This is an Octopath Traveler 2 review. Years after the original released, how does the sequel compare to its predecessor? (and why did I buy it twice??)
I just hope they go with new classes for the main characters. I was disappointed when I learned part 2 had the same classes and some of the attacks and over world abilities carried over from the first game.
Since this game's time frame is when Steampowered things are being invented and introduced to the World as well as actual cities. I hope the 3rd installment takes place in the 30's or 90's or something in terms of human advancements and of course, magic(the game mentions in some books that they're are only 6 weapon types due to religion, so maybe the story could be people forgetting the gods they worships) I can also imagine a Idol Dancer, Corporate Merchant, Mafia/Yakuza Warrior, Engineering Scholar, Curate Cleric, etc.
It may sound weird but i kinda hoping that every character's weapon is not tied to their jobs, like for example Agnea wield staff instead of dagger i mean the reason why Primrose wield dagger in the first game is to fit her plot of revenge persona, Agnea on the other hand?? Not so much because their personality is a total opposite
@fukaze2021 daggers are often associated with graceful or beautiful, which is why it is a dancer's weapon. Staves are more associated with magic, so Im not sure how staves can be associated with dancing. Though yeah, it is a bummer that she's restricted to that one weapon type at the start
one thing you didn't mention, there is so much more voice acting in octopath 2, in octopath 1 only maybe the first and final chapters of each character were voiced, and even then not fully. But in octopath 2 just about every cutscene has full voice acting. Glad they went the full way this time.
It's the day/night dynamic and the quality of life improvements that made this game better than the original for me, esp. the path actions. I got so used to the path actions in this game that when I tried to revisit OT1, I was like "why is it like this..."
@@InktheImpassive I think the purple chest would been ok if they had made multiple path actions of day and night like the second game. Like Olberic could have a chance of breaking chest at night or Alfyn could make a chemical mix to destroy the locks. I had Therion as my main in the first game, so it was a nonfactor till I beat the game, and removed him from my party. I always had him on deck to pick the locks, but I can see how this would disrupt the flow of exploring like I have a make a mental note of returning to this room because I can't open the chest. I had a couple chests I had go back for, but thankfully most of it was just extra money.
This was such a nice review, and I'd just leave these here as well. The improved attack animation of the characters was good already. The bosses moving rather than just flashing when doing attacks, that puts some feels into the game so much as well. Voice acting, pretty much all their conversations in the story has voice acting. Boss fights - Yes, they included way lot more new mechanics compared to its predecessor, and that produced a lot more challenge than the usual. But I'd say the biggest one for me... THE MUSIC OF THIS GAME IS INSANELY WONDERFUL! They outdid themselves again with all the character themes properly transitioning to each boss fight music and even in the middle of the boss battle. In pursuit of A, and The Journey of A ends are just so lovely. Story-wise, I think among all the stories, 2 of them put me to tears, and the rest gave me goosebumps. It's just that wonderful. Play it. It's worth spending.
I’m really living this game but yet at the same time I kinda find it difficult to play….I lost my best friend this January and the emotional music this game is chock full of😢 it’s tough
Amazing game, I prefer it to octopath 1, but still appreciate that game for allowing this game to exist. What I love about it is that it didn’t feel formulaic, octopath 1 chapters fell into a pattern of: get to town, meet someone and establish goal, use path action, dungeon, fight boss, complete goal and find a new one (with the exceptions of the final chapters), while every character’s story felt different in how it progressed. I also adore the use of a preindustrial era to contextualize the story, which is a time not often used in rpgs, but is used to great ability. The gameplay’s simple additions such as the latent abilities, ex skills, and day + night cycle add so much to the game that truly expands the options of gameplay. To me, this game is everything the I wanted and so much more, and is easily my favorite turned based rpg ever, there’s so much more I can say about it and still not be done gushing over it, I’m glad it came out and hope it gets more recognition as its lifespan continues.
