In the writing, yes. In game design, no.
You can decide to finish FFX with only Tidus, Wakka and Rikku levelled, even though Yuna is way more important a character than any of them.
And there is nothing in that game that says "level them all". You can decide to stick with 3 superpowered ones, and have a fourth one tagging along to complete their chapters. It's probably even more optimal than spreading XP if you build the team well.
I get that they're both Square Enix, but it just does not make sense to look at this game through the same lens.
If nothing else, the infamous True Final Boss of the prior game was something to at least keep in mind.
My musician pageIt is absolutely not required to play the first one to play this one. I would know it, I didn't complete 1, since I found it extremely badly written and paced.
So if you want the players to level up everyone, I think you need to find a specific mechanic to show it's important for all of them to level up. It's barely the case as is.
I guess it just comes down to the games we played then. I played a lot of games with the whole cast (or just multiple parties worth, if there were really a lot of characters) required for the ending sequence, so I recognized the flags easily.
FWIW, I didn't finish the prior game's true ending either, but I found it hard not to hear about the ending second-hand.
My musician pageThe games where levelling is mandatory I've played are those with fixed teams, like Bravely Default.
When you get to switch, like in tacticals or in Final Fantasy, ignoring a couple of them is not really punished if you build your main squad well enough. So I don't think "you have to level everyone" is common enough a trope that the designers should take it for granted here.
Right, the flags I saw are more from the narrative side.
Granted, at least some of them take a different approach: They remove other party members from time to time, then when they rejoin they're automatically caught up in level.
Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Apr 25th 2023 at 10:09:52 AM
My musician pageWhile I understand bringing biases from other games into this one and making mistakes because of that, I feel that the fact that you HAVE to use all 8 characters really should have been a warning siren that you will need all 8 in the endgame.
And even if you did use the same 3 characters and rotated out the chapter focus character(s), that still means everyone in your party should get to the mid-40's at least. You wouldn't need much more grinding for the final boss (the secret boss would need more, but that should be expected).
Also somebody asked about Alephan's Wisdom and Windy Refrain on the last page, no it doesn't work. From the wiki, the only skills that work with Advanced Magic/Alephan's Wisdom besides Scholar spells: Luminescence, Heal Wounds and Revive (Cleric), Malice, Blessing and Hex (Arcanist). Osvalds One True Magic EX skill and Temenos' Heavenly Shine EX skills are also affected (Prayer for Plenty appears to have boosted versions in the game code but only affects a single target).
Which means there are no multi-hit wind skills in this game, unless I'm forgetting some captured monsters and elemental flask from Inventor.
Edited by Stage7-4 on Apr 25th 2023 at 9:19:50 AM
Again, in almost all J-RPG I've played, at some point you have to use a character.
Then if you want to ditch that character, you don't really get penalized. There are a few exceptions (like the swimmers from FFX), but they are few and far between. You can drop Ann and Ryuji in Persona 5 if you prefer other characters going forward, and if you build those well enough, you don't get screwed - it's a matter of preference and persona builds.
And I would have no complaints if you had a couple of fights throughout the game where all 8 characters intervene in one way or another to hint that, yes, that can happen, it's not always the four you pick. But they decided that the "tying storylines together" only happens in the postgame - which I think remains one of the game's main weaknesses.
I think the weirdest single moment for the stories' overall interconnections is when Ori shows up during Castti's story. At that point, the only way she wouldn't at least know about the enthusiastic scrivener is basically if you never recruited Partitio, or more strictly speaking never did his second chapter (though the former is much more likely as it's an innate part of certain challenge run types), as even if you never had her in the active party for those chapters, Partitio would surely mention her when both were on standby.
Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Apr 25th 2023 at 2:41:59 PM
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If a RPG has a Secret Final Campaign that should be a massive red flag that you need to use everyone.
Using the whole team has been done in Final Fantasy (FF 6 for starters, 7 punished players for not leveling up every one), so I have no idea how the red flags got missed.
Not to mention all the foreshadowing of a connected metaplot threat.
BTW I was among the first to deduce the identity of the overarching villain. Had it all figured out about a day after the demo came out (and my theories about how it all connects were mostly right).
Edited by magnum12 on Apr 26th 2023 at 5:20:32 AM
To clarify, do you mean the True Final Boss or the one pulling the strings? Because I think the former isn’t exactly hidden by the game.
True Final Boss. Talking about it in releation to the Secret Final Campaign and all the red flags that you would have to use everyone.
With the theory, I did also deduce that its cult would be wrecking havoc too connecting the plot lines.
In another topic, Octopath is at its best when it starts becoming a pseudo horror game. Stuff like the parts where Stolen Dreams Lost Light plays, the finales of Osvald/Throne/Ochette.
One detail that could have been added to Mugen that would make him more disturbing yet perfectly in character: Chaos Space Marine style shoulder mounted trophy racks (he already matches the persona of a Khorne worshipper anyway).
Agnea’s story was too light hearted to the point it didn’t really connect with the rest of the game. Should have been a Hope Bringer vs Hope Crusher despair monger finale. Maybe even some Vide linked animation of Agnea’s mother by the villain just to twist the knife and eventually trigger a Rage Breaking Point “Kamen Rider Beating” (reference to the iconic scene of Kuuga).
