Review in Progress: Octopath Traveler 2
Octopath Traveler, and its follow-up Octopath Traveler 2, both start off with an interesting but challenging narrative format: take eight adventurers, tell their origin stories, and weave their fates together into a greater anthology. These eight heroes grow into their own in their stories and then, once established in their own right, join together to fight the ultimate challenge awaiting them. Conceptually, it’s powerful. In reality, it can be a delicate dance.
For a full disclosure, I wasn’t too keen on the first Octopath Traveler. A soaring soundtrack and gorgeous presentation couldn’t lift the stories high enough to make me want to see things through to the finale myself. So I’m not sure what it was that drew me in, almost last-minute, to Octopath Traveler 2. It could have been lingering good-will from the Live A Live remake. Or maybe it was the idea that Acquire and Square Enix could take the criticisms of the first Octopath and craft a better version of it, where the eight-legged story wasn’t weighed down by its writing. Ultimately, I’m glad I did, because Octopath Traveler 2 feels like making good on the blueprint laid out by its predecessor.
Octopath Traveler 2 (PS5[reviewed], PS4, PC, Switch)Developer: Square Enix, Acquire Corp.Publisher: Square EnixReleased: February 24, 2023MSRP: $59.99
From the outset, much of Octopath Traveler 2 is the same as the first. There are eight travelers, each with their own backstory and class for combat, as well as Path Actions. Journey around town, fight through the occasional dungeon and boss fight, and use Path Actions on NPCs to move the story forward. The framework is very familiar. It’s how Square Enix and Acquire built up over the top that’s impressing me.
The addition of
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