Octopath Traveler was already my favorite game, but now its become my favorite series. From the music to the gameplay to the stories its a literal chefs kiss.
It's so nice to see someone reviewing my favourite games of all time! Octopath is a series that means a lot to me and i feel happy knowing there's someone else who feels the same way! I also thought it was really cool that you turned down the music just to listen to the sound effects, i'd never have thought of that! I think i had about 80+ hours in the first game and i'm nearly 60 hours into the second. The second has a lot more content though and i want to 100% it!
@@jacobpamplin6449 my real controversial opinion is that not all games need a difficulty setting nor is every game is for everyone even if the difficulty ends up alienating some people
Great review and very well edited! This game is a 10/10 for me. It checks all boxes in terms of what I look for in a game. I’m currently at 120 hours and still loving every second.
This game will never get the hype it deserved. Such a shame it under sold expectations in most countries. Despite how perfect it was, it most likely will be the last Octopath game. And I say that with a heavy heart.
I’m interested to hear if your opinion on world building had changed between this game and the original. For me personally, I found myself far more engaged with the world at certain points like reading the books in the guy that gives you the mercantile manuscript’s house, learning about the legendary weapons (especially the cleric one), lostseed in its entirety, the history of Ku, etc. Not to mention it feels like inquiring has been improved, connecting these random npcs with people that we know and have learned about throughout the story, like that one lady who turns out to be Emeralds Mother. I think more has to do with some of the side stories being improved, however.
Bravo! Excellent video! Love your editing! Especially the buildup tension during the bosses~ Yes! OT2 is awesome! I'm guilty of running around in circles too
I was so enamoured with the Crestlands region of the map-- particularly Flamechurch and Borderfall-- that I think I must have taken 50+ screenshots from that area alone; it really was stunningly beautiful (much like the rest of the game), especially at night. I recently 100% the game at ~150 hrs-- doing absolutely every side quest and optional boss/dungeon, obtaining every weapon and every secondary job licence, scrutinizing and robbing every NPC blind, as well as a significant amount of grinding and farming XP/JP/leaves etc. etc. I finished the secret final boss (after several attempts) right in time for the release of TOTK, and, while I'm having a blast with the latter, my mind keeps going back to this game; I just found the whole experience so immersive, relaxing, satisfying and engrossing-- almost like the way I feel after completing a particularly long novel, and spending weeks with the characters therein. It far surpassed my expectations, which were pretty high after falling absolutely in love with the first game. Its funny bc I've never really been into/played many JRPGs; Western style CRPGs, particularly the classic ones from the late 90s to early 2000s, were always more my jam, but after being gifted a Switch and picking up OT1 on a whim (primarily bc the art style piqued my interest), it's motivated me to check out more games in this particular genre-- like the Bravely Default and Trails series. But yea, I absolutely adore this game and I can't wait to see where SE takes the series in the future (which I'm hoping upon hope that they keep making them). Pretty much my only critique-- which I was really hoping that they would have changed from the first game-- is that members not currently in use don't collect XP with the rest of your party while they're at the tavern. I know it's kind of a standard JRPG thing, and I don't mind a bit of grinding, but I think it impedes on some of the freedom you have to build and use your ideal party as you see fit-- since you'll have to regularly swap out party members to keep everyone around the same level, otherwise you'll have a situation where you have 4 party members that are, like, 20 levels behind the rest that you need to grind in order to do the final boss. This exact scenario actually kept me from beating the secret boss in OT1 for the longest time-- I didn't know about the two party thing with the secret boss beforehand, and I just didn't have the interest to deal with the massive grind it would take, esp just after putting so many hours into the game. Another more minor gripe I have is that you still can't swap out party members without visiting a tavern-- at least not until the endgame, which when unlocked, it kind of puts the inconvenience of having to do that throughout the majority of the game in stark relief. Part of me enjoys the extra immersion that this adds to the gameplay, but when immersion is completely ignored in arguably more important areas of the game-- like having other party members present at points in the story which only make sense from the perspective of a singular, lone character (Hikari's Stormhail chapter was a particularly striking example of this)-- then it mostly just feels like an inconvenience. EDIT to add that I also really missed the sparkle effect in the snow and sand from OT1. Flamesgrace and Stillsnow were the most beautiful towns from OT1 imo, but the Winterlands in OT2 looked kind of flat by comparison, and I was looking forward to seeing how they would upgrade the visuals in the snowy regions (Winterbloom was pretty tho with the manor and greenhouse as the focal point).
