Octopath Traveler First Impressions

A few years ago, I was speaking with my brother about how I felt a little out of the loop on modern RPG's, and was looking for something I could get into that wasn't the latest entry in a decades-long series. Soon after, he gifted me a copy of Octopath Traveler for the Switch, a game he strongly recommended.

I remember trying it, but was quickly overwhelmed by...something I can't even rightly remember.  Maybe it was a sense that I didn't have time to give enough focus to it. Maybe on the surface it looked too different than what I've been used to lately. Maybe something on the surface reminded me vaguely of The 7th Saga, a game I purchased a few years ago that's still in the queue. Whatever it was, the game triggered something in me that kept me from continuing with it at the time, and I continued a focus on older RPG's.

I guess I've come back to where I was. I want an RPG that's in English that I can play alongside my current queue without disrupting it; the Switch is ideal for that. In addition to my brother's recommendation, I have seen that this game has continued with a strong reputation. And, although it seems to have a unique concept, the game art and design looks like a clear callback to the era I grew up in. It seems like a perfect fit.

So I started it up, and played for longer than ten minutes this time.

I imagine that anyone who happens to run across this article is statistically likely to know more about the game than I do, even if they haven't played it. I've read very little about the game and know very little beyond its reputation. 

I gather from what I've read, as well as from just playing for five minutes, that there are eight main characters each with separate stories, played out separately from other characters. I can see that you pick one of them, and play from there.

I don't know exactly how things work from there. Is it like Final Fantasy VI, or Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, where you play various scenarios to completion, independent of each other, in an order of your choice, and then play the rest of the game once they're done? Or is it more complicated than that, having a game experience that depends and evolves differently depending on which character you choose at the beginning, with a full experience depending on multiple replays? Something else?

I picked the scholar, Cyrus Albright. Normally I do a warrior archetype as a default given a choice, which I can see from my first save back when is what I'd picked then. But I decided I was feeling inspired to try something matching my actual persona a little more closely.

Most of the time I played was an introductory storyline confined to the town I started in, solving a mystery of someone stealing books from the archives. 

I played an hour or two, long enough to get acquainted with the area and some basic mechanics, go through an introductory dungeon, and finally leave my starting town. Also long enough to feel like I want to keep going.

The look of the game is very striking to me. I believe this was one of the first games, if not the first, to use the "HD 2D" art style, which has clearly become a beloved style in the circles I wander. It's easy to see why.

When I see it, it makes me think that this is how games might have evolved if visuals had continued to evolve on the same path after the SNES generation, instead of going to fully 3D models and environments. In so doing, it evokes an incredibly nostalgic feel, while still not altogether feeling fully retro. I don't think I've seen a 2D overhead RPG that looked this pretty, even later generation hold-outs like Dragon Quest IX.

I don't know if I've played enough to get a good feel for the audio. The title screen music is very impressive, and so far I like the character voice acting.

The battle system is interesting so far. It blends concepts I've seen from Final Fantasy XIII (a stagger-like "break" system, without the action elements) and Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light (a "boost" system resembling that game's MP system; there's a game I need to get back to and finish). Interestingly, those last two, aside from Dragon Quest XI, are probably the most "modern" RPG's I've really played before this.

I noticed I couldn't get by without using healing items at the beginning, and only won the first boss fight by the narrowest of margins after running out of healing items. That's actually a little refreshing.

The scholar has an ability that lets him get a little more information out of talking to townspeople, which I find intriguing. But, after the introductory scenario, it seems to be tied to some kind of reputation system that I don't really know much about yet.

I think the game has hooked me enough that I won't convince myself to defer it longer. I'm looking forward to having a game that's less than a decade old that I can get a little more excited about.