[h2]Octopath Traveler II is an almost direct upgrade over its predecessor. An improved focus in character-driven writing, more complex classes, more abilities and possible synergies, and an even larger world to explore culminate in a fantastic JRPG experience that, however, also demands an incredible amount of patience from the player to be able to appreciate.[/h2]
[h3]Story and Setting[/h3]
Players once again are given the option of choosing any of eight characters as their initial main story to follow, from Throné, an enigmatic thief who wants to break out from her oppressive guild, to Ochette, a Beastling Huntress trying to defend her home island from looming disaster, to Osvald, a scholar wrongfully incarcerated for supposedly murdering his own family and yearning to break free to take revenge: Octopath Traveler II’s cast is a lot more varied and a lot more interestingly written than the previous game. And, more importantly, a greater focus has been set to actually have everyone’s journey intersect more frequently and to more smoothly lead into the postgame.
Narrative cohesion is the keyphrase here. Where OT I struggled due to relatively short chapters and characters having little to no reason to stick together, OT II’s attempts at fixing these criticisms have revealed that there are more fundamental issues with the story of these titles that can’t just be fixed by quality writing. Namely, that the very structure of these games just kind of starts working against it. With more chapters, and even specific intersecting chapters, characters are more elegantly developed and interesting, but it doesn’t make the journey any more believable or sensible for the group to travel together. When Osvald finds a palpable lead towards not just Harvey but also unearthing the fate of his family, it is precisely this greater quality in the writing that then hurts when the game yanks me back onto the world map to tell me that my level isn’t high enough yet and I ought to follow some other story I’m less invested in first.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3756409346
It feels incredibly odd to complain about this, but it genuinely was such a drain on my immersion that I had not realized it was there when I was playing Octopath Traveler I, as that game never quite managed to interest me in enough characters simultaneously to feel this was an issue. This isn’t a “waiter, waiter, steak too juicy, lobster too buttery” complaint that the writing is too good, but rather that OT II is trying to follow too many stories simultaneously while the rest of the game, just like OT I, already suffers from glacial pacing due to the soft requirement of needing to keep an entire cast of eight characters reasonably equally leveled.
Thankfully, OT II also prepares the player better for the overarching threat to the world that ends up appearing in the postgame, when all individual character stories have been resolved. Whereas OT I was happy to throw you into a dry set of credits, OT II presents you with a set of extra chapters to more neatly wrap up the game. Overall, the quality of this postgame can be debated a bit, and the beating heart remains with the game trying to present to you what was attempted originally with Final Fantasy VI: a full cast of playable characters where each one could be the main character and where each one has their own fully developed story, with its own tone and themes and qualities. It’s a commendable effort, but ultimately I don’t know if I would be confident to recommend Octopath Traveler on the basis of its story alone, neither I nor II.
[h3]Gameplay[/h3]
The core gameplay loop remains the same as OT I but has just grown more complex (positive intonation). As a turn- and job-based JRPG, OT II thrives on an insane amount of synergies and party progression. Once again, its strongest aspect is the fact that each of the eight Travelers comes with their own innate Path action, but adding to that, OT II also gives them both a unique Latent Power (a gauge that, once filled, allows for a character's unique action; very powerful!), an additional Path action (up to two from OT I), and, if that wasn’t enough, it also gives characters two unique skills for their main job that are unlocked via completing their story chapters.
Quite frankly, that is everything I could have hoped for in OT II in terms of its core gameplay design and is precisely what makes job-based JRPG games so unbelievably fantastic experiences. The sheer variety in party building is enormous and is further supported by more involved secret jobs that aren’t just stronger versions of existing ones anymore but more gimmicky and unique classes that are also tied to more varied exploration on the overworld to even unlock. For example, the Inventor job can be unlocked extremely early in the game, but to completely unlock its skill set, players need to track down rare materials to literally build their abilities. Another, the Conjurer, is tied to a five-level boss rush, and yet another is tied entirely to overworld exploration via the newly introduced naval ship, also opening the map’s ocean up for players to conquer.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3759288054
Balance is tighter than in OT I, which effectively means that while overall jobs have gotten way stronger, enemies have done a good job of keeping up with this power without feeling overbearing. I had more moments in the story where difficulty felt down due to tactics and needing to adjust my loadout more so than raw numbers and attrition. I think OT II makes for an overall better-balanced and more fun challenge than OT I but has not improved on its Achilles' heel: The sheer amount of grind the game asks of you.
"Octo" means eight. I know; you are welcome. Eight characters to level is already a lot to ask from the player; adding to that not just the EXP but also the JP grind to even unlock the freedom of that aforementioned party building is even more demanding. I typically adore this. I love grinding in games, and it’s not that it isn’t possible to get by with a low-level party either, but this would also miss the point of what makes this combat system fun. This can be circumvented, of course, with mods and the like, but with the size of the map, the consistent random encounters, the far more frequent backtracking, etc., OT II exacerbates its disjointed writing with glacial gameplay pacing.
[h3]Graphics and Sound[/h3]
OT II remains just as fantastic looking as OT I, with even greater detail and some nicely added depth to a lot of the character models. The soundtrack is likewise once again phenomenal, but I felt that it lacked some more impactful tracks. The area it did improve upon massively is the character themes with strong contrasts, such as [i]Osvald, the Scholar[/i] and dungeon music, such as [i]Den of Darkness[/i].
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3757053209
What is more notable than these, however, is the sheer quality of the voice acting. There is an incredible amount of emotion in each performance that I haven’t heard rivaled in any JRPG I can remember.
[h3]Final Thoughts[/h3]
Octopath Traveler II is an interesting example of a kind of game that improves almost every aspect of itself but by virtue of its very fundamental design ends up not that much better of a subjective play experience. By all accounts I should have enjoyed OT II a lot more than its predecessor, but I just couldn’t. For as fantastic as the combat is and for as charming as the characters are, it suffers so, so, so much from tying itself down with its pacing, and I think a lot of this is simply the formula of eight playable characters being stretched to its absolute limit. It remains a great experience, but OT has mostly shown me why smaller casts are preferable for this genre.