Incredible review!! I especially love your use of the music playing over the footage with the game's sound effects still active. It really captured your love for the game as well as the epic feeling you get fighting those bosses. It's like you repurposed the game's soundtrack to better convey the emotions you had while playing the game. Inspiring stuff!
Thanks for the video! I really love this game, was so happy playing it...listening the music, their voices, watching the art, waiting for the boss battles... I can cry for having the opportunity of playing it :')
Yooo this was an awesome video. Excellent editing work and the inclusion of some recordings of your personal playthrough with commentary was really fun. Makes me kinda wish I could've recorded my own playthrough. I love gushing about these games so much. I totally agree with your comment that Octopath 1 feels "incomplete". I kinda think of it as if the first game was a proof of concept or first draft and the sequel is a true second draft on all criticisms that the first game had while including even more of what worked.
I actually played OPT 1 after playing 2(I didn't own a switch till recently, and bought the 2nd game on sale on PS4 after my brother raved about the first game.), and It was tough to get going at first. I made sure not pick the warrior as my main, as I let my niece pick who i started with, so I got Therion the thief. The presentation and quality of life upgrades become super noticeable when you play the original after the 2nd game. (like having multiple job licenses. You can switch jobs without bumping someone off their current job and gear. The day and night paths allow you have multiple options handle a situation. Say you can't quite beat down a guy blocking a door, may be Castii can use her medicine to put them to sleep instead.) Just small details like inns and shops actually have an inside , as this kind of stuff makes the first game feel cheap , like sorry we couldn't create the inside of these buildings. Jrpgs have allowed you walk inside shops and inns for basically forever ...so this was a very odd choice to me. The second game just has so much more attention to detail and polish to it. The bosses in the first game switch their weaknesses far more often.Some basically everytime you break their guard. There are bosses that have up to 4 different sets of weaknesses.This makes it really rough when you have uncover the new batch of weaknesses while the boss is raining down high damage attacks. (Miguel was a huge pain to beat, as he keeps raining down spears.) The first game forces you do alot more defensive attacks, like debuffing the offense of the bosses to weather their attacks long enough to unmask their weaknesses due to them playing musical chairs with them. It's not till you get the advanced jobs that the game starts get roadkilled in most cases, but couple those bosses are pretty rough battles. (Like the Archmagus.) I got gameovers periodically as bosses would just be a bit more than I could handle, and I'd go grind a bit more or change up tactics. Bosses are better balanced in the second game. They pull more interesting tactics switch up the fight rather than just have beefier stats to chew through and constantly swapping weaknesses. I only got one Gameover that I recall in the second game, was in the solo dungeon and the boss used an instant death move on me and killed Hikari. I was able to easily win putting on an item to counter than effect. I had few push me to the brink of defeat, like the last boss of Castii's chapter as their trick made survival tough, but I was able to win the race of outdamaging him. The second game just an overall better experience, and it makes original feel worse by comparison. Not say the original doesn't have things to love, because it does, but the second game just outshines it in so many ways.
Little over half way through Octopath II, and I was worried if I'd have the same connections with the characters as I did with the first game; Well, I'm happy to say "these characters are even better than the first one!". Also, the main theme (title screen) of Octopath II tells you all you need to know about the game, It's has many of the same elements that you liked about the first one, but is tweaked and improved, to make a familiar, but even better experience than the fist game.
