Octopath Traveler

Me: "Huh, I think I'll do Alfyn's chapter 3, I like his character."

Also me, once I got to the boss: "What do you mean, 'Miguel shifts his defenses'?!" Also, I forgot to have Alfyn learn Draefendi's Rage and Therion to learn Mole Dance, even though they had enough JP for it, so that was really dumb of me. Therion died a lot because he's only level 35 while Cyrus/Ophilia are in the 50s and Alfyn in the 40s - luckily, Vivify exists, and so do Revive and Olives of Life.

Story-wise, I find it really interesting that this is contrasted with the last chapter. There, Alfyn being an innocent Nice Guy helps him to stumble onto Vanessa's con - here, it gets a child hurt and Alfyn talks about bloodying his hands, implying that he killed Miguel. I was not expecting Miguel to pull a Falsely Reformed Villain - I was honestly expecting him to actually change, and for the chapter boss to be some big monster he was having trouble protecting the village from. Ogen I'm not going to talk about in detail because it seems there's more to him than the game let on, but I find his viewpoint interesting. I wonder how it'll contrast to Alfyn's in the next chapter - or will Alfyn decide to look at things the same way considering that he did just kill a guy? Interesting indeed.

Actually, Tressa isn't too far behind in terms of EXP, her recommended level for her third chapter is 35 and she's at 31. I'll just go grind in Derelict Mine or Farshore. Therion could use a bit of leveling as well. Ophilia is basically glued to the party as is though, bringing Olberic along would make it a grind-fest and Primrose and H'annit are both decently leveled.

Anyway, yeah, today's session was fun. I'll do Tressa's Chapter 3 tomorrow after a bit of grinding (finally got Bilfegan's Bounty on her, woot! Just need to get Therion Sealticge's Seduction and I'll be good for that).

Edit: I forgot because I'm tired, but a great moment was when Miguel said "wait I need to feed my four children" in the forest when he had kidnapped Timothy and Alfyn went "wait, earlier you said you had three". So cool. I like Alfyn even more for that.

Edited by Altris on Nov 7th 2020 at 11:17:46 AM

So, let's hang an anchor from the sun... also my Tumblr

I saved Miguel as my last chapter 3 boss cause he was just that hard. if he were in his prime I bet he could take the True Final Boss XD

The Protomen enhanced my life.

After seeing someone get very lucky in a marathon speedrun, I actually checked the Rain of Arrows and Thousand Spears attacks on the wiki, to check if they do indeed carry the accuracy penalty they seem.

And there I read:

Well now I feel silly piling accuracy-boosting equipment on my warriors specifically to try and make this attack hit more...

Edited by Medinoc on Nov 16th 2020 at 9:16:07 PM

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Hey, hope you don't mind me bumping this thread up.

Got the game last week and I've been having a blast with it. Started with Therion and went counter-clockwise and now I've just finished Cyrus' chapter 1.

Apparently Therion is the best choice for the main character? Which is good cause I have no idea about anything beforehand.

Main complaint is the lack of interaction between party members, which apparently is a common complaint.

Also the areas feel a bit small? Each dungeon feels like they take only 15 minutes to go through. Granted I'm only in the first chapters, so maybe they'll get longer later.

Yeah, it's unfortunate that, like several games where you can do things in any order, the fact that they can't reasonably plan for every circumstance of who you might have or might not have brought along does limit character interaction. There are still some really great ones, though. For one, Ophilia and H'aanit seem mutually interested in each other if you bring Ophilia to H'aanit's Chapter 2, while bringing Prim to the same results in her advising H'aanit that she's better off not dealing with men at all.

It's been fun.

The dungeons do get longer as you progress through the game, yes.

Ah, Cyrus's first chapter. Kept getting destroyed because I forgot that I could recruit other characters.

What chapters have you finished so far, and how do you feel about them?

So, let's hang an anchor from the sun... also my Tumblr

So you're stuck with your first character in the party always until you clear their 4th chapter, after which you can make any party you want.

Many go with Therion as their first because his steal path action can get really broken if you save scum, the thief job is really self-sufficient, and there are certain chests only he can open (usually one per dungeon). However the loot in these chests isn't that great, so you aren't missing much.

Alfyn is another good choice, as he's another all-around good character with an absolutely broken signature skill. Plus his path action is fun for lore and has no drawbacks.

Some like Cyrus as he's super broken for the first third of the game and only drops off to "okay" at worst. A free weakness reveal in every fight is superb for newbies.

But honestly the only bad pick to start with is Primrose, just because how hard her first chapter is to solo.

Can confirm Concoct crushes most encounters into a fine paste. Getting two or three shield breaks on a boss, never mind easy HP/SP/BP restoration, is excellent.

So, let's hang an anchor from the sun... also my Tumblr

I started with Primrose and didn't have much trouble, though the boss was kinda hard.

The Protomen enhanced my life.

I started with Alfyn too. Concoct is ridiculous.