Edited by magnum12 on Apr 26th 2023 at 6:51:55 AM
On the topic of Mugen: We know Hikari has that "Evil Hikari" inside him that is always telling him to murder people. During his final boss, Hikari defeats Evil Hikari. It's stated that Mugen has the same cursed bloodline, so I wondered if Mugen may also have an "Evil Mugen" inside his head telling him to do bad stuff. Thing is, Mugen is always doing terrible stuff anyway, so Evil Mugen is happy just chilling in his subconscious. Then Mugen loses to Hikari, and Evil Mugen decides to completely take over the body and that's when Mugen turns into a monster. I'm not sure f that's supported by lore or not. I'm just hypothesizing.
My memories are wonky and I would like to keep it that way before Rebirth, but the extent to which you had to use, say, Cait Sith is to fight a couple of grunts in Juno during the Sapphire Weapon attack. It wasn't exactly a case of "Suddenly, Tifa, Barret and Cloud disappear and you have to make do with Cait Sith, Vincent and Cid against Sephiroth".
And unused characters automatically levelled up. Not the case in Octopath.
In Final Fantasy VI you could lose some characters, and you had to piece your team back together, but again, I'm not sure how many boss fights were mandatory. Being forced to use your reserves to beat on some trash mobs, and being forced to take them out in the middle of the final boss fight are two extremely different things.
Plus, I mean, it's dumb, but I spent the entire game removing the equipment of the teammates I benched. You never get punished for that, on the contrary, it's encouraged by some extremely powerful weapons or items being only available once (like all the Armsmaster weapons).
...until the final boss where suddenly, if you did that, you just gained a gratuitous restart.
I didn't even have to restart the boss. I had sufficiently used everyone. I just think it was extremely weak game design, and if they wanted to actually hint you'll need everyone, they should have offered other 8-character fights throughout the story. But I also think that the overarching plot was rushed and was the other weak point of the game. It would be much better if you had several "eight-character stories" - one once everyone is done with chapter 1 (or 2 for Osvald), one once everyone is done with chapter 2...
And that would have been the perfect opportunity to throw in the kind of 8-man fight that says "hey, make sure everyone is levelled up and equipped at all times! Might be useful", and that would be a hell of a lot more satisfying than "I hope you have played the unrequired first game because that's how it was back then".
Edited by Bexlerfu on Apr 27th 2023 at 6:22:02 PM
I feel like if you play a game that screams "8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 EIGHT!" at you as much as this one does and still didn't expect to use all 8 characters that's on you. Especially since you HAVE to complete all 8 stories to even unlock the final boss, which means you HAVE to use all 8 characters. While yes, the two parties mechanic could have come earlier and the crossed paths chapters are a step in the right direction but don't fully make the cast feel like they're together, but those flaws are paltry for a game with 8 right their in the title.
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No, that's actually lore. The curse of Ku effects their entire bloodline, all being descendents from the archmage D'arqest. Hikari is only able to resist the curse because he's Mugen's half-brother. Hikari's mom is a descendent of Aelfric the lightbringer, which is implied to be why Hikari can eventually fight the curse off.
Personally I don't like that explanation because super eugenics is one of my most reviled tropes, but it is in the lore.
Edited by Stage7-4 on Apr 27th 2023 at 9:29:48 AM
8 in the title. And 4 characters to use for 99% of its duration.
You may require to unlock all 8 stories to get the true ending, but absolutely nothing hints that you'll need to have all 8 characters ready and equipped for the final boss.
Hell, there is one boss fight in the finale before you go to the final location...and it can be completed with just four people. That would have been the perfect occasion to introduce the members switching.
Honestly, it's extremely unlikely that anyone would have characters that underleveled and underequipped without having other characters OP enough to compensate anyway. Just have 2 carry for phase 1A, 2 carry for phase 1B, and 4 carry for the final part. And even in the case of equipment, you should still have something unless you sell off all extra weapons and especially armor so even the weaker characters should be able to survive enough to play support.
The final boss isn't that strong.
My musician pageIt's not. And again, I didn't have to restart...because I somehow decided on a whim to equip everyone, out of laziness more than anything.
But "you should expect this mechanic because it happens in other games" is not good game design. Good game design is the mechanic coming organically through the game. If you spend 95% of a game named Octopath using only 4 characters, at some point you can just shrug and think "alright, 8 storylines, but I only have to level up half of them, fine".
But I think I've talked about it enough, and it might make people believe I disliked the game. The final part really was my only major gripe, and the main reason I don't think it belongs with the best RPG out there. Hopefully, in the third one, they'll restrict storylines order a bit and develop the main story arc even more, because all the tools are there to make it a great, great game.
Edited by Bexlerfu on Apr 27th 2023 at 1:20:27 PM
I have to wonder how you were playing the game when each chapter has required characters, so even if you over focused on 3 that still means the other 7 are around level 45. Unless you were deliberately letting them die or something.
I guess what I'm saying is, even if I hated Agnea (for example) and avoided all Agnea's chapters until the end when I went back with 3 gods and 1 whimp, through the chapter experience Agena would still get to a manageable level for endgame.
Edited by Stage7-4 on Apr 27th 2023 at 5:06:13 AM
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FF 6 had you using 3 squads of 4 for its finale and FF 7’s final boss had 3 squads of three.
Persona and Octopath by its general gameplay (you want a wide net of weakness covereage) screams at you to keep a balanced party level.
It’s just common sense Genre Savvy good strategy to keep your team’s levels balanced just in case a curveball gets thrown your way. “Adapt or die”.
Not to mention Octopath’s story structure was screaming out obvious foreshadowing that you need to keep your party levels balanced.
If one isn’t able to catch the obvious red flags, the onus is on them.

Counterargument- It's exactly that you are allowed to choose that grants them equal prominence in the writing.
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