Shout Out / Octopath Traveler

Octopath Traveler

• Ophilia's quest is about rekindling the First Flame.
• There's a questline in the Cliftlands about a woman trying to hatch a dragon egg, called "Kaia, Mother of Dragons." "Mother of dragons" is one of the many titles born by Daenerys Targaryen.
• A boss in Cyrus's story kidnaps people from Quarrycrest, and extracts their blood to create magic crystals via a transmutation circle. These "blood-crystals" grant their wielders great power. While his methods are slightly different, they sure sound familiar.
• A boss in Therion's story is a masked thief named "Gareth".
• A massive one to Final Fantasy VI during the final boss battle. When you beat the first phase of Galdera, the camera slowly pans up to reveal that the first phase was just the base of a large creature (possibly acting as the midsection). Your party then charges the monster, and the second phase begin. This is taken directly out of the battle with Kefka. Fitting, considering Octopath Traveler was built as a Spiritual Successor to Final Fantasy VI.
• Balogar, often referred to as 'the mightiest of mages,' is likely a nod to Bellegar, the mightiest mage of the Divinity series. They're pronounced almost the same way, too.
• The "Worrywart" side story involves an incredibly paranoid man with arm long list of fears, including a sinister-looking kid surely plotting to kill him.
• One of Werner's attacks is called Boot to the Head.
• When Werner tries to persuade Olberic that "protecting the weak" isn't worth it and to become his guard captain, he says "Join me, and together we can..." before Olberic cuts him off with a Kirk Summation.
• The Sorcerer job's outfit looks exactly like the Sorcerer Supreme's costume.
• The Long-eared Lloris enemy, found in the Cliftlands, has an attack called Light My Fire.
• In South Orewell Pass, there is a mysterious knight who is in need of a squire. The knight's name is Cervantes, and author Miguel de Cervantes wrote the most famous book about a knight in need of a good squire.
• There are a number of lines that appear to be references to other video games, such as an NPC whose blurb states that "this former mercenary took a grave wound in his knee", and the optional boss Devourer of Men attempting to summon more lackeys when it can no longer do so, which leads to the battle text "The flower let out an unholy shreik! / But nobody came...".
• One of the monikers of the NPCS in Victor's Hollow is One-Hundred-Punch-Man.
• The Hedgehog Spear grants the wielder a hefty speed boost.
• An enemy south of Riverford is called Lord of the Flies.

Octopath Traveler II

• Ochette's story features a "calamity", and an event where the moon turns scarlet and demonic monsters appear. (Which also sounds familiar from another game, oddly enough.)
• Ochette is also a wolf girl raised by a huge talking animal, and the story is kicked off by a tribal village being attacked by a corrupted monster.
• In Partitio's first chapter, he offers Papp his "special beef and veggie stir-fry surprise", only for Papp to point out that there's no beef in it, so he wouldn't exactly call it a "beef and veggie stir-fry surprise".
• One of Throné's Party Banters (where she's disguised as a nun to enter Mother's Garden) is called "Sister Act".
• Giff in Partitio's route seems to be a nod to Biff Tannen from Back to the Future (combined with his ancestor Buford considering the setting), right down to being forced to work for and be deferential to the protagonist's father.
• When Temenos ponders during his investigations, he mentally reconstructs the scene using silhouettes and updates it as appropriate as he goes around gathering evidence—just the way reconstruction works with Kay Faraday's "Little Thief" tool in Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth. It even zooms in and the screen turns blue like the Logic system in the sequel. To drive the point home, Temenos even resembles Edgeworth and is the religious equivalent of a prosecutor.
• At night in Merry Hills, the player can find a pair of performers putting on an act called "Beauty and the Beastling," a clear reference to "Beauty and the Beast."
• Trousseau has a special attack called "Prickly Tonic" that deals exactly 1000 damage. This is a bit of Lost in Translation: in most other languages including the original Japanese, the name is some variant of "One Thousand Hypodermic Needles".

---