In a world that has very little description, eight random people with mildly tragic backstories will take on eight separate fairly interesting quests, using their semi-unique talents and skills to forge their own path in life! Or perhaps... their own... OCTOPATH?!
...okay, we'll be serious now. I haven't done the "Gameplay/Presentation/Story" format in a while - pretty much since I moved away from my old Angelfire site to this blog - but I'll bring it back for this review because I want to talk about each of these things in detail here. So, here we go.
Gameplay
In combat, the game plays a lot like Bravely Default. You can attack, defend, use skills... it's pretty much a typical JRPG. The main difference is the Boost system. Each turn your characters gain one BP, which you can spend to boost them, increasing their number of weapon attacks or boosting the power of usable skills. It's not exactly the same as the Brave system but it is somewhat similar.
The other notable thing in combat is weaknesses. Every enemy has an array of elemental and weapon weaknesses, and when you hit those weaknesses enough times the enemy "breaks", loses their next turn and takes extra damage for a bit. It's not that great of a system. When I think about exploiting weaknesses I usually think about poison and binding, not just "bring a guy with a spear."
There is also a level of customization but it's not quite as deep as Bravely is. Each character has a primary job, and later on you can unlock secondary jobs which modify your stats somewhat, give different skills, and even change your character's appearance - though the appearance change is only visible in combat or from the menu screen, not in the field, which seems like an odd choice.
Every job starts with its first two combat skills unlocked, and has five more which can be unlocked in any order by spending JP. Once all seven basic skills are unlocked you can then spend more JP to unlock a super-powerful divine skill for that job. As you unlock combat skills you'll also unlock four support skills for each job.
What all of this means for your characters is that they can use all of the unlocked combat skills from each of their two jobs. If you change jobs later you lose access to the combat skills of your previous secondary job, but you always have access to all of your support skills, though you can only equip and use four of them at a time.
In all, the customization isn't the worst I've seen, but also not the best.
Of course, the main gimmick here is the "path action" system. Each of the eight characters has a unique path action... well, sort of. You'll quickly realize that there are actually FOUR basic path actions, each of which belongs to two characters who use it slightly differently. For example, Tressa the Merchant and Therion the Thief both have the ability to get items from NPCs; the difference between them is that Tressa's Purchase action forces you to spend money, while Therion's Pickpocket action gets you those items for free, but with a percentage chance of failure.
The path action system is... well, it's okay I guess. As I said, there are four basic path actions.
Scrutinize/Inquire gives you a bit of flavor text about a given NPC and can sometimes unlock benefits like getting a discount at the inn or revealing a hidden item somewhere.
Guide/Allure convinces an NPC to follow along behind you, and you can then escort them for sidequests or summon them to help you in battle.
Purchase/Pickpocket allows you to get items off of NPCs, usually just cheap consumables but sometimes you can secure powerful unique items too.
Challenge/Provoke draws an NPC into a one-on-one fight with special rules, which can allow the two characters with this action (Olberic and Ha'anit) to gain levels more quickly.
It's a unique system and could have been really interesting if more effort was put into it. As it is it's mostly just a novelty more than anything else.
The one really good thing I can say is that it's really not the grindfest you may be expecting of a JRPG. In my first playthrough I only even bothered getting 4 of the 8 playable characters and I was able to level up fine just by completing their story missions. The people crying about how the game is a 100-hour grindfest (and don't pretend you haven't heard it) clearly just never played the game.
Still, at best the gameplay warrants a 3 out of 5. It's passable. Honestly, it's even fairly decent as JRPGs go. Of course, if you don't like JRPGs then this definitely isn't going to be the game to change your mind.
Presentation
Presentation is sooooo close to being great. The sprite work is lovely, and the music is beautiful. (I especially love the mid-game battle theme. This is one of the very few times I've found myself humming along to a game's soundtrack without even realizing it.)
And then they added the @#%$ing "Real Is Brown" graphic filter and RUINED IT.
Anyone who played video games in the 2000's knows exactly what I'm talking about. For those who didn't, imagine a really beautifully designed work of art, then smear a bunch of mud over it and shine fifty halogen spotlights at it. That's this game.
3 out of 5.
Story
Of course everyone knows the main draw of any JRPG is the story. And Octopath has eight stories! So it's got to be eight times as good as any other game, right?
Nah, not really.
The writing is pretty good, aside from absolutely everything that has to do with H'aanit and her fake olde english accent. (Seriously, shutten the @#%$ upeth, H'aanit. Thou voice doest hurten mine earseth.) The characters themselves are also generally likeable.
There are two main problems, though. First, there's barely any interaction between the characters. They only talk in scripted "travel banter" sequences, and only two characters at a time ever talk to one another. This also only happens during story chapters.
Speaking of which, number two, the story is relentless formulaic. With eight characters and four story chapters each that's 32 chapters, and each of them goes basically the same - go to a town and talk to somebody, use your path action on one or two NPCs, then go into an extremely linear dungeon and fight a boss.
It's not the worst I've ever seen, but it's pretty bad. I was going to say "it's at least better than something like Etrian Odyssey" but that's honestly not even true. Sure, your own party members have no characterization in that game (since you made them yourself) but the supporting cast of that game is more colorful and the meta-plot is far more epic. Octopath is not an epic. It's eight randos living their daily lives. To be fair, that's not inherently bad and I do quite enjoy the "everyone has a story to tell" approach... this game just didn't really do it for me, I guess.
2 out of 5.
KR Rating: 3/5 MEDIOCRE
And honestly, that sums up Octopath in its entirety. "It's not the worst I've seen." It's not a bad game. There are certainly worse ways to spend your time.
But for how much it was pushed and hyped there's just nothing about this game that honestly stands out. Every single thing about it is done better by other games. If you're really into JRPGs... well, this is one and is fairly competent so I guess give it a shot. If not, this isn't the game to change your mind.
