Released Date: February 9th, 2023
Developed by: Square Enix, Acquire
Published by: Square Enix
Available on: PlayStation, Switch & PC
Reviewed on: PlayStation 5
Square Enix has continued to be a pioneer in the JRPG, turn based world of gaming, and yet, following up on 2018’s Octopath Traveler must have been no easy feat. A genre that is apparently dying, if you want to believe Yoshi P, turn based combat continues to be one of my personal favourites, and I am so glad Octopath Traveler exists, and I’m even more glad we got a sequel, Octopath Traveler II.
As with its predecessor, Octopath Traveler II follows the story of eight unique characters. Each of our characters meet one by one and each join the group of saviours with their own intentions and goals, but intentions and goals that are greater accomplished together.
When you start the game, you can pick any one of the eight you like, based on their backstory, and they become your main character. Upon completing the first chapter with your chosen character, it’s your job to find the others, one by one. With only a map and the face of a character you make your way to unlock the next character, and the next and so on. You can choose then and there to play chapter one of each character when you unlock them, and I would fully advise doing so. Firstly, it allows you to get to know your character and their story, more importantly though, slightly levels up the character and makes you become familiar with their skills and traits. You can however forgo this chapter, and pick it up later at an inn where you rest and heal your characters in every town.
This process sucks you into each of your characters, you get to know them instantly, who they are, what their goal is, why they are here. When you have all eight characters in your team the stories really begin. All of your characters have their own independent story chapters, but there are also crossed paths, which are a series of chapters using two characters whose main story arc cross over onto the next.
Each of the eight characters have access to a Path Skills system, which allows them to interact with NPCs in different ways, and in different ways between a changeable day and night cycle. Throné, the Thief, for example, during the day can rob items from NPCs. Hikari, the Warrior, can challenge NPC’s to a duel and learn their abilities, and Agnea, the Dancer, can get free items from NPCs, instead of robbing them like Throné. You use these skills a lot, mostly the robbing of items, as many of the NPCs hold valuable weapons, items you can sell at stores, and side or main quest items. Instantly changing from day to night and vice versa is as simple as pressing the right trigger on your controller, and you’ll find yourself doing this a lot to coerce weapons or information from NPCs as not all NPCs just stand around 24/7 – they have lives and bedtimes after all…
There are between four and five chapters to complete for each of the characters and you can tackle them in any order by arriving at the town where the chapter is set. The chapters though are defined by level recommendations, meaning you can’t really just rush through one character. The level four chapters, for example, are Level 35+, so you are encouraged to take your time, go through each character’s chapters one by one to enjoy the story and grind those battles.
I found myself wanting to take it in turn going through each character based on the level and chapter number, knowing I was doing everything seamlessly, and also keeping my characters levelled up through battles in the process.
Ahhhh, the battles. Hello my Turn Based friend.
At the heart of the combat is the turn based mechanic you know from old, but with a twist that makes battles more dynamic, more interesting and more varied and fresh. Enemies come with a shield number and weak points you need to exploit, attacking these weak points with the correct weapon or magic spell wittles these shield points down. This achieves two things: it makes the enemy miss an entire round of turns, and most importantly, massively increases the damage they take, meaning it’s go-time to open up your boosts and toughest attacks.
The Boost system allows you to increase the damage output by building up Boost Point (BP) which you gain one boost point each round. You can use up to four BP at once to either make magic attacks four times stronger, or swing your sword or axe four times instead of one. Octopath Traveler II becomes, then, a game of strategy, and planning. If your enemy has four shield points left, you could break their shield now with 4x boosted hits, but then you have no boosts to use on that broken shield when you do the most damage. It’s the ultimate test of risk vs reward, where you’re constantly wondering: What is the best solution? If I do this with this character, I can then do this with another…
Fans of Final Fantasy will know the term limit break. Limit Breaks have been added to Octopath Traveler II in the form of Latent Powers. Latent Power builds up in battle and allows you to use extra abilities at any point you see fit. Those Latent Powers could be an all out attack move, in the case of the ninja Hikari. Or it could be the ability to completely re-fill your boost points, in Partitio’s case. Again, all of these differences make the battle system so fun and fresh.
Each character has a unique combat job to play, not just in the story, but in a rich, deep Job System. Job Systems are incredibly important in JRPG titles, and Octopath Traveler II nails it in so many ways. Not only do you have eight unique jobs, you can find licences for all those eight jobs (and three secret ones) and give your characters the licence to use a second job. Do you want your Warrior character to have the Thief second job? No problem, done. Do you want your healer Cleric to have a Sorcerer job to wield magic attacks? Also done. This job system allows a near endless combination of skills to be used by each character and means you can tailor your playing experience however you want to. I can see a scenario where ten people playing this game will see ten different character combinations and ten different job systems – there is no one size fits all, you can literally play the game how YOU want to.
I can’t begin to describe the visuals of Octopath Traveler II. It is the most beautiful HD-2D game we have seen thus far, the world and lighting is so special, at every new location you enter you will be wowed by its beauty – I haven’t been able to stop taking screenshots from start to finish. The level of colouring and detailing in the world looks tremendous, especially on next-gen hardware. Doing big magic spells, or exaggerated high boosted skills floods your screen with sharp, beautiful colour – it’s truly magical.
Each area in the game has a different visual perspective to delight your eyes. Luscious greenlands, dry and barren desert, cold and white snowlands and damp, dark and sinister dungeons – Octopath Traveler has world designs to rival all 2D-HD games.
I don’t often speak about soundtracks in my reviews, often the quality goes over my head, but not here. Every area you visit has unique music to it. I especially enjoyed visiting the Partitio’s home town of Oserush, in the Wild Lands, where a literal Wild West sounding piece began. If you’re in a room with an open fireplace, you can hear a subtle crackle in your ear. I really appreciate the time that has gone into making this such a great audio experience.
Is Octopath Traveler II, perfect? Erm, nearly, yes. The one issue I have is, and this could very much be a ME problem, is that I found a couple of the characters’ story arcs quite boring and uninteresting. I wasn’t vested in them or the outcome of their story – it was a means to an end finishing their chapters. Looking at you, Dancer Agnea.
I absolutely love this game, it has exceeded the previous title – and my expectations. The overall story is great, characters are too, and the combat system is a triumph. Platinum chasers can expect 100 hours for the shiny, or 40+ hours if you want to just play and enjoy the game and story.
-Dony
