Arc Fatigue: The majority of the Bestower of Fame story focuses around the mystery of the Black Scarlet and who leads them, but it ends up spending so much time focusing around investigating them, that it tends to ware out it's welcome for some players. By the time the mystery is solved, the story only has one final chapter left, making the plot feel for some like it was bogged down in the mystery over exploring the Arc Villain.
Ass Pull: Schwartz being Auguste comes out of nowhere at the very end of the "Master of Fame" story with no buildup, hints, or teases that Schwartz was not who he claims to be. Unlike most examples, players generally don't mind this, since while yes it comes out of no where, it does somewhat fit Auguste as a villain to do something like that.
Base-Breaking Character: Oskha, the Arc Villain of the "Bestower of Wealth" story, is generally the most polarizing antagonist, save perhaps for Sazantos. While seen as more interesting than Herminia, some feel that he's a weak antagonist because of flimsy motivations (he thinks having wealth and power is evil and wants to kill/remove all those using it), the basis for his character coming across as a retcon (him being Tiziano and having hated Bargello, and being responsible for Herminia's rise comes across as out of nowhere), and feel that he isn't an interesting villain when weighed with his fellow "Bestower of" villains (Tatloch and Ceraphina), both of which more naturally build off of the previous stories. Others like him as a threat, since he's a more low-stakes foe compared to the previously mentioned foes, making him a good fit for the more grounded nature of Bargello and his crew, and find that the drama between Oskha and Bargello is a compelling part of his character since it makes Oskha better connected to the story, and don't feel his origins are all that much of a problem. Tiziano's appearance when Sazantos tries a We Can Rule Together makes this worse, as it muddied whether or not Tiziano is a false identity.
Breather Boss: After the absolute slog and brutal battle with Pardis and his three forms, the fight against Sazantos is a lot easier and not very hard. He does have Pardis' Counter-Attack mechanic, but instead of using anything like Dread or Weakness, he instead does a mildly strong fire attack if you attack incorrectly, which is easy to adjust to compared to Pardis' who has two different stances that punish the player for not attacking a weakness or using magic or physical on the wrong turn.
Captain Obvious Reveal: The true identity of El the Swordsman, otherwise known as Princess Elrica. On paper El's identity might take some time to figure out, but the game practically reveals it during their entrance, because you met El right after a cutscene where Elrica makes it clear she is going to stand against her father, making it obvious who El's identity is well before the game reveals it.
Catharsis Factor: Killing Pardis in general is this, because after all the bullshit he did, death is the only fate he deserves. However, it ends up even more satisfying if you have Ophilia, the Sole Survivor of the destruction of Creek, destruction for which Pardis was responsible, and Lianna, who for a good portion of her life was trying to save Ophilia from the shell she shut herself in (and succeeded by the time the first game starts), be in the party that kills Pardis since that means Ophilia can finally move on from the destruction of Creek.
Complete Monster: Pardis III is the king of Edoras, who, while initially appearing to be a stern and aloof ruler, quickly reveals himself to be one of Orsterra's most ruthless warmongers. Believing himself the only one "worthy" of ruling the continent, he lures the Ringbearer Chosen to his kingdom before personally murdering Mahrez, his general and a beloved hero of his people, only out of spite for Mahrez being more popular than him, and frames the Chosen One for the crime. After stealing the rings, Pardis launches a massive invasion on the rest of Orsterra, leaving countless dead in his wake. When Elrica, his daughter, opposes him and tries to put an end to his campaign, Pardis brutally beats her before beheading her in front of both the Chosen One and his younger daughter Alaune, purely in an attempt to break the Chosen One's spirit so that Aelfric's Ring becomes corrupted. While all the other villainous Ringbearers are some degree of Tragic Villain or otherwise have lines they will not cross, Pardis stands out for lacking any of those and simply being a selfish monster.
Continuity Lockout: The game fully expects the player to be aware of the original Octopath game, especially in later chapters. Without having played the original game, several things like characters, plot points, and cameos don't make sense, or come across as dropped elements. Simeon's cameo in Master of Fame for instance doesn't stick out for someone who isn't aware of his true colors and significance.
