Octopath Traveler 2 preview: Fingers in eight pies

pocket-lint.com:

Looking back, Octopath Traveler must have played a solid part in convincing someone high up at Square Enix on what it calls the HD-2D art style that it popularised.

A few years later we've got a host of games using its visual flair, and now a fully-fledged sequel has arrived to offer up another eight-pronged story to explore. We've been able to play each of its characters' first moments, to check out how it's shaping up ahead of release.

We've really enjoyed the opening throes of Octopath Traveler 2, and get the sense that there's a mountain more story to uncover. At this stage its charming presentation and smooth gameplay has us enthused.

Octopath Traveler 2 might have a conspicuous «2» at the end of it, but Square Enix is setting this up to run like its flagship Final Fantasy series — disconnected entries that don't share a world or characters, with rare exceptions.

That means that you don't have to have even sampled the first game to get the most from this new title, which is welcome in a world awash with mammoth RPGs to play.

So, we're in a new world, meeting eight new archetypal characters, each of whose stories we can follow through to their own conclusions.

For this preview, we were able to play each character's first chapter through to its conclusion — which generally brings them to the point where they're out exploring the world and meeting the rest of your party.

Once again, it's a fun system that is especially enjoyable at the very first moment, where you choose your first character from the eight dotted around the world, checking their blurbs to see what sort of story might be interesting to you first.

Heading off to pick up new members of the party is fun too, with each character's first chapter taking