Is the gameplay for Octopath Traveler any good? What about the story?

Gameplay and music are the big selling points, I liked the graffixx but the playable character sprites are lacking compared to enemy sprites. Story is pretty hit and miss, even within the same character's route, a few start strong and end weak or vice versa and some are mediocre throughout.

>My big issue with this game is how grindy it gets

The only point you have to grind is for the post game true final boss. I did zero grinding before then and didn't have any issues. If anything my biggest complaint with the game is its slightly too easy

>Octopath
>Grindy
pick one, the game is still easy even if you have 5 less levels than recommended.

It would've been a lot of work to write the stories in a way that makes every scenario in terms of what characters you currently have unlocked possible. It would just have been templated text boxes at best anyway. Imagine if they had to have a side character react at a specific moment, but they'd have to somehow make it so that the game detects which characters you have on the team at that specific moment, and then make a new textbox for each of the characters in every scenario possible every time, be it if you only have 2 characters unlocked or 6.

I think what they did was good enough.

Attached: drinking contest.webm (853x480, 2.83M)

What? I did not have to grind at all until literally the final final boss and even then it's more about grinding for JP to have the skills you need for that fight on everyone then grinding levels. Before that I felt too strong a lot of the time since you couldn't switch out your 'protagonist' so they became pretty overleveled.

dont you dare shit talk haanit you cunt.

I's such a glaring omission in a game that tries to be like a classic Final Fantasy.

Because they're designed as eight separate stories that weave together at the end not one big one.
That says they do interact a lot in the party chat.

I guess i'm the retard then, cause I've gotten destroyed on multiple occasions, walking into dungeons with like two underleveled characters.

Yes, that's what they would have had to do. But it still would not have been that hard considering how short the stories were, AND considering that this is a big company like Square Enix we're talking about.
Then why don't they help each other out with their stories, and only at the very end they find out that their paths are actually related? It feels so off-putting to have the characters just ignore each other through the whole game.

yes. As you can pick who your leader is and what order you recruit, or choose not to recruit, you'd have to write script for every possible combination of characters for every single event in the game.

And there is party chat, where party members can comment on actions, and there's also events that happen in taverns where 3 or more characters interact. But no, Tressa doesn't try to stop Olberic from entering the tournament of power, and H'aanit has no issue killing the dude that saved Alfyn's life

Yeah, you must be retarded, I mostly only died in boss fights and the few ones I died at (not counting final boss) I usually beat at the second try.

To be fair, you don't know about the transformation until you read his entry journal posthumously.

play the demo. it's just bravely default with less customization

I only ever got stuck on Miguel for a bit until I discovered the wonders of legtrap.

>Then why don't they help each other out with their stories
Because they don't technically travel with each other.

gear is more important than levels. but even with perfect game knowledge you aren't gonna beat the superboss without a full party in the 50s

Not worth full price, but if you really like JRPGs (especially Live A Live) it's worth getting on sale.

Getting that happens naturally, especially if you do the optional boss Wolf

They do help each other out, they are all there to fight with each other through their respective stories
Explain the party dialogue???

Characters helping or stopping eachother would not have any effect on the story in the end because it would still need to conform to the same story beats in every scenario. What if you did a solo run without any other characters, how would that situation unfold with no side characters to interact with?

a lot of people tend to miss this. there are many little side dungeons that are optional that have powerful bosses and rewards for beating them in it.

I've done about 3 full playthroughs and I found a cave I'd never seen before in the Clifflands

Boring game

Yeah some optional areas had no quests attached I think, just loot and exp

>Explain the party dialogue???
A little optional bonus for having those characters. Doesn't mean they canonically traveled together which is why they never appear in cutscenes.

If you're somebody who likes replayability in JRPGs, I think it's actually pretty good. The open choices in what order you do things and with what parties can make each boss fight feel a bit fresh after last time, and that's the real highlight of the game for me. Story kind of suffers for this design choice, but I consider it a worthwhile trade off, I like most of the individual plots as they are anyways.

Attached: 1530491019566.jpg (2560x2880, 2.06M)

It's one of the better JRPGs this gen simply because of the fact it focuses on good and depth gameplay.

It's a 80+ hours long game, how is it not worth the price for JRPG players?

They literally reference things going on in each chapter during cutscenes and battle, did you play the game?

That doesn't make it canon you idiot again it was just a bonus for getting those characters before doing an event that would trigger a chat.
That's like saying fusion reborn in dragonball is canon because Goku mentions Buu.

Boring and repetitive. It's fun for maybe 20 hours.

It's shit though. It's only worth it if you're some DQ megafan, in which case you've already played it anyway

So in a game with branching options and a few possible combinations, because it's not always the same interaction after each cutscene it's canon that they all do their stories independently according to what exactly? Why is the canon of a game with several possible options even important when the ultimate event requires all 8 chapters to be completed and then canonically done together? How would all of them even know or care about Kit if they didn't travel together in some capacity? Why would they know about each other or the daughter? Are you just basing this off the fact that because they limited their writing scope (a choice that makes sense practically but clearly damages the immersion) that all stories are actually totally seperated and everyone was meant to solo despite that not being how the game was designed since you literally can't do 1 then the next then the next?

I was always looking forward to boss fights with how amazing those sprites looked. However, for many of the early bosses I suspected I was doing something wrong when the fights lasted for like 30 minutes.