Designated Evil: During the Bestower of Power and Bestower of All stories, Alaune protests executing Tatloch on the grounds that killing her would "make them no different" than Pardis, something the game draws attention to when Alaune prepares to execute Tatloch by flashing back to when Pardis killed Elrica. However, Pardis was a warmonger who instigated war for selfish gain, used his agents to manipulate events so he could "justify" his war, and killed his daughter for going against his tyranny, which is different from executing the leader of an invading army who refused peace, made it clear she was going to kill anyone in her way, and had selfish goals not unlike Pardis. As much of a Cruel Mercy as sparing her and arresting her is, claiming that executing Tatloch (who is generally as cruel and evil as Pardis was) would be as evil as Pardis' actions makes it feel like the game is sticking too closely to a moral, even when accounting for Alaune disliking conflict, especially when Solon gives a pragmatic reason for it later that makes sparing Tatloch more justified (namely that killing her would enrage the G'rohans and reignite the war while Orsterra was still recovering).
Diagnosed by the Audience: There are plenty of hints in Master of Fame that Auguste suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder. Among them we note Auguste telling Simeon that fame is snobbery despite being the titular Master of Fame, how he feels both horror and pleasure from his actions (while this fits the Nightmare Fetishist, there are no other hints towards Auguste being one), and, once he's defeated, he tells the Chosen One that he's "free from that abomination", abomination which, while he claims it's Aeber's ring, could also be interpreted as himself. There even is a traumatic incident which could be the cause of that split personality: Auguste's lover before Francesca was the wife of his former boss; when the boss found out, he killed his wife before killing himself, and Auguste was a witness to the whole thing.
Difficulty Spike: The jump in difficulty from the Master of Fame/Wealth/Power storyline to the Master of All storyline is one of the biggest hurdles the game has, a point that some players dislike. Where as before the chapters generally reached about the twenties, the Master of All goes into the sixties, and there is very little ways of actually catching up to be able to beat said chapters unless the player really level-grinds (unlikely due to very low EXP gains), takes their time and stockpiles nuts to level their character sup, or gets lucky and gets Cait spawns in the overworld and the free ads. For example; the final levels of the first three Master of storylines are listed as Danger 21; meanwhile, one of the first zones you go during the Master of All story is listed at Danger 27, a sharp increase in level. It doesn't help that if the player doesn't get any 5 star characters, they can potentially not have a roster capable of getting past some fights.
Auguste is popular for Evil Is Cool reasons, to the point that some players treat him as though he did nothing wrong, or wasn't that bad compared to other villains. This especially became prominent when he was Promoted to Playable, as despite the game making it clear he isn't a good person, many still downplayed his actions. It helps that unlike the other bearers he seems to have been possessed by the ring the moment he touched it, and has been horrified by his actions under its influence, but the game still makes it clear he's a monster for what he's done.
Sazantos ended up getting quite a bit of this in the Bestower of All arc. Quite a few players claim he should have been allowed to create his new world and that the story never gives a good explanation as to exactly why him doing so would have been so bad, claiming that glimpse we see of the world Sazantos seeks to create in his We Can Rule Together moment shows that the new world would have been "objectively" better than the current one due to how happy everyone is shown to be. This ignores the fact that Sazantos murdered Finis and the Ring Maidens, caused a Zombie Apocalypse that claimed countless lives, was directly responsible for the death of Rinyuu, and that it's all but stated that his vision of his new world was intentionally biased in his favor to convince the Chosen One to join him.
Tatloch is sometimes given this treatment from players. She's just as bad as, if not worse than Pardis III, yet people consider her a better person than Pardis III all because she's a hot woman and because Rinyuu convinced her to help the heroes, despite it being explicitly clear that Tatloch doesn't feel any regret for the war she started. While her Memoir does give her lines even she wouldn't cross such as killing children, and showing more positive traits, she still waged war on the land out of her own selfish desires.
FeatherGamer555, infamous for making an entire playthrough with Shelby as The Chosen One, gives this treatment to Oskha, having a headcanon where he survives and has a Heel–Face Turn and a case of Becoming the Mask (the mask being Tiziano). This is despite the fact Oskha was responsible for Herminia's rise to Power (Herminia's ring was originally a heirloom belonging to the Huseynov family, until a homeless Oskha gave it to Herminia, and he knew Herminia's greed would end up destroying her). Even beyond that, Oskha is a ruthless man who actively goes out of his way to ruin people's lives because of his warped beliefs.
Fiore is one of the more popular characters to come from the game. Between her Traveler Story being well-liked and being a very strong Warrior, she quickly earned a spot for many as one of the better characters from the games launch. Tellingly, she was among the first characters to get a seasonal alt.
