Are the Octopath Traveler games worth playing?

>>716336254 (OP)
I enjoyed them despite the fact that I dislike the eight path format which is the entire point of the game. The stories individually are nice, but there is very little(Pretty much no, in 1) connection between the stories so it feels like there is little point to the party since they never interact. Two amended this a bit with dual stories and a better finish.
There are some minor skits in between but it is really so minor they might as well not be there.

>>716336823
is any better than the other?

>>716336254 (OP)
First, no. Genuinely difficult to stomach.
Second, yeah. Pretty good game. Even if it has an aftertaste of being fairly half-baked/bootleg version of an actual JRPG.
It's clear the game is intended to be played with the Cleric guy as the main character, so do that, anything else feels awkward as fuck.

>>716337860
2 is better.

>>716337860
1 is like a poorly made alpha of 2.

>>716337860
Game? 2 is pretty much 1 but better.
Stories? I barely remember the first game but I liked the majority of stories in the second one. My personal favorite was Scholar, Merchant, Warrior, Priest, and Apothecary.
Thief in 2 is pretty meh, until you get to the end and it jumps the shark.

>>716336254 (OP)
2 is worth playing.

i only played 2 and i liked it

Eh, even at that deep a discount the price point seems a bit high for my tastes. For the price of one of these I snagged three indie RPGs during the summer sale.

this thread is making me regret buying 1... i should've just gone for 2

>>716336254 (OP)
yes. 2 is a better experience than 1, but 1 has better characters and music imho

>>716336254 (OP)
Yes, but skip 1. Not a bad a game, but the sequel is a lot better, and playing both would cause burnout.

>>716341387
No one in OT1 is as fun as the murder hobo nurse or shifty priest.

>>716336254 (OP)
Octopath 2 improved 1 by a lot, if you can stomach 1 then you'll be blown away by 2
But if you play 2 first you'll probably never be able to finish 1

>>716341767
Tressa is peak protagonist material. if OP does play OT1, i highly recommend starting with Tressa and doing her Chapter 4 last

i also like Cyrus in that his climactic encoutner with his route's final boss is him giving her a dressing down about being a shit teacher

>>716341767
I think OT1 Warrior/Apothecary are better than OT2's worst stories, but yeah, the top tier stories are all in OT2

>>716337860
I think octopath 1 has better characters but octopath 2 has better stories.
2 is better in pretty much everyway except the characters. That being said some characters in 2 are better than their equivalents in 1, particularly the merchant , dancer and priest

>>716338176
>>716338289
>>716339361
>>716339538
So you should just ignore 1? I was thinking of playing these games as well

>>716336254 (OP)
Yes, they're fantastic. 2 is the better game by far, but I still think 1 is worth a playthrough.

>>716344531
1 is okay but I think 2 is better in all areas, including stories and characters. That can be very subjective though, if the stories and characters of 1 interest you then you should play that first. 2 is an upgrade in terms of overall game-play however.

>>716344531
2 is a better game, as a sequel should be. 1 is worth playing, though, and you should definitely play it first otherwise you will find it hard to go back to due to the fact that 2 really improves on the first game in many ways.

>>716336823
>connection between the stories so it
Too complicated to implement

>>716336823
Theres plenty of connections in the story on 1 what are you talking about?

>>716346484
He's obviously talking about the fact that the 8 characters never interact with each other outside of a few inn banters, so the entire story feels like disconnected solo journeys, which is true.

>>716346484
I mean that the characters don't react within chapters other than short as fuck skits. Hence it doesn't feel like an actual party experiencing the same thing, they are all in their own pocket dimension.
If that is plenty to you then lord knows I don't want to know what your few looks like.

>>716346847
You mentioned stories not characters themselves.
All the stories are connected one way or another in some way when you do the endboss

>>716336254 (OP)
>pixelshit cringelver
hell no
embarrassingly bad graphics

>>716336254 (OP)
1 isn't
2 is but I wouldn't pay more than 20$ for it

I started playing 1 not too long ago and tried taking the 4-and-4 approach, picking a full party of 4, doing all their chapters, then starting with the other 4. I'm about halfway through the first set of chapter 2s and feel like I'm slowly smashing through a brick wall, since I only did half the chapter 1s they feel like a huge difficulty jump.
I worry that it'll be like this for the rest of the first party of 4 and maybe even for the second party of 4, where I'll have to constantly grind or suffer always being way underleveled (and the bosses seem tanky as shit, so it's annoying having to redo these marathon fights if I can't last them). On the other hand, I don't like the idea of having to constantly swap party members just so everyone's on-level, and if I did do that I don't like the idea of being stuck with the "protagonist" constantly anyway.
Does it get better doing the game like this, or should I cut my losses with this approach and go back to pick up the rest of the characters?

