One of the best console adaptation of a cellular recreation can be simply an unimaginable RPG.
To most console gamers, Octopath Traveler 0 is a big swerve following the primary two Swap video games within the collection. These earlier video games lean into the “Octo” a part of the title, that includes eight totally different characters that you simply decide in any order, slowly finishing their separate story arcs that roughly culminate in a world-intertwining finale. Octopath Traveler 2 had incremental refinements on the construction, including in additional selection, higher pacing, and extra compelling tales. However because the console world had two numbered Octopath video games, Sq. Enix was additionally operating Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent on cellular. The gacha-based RPG was an enormous systematic change and improve, that includes a lot stronger fight with eight-character events and a distinct vignette-heavy construction to storytelling. Octopath Traveler 0 is actually a remake of the Orsterra story from Champions of the Continent, although when you had no thought there was a cellular recreation, it will be exhausting to inform if there have been any cellular origins. Regardless of the place the story arcs from Octopath Traveler 0 got here from, the very fact of the matter is that that is the most effective Octopath Traveler recreation that Sq. Enix has made and fairly frankly could be the most effective HD-2D recreation they’ve touched as effectively.
The world of Orsterra featured right here was the setting for the primary recreation within the collection. Octopath Traveler 0 features as a prequel to that recreation, telling a slew of latest tales in addition to organising a few of the plot threads within the authentic. Brilliantly, this recreation solves plenty of the storytelling points led to by having eight totally different fundamental characters by making the principle character be a player-created avatar. Not solely does this offer you a degree of customization, nevertheless it additionally gives a solidified entry level into every story arc you come throughout. Coming off the heels of the Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D remakes, it struck me how a lot the implementation of your “Chosen One” avatar right here is harking back to the Hero from Dragon Quest video games. There is no such thing as a want to ensure Primrose and Olberic speak throughout their story’s respective lower scenes, as a result of the principle character is your character and everybody else is secondary.
The sport’s prologue units up your character’s place on the planet: your mother and father are murdered and your hometown of Wishvale is destroyed by three villains. All the pieces to do with Wishvale and your hero’s associates there’s new to Octopath Traveler 0. The search line that builds out of the city entails rebuilding the ruins and populating it together with your occasion members and different keen villagers you meet in your travels. I admire the idea of Wishvale, nevertheless it began to crumble for me because it wore on as a result of constructing out your city felt an excessive amount of like a guidelines and a way to an finish. It begins strongly: I discovered the opening hours of the prologue and the restoration plot to be compelling. However at a sure level, I simply needed to improve my coaching facility to degree up extra heroes and get sufficient high quality supplies to construct a church. This ain’t precisely Stardew Valley. Nonetheless, Wishvale serves an essential narrative conceit because it’s the house base for each member of your occasion. It’s a neat little trick that made me not suppose twice of how each story beat solely featured my hero and never the seven different occasion members tagging alongside within the overworld and fights.
That will get to the slam-dunk finest enhancement: eight-player fight. Lifted kind of precisely from the cellular recreation, the eight-player fight builds off the robust basis of the unique recreation’s turn-based Press Flip basis and deepens the technique to scrumptious ranges of tactical constructing flexibility. You will have two rows of 4 characters every in fight at one time, with them paired off into items you possibly can swap between throughout their flip. It permits for a lot better protection of weaknesses and likewise helps you to higher defend healers or glass cannons. As you get extra characters and skills, you can begin to construct some wild synergies and acquire additional assaults and constant boons to characters. Each time I assumed I had my technique locked into place, I got here throughout some small tweak that may open up extra prospects.
A change from Octopath 1 and a couple of is that solely your hero can change courses. Everybody else is locked into one distinctive type of a category (or now and again, a unique class). There are methods to finetune and customise the opposite characters with gear and some versatile expertise slots, however Olberic is only a warrior now. He can’t be a dancer irrespective of how a lot he needs to be one. The constructive from that is that you simply come throughout upwards of 30 characters all through the sport to construct your eight-player occasion from, together with each single one of many authentic eight heroes from the primary Octopath Traveler. At a sure level although, I felt like I used to be accruing these characters to fill my Pokedex versus on the lookout for a brand new character to drop in. Nevertheless, the writing for these characters, even in comparatively quick doses, may be very robust and even when there wasn’t an apparent spot to drop Goodwin in when he confirmed up within the again half of my journey, I needed to have that weird character in my occasion in some capability.
The writing was by no means actually a weak a part of previous Octopath video games, nevertheless it feels much more refined and improved on this recreation. That’s helped by the general construction and pacing as effectively. Except for the Wishvale restoration quest, you might be additionally tasked with chasing down the three villains who razed your city. That kicks off the “Grasp of All” story arc that dominates the primary half of this recreation (and is structurally equivalent to the cellular RPG). The three villains within the Grasp of Fame, Grasp of Energy, and Grasp of Wealth storylines are delightfully vile beings that you simply wish to completely demolish whereas additionally eager to see what craven nightmare issues they do subsequent. Auguste is an all-timer RPG villain as a twisted playwright. Tytos’ warlord zombie conquest options a number of compelling supporting characters. Herminia’s gold-hoarding witch reign additionally has some novel twists and turns. All three of these arcs come to a head in comparatively quick (however not too quick) order and that kicks it over to the prolonged Grasp of All quest that kind of railroads the story in a constructive method for a short time. Ending the Grasp of All quest rolls credit, however past that’s nonetheless a lot recreation. The again half contains the whole lot of the “Bestower of All” story arc (additionally structurally equivalent to the cellular RPG), which isn’t as easy because the opening plot however tells a layered, compelling story that builds off of what occurred within the first half all through the world and units up a few of the occasions of the unique recreation. What I liked probably the most in regards to the two fundamental story arcs is that it felt just like the world round me was evolving and altering as I accomplished tales. You see the influence of the occasions round you and for probably the most half, any thread unresolved early on will get readability and extra consideration afterward. Additionally as a fast level of clarification: I preserve saying “structurally equivalent” as a result of whereas the big-picture story arc for all these plots is identical, Octopath Traveler 0 fills in a lot extra nuance and element. The Grasp and Bestower quests are seemingly Prolonged Editions of the cellular plots.
I really thought I used to be finished with the world of Octopath Traveler after the second, however this prequel blew me away with the way it introduced a superb mobile-only story to the forefront and leveled up the fight, exploration, and construction of this RPG collection into one thing much better than what got here earlier than. I’ve just a few small points, whether or not it’s the late phases of the city constructing questline or the shortage of sophistication altering for all characters, however these are finally small potatoes to the successes that echo all through the world of Orsterra in Octopath Traveler 0. The eight-player fight guidelines, the vignette-esque storylines are fascinating, and the general world constructing is prime notch. This is among the finest conventional turn-based RPGs I’ve performed in ages and it makes me excited for what could be subsequent from the parents concerned with this glorious journey.