Mika is an NPC from Fiore's Travelers Story, who not only isn't playable, but has only truly been reference in Fiore's story, but her relationship with Fiore, being a Bare-Fisted Monk in a game where there isn't such a class, and having an interesting background, gave her a good following in the community. She's often requested to become a playable character in spite of no classes fitting for her fighting style.
Viola is easily among the most popular launch characters, on account of her Traveler Story showing her to be an Anti-Hero who isn't shy about taking advantage of the player's group to achieve her own goals, while also having enough positive traits to avoid making her a Token Evil Teammate. It also helps that she is an excellent unit for much of the early-to-mid game due to her speed, good damage output, and useful utility, to the point she is a mainstay on many teams even after many other Thieves were added that are often stronger than her (such as Therion or A2).
Wingate is easily the most popular 4 star and below Thief, on account of his Travelers Story being considered good and being such a good unit, that he's compared often to 5 stars in terms of how good he is, to the point of being seen as a mainstay in most teams. Tellingly, in the first anniversary for the global version, his Travelers Story was the most played, and he's consistently ranked highly among the audience when it comes to favorite low rarity characters.
Shelby, despite not being a starter character in the English version, is popular not because of any reason stemming from her Traveler Story, but because of having an entire playthrough where she's The Chosen One. This gave her quite the following, with her fans sometimes coming with headcanons like her favorite allies being Bargello and his mafia (it helps that her influence is Wealth) or that she's Vanessa Hysel's sister (again, it helps that Shelby's influence is Wealth, which Vanessa obsesses over). Heck, go to forums where fans of FeatherGamer555 are, and they say that Shelby is The Chosen One, period. Even ignoring that, Shelby's Traveler Story is considered fairly well done, and she's widely seen as the best 4 star and below Apothecary for her having a 3 hit single target axe attack, that she's often seen as a mainstay if you don't have anyone of a higher rarity.
Evil Is Cool: Auguste is a Mad ArtistSerial Killer who does many horrible things, but his sheer Large Ham, flair for the dramatics, and his over the top yet fun personality, makes him a fun villain to watch on screen, helped greatly by his constant shouting of "Marvelous!". The fact he's the only Arc Villain to not have any greater connections to the general narrative compared to the other villains means he gets extra points for being unique.
The prologue of Guti's Traveler Story starts with him passed out in front of a house in Emberglow, and he will continue to lie on the ground until you've begun the quest.
Scholars in this game equip Books as their weapons. Unlike in other games (say, Final Fantasy Tactics) where you see a character open a book, lecture and do damage somehow, Scholars in CotC take it a lot more literally, bonking enemies on the head with their leather-bound volumes.
Each of the octuplets' Traveler Stories involves them having trouble with their chosen profession and seeking advice from the Octopath Traveler protagonist with the same job. In the case of Billy, the thief, this means walking up to Therion in the tavern and loudly announcing that he wants to be a great thief just like him, with Therion coming across like he's agreeing to help just to get him to shut up.
Elvis gets the full Butt-Monkey treatment in Edea's Traveler Story, including getting covered in froggen spit (much to the disgust of Edea, the Chosen One, and Nephti), being used as live bait for chompers, drinking so much he collapses in the middle of Theatropolis, and being chased by a hallucinating Edea.
It's utter Black Comedy, but some of the souls in Hell have utterly humorous reasons for dying. For instance, a renowned swordsman of Edoras, who was respected by both friends and foes abroad, died to a random arrow hitting him.
The first boss fights for the "Bestower of" storyline are considered incredibly annoying for having tedious mechanics that aren't outright hard, but make the fights tedious. For more details:
The "Bestower of Power" boss involves two enemies with different weaknesses, both of which hit hard but don't really have a lot of dangerous moves aside from an attack where they forcibly swap the front and backrow. However, if the player defeats one of the bosses, the other will roughly two turns later revive them at half health. Between the two having different weaknesses and attacks, the player can end up in a Unintentionally Unwinnable situation where they manage to defeat one, are unable to defeat the other, and by the time they do, the other boss is revived. If the player is able to field a roster of characters who can bring them done quickly, it isn't too hard, but because of the revival aspect, it can go from "hard" to "outright unwinnable".
