Recent reviews by BenOnceAgain

Octopath Traveler II is a JRPG masterpiece that fixes nearly every single issue the original had, as well as adding high levels of additional polish and features that elevates the sequel in essentially every aspect.

Now, I'm quite a fan of games with job systems and high levels of party customization, so I was inherently drawn to games like Bravely Default and Octopath. Before this game's release, Octopath Traveler 1 (the original) became my favorite single player game of all time, despite the many criticisms that game had. One of the biggest issues people had with the original game was that it was essentially 8 mini narratives rather than one cohesive story; there were some light crossovers lore-wise and such but you could in essence play the entire game 1 character at a time with no other party members and not miss anything. The result is a game with high levels of freedom and exploration in how you interact with the world, but it did feel pretty limited in how the narrative came across (as well as jarring in certain situations where it made 0 sense for characters to be traveling together).

That freedom is still present in Octopath Traveler II, but they've done a significantly better job blending narratives together and making the party seem like a cohesive unit with motivation to travel together. It's not 100% perfect, but it feels much more natural, not only in how each story is crafted, but other, small areas as well (such as the "Crossed Paths" and the character quips in battle). I will omit a great deal due to spoiler reasons, but feeling the party's attachment to one another felt much more real in this title, which made certain narrative elements much more enjoyable/emotional. The 8 characters themselves are also extremely likeable, and I felt a significant attachment to each of them and what they were working toward. Not all of the stories had the same "stakes" necessarily, but they were all told in a way that really made you root for each of them, and the characters themselves had significant growth that felt rewarding to experience, especially since it felt so much more like they were growing together.

From a gameplay perspective, it's a case of "don't fix what's not broken". The break and boost system from the original game is already wonderful, improving traditional turn-based gameplay significantly, and Octopath II doesn't make needless changes to it. Rather, it's been elevated to have a few more options up your sleeve that make the flow of battles much more interesting. The obvious addition is "Latent Power", a feature that gives each traveler their own unique battle ability that can be utilized separately from any other. This makes team composition that much more enjoyable, as making characters have unique traits to them changes who you might have filling which role. There are other gameplay changes that add higher levels of customizability, such as EX skills and how certain jobs work/grow (I'm being intentionally vague since discovering these is part of the fun). This is all without mentioning the encounters themselves; the original game had plenty of interesting fights, but II takes it to another level with battle-specific obstacles to overcome. Oftentimes these unique battle gimmicks work really well as narrative tie-ins as well; a great example of this is a particular fight for the apothecary's story (those who've played the game probably know what I'm referring to). The pressure to overcome not just a boss's HP, but other external elements make every turn count, and battles felt constantly interesting.

Outside of just battling, path actions have returned and have also been elevated. Octopath Traveler II introduces a day/night system, changing areas slightly based on time of day and also allowing for the use of 8 new path actions in the overworld, totaling 16 different (but related) skills to use in solving sidequests, exploring areas, or just for world building. Here's a situation: an NPC is blocking a door to a good item. In the original Octopath you had 2 options:

1: Challenge as the warrior if your level was high enough.
2: Provoke your beasts as the hunter and lose reputation on failure.

Both of those options are still present, but there's 2 MORE options to solve this conundrum too now:

3: Simply ambush as the thief. Prevents the need to enter combat (assuming your level is high enough).
4: Knock them unconscious with the apothecary. Rather than a level requirement, the obstacle instead requires a certain item instead (used specifically for these situations).

This doesn't sound like too much, but it adds a lot more flexibility to your team-comp as well, so you don't feel like you're missing out on something by not having some method of guiding NPCs or such; there's way more options to cover your bases. Additionally, both Challenging/Provoking feel like less of a chore now, since Challenging rewards the warrior with exclusive in-battle skills and Provoking beasts is no longer treated as a limited-use interaction; captured beasts will stay with you indefinitely until you turn your helpful companions into food (Ochette is brutal). All of the path actions feel this way, and there's genuine benefits to most of them...except maybe purchase (sorry Partitio, I'm always gonna go on a thievery spree in every new town!)

All of these on their own are enough improvements, but there's so many other little things that add up significantly. UI interactions are streamlined more, character's have more fluid animations in and out of battle, weapons have their own unique battle sprites, cutscenes have dynamic camera usage, areas seem more unique and beautiful in how they utilize the HD-2D engine, and so much more. Each character's path is much less formulaic than the original, which always fell into the exact same pattern (chapter narrative -> dungeon -> boss -> repeat). And this is without mentioning the MUSIC. The soundtrack of both games is absolutely phenomenal; Yasunori Nishiki once again knocks it out of the park. Plus, if you have played the first one, there's a good number of musical nods to the original game as well.

Overall, if you're looking for a solid, polished, classic JRPG experience in a world you can lose yourself in, this game has all of that and more. You can really feel the love that went into crafting this world, and it really feels like they nailed the kind of storytelling they set out to do when making the original (which, once again, I still love with all my heart). It's certainly worth at least giving the demo a chance, since you can pick up right from where you left off.