>>716348409
You'll be fine, the games combat is not hard and if you play efficiently you can go with your preferred approach easily.

>>716348409
The reason you feel like this is because equipment scales harder than levels. You can have a level 1 character with endgame equipment reach close to max elemental attack for example.
When I played the game I finished the story of my first pick asap so i could swap. This was clearly a mistake as it gave me access to a bunch of eq I should not have for the other stories. If you want the difficulty to feel balanced you simply need to forget about your mcs level and do everything in the order of the recommended levels to gain equipment in a way that feels like progression and not breaking the game. This is why its a mistake to do things like steal 1% stuff from npcs via save scumming

>>716348409
I did 4-and-4 on both 1 and 2. The 2nd 4 are a lot easier since you have all the lategame gear available.

>>716336254 (OP)
I'm a long time JRPG fan. I've played everything from Tales to Xenogears to Xenoblade to Final Fantasy to Ys to Dragon Quest.

>Octopath 1
8.5/10. It's a good game, just not extraordinary. I would recommend it if you're a fan of SNES era Squeenix games like Chrono Trigger or...
>Octopath 2
9.5/10. One of the top 10 best JRPGs I've played, but not top 5. I would heavily recommend it to anyone who likes JRPGs.

>>716337860
Anon from future here, Octopath Traveler 7 would be claimed as the best one of all time, but when Octopath Traveler 8 came, people were turn off by the UI and bettle system, the Octopath Traveler 9 came the following year and took the game back to its core basics, but the art direction made the franchise lose new players, then Octopath Traveler X came out people love the grid UI, but the story felt linear.

>>716346847
>>716346808
The characters connecting in banter is what everyone loves Tales games for. Octopath is a fair bit shorter than your average Tales game, being only 40 hours compared to those 80+ hour games, so there's a good chunk less content outside of the banter, but there are still, what, 40 scenes with the characters interracting?

And that's before you get to the post-game where all the characters' stories intertwine.

>>716336254 (OP)
not for the price squenix think they're worth
they're like 1/3rd of a real jrpg maybe in terms of content at best
no more than £10 absolute tops each honestly probably less
it's funny that squenix want to try and sell their games for x price in perpetuity, sheer desperation. very few other devs would try to sell you a 6 year old game for the same price as its 3 year old sequel. they think they have no competition
they can't even understand they compete with themselves. why would you ever buy this over tactics ogre which was on sale for 25% cheaper than this just recently?

>>716348409
The 4-and-4 approach only works if you balance out your teams correctly. You want to have one team with Primrose + Alfyn and another with Ophelia so you're not stacking too many support characters into one team. Ideally Cyrus and Olberic should be on opposite teams as well.

The ideal split is:
>Team A
Cyrus
Tressa
Ophelia
Ha'anit

>Team B
Therion
Alfyn
Primrose
Olberic

>storystorystorystorystory
>>716336254 (OP)
Octopath 1 has good gameplay and a story passable enough for enjoyment.
Octopath 2 improves in almost every way.
Play both, don’t listen to the reject shakesperes
There are some things I preferred about 4, like alfyns concot over castti’s thanks to its versatility.

>>716349650
Nintendo does the same thing. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are still $60/$70 respectively.

Squeenix, at least, puts their games on sale regularly. Nintendo never does.

>>716336254 (OP)
Skip 1, just get 2.

>>716349896
JRPGs are a time investment so I can understand telling people to pick up 2 first. I usually only play 1 a year, so if I weren't already a fan of Octopath I'd recommend myself to only pick up 2.

1 has better music IMO, but that's comparing a 9.4/10 soundtrack to a 9.5/10 soundtrack. Both are absolutely phenomenal. I also think the alt classes in 1 are way more fun than the ones in 2. Other than Inventor, the alt classes in 2 are... mediocre. Inventor is incredibly unique and it turns Agnea into a monster, but not as much of a monster as Runelord Tressa.

Oh, but OT2 does have the single best song in the series...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TyQVISgu54

>>716348409
the minute you do anyones chapter 4 the rest of the game becomes a joke, you vastly outlevel most of the content

>>716350471
You can always just not give your strong equipment to your other party members. Equipment matters more than levels do.

>>716348815
>equipment scales harder than levels
I've heard this but I feel like I've been collecting the best equipment I can reasonably get and will still get boned if a boss uses multiple AoEs in a row. I'm not sure how to get better equipment other than spending a bunch more money than I have.
>>716349803
I pretty much randomly decided to start with Olberic and go north, so my team is Olberic-Tressa-Cyrus-Ophelia, which feels fine composition-wise.
I'm stuck at Cyrus's Act 2 boss right now. I'll probably give it a couple more tries, then wander around looking for better equipment, and if I don't feel like I'm making progress before losing interest I'll just start picking up the other characters.