I love this game. I played it on release day, same with the original octopath traveler. Both have been some of the best gaming experiences i've ever had and i'm so in love to see someone praise them like this. The voice acting, the look of the games, the surprising complexity of the combat system... not to mention how easy it is to get into as well! My sister, who hadn't played a rpg in years since pokemon or stardew valley, managed to love this game and even beat the final (secret) boss. Just one of the best games of all time and my personal GOTY.
Theres an argument I once heard about the first Assassins Creed game, how it had a lot of cool stuff going but didnt feel like it had entirely figured all of those things out yet, and that it more so felt like a cool proof of concept rather than a full game on its own. I used to think the same thing applied to the first Octopath, so I really hoped it would get a sequel some day that fleshes out and expands on those ideas. Then the sequel came out and proved me right by how much ass it kicks.
100% agree! All these little things add up to make this sequel blow the original one out of the water. I just hope we can see many more installments for Octopath. At least 8, XD
I like how the stories actually allow for the other travelers to be present. Like In octopath 1 you have scenarios where stuff like Cyrus getting caught in a trap but the game acts like all of the travelers are with him. How did all 8 managed to get caught in a 1 square pit fall? Made no sense
I mean, Octopath 2 doesn't totally remedy that, but scenes are written in a way where you can theoretically assume that other travelers are there, I suppose.
I have been contemplating for months now. I really love Octopath I but I still haven't get the urge to dig into the second. Thanks for this video, I'm sold!
Love me imagining every travelers as a one big happy family. Osvald is the father Castti is the mother Temenos is the big brother Ochette is the little sister Partitio is the uncle Agnea is the big sister Throne is the aunt And Hikari is the cousin.
You summed up my thoughts so well. Such a beautiful game. I do feel like there were some unnecessary changes to the battle system, and unlike the first game the way they tie the game together in the second one seems to have a plot hole or two, but that's doesn't take away from how good of a game this is. Absolutely recommend. Also that edit at 11:28 ?? So good
Something that I want to point out about this game is that there are bosses for bosses. I mean, there's a boss for each character's final chapter (obviously), secret bosses in almost every dungeon, a true boss and then a secret super boss... the boss of the bosses; the hardest fight in the entire game.
Wait, those bosses actually did something when you fought them? I just put Step Ahead on my hunter and used Leghold Trap. This lets you break many bosses before their first turn and sometimes even kill them before they recover. I had to be told that Agnea's final boss could mind control party members. And that Throne's final boss could summon more bosses as meat shields. And that Osvald's final boss is supposed to do damage.
The original was a solid 8.5/10, great overall but with plenty of nitpicks. This game is a fantastic 9.5/10 for me. Fantastic stories culminating into a beautifully done ending, combat was somehow made even better with latent powers and EX skills, graphics and animations are better, and more. Only three things I can think to detract from OT2 are the random encounters that can still get very annoying even with evasive maneuvers, the absence of benched party members getting EXP, and the still-awful side quest system that often doesn’t give good hints on what to do or hides a quest objective somewhere super random, and still hiding the secret final boss behind these quests. The OT1 OST is slightly better in my opinion (hard to top Decisive Battle II, They Who Govern Reason, and all the character themes, among others) but OT2 still rocks hard.
I also like how OT2 Added voice acting to the final chapter bosses, whereas only 1 final chapter boss in OT1 had this, oh and of course the music for said final chapter bosses, always a joy to get to listen to them (both games). Wish it had more voice acting for the traveler banter, but with more voice acting as a whole it probably is asking for to much. Also felt like they got the balancing right for OT2, where it provides some challenge for the early game and got progressively harder as you got more JP and jobs to compensate for this, whereas OT1 was (for the most part) easy for the first and some second chapters, and got a sudden difficulty spike mid game. but overall, I still enjoy OT1, but enjoy OT2 more and cycle between the two games whichever tickles the fancy.