Both the "Bestower of Fame" and "Bestower of Wealth" bosses are simple on paper, and can be beaten if you have a roster of characters that can cover the majority of weaknesses an enemy would have. However, as the enemies start losing HP, they tend to throw out the Cover skill, allowing them to eat an attack for the person they used it on. Since each enemy in these fights have different weaknesses, this makes the fights go from "mildly hard" to "very annoying" since the player has to focus down the Cover unit to get them to stop, or wait out the buff, all while the other enemies still get to attack.
I Knew It!: Like with the original game, people suspected that some of the important story characters would have names that spell out "Octopath". Fans were right, as it turned out that each of the ring-bearers had a name that filled out the word "Octopath" (with the player character being the only odd one out).
Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: The game has a wide assortment of villains and evil characters, but one of the most hated character amongst the community is Fiore's mom, because she's an abusive mother who treats Fiore like The Load and ends up a Karma Houdini after she lures her daughter to be murdered to pay off her own debts. Looking up discussions of the Traveler Stories often yields people being upset she didn't get some kind of punishment for how terrible of a person she is, to the point that, in a poll held for the global community, she beat other major antagonists for the title of "Best Villain".
Largo. Largo is arguably the toughest Arena champion to defeat, but he ends up having a Jack of All Trades kit that doesn't excel at anything. His abilities cannot hit any more than three times and rely heavily on inflicting Status Effects on the enemy, which may be immune to said effects. All of this makes him woefully underpowered when compared to other Merchants like Cecily, Leon, etc. His mediocre nature would be tolerable as a normal unit, but being an Arena Champion means that you do so much work to get him, only to be useless and not helpful, making getting him more tedious than helpful and more of a Bragging Rights Reward than a truly useful party member.
Yukes. Yukes is largely a victim of his Random Number God status, as many of his abilities rely on being lucky to get the most out of them. In a game where consistency is highly valued for the toughest fights, Yukes is far too unreliable, especially when some of his attacks can actually inflict recoil damage on him. For example, one of his attacks can deal 1-7 Fire-elemental hits to random enemies; while this can let him shave a lot of shields if he's lucky, he's just as likely to remove 1-2 shields (while dealing very little damage), and it means he can sometimes cause the player to Break an enemy too early (which can derail a planned Break timing).
MORBIDUS!!!!!note This is said loudly by Peredir during his Traveler Story whenever he runs into his Arch-Enemy. It's funny since Morbidus survives several fights with Peredir, leading one to think Why Won't You Die? (Morbidus finally does die during the final chapter of Peredir's story due to being a worshipper of Galdera). Even after that, he makes a reappearance during the Live A Live collaboration, further adding to the meme.
"X when" is a fairly consistent meme among players, with players often jokingly bringing up characters that the fans either want playable, or are excited to know when they are released in the global version.
Cyrus whenExplanation Once characters from the first game started being added as travelers, fans started asking for Cyrus to be added. Due to Meme Acknowledgement, this continued even after Cyrus was eventually added.
Velnorte whenExplanation Much like Mahrez, Velnorte is the lover of a playable female unit that isn't playable himself despite being treated as a major character. While Velnorte does serve a bigger purpose than Mahrez, he isn't playable, which fans see as a waste since Velnorte being playable would be the perfect atonement and it would be interesting to see him and Rinyuu as a Battle Couple. Some people, like FeatherGamer555, who don't give Tatloch the Draco in Leather Pants treatment believe that she stole Velnorte's spot. (To clarify, the in-universe reason she was Promoted to Playable was Rinyuu.) It's also made more blatant by the fact the Apothecary class doesn't have a Memory Traveler, and Velnorte would be perfect for an Apothecary Memory Traveler.
MAAAAARVELOUS!!!!!note Auguste's iconic catchphrase has become emblematic of Champions of the Continent itself to the point that they associate the game with this catchphrase alone.
Octopath devs are in love with the Warrior classExplanation The Warrior class has the most Memory Travelers, with a total of 6 as of this writing (Tytos, Elrica, Richard, Sazantos, Eltrix and Rondo). And Sail, the protagonist of Side: Solistia, is also a Warrior unit.
Nightmare Fuel: Just like the game its a prequel to, Champions of the Continent is no stranger to horror.
Those two golden statues in Herminia's vault? They're the corpses of her sisters cast in liquid gold, their faces still frozen in their agonized screams as Herminia's assassins killed them. It's hard to really feel bad for them after the horrible shit they did to Herminia, but still.
The One-Winged Angel forms the Ringbearers take are all pretty nightmarish and heavy on Body Horror. Pardis' forms really take the cake, though: His first form is basically an elongated torso with his beard completely covering everything except his head and hands, and then in his third form, his lower half dissolves away entirely as a second, fanged mouth forms under his still human face. His third form is actually eerily similar to Galdera.