>>716336254 (OP)
This is one of those games that was so bad it made me realize you can't trust modern Nintendo fans on anything. Like a literal 0/10 game, and I'm not trolling here, I own it and if needed I can prove it, just an utter garbage game.

>>716349930
>Nintendo does the same thing.
And nintendo are retarded and can get away with it by being on a closed platform that they control and having a clown fanbase that will pay for anything with mario on it for eternity.
Sqenix have none of these things, they own no platform, they compete on an open market, and they have no hardcore lifelong fanbase who will buy everything they put out no matter what - the closest they have is ff14 players and they buy nothing else that squenix put out.
I'm sorry but of the two, squenix are infinitely more retarded becuase they have no power and no good bargaining position yet think they have maximum.

>>716350585
>you can always just not engage in the entire point of jrpgs
Sure, you can, but I'm not gonna do that and I'm simply not gonna praise a game where that is recommended in any way.

>>716350613
The games are multiplat anon, why are you bringing up Nintendo fans here? The first one was exclusive to Switch for some time but eventually it got ported and 2 released as a multi-plat title. Most people here are saying 2 is better so I highly doubt it's just Nintendo fans that are praising it.

>>716350610
You could do the 1st chapter of the other 4 just to grind a bit (just try to bench the original 4 as much as possible so they even out)
>>716348409
>I worry that it'll be like this for the rest of the first party of 4 and maybe even for the second party of 4
Don't worry, you'll get better equips so the 2nd party will be easier. You can also unlock the secret classes with the original 4 and use them on the 2nd party

>>716350610
Levels scale hp harder so thats what you’re feeling most likely.
Do you have all of the jobs now? (Except the advanced ones obviously)?
Theres a few ways you can try to nuke the boss

>>716350817
You're talking to a mentally ill avatartranny who fellates Falcom games, ignore him, report him and move on, he's only here to shitpost

It's unfortunate there will never be another game in this series since it turned into a mobile gacha game. Truly tragic.

>>716350817
Why are you replying to someone who has no interest in having an actual discussion? Just ignore the retard.

>>716350632
I don't think companies ought to lower the price of their video games based on an arbitrary passage of time. If a game is worth $60 in 2015 it's worth $60 in 2020

>>716351748
And you are wrong and would flounder in the market that exists for video games.
Why is anyone going to buy your 6 year old game for that price when they can buy a brand new game, in the same genre, for that price? And then next year you have another years worth of games as competition.
The video game market has drastically changed, your competition is no longer whatever came out this year or in the last few months that can be stocked on the shelves.
Your competition is now every game, ever made, for all of eternity. Which means your competition gets fiercer every single year, every single month frankly now with how releases work. The higher the competition, the more your product has to compete. That means reducing the price, because 0% of the time they compete by making the product better
>If a game is worth $60
It isn't, it never was and it never will be. Squenix have not put out a product worth that much in like 20 years or more. If you want a game to be worth that much, it essentially has to be bg3 or elden ring tier, nothing else is worth that.

I only played 2 and it was awful. Everything from the combat to the world and characters are super boring and amount to basically nothing. It also looks putrid without .ini fuckery. Music was good but that's the only positive I can give it.

>>716352493
I cannot imagine having taste so terrible you find a character like Partitio "boring".

>>716336254 (OP)
They are comfy by-the-books JRPGs. They will not do anything imaginative or original or surprising but as long as you're ok with that then you should have a nice time.

>>716352538
Because there's nothing to him or his story.
I was about to say his supporting cast especially sucks but that's true for everyone.

>>716352182
>Why is anyone going to buy your 6 year old game for that price when they can buy a brand new game, in the same genre, for that price?
Because newer =/= better (newer is actually more often than not WORSE). And there's not exactly a lot of competition for turn based JRPGs recently. Since Octopath 1, all there's been is shitty remakes and Octopath 2.

>>716336254 (OP)
Octopath 2 is one of the best ive ever played
i havent played 1 tho

Partitio was the absolute man and one of my favorite male videogame characters actually. He and Ochette had fantastic music themes as well.

>>716352938
lol

>>716352938
Agnea's theme is better than both.

>>716352910
If you thought Octopath 2 was a 9/10 or better, then Octopath 1 is well worth a shot. 2 is better in every way, but it's not a dramatic improvement in any way.

