The writing in Octopath 1 is simple, but largely exhibits common sense and sets up compelling and nuanced stories. The first game is also challenging, and requires engaging with the well thought out battle system.
I was told that Octopath 2 was vastly superior to 1 in every way, and I was excited to play it for that reason. Unfortunately, I have found the writing to be absolutely atrocious, and sometimes unintentionally hilarious - but most of the time, it is annoying and unbearable. It has glaring continuity errors that are shocking to see. The characters also constantly monolog and ramble in grand speeches, whereas the first game was nuanced. In the first game, naive characters quickly ended up getting themselves into serious trouble, and would get a healthy dose of reality, which made the game feel nuanced and compelling. Here, largely, goody-two-shoes naivete reigns supreme. There is little nuance, little darkness, little anything. This is the most expedient writing I've seen in my decades of playing JRPGs.
One example of a continuity error is a scene where we set an entire upper floor of a mansion ablaze. Moments later, we exit the building, and there is no fire, and at no point is it considered in the script that it was set on fire. That's because the script has it that we set something specific on fire on that floor, but visually the entire floor was engulfed in flames. The whole game so far has been like this. I find myself exclaiming "What?" every few minutes, as the nonsense unfolds.
There are a couple of exceptions. 2 of the characters seem to have good, conscientious writing, but the rest are consistently embarrassing and I find it depressing how people rave about this utterly tasteless and trite game with its extremely sloppy writing.
The combat balance is also a mess, when that of the first game was not. This is due to the sequel's more open nature, which results in less tightly designed encounters and boss fights. The tradeoff was not worth it, as it's not quite open enough to really gain anything significant over the first game, while also compromising the encounter design somewhat.
I will say the graphics are mostly excellent, but there are some extremely weird art choices that detract from the overall great presentation. Some of the sprites you encounter are disgusting and out of place, which harms the aesthetic. For instance, there is a giant fat woman with a giant head, called "Mother", who looks like she is from a different game. Another example is this lion-like island guardian, which does not look like pixel art at all. Very weird.
I am going to update this review if things change drastically by the time I've finished it, but for now, I am not enjoying this very much.
I must, conversely, recommend playing the first game instead of this, although I am aware this is a minority opinion.