I went with Olberic since I figured he'd be good for babysitting the rest of the cast through the Early Game Hell.

Recruited H'aanit and with that I finished all the chapter 1s. The chapter 2 areas sure is a big spike in difficulty. Not helped that I rotate everyone, so everyone's level still in 15-18 range, except for Therion who's in early 20s.

Unlocked the second jobs. For now I've gained Hunter, Thief, and Apothecary. For now I'm using Hunter-Therion, Thief-Alfyn, and Apoth-Olberic. Haven't invested much in the 2nd job, anyway. I plan to get the eight main jobs before continuing with the story, grinding in the meanwhile.

To be honest I'm not a fan of being incapable of switching the main character out of the party until later. There has been times where I want to make a specific party composition but blocked by Therion always being there. I don't see why they need to do this at all. Hopefully the 2nd jobs can alleviate this to an extent.

On the plus side, you don't need to swap out constantly to open purple chests.

The Protomen enhanced my life.

Yeah. On the other hand it's anoying 'cause Thief doesn't have any Ao E attacks until the last one, and that needs tons of JP.

Speaking of jobs, I like how each job is balanced so each is self-sufficient. I was kinda hesitant because Thieves usually has high speed and terrible everything else, so I'm pleasantly surprised Therion has plenty of damage as wel.

I can see how Primrose has the most difficult starter, though she's not completely helpless either.

It helped when I seduced a really strong NPC to join the boss fight XD

The Protomen enhanced my life.

One of my stupid favorite memories of this game was finding out I could "guide" Tressa's mom during her opening chapter, and the thought of mother and daughter ditching their shopkeep father to fight pirates was really funny to me. In fact, I kept going back to recruit her for Tressa's chapters. Made Tressa's story themes of striking out on your own really weird when it was under parental supervision lol.

Ah yeah the things you could do to NP Cs. It's hilarious how a random barmaid is stronger than town guards. Actually the town guards tend to be the weakest NPC in the towns, which brings a lot of Fridge Logic.

Double post for bump. I've done half of the second chapters. Buffs and debuffs in this game is frankly broken. Thief's Shackle Foe pretty much makes any physical bosses a complete joke. I don't see any magical counterpart that reduces enemy MATK though, so magical bosses are pretty hard.

Anyway, what's up with the caves and forests littered in the areas? Like the Path of Beasts or the Hoarfrost Cave. I haven't explored them all but some of them doesn't seem to have anything except chests?

Some of them have sidequests (including, for at least one, bringing an NPC there). But not all, I think.

"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."

Yeah, some of them have optional bosses you need to beat for sidequests.

So, let's hang an anchor from the sun... also my Tumblr

Beat all chapter 2 stories, and about to do Therion's chapter 3.

I think I might be a bit overlevelled...Therion is at level 42 and everyone else is at 33. I'm also doing the second ring optional dungeons and I already have better gears than what the boss chests gave me lol.

Also got the JP to learn the Divine skills for each primary class (except Therion who got it ages ago). I was trying to use them for an optional boss...then it died of Poison before I can use it. That was anticlimactic.

Thief is probably my favorite class right now. Shackle Foe makes most boss fights a cakewalk, Armor Corrosive right before you break a boss is *chef's kiss*. Steal SP means infinite SP for the Thief. Only downside is no Ao E for random battles.

Meanwhile I'm not sure what I should be doing with Hunter. Half its skills are Bow skills, but from what I see Bows have low attack powers so these skills are weak. The two multi-hit Bow skills only seem to be good for breaking enemies.

Scholar is great for nuking the hell outta things, but I wish its skillset is more diverse. If the enemy isn't weak to any of its three elements it's basically a sitting duck. E.Atk and E.Def debuffs would be nice. Some status ailments, too, since Poison is the only status ailment you can inflict without items or Concoct.

Hunter is more of a utility class, because with a lot of patience and a crapton of grinding you can get H'aanit monster summons that can and will break the game in half.

But that's secondary to the primary use of the Hunter class, which is spamming the GOAT of GOATS, the sheer MVP skill that is Leghold Trap. Seriously, if you haven't realized how stupid broken that one command is then you haven't fought Alfyn's third boss yet.

Edited by IniuriaTalis on Apr 11th 2021 at 9:24:10 AM

I did say I've just beaten the chapter 2s

Leghold Trap, huh, haven't been using that much. I'll try to in the upcoming battles.

It basically allows you to break the opponent's shield before they get a chance to move (because of leghold trap), then they don't get a turn at all. It's stupidly useful if you know what you're doing.

Did Therion chapter 3. Man that's one hell of a Difficulty Spike. Not only the boss, the mobs also start to hit hard and take a while to defeat. The EXP and JP drops also get high though.

The boss is pretty hard. The first time I Game Over'd against a story boss. Moves twice and hits pretty hard even with Shackle Foe. Also didn't help I wasted some turns trying to find weaknesses. Second time around I managed to do a Sealctige + Mole Dance, which makes the battle much more managable.