OCTOPATH TRAVELER 0

Now that i've 100%-ed this game, I'll give my opinion on it, since I was also skeptical at first about this one after precedent entries of the Octopath serie. Yes, the pacing and the way that the game tells you its story is VERY different from what you've experienced in OT1&2. In fact, it has almost nothing to share with the previous entries in terms of narration, writting and storytelling. While some say it's what made Octopath Traveler 1 & 2 incredible games (which I agree), it doesn't mean at all that the way Zero does it is bad. It's just different, way more classical, but still extremely good because it's still an Octopath Traveler's writting level. You may appreciate and connect to the different travellers very differently to previous entries, and to be fair, most of them are non so relevant in terms of story (in the first half of the game though). But other characters (who sometimes become playable characters later in the game !) are so well written and interesting to follow and connect to, heck I loved the storyline connected to Bargello, to the royal family of Cragspear, to the different vilains you encounter through the game, it has nothing to be ashamed of in comparison of previous traveller's story in OT1&2, like Primerose, Oswald, Therion... And for once, having your OWN story of YOUR character is something appreciable that allows the story to be driven very far and very well (which could sometimes be lacking in previous entries, especially OT1 which is 8 totally separated stories, which can be hard or unpleasant for some players). I'd like also to mention that this game is the most connected to the lore this serie has ever been, so it was very pleasant to understand it more and more, way more than in OT1 (which I guess is retconed / parrallel story of Zero now ?) Meanwhile, in terms of pure RPG gameplay, this one is by far the richest and most formidable of the 3. Combats are dynamic, you have lots of way to play around ennemies and bosses, build's customization is through the roof in mid-late game, optionnal quests and stuff to do beside the story is absurdly high, I never saw the end of it before my 120th hour of game, and you have so many travellers to choose from its almost impossible to not find what you want to play. Even level design, especially in late game, succeed to give the player something new and refreshing (even if sometimes it can be a bit tidious) Of course, that doesn't mean the game's perfect, but just like OT1&2. In this one, I really disliked all the storyline of "Master of All" which i found to be quite boring and super long for nothing. But hey, we had Tressa's storyline in OT1 which was the most random and boring out of all OT's stories, and in OT2 we had Agnea's who's only good chapter is the 4th. I have several friends who stopped at "Master of All" because of that, and that's SO SAD because everything afterward is pure gold in my opinion. First chapters can also be seen as pretty simple, but that makes the ending and the setup they do even better in my opinion. The whole building back your village thing can be appreciated for some kind of players, it wasn't meant for me, I did the bare minimum and my village looks like a bunch of lego bricks organized so I can spend the least amount of time here, but it's cool to see they tried something different that is not badly done, just not for me. And at last, despite having several recycled musics in this entry (which is by no means a real bad thing, since OT's OST is one of the best videogame soundtrack existing), all new musics are just incredible, with some being remixes of classical OT. Visuals are stunning as ever, and some boss designs are SO GORGEOUS it's unreal. To conclude, For now i'm not 100% sure if i've prefered my experience on Zero or OT2, but it definitly sky-rocketed my OT1's one. I grew attached differently to characters, and I found some moment to be less intense than others, but other than that, this game delivered, and it did it so well. I'm pretty sure some character's stories will end up being some of my favorites, way above some from OT1&2. If you have 100+h to sink in an incredible JRPG, despite having done OT1&2 or not, I can only tell you to jump right into it without hesitation, big 9/10 experience for me.