I had 2 moments where I shouted out loud while playing this game. Spoilers (obviously) To quote myself: “Am I about to fight a goddamn train????” and “They killed my boy, They killed Crick (proceeds to ramble incoherently for like 5 minutes)”
That is an amazing video and Im glad to see someone who appreciates this game as much as I do. I love this game and even if we do/do not get a third installment. It will remain the PERFECT JRPG to me.
Adored the first game, was so hyped when the 2nd was announced, didn't then expect to love it so much. So many things can be praised about it, one quality of life feature for me was having Alrond for end game grinding saving you from Bewildering grace rng. It does not devalue game 1 for me, but game 2 was really special, teared up a bit at the end credits part seeing all the characters
My dream would be for Square to re-release Octopath 1 with all of the quality of life changes and improvements that they have in Octopath 2 as a definitive edition maybe
I couldn't play the original through... the characters were either too unlikeable or the game got boring. I'd reach about L50 with my MC and then get bored. I tried three times and gave up. OP2, though, I couldn't put down. It was so much more fun. The grinding didn't feel nearly so unpleasantly grindy. Great game.
It's beautiful and the music and combat is amazing. The individual character stories are all well done and mostly interesting. The only flaw I have is the character stories don't flow with one another and their interactions feel forced because of the nature of the game. There is room for improvement on that front but almost everything else is a lot of fun and is an easy recommendation.
I played the original for the first time not long before the sequel came out and I have to say that to me there felt like there was a noticeable difference in the encounter rate and that experience was increased almost too much. In the first one I felt like it was impossible to make a mental picture of the area I was walking around in without evasive maneuvers. On the sequel I didn’t need it for exploration but I used it anyway because I felt like I was having a hard time not getting my team overleveled. In contrast with the first one where my ocd always made me have my entire team at least meet the recommended level and I always had to grind for that even without evasive maneuvers. My only other thing is that there are members of the original cast whom I liked a lot more. The only ones I liked better than their counterparts were Temenos, Throne, and Oswald. Meaning that I kept wishing that the original cast had a chance to be in the improved game. I feel like the chapters where you have two characters and the epilogue were a massive step forward and proof that the franchise still has room to grow. The beginning of the epilogue alone made me think that I could have ended up liking this cast better if there were more whole group interactions like that. I know it is complicated because it is baked into the game that you can proceed with any party combination or even alone as you please. But handling it the way they are now makes the experience worse for the way that most people will play on their first playthrough. While better than the first one in this regard, the second still had some moments where the story only makes sense if the character is alone, but then it goes back to gameplay and they are with a whole crew. I know some people don’t care, but it really takes me out of things and I hope for zero of that in the next one. At the very least have the rest of your party in every cutscene being quiet and to the side and have them conveniently separated from you if the story needs it. All in all, I would agree that the sequel is an objectively better game and I hope that the third will be just as objectively better compared with II.
yeah i agree, the game is great but the fact the stries are STILL disconnected largely and the characters only interact in specific situations is still a huge flaw and needs to be fixed. Its a step in the right direction, but jsut a step.
@sarafontanini7051 If they fix that flaw my god octopath traveler would literally become the definitive best rpg of all time. Just imagine the absolute BOMBSHELL of a work I'd require to have 8 stories, each with 4 chapter's(now they added some with up to 6 chapter's???) and each chapter let's say has 10 scenes, you'd have to make unique scenarios for every permutation of character's that could be present there, some of which are complete solar opposites and just wouldn't make any fucking sense at all to interact. From the start octopath was a flawed concept, it always has been. There is no possible way unless you dumped 23 years and copius amounts of money into a single project to make it a true "octopath experience". I'm happy enough with the travel banter we get, those are enough to satisfy me, plus since they may not always appear at time's it really makes it feel like my party member's well...care about the mc's journey. They actively choose to comment something out of their own volition. We may never get an octopath 3 with how mediocre this one sold, but if we do I just hope for more travel banters, 2 did a FANTASTIC job really polishing all of the first game's error, this really no joke could become the next final fantasy....