Auguste's transformation is no slouch either. While Pardis' transformations are nightmarish, they at least retained some semblance of his human form, however small. Auguste, by contrast, retains none of his human features, looking more like a deformed Xenomorph.
There's also the reveal Schwartz and Tiziano were Evil All Along, and Sazantos's Face–Heel Turn, since you'd have likely grown attached to them as well.
Realism-Induced Horror: Part of why Auguste is popular (aside from Evil Is Cool) is how mundane yet still horrifically real he is as a threat. He isn't some major political figure or a super natural being: He's essentially a serial killer cult leader, who uses his fame and success to win people over, then either kill them for his own sadistic pleasure, or break them into serving him blindly, all while essentially torturing them in different ways. This kind of behavior is something that can happen in the real world, and even has, with people making cults of personality, or using their fame to ruin people's lives for their sick pleasure. In a game with literal monsters and magic, Auguste's evil is not just the most like something that can happen outside of the game, but does so without relying on any magical means to do so.
With the reveal that Galdera is considered by both humanity and the gods to be the one who killed Orsa when the truth is that Her death was a Death by Childbirth, combined with the fact Finis and Sazantos's intention with the rings is to ressurect Orsa, the Draco in Leather Pants treatment Sazantos received and how, despite us having Deus ex Machina on our finger, we cannot prevent any of the Tear Jerker moments seen on it's page, some choose either to see Aelfric as a Jerkass God (as MatPat claims) or, if not, to see Finis as an abusive father who only cares about Orsa and drove Galdera to Then Let Me Be Evil. Never mind that time and time again it was proven that Galdera is an Omnicidal Maniacthat's synonymous with the very concept of evil (thankfully, even most people who give Sazantos the Draco in Leather Pants treatment acknowledge this, and this interpretation of Aelfric and Finis is rare, especially with the former; the only one who believes Aelfric is selfish and no better than Galdera is MatPat, and even then...).
Some that give this treatment to Finis and accuse him of being the reason Galdera is evil take it up a notch and claim Finis is abusive not just to Galdera, but to all of the thirteen, claiming that Aelfric claiming Galdera deliberately killed Orsa when, as his brother, should know that, of all bad things Galdera is accused of, Orsa's death wasn't Galdera's fault is a sign that Aelfric doesn't have a choice in the matter.
Of the three Influence interactions, Entreat is very disliked on account of the sheer RNG nature of it. You either get the item or not, and there is no control over the chance besides increasing the player's Fame. With Purchase and Contend, the player has the option to buy the item outright, or adjust their party to better prepare for the fight, while Entreat is just pure luck. Worse, the game never allows you to have a 100% Entreat chance (except in some extremely rare cases, usually related to the main story), so you always have a 10% chance at minimum to fail, and it's possible to end up wasting all five chances on a 90% chance due to sheer luck. It isn't helped by the game often making the items from them very valuable too, and that increasing the Entreat chance is significantly harder than the other two options.
The lack of any kind of skip cutscene or a simple auto-text advance is something that isn't liked, since it forcibly drags out the story and makes the player have to manual click/watch every cutscene. For those interested in just the gameplay, it makes it hard to complete the story or sidequests, while even those interested in the story have to manually click the screen to progress the story. Worse, things such as Memoir conversations can be skipped, and that the player can skip cutscenes they have seen already, making it stranger that there isn't a way to do so outside of those specific situations. This wouldn't be an issue if the game wasn't so cutscene heavy, even in sidequests.
Enemy spawn rates are unusually high, even if one uses the Repellent Barrette to reduce the encounter rate. Without it, expect to get a battle every few steps, and even with it, the player will likely get four encounters crossing a decent sized area. Worse, unlike the original Octopath, the only means of reducing it are things like the Repellant Barrette, but you can only get it via the Inquire system, or get the upgraded version at an insanely high cost from the Exchange shop, meaning a player can potentially never get it if they are unlucky.
Tainted by the Preview: The announcement of the game's first seasonal-themed banner was hit with this. Though people were fine with Fiore and Sofia being the first characters to get seasonal alts on account of being popular characters, the fact the two are considered different characters from their launch forms, instead of being alternate classes the player could use in place of their original class, made some players annoyed at the game doing the same thing other gacha games do by making seasonal alts that the player has to roll for. It doesn't help that the announcement was vague enough that it made players think they were different classes to level up in, as opposed to being just different characters entirely. These units, later called EX Travelers, ended up being contentious because of this, and the developers seemingly stopped releasing them due to the reception to them.