>how much a game is worth is based on length and not quality

Both pretty bad.
There is a shittonne of uselss random trash encounters with some files and frogs. Bossfights are a little bit better. The BREAK gimmick is bretty annoying: every enemy has a weakness and a counter, hitting a guy that is weak to lances with a lance one will do bonus damage and reduse the counter by one, once the counter reaches zero the guy is stunned for a turn and then the counter renews to the original value.
Each story is pretty bland, but dialogs are completly insufferable.
Visuals are a complete mess, art-direction is a fucking caleidoscope.
There is a free 3H demo version for you to see for yourself just how bad thing actually are.

I’m loving it. The grinding to level up those under-leved characters to continue their story has been entertaining. I have a 3-permanent party (therion, olberic, Cyrus) and switch between the other 5 characters in the fifth slot.

Attached: image.jpg (4032x3024, 3.21M)

>except Huntress
Nigga I specced my main as a Hunter secondary just so I could wreck shit.

Attached: Nintendo BAITO.png (847x476, 284K)

Shit game

It's the only good JRPG on Switch.

>implying that is in any way better than FFIX

>It feels so off-putting to have the characters just ignore each other through the whole game.
You know, except for all of the conversations they have with each other during the story. You DID get the story mission dialogues, right user?

>20 year old game

but that's Xenoblade 2

No, no it isn't. It's not even very good.

Gameplay is excellent. It's a really solid battle system. Overall story is also good, but it only makes sense right at the end. I was impressed how it all became coherent and linked all 8 into a narrative.
About half the individual characters' chapters are good, the other half are mediocre.
The biggest problem with the game is that they never really feel like a team. Just 8 people doing their own thing that happen to tag along with each other.
It's really atmospheric and comfy. OST is the best thing about it.
youtu.be/ADjIKFIuzVM
>mfw 0:56

Attached: Yotsuba jams.png (396x338, 77K)

>cringey modern anime bullshit with gacha
No.

You have du be afflicted with some pretty strong brain damage if you hold this opinion unironically

Great gameplay and battle system, not a lot of grinding, fantastic OST, amazing sprites

Did I miss anything?

Octopath has 10x faster gameplay/loading times that doesn't puts you to sleep for one. The battle system is also better and has more depth. A good story can't carry mediocre gameplay (FF), but good gameplay CAN carry a mediocre story (Octopath).

Daily reminder that this game is out on Steam next month and on PS4 in August.

I did, but it still feels really odd. For example, in Tressa's first story mission in the mining town that other merchant gets arrested by the landlord, and I had Olberic in my party. His story mission dialogue to Tressa has him saying "I had to mentally restrain myself from raising my sword against the landlord" - even though the very next thing you do has the party sneak into the landlord's manor, culminating in a boss battle. If they were gonna fight anyway, why not just fight right there instead of giving the landlord the home field advantage? It just doesn't really fit. Even just doing a little more to make the story flow with the branching paths and free order to do them in would have really helped.

I wouldn't bother, this guy comes into octopath threads with the same shit trying to justify his headcanon.

> PS4 in August

source: my ass

>on ps4
>when Primrose exists

>guys only dialogue: "Let's Get Shitfaced," or "Stay Out of my Way Next Time or I'll Fucking Kill You."
>ladies only dialogue: "Tee Hee what kind of boys do you like?"
I was going to post the image again but apparently the fags that run this place changed the image dimension requirements.

> It just doesn't really fit
That's because it's not meant to. It's just there for a little added character depth and isn't meant to be taken as part of the story proper.

it's pretty incredible you have to resort to samefagging this hard instead of arguing your point

you all good bro?

Or you could just resize the image.

Olberic is sworn to protect people. If he'd have attacked the landlord there he could have endangered the miners and other residents. Don't forget the landlord's goons would make an example out of anyone to gain leverage. He could have taken half the town hostage without a thought and then Olberic would have had to stand down or watch more innocents die.
Context clues, my nigga.
Besides, that was Tressa's quest and he had his own path to contend with.

Getting debridement on Monday to remove the necrotic flesh and receive a skin graft after

Yeah sure, I'm samefagging just because I said there's no point in arguing with someone who gets the exact same answers in each octopath thread.

Yeah, I kinda went retarded. Unlike that other user I uploaded each frame of dialogue and chopped it into two large rectangles so they would be under 4MB. I guess I could chop it up again. There's something mesmerizing about reading a bunch of dumb broads drone on and on about the most mind-numbing things.

Attached: Octopath Gossiper Part 1 - size reduced.jpg (3584x5544, 2.97M)

Attached: Octopath Gossiper Part 2 - size reduced.jpg (3584x5544, 2.99M)

Okay, fine. Maybe it was and is still too big.

>how grindy it gets
that's only the case if you want to beat the OPTIONAL final boss. If you earnestly thought it was grindy, then you put zero thought into your strategy and turns.

It's a great game with notable flaws. I think my biggest issue is with the copy and paste chapyer/dungeon design; 32 chapters and all but 1 play out near identically.

The combat is great and soundtrack is genuinely top tier, and those are the most important aspect of a jrpg to me so I can forgive the issues. I just hope it gets a spiritual successor of some kind that keeps the open freeform concept while improving on the dungeons

Gameplay is serviceable but the story is where the game lost me, it's so fucking boring and uneventful, and having to finish each characters' separate chapters makes it drag on for an eternity.

Came across this video. Someone's abridging this game:

youtube.com/watch?v=Naq9j5Z9zyY

Grindy?
You what?
It's a bit difficult the first time you start a new chapter, especially if you haven't found any of the standard shrines for chapter 2, but apart from that it's fine all the way up until the optional post game boss, minus a % check with Therion

play the demo and finish 1 storyline. You will be repeating that at least twelve times. If you liked it then go ahead and buy it.