I skipped his chapter 1 during my playthrough since I already played it through the demo on a different file. I went to the tavern to replay it to get footage and that's when I noticed all of my unlocked skills were usable there.
Awesome video! Your editing is amazing, I hope you keep making content and blow up! I make videos about RPG’s as well, maybe at some point in the future we can make RPG’s be appreciated even more on RU-vid!
While the presentation is a LOT better, I still find that the towns need a bit more activity inside. Like more NPC routines. Maybe some dialogue in the background. There are still too many npc doing literally nothing.
The first game was already amazing, and the fact they outdid everything here makes me hopeful that if we do get more entries in the series they'll only make more and more improvements while keeping everything that worked
While octopath traveler II improves upon the little things and refines some of the issues with the first one, I personally think the first game is better because i like the characters and their personal stories better, i think the bosses aren’t as annoying in the first game as some in the second game and i think the pacing and the overworld are just a little bit better
Finally played the first game, loved it. Started 2 immediately after and I'll be honest, it's not hooking me in like the first game did, even thought it's more of what I love about the first. I'm actually considering putting it on hold, because I just find myself bored when playing.
That's tough to hear. A break might honestly be a good thing if you're immediately going from the first to the second. It could be fatigue. Honestly, I also had second thoughts for a bit, but I started to like it more over time. Now it's my favorite of the two.
I was kind of surprised when you said that the first game wasn't really that hard but with this one you really found it a bit more harder. And I am like, how? Even the final boss isn't tough to beat and (Spoilers) Galdera 2.0 is still conplicated to beat yet I don't really want to fight it because I already did in the first one. I agree that the stories, exploration, animations and effects are far much better, but some things like the repetition of the same music for the towns, the God bosses to get the divine skills are missing, side quests been less interesting, difficulty is far easier. These were aspects that I couldn't ignore and to be honest it was dissapointed to not see or that they changed. Overall it's a great sequel but I was expecting more.
I did not mean to imply that I found this game harder than the first (I went through most of the game under leveled and didn't have any issues), I just wanted to mention that I found some of the 'gimmicks' (I guess?) they used in some boss fights surprising. Definitely could have worded some things better. Can't say much about the side quests as I barely did them and the OG also had some repeating town themes, but you do make a good point about the missing god bosses. I don't get why they decided to remove them.
@@theswiftvc oh I get it now. I didn't really notice that about the bosses because the only one who did a different attack (buff?) was Dolcinea where she controls one of the members in your party. Yeah, If I am not mistaken only the towns from chapter 4's had the same music in OT I, here in OT II the themes are the same for an entire land. I was expecting a rival for "they who govern reason" theme but it was a let down that we didn't even get those fights. Btw, great review and editing, just as good as the review for Octopath.
I think you're looking at the difficulty of this game from a wrong standpoint. From what I've read and I assume from your comment, you probably already finished the first game. This makes it way easier for you because you are already a veteran, know the basics, skills, and some details such as the order of weaknesses being the same. I am also the same in the sense that I played the first game and the first time I reached the game over screen was on the sword hunter quest in Sai (probably 30-40 hours in). I have Throné as my main and I could not swap her so I had to fight the sword hunter with her. One point I do agree with are the absences of the God bosses. Beating those bosses the advanced classes were plenty of fun in the first game and probably the only reason that one could say that the sequel is 'easier' than the original.
The switch version is blurry compare to my ps4 pro Sharper grahics.. The switch version doesn't cast shadows when using lantern some minor details are missing on switch version compare to my ps4 pro..
Put 100+ hour on both games, I agree with all of your point except I like the original Music better, they are more memorable for me. Idk it is because it's the first one or it has to do with the Era on both games, the second one is more modernized, it's also affect the theme.
The original was an awesome game and I'd still consider it my favorite game of 2018, but the sequal legit blows it out of water due to all these improvements. It's much like what Tears of the Kingdom was to Breath of the Wild.