Sacred Seals for upgrading a 4.5 star to a 5 star are tedious and annoying to get. You primarily get them from Hunts, but they have such low chances of dropping, that a player may go months without ever seeing one. You can also get them from the Exchange Shop, but they cost 30,000 silver Guidestone Shards, which would require the player to constantly convert all their Guidestones into silver shards, meaning the player wouldn't be able to save them for any other potentially useful items, or wouldn't be able to upgrade any of their 4 star characters. The developers have sometimes given them out as reward items for events or special summon steps, but unless the player gets lucky or hordes as many Guidestones as possible for converting, a player could end up not having the chance to get one for a long time.
Weapon and armor materials are a constant thorn in the players side, no matter the level. Weapons require items dropped by enemies to purchase or upgrade them, but the drop rates are low, and not all the cities have item spots that will give what the player needs. This is especially frustrating after level 60, where the process of upgrading weapons to their max tier requires a lot of resources, while getting armor for your characters means losing out on weapon upgrades. It doesn't help that, after the "Master of All" story, each new story chapter introduces new zones and items you need for both, making all the previous work pointless.
Elite Fragments are used to acquire special 4-star characters, some which can provide some useful A4 accessories, such as Lolo and Jorn. However, Elite Fragments can only be obtained by watching advertisements, and even then you only have an chance of getting the fragments with each ad (specifically, an 8% chance). You need 100 fragments for one 4-star character, and you can only get rewards from up to 10 ads per day (and only 5 ads every 12 hours). Even if you do get some Elite Fragments from an advertisement, you'll only get 5 (with a 3% chance of getting 10 Fragments) per ad, meaning you'll likely need to spend weeks just to get one of the 4-star characters, and the characters themselves also aren't very strong compared to 5-stars.
Castle Edoras is the final level of the "Master of All" story, and it certainly matches that. Between being the largest single zone in the game at the time (having essentially four floors), with several hard to navigate areas to obtain all the chests, and having bulky enemies who are in the 60's in level (where many will maybe have one character at that level). It doesn't help that the game pushes the player to defeat Pardis' three guards before you face him, but two of them are guarded by Elite enemies, and are hard fights on their own. Plus if you leave the castle, said guards respawn. If not for the restore torch right before the fight with Pardis, it would be potentially impossible to fight him with a relatively healthy party unless the player has a large roster to use.
The Middlesea, the final level of the "Bestower of Power" story, is a confusing and tedious zone to navigate due to taking the Slide Level mechanic introduced with the Golden Palace, and making it difficult to navigate the areas by having islands that require moving around in specific ways to reach. Unlike the Golden Palace though, each island is a new "zone", so finding the islands that have the Elite enemies needed for the new weapons is hard to figure out, and finding each island can take trial and error. Worse, the area is filled with enemies during the story visit, meaning every major pathway has a group of three decently strong enemies you have to fight. This isn't helped by several islands being blocked during the story, meaning getting items or exploring requires having to beat the final boss to do so.
The nut farm sidequest in the Nameless Town. It requires getting fertilizer soil and field notes to create and upgrade the nut farm. The issue is that unlike the previous steps, the only way to get soil is by using Memory Shards. Memory Shards are not easy to get, and you don't get a lot each day at that point in the game. You need a total of 15 soils to get the two quests done, for a total of 450 Memory Shards when the most a player will likely get is 1 soil a day. Worse, the fields notes are found on NPCS, so you have to use Inquire on them, but you cannot get the first one until Clearbrook, which is a good bit into the early game, and both are very hard to get due to steep Inquire ranks. Considering the nut farm is incredibly valuable for the EXP it gives, it's important to do, but the quest is widely considered annoying because of these factors, and if not for the developers giving out Memory Shards as a reward and daily quest, the process would take over two weeks to complete.
Getting Elvis from the Bravely Default collab to max level and Awakening is an annoying and tedious sidequest that takes months to do so. The reason is that Elvis' Awakening materials are tied to a special currency that requires doing special collab Hunts and quests, but the Awakening Stones cost so much, and the amount you get per Hunt (the best option) is barely enough to get you there. All of that would be at least potentially worth it, if Elvis was a good unit, but he's viewed as just an "okay" unit, so you spend months trying to get a specific unit to full power, and the reward is just an okay unit.