>>716352669
Yes, there is. I think you simply cannot read or comprehend what was being shown to you if you could not grasp the themes of Partitios story, let alone the other characters.

>>716352759
>all there's been is shitty remakes
That are all better, and cheaper most of the time. It doesn't matter that they're remakes
Jrpgs and srpgs are 95% of all games I play, there has been plenty to play in the past 6 years
>newer is worse
This is incorrect. This argument comes from old things actually being good, but "old" things does not mean 6 years ago, it means more like 26 years ago. The difference in quality between a 2019 squenix game and a 2025 squenix game is 0.
The reality is the entertainment industry works and always has worked in this way, even if you dislike it. Higher competition means you have to actually compete harder, in every single scenario. You now face competition exponentially greater than has ever existed at any point in any entertainment mediums history, trying to cling to higher prices and insisting your game has an inherent value hasn't worked and will never work based on the last century because the majority of consumers reject it. It only works if you can capture an audience like nintendo who will pay anything you demand for anything you offer without exception.

>>716353167
I don't give a shit about themes, and they're worthless if the characters themselves are uninteresting. Even "if" one character's story is good, the game has some of the most baffling writing in the genre that it'd be bad overall.

High tier:
Alfyn, Partitio

Good tier:
Olberic, Cyrus, Hannit, Agnea, Throne (latter half of story), Osvald (beginning of his story), Temenos

Mid Tier:
Tressa, Castti, Ochette

Boring Tier:
Ophelia, Primrose, Throne (beginning of story), Osvald (the rest of his story), Hikari

In terms of gameplay: everyone in 2 is funner to play except Castti. The advanced jobs are all better and funner in 1 except Inventor.

>>716353769
You're telling me Apothecary was even more broken in 1?

>>716353559
The characters are not uninteresting, though, I found them quite enjoyable and the best part of the game, in fact.

>>716353407
>That are all better, and cheaper most of the time. It doesn't matter that they're remakes
I wouldn't consider Live a Live, Persona 3, or DQ3 to be better at all, nor would I recommend them to anyone since the originals are still cheap (free) and better than the remakes.

>This is incorrect. This argument comes from old things actually being good, but "old" things does not mean 6 years ago, it means more like 26 years ago.
There's been a notable decline in quality even in the last 5 years. Compare, say, Doom Eternal (2020) to Doom: The Dark Ages (2025). Massive downgrade.

Octopath Traveler released in 2018, and it's still one of the better games released in the past decade. Obviously I wouldn't recommend it over DQXI or OT2, but it's certainly at least on par with lesser turnbased JRPGs Metaphor and SMTV

>>716353806
I remember getting more elemental breaks with it but the ingredient economy being thoroughly fucked with all the good stuff being enemy-drop only

>>716353806
Yes. By a lot. You can bp battery everyone without having to charge concot (because it cannot be charged), it also does multi elemental hits without having to charge that also apply ailments or debuffs.
Other than that the class itself is very similar in both games

>>716353806
Merchant and Apothecary were generally better in 1. Tressa might just be the most broken party member in any Octopath game when you start unlocking the advanced classes. She's the ultimate support.

>>716353930
Oh in that case it's not as good.
A big part of why 2's combat is so bad is because you can generate infinite HP/MP/BP with just a little bit of money.

>>716353769
How is Thrones latter half better than her earlier half? I feel like it's the other way around, I didn't really like the whole immortal being who fathered her and everyone she worked with nonsense, and her initial story was much more interesting before it spiraled into that. Also I don't see how you can find Olberic entertaining and Primrose boring, Primrose has much more emotional weight to her story and for once, in Japanese media she actually follows through on taking her vengeance which was very satisfying to me.

>>716336254 (OP)
1 yes, 2 no

>>716354040
Tressa was not the most broken and Partitio is basically exactly the same as her.
The most broken party member in both games is the apothecary, in terms of damage as well but thats a waste of the biggest utility in the game.
In terms of dps the best character is olberic and Hikari in both games while Cyrus and Osvald are the best at AOE damage.
Tressa and Therion are also a better magic dps than cyrus with the wind element because of equipment elemental multipliers

>>716353926
if you think ot is on par with smtv the conversation is pointless because you are cooked my friend
not that i'm saying smtv couldn't have been better, but it's still substantially better than ot is

>>716353926
>Octopath Traveler released in 2018, and it's still one of the better games released in the past decade. Obviously I wouldn't recommend it over DQXI or OT2, but it's certainly at least on par with lesser turnbased JRPGs Metaphor and SMTV
Jesus, I forgot posts could get this bad on /v/.

>>716354476
Yeah what a ridiculous post, Octopath Traveler 1 is a WAY better game than Metaphor or SMTV.

