even considered so feel free to add your own!
That’s it for the difficulty/accessibility/quality of life stuff on my list so let’s (quite literally) draw a line under that and move into the next category of goodies I’ve mentally cooked up.
The second bucket of items on my Octopath wishlist pertains primarily to story, narrative & world-building elements so while I’ll start this off with spoiler-free descriptions, I will be giving a big ole spoiler warning towards the very end of this article because I have some thoughts and wants and needs related to some very, very juicy end game content and need to talk about it somewhere, somehow or else it’ll just keep cooking away in my gamer brain until I explode. So, keep an eye out for that warning.
6. Path action consequences
As I mentioned before, each traveler has 2 path actions – one during the day, another during the night. Some characters can steal or mug or entreat NPCs for the goodies in their (sometimes shockingly) deep pockets. Others can guide or pay or beguile NPCs to either join the party or simply provide hidden information. Some can even challenge or provoke NPCs into a fight.
While some of these actions (like simply asking politely for info or items) are perfectly benign, many of them are… morally gray. Or not even gray at all – stealing from children is stealing from children so let’s call a spade a spade.
And these actions do have the chance to fail – the game will show you your potential success rate from 0 to 100%, largely determined by your character’s current level. But Octopath is extremely lenient with what happens when you do fail. You’ll have to fail attempts at stealing, mugging, seducing etc. at least half a dozen times in a given town before your reputation suffers.
And if somehow you’re a big enough risk taker to reach that point, you can simply go to the local tavern to pay (an albeit steep) fine and then badda bing, you’re back to social sainthood.
What I would’ve liked to have seen from a narrative standpoint would be more “realistic” world building conditions. Games often struggle to implement coherent, impactful morality systems so this isn’t just an Octopath issue, but when NPCs react to you picking their pockets and remember your misdeeds throughout the length of the game, it helps to ground the narrative experience unique to your choices and your playthrough.
So in another iteration of path actions, I’d love to see the team at Square come up with a way to make players feel the weight of their choices more by creating an even more tangible impact on the world and how its characters react to your party. The system is there, but with some tweaking it could feel less like “well if I fail I’ll just fix it later” or “if I succeed the townies will just let me get away with it so jokes on you, Town Guard number 2.”
7. United goal/plot line
The number one critique of the first Octopath game (even above the grindiness or random encounters) was without a doubt the lack of unison when it comes to the 8 travelers and their stories. At least from what I can tell as a single nerd on the internet, the highest hope the community had for the sequel was that the individual plot lines would somehow thread together by the end game for some impactful finale.
And Octopath II does take some steps to address this. The travelers do have optional banter scenes for you to engage with if you want to flesh out their interactions more, and perhaps even more notably there are optional side stories where 2 travelers will have a crossover side quest that plays out across each of the game’s chapters. These were great for not only creating more concrete party interactions, but also adding another tangible layer to world building.
However, these are small steps in the grand scheme of things. They’re nice character moments that can endear you to the travelers while adding the semblance of increased interaction between their narratives. But in terms of an overarching, cohesive plot line that unites the group, that still feels largely absent.
Personally, I feel like Triangle Strategy pulled it off better where there are a handful of main characters with unique stories and motivations, but united under one framework of a global conflict. Not only that, but your choices as the player have a tangible impact on the path of that game’s narrative and the relationships between those characters, leading to wildly different endings so that’s another tick in the box.
Square, take a lesson from your own history there!!
BUT – and there is a very big BUT – here is where we get to the SPOILER WARNING part of the article that I warned you about earlier. So, BE WARNED. SPOILERS AHEAD. THIS IS YOUR WARNING.
Have I said the word “warning” enough? No? Okay, one more for good measure.
INSERT SPOILER WARNING HERE. I’M GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE STORY AND END GAME.
Ok, so, real talk. Several of the travelers’ stories do end up threading together (some more than others) at the very, very end of the game. There’s a whole epilogue/final chapter/whatever you want to call it where these hints and threads of dark forces from the various protagonists’ stories come together to present one final big bad that plunges the world into eternal night so you obviously have to do the thing to bludgeon it to death with the power of friendship, yadda yadda JRPG stuff yadda yadda.
And while this is awesome to have, I have to ask: is it too little too late? I personally wanted to feel a more tangible connection between the travelers’ stories throughout rather than seeing similar motifs acting as hints to a final bad guy that players who invest 80 ish hours into the game can unlock.
That’s a massive time investment to get the big payoff, so the balance of individualized stories vs. the united/overarching plot line feels very skewed to me. Yes, the looming darkness feels pretty apparent in some stories (like Temenos and Ochette’s), but others are still left feeling disconnected (notably, Agnea’s). If the goal of building towards this ultimate evil had been more apparent from the start, I think the overall narrative could have felt more cohesive (albeit at the sacrifice of the “surprise” element).
So, for the next Octopath game, I’d love to see Square start the game off with some sort of overarching goal or conflict that will somehow unite the travelers and their journeys together by the end game, while still allowing for their own personal narratives to play out in the meantime. Whether there’s a war affecting the whole world like in Triangle Strategy or a lurking ancient evil like in Octopath II, I think there’s plenty of room for creativity and improvement in this area.
And as a quick BONUS item for anyone still hanging around, I’ve got one last wishlist item for Octopath: and that is to take the INCREDIBLE creativity demonstrated in some of the end-game fights and bring that to the whole of the next game!
In particular, the final fight from that secret epilogue/final chapter was AWESOME. All 8 travelers participate in the various phases of the final, multi-phase boss fight. In one phase, you start with 4 travelers who then get swapped with your reserve 4, who then have to tackle the next phase.
This was a real kick in the teeth at first since this goes back to my earlier comments about some characters being more appropriately leveled than others, but it gave me a fantastic challenge to chew on with my party composition.
Then, in another subsequent phase, all 8 travelers stand in a line to confront the final FINAL villain. This was AWESOME and unlike anything I can ever remember experiencing in turn-based battles. You can swap between highlighting your first 4 party members and your second 4 to choose who’s going to act. Your actions (healing/buffs/etc.) mercifully apply to all 8 characters, but only the 4 who are currently highlighted as “active” will take damage during the enemy’s turn.
This was yet another fantastic new layer of strategy to play with and it left me salivating for MORE. It felt like a whole cache of ideas for an entire turn-based game to get super creative with. More bosses with more party composition challenges that create all of these opportunities to pivot and subvert traditional turn-based combat expectations. My inner greedy gamer came out in full force and was like GIMME. MORE. NOW. This final fight was a serious challenge but also such a fun intellectual chess match and I loved it.
And on that note, I’ll wrap things up here. I’ve already rambled on for far, far too long for an article that could’ve been boiled down to a handful of bullet points under a list titled, “7 things I’d like to see in Octopath III.”
But if you did manage to make it all the way to the end of this passionate, geeky rant – thank you for coming along on the journey! If you’re as interested in these JRPGs as I am, I would love to hear what items would be on your wishlist for future Octopath games!