The Warrior Tower is considered the hardest of the class locked towers and some players hate having to do it. This is because the Warrior Tower has each fight include an enemy that acts as a shield for the boss you fight, whose sole job is to prevent you from breaking the bosses shield unless you break their shield first. The issue is that the shield enemy is only weak to elemental attacks, and Warriors are usually a Magically Inept Fighter with barely any elemental attacks, resulting in it being harder than the other Towers because you have to rely on elemental attacks to progress, even if Warriors are not designed to use them as effectively as other classes. It doesn't help that you can't kill the shield enemy, and a lot of Warriors have random target attacks, causing further annoyances. Tellingly, the Warrior Tower is the only one to have any gimmicks of that kind.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Unlike in the original Octopath, Speed only determines when in the turn order a character acts, not when they get to make a choice and act. On paper this is meant to likely account for the larger roster (4 characters vs 4 front and backline), but the result is that a player cannot react to the enemies actions, and can end up losing a fight because there wasn't a way to guess the enemies next move. For example: Having your party tailor made to attack a bosses weakness, only for it to do something like seal off weaknesses, or use a buff that counters attacking said weakness, causing a snowball effect where the player is punished for actions they took without having any idea was a bad call. While many players disliked how the Speed stat worked in the original game, it was mitigated by having the ability to react and prepare easier, but COTC's adjustments make it easy to make a mistake without realizing it, and encourages looking up an enemies Speed stat to ensure your team goes first.
Sonia is an old friend of Bargello who quickly is setup as a new ally to fight against Herminia when she appears. Between the implications of a past fling with Bargello, and her past vendetta towards Herminia, she sets herself up as a likeable character with a good amount of potential to be explored. Than she betrays the heroes to try and get more wealth, and is killed in a boss fight, and she doesn't get any further usage except as a motivation for Bargello. While her playable version at least gives some more insight into her character, in the main story, she gets offed too quickly to feel like her betrayal had any real effect.
Mahrez is a Knight in Shining Armor general of Edoras, who also is shown to be a skilled warrior. Between his relationship with King Pardis, Princess Elrica, and Krauser, he seems to be setup for an interesting arc given Pardis' villainy becomes more obvious as the story goes on. Sadly Pardis kills him not long after the player meets him. Worse, Mahrez has yet to become a playable unit, meaning a lot of his characterization and background have to come from other characters, which feels like a waste of a potentially interesting character. While he does appear in Elrica's Traveler Story, and gets some focus during it, seeing as its Elrica's story at the end of the day, he is still a secondary character in it, and since he has yet to become playable, he still is underdeveloped and used despite, again, being treated as a major character.
Out of Bargello's gang, Fra has the least amount of characterization, to the point that he could be written out of the story, and nothing changes. He's, prior to Rosso joining, presented as the groups The Big Guy, and has apparently known Bargello, Pierro, and Tiziano since he was young, and grew up with them. Unlike those three though, Fra has little actual role in the story, mostly just standing in the background and maybe making a single comment. Worse, with Rosso joining, whatever role Fra played was essentially replaced by him, making Fra the only member of the group to feel like he isn't even a character.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Sazantos' backstory in the Bestower of All story reveals his mother was born with the ability to use the Sacred Flame naturally, so the church kidnapped her to produce a child who could inherit it, which was why Sazantos was born. Though this reveal is the basis for Sazantos' turn to villainy, the reveal has no further usage in the story beyond that, and the story never delves into the implications or fact the church would do such a thing to someone. The heroes react with shock, but never address it beyond that, and because the reveal happens late into the story, the reveal only feels like it exists to try and justify Sazantos evil deeds.
Unexpected Character: A Live A Live event was not unexpected given its HD-2D remake and it being one of the inspirations for the original Octopath Traveler in the first game, and it being represented by Oersted and Streibough, as well as Oersted as Odio, was also a safe bet. What wasn't a safe bet was Streibough as Odio, a concept that was never more than a theory based on ambiguities in the Middle Ages chapter's story.
Unnecessary Makeover: A minor case with Richard, whose second/primary outfit isn't disliked and the change is narratively necessary, but more than one fan was disappointed that it specifically meant his initial design as the traveler Charles wouldn't become playable.
Viewer Gender Confusion: Isla is canonically a male cait, but his feminine name and voice led some players to think the opposite.