>>716336254 (OP)
I'm a long time JRPG fan. I've played everything from Breath of Fire to Suikoden to Shin Megami Tensei to Final Fantasy to Dragon Quest.

>Octopath 1
Played the demo and the game looked like putrid shit. I witnessed pseudo sprites getting gangraped by inappropriately used unreal lighting effects. I didn't notice anything too novel about the combat and the most interesting things about the characters were their concepts rather than actual writing.

If you want to play a JRPG go play literally anything else. Quite a few decent ones have come out over the past decade so there's no reason to waste your time with Octopath 1.

>Octopath 2
I haven't played the game so I will not weigh in on it

Octopath 1 is a firm 8.8/10

>>716354805
>Here is my opinion on a game I only played the demo for
Classic /v/. I will give you credit for not faking an opinion on 2, at least.

>>716355020
Considering that everything he said applies to 2 I'm willing to believe 1 is exactly the same.
Although the demo for 2 did fool me into thinking it'd be better with dead children and prostitution shown off immediately.

>>716355165
>It'd be better with dead children and prostitution
Can't really see why you think edgy content would inherently improve anything, anything at all, but yeah alright man.

Just jewtube each character's arcs in both.

>>716355489
If you write that off as edgy then you aren't mature enough for this conversation.

>>716355647
Adding violence, death, or sexual content to a story does not make it better or worse inherently, a story can be great without those things, and great with them, or vice versa, and terrible either way. The fact you think a story having such things automatically elevates it is laughable.

>>716341263
>paying for games

>>716354805
>inappropriately used unreal lighting effects
this is why I have never bought these games, the lightning looks so lazy it's the pixel effect of putting mario in UE5

>>716336254 (OP)
Yes. Play for Tressa.

>>716351091
Didn't the mobile game come out before 2?

>>716354246
Bro...? Your Runelord...?

And yes, I know that Arcanists is sort of the same thing, but Tressa with Runelord is better because she can hit for every single element except for Staff and Knife. Arcanist only gives staff, knife, light, and dark. Runelord Tressa not only keeps her party immortal, she can also break pretty much any enemy in the game.

>>716356283
You can mitigate some of it on PC but it'll still look bad.
But don't worry, they aren't worth playing anyway.

I like the HD2D artstyle.

t. 1996 Millennial

>>716356824
You’re overselling runelord on tressa and underselling arcanist on partitio.
Rune lord on tressa is literally just for the sidestep crutch which is not even good its just an easy brain dead way to get your setups going, offensively speaking runelord is better on literally anyone else and you do not use it to break enemjes.
Arcanist partitio can do more than just aoe sidestep because of the base utility of arcanist, not to mention acting as a sp battery and also being able to enable debuffers.

>>716358351
Balogar's Blade is a fantastic breaking tool, and yes you do use it to break enemies. It's an incredible tool for late and post game content since being able to break 95%+ of enemies in the game is a huge boon.

I'd much rather take the added breaking utility and raw power of Runelord (coupled with weapons like the Battle Tested Axe which buff rune damage) over the more supportive utility of Arcanist, especially when Sidestep and Rest spam are already most of the utility you could need. Passing the runes to your allies is just gravy.

>>716355647
Last of Us 2 has plenty of mature content, but that doesn't make the game good.

>>716359110
You are stupid.

Octopath might be some of the most overrated Japslop out there

>>716359082
And you get that better on anyone else. Tressa is better off just using sorcerer or not using an advanced job at all. There are much more reliable ways to break enemies as well.
I’d argue tressa is the weakest OP1, shes overselled because she can make your party immortal to certain attacks, but that is not even the best way to negate damage in this game.

>>716359865
I see you are finally breaking down unable to make any arguments anymore, not that you had any to begin with

>>716361901
Man, what an awful cast.

>>716361932
Wrong!

>>716359959
It's love-it-or-hate-it. For those that don't hate it, it's fantastic.

>>716362057
Ochette is perfect and she sold me on the demo back when the game released. Such a cutie.

>>716363337
She's even got a good English VA

>>716363337
Is she a cat or a dog?

>>716365459
I didn't use English but I can say for sure that she had a great Japanese VA.
>>716365868
catdoggirl

>>716366182
Obviously the English voice work is worse, but English Ochette is pretty great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cI9LC0HUPk

Osvald = Cyrus
Castti < Alfyn
Throne > Therion
Ochette > Ha'anit
Partitio = Tressa
Agnea > Primrose
Temenos > Ophelia
Hikari < Olberic

>>716366980
Wait a minute... their names spell out OCTOPATH