You know the night merchant at the merchant's guild gives you 30% off, right?
Actually if some of your characters are underlevelled and/or you haven't grabbed Vincent & Yuffie and/or you haven't grinded like a madman, then Bizarro Sephiroth can be a standard 3-characters boss/a 2 squads boss. Basically, the game factors in the player's actions and doesn't pull a fast one by forcing him to grind at the last minute for a mechanic that was never there before.
Meanwhile FF6 told you "hey, build 3 teams" before entering the final dungeon. It's not "surprise! Kefka forces everyone to fight!"
Edited by Bexlerfu on Apr 28th 2023 at 9:07:52 PM
Better late than ever, but I finished the first chapters of the West Continent folks so here are some general thoughts:
- Started off with Partitio cause he became a fav of mine after reading more of what I can on this site without spoiling myself. The game made me fall in love with him more thanks his sweet personality and accent. Gotta love me a good Texan accent.
- On the topic of Partitio's chapter, I really like how it establishes his goals and the issues present in his chapter (unequal treatment in a capitilist society, the use of trickery for finacial gain etc) are laid out.
- Went and snatched Hikari afterwards, and after playing through his chapter I went to explore more. You don't how much I was grinning when they cheer each others names in combat. I had a dumb smile of my face whenever that happened.
- One thing I noticed is that the goals of the characters (except Agnea's) are much higher stakes than the last game. Partitio wants to end Poverty, Hikari has to battle his brother and stop his violent approach to life and Castti has to find her memories and is possibly part of a group of evil apothecaries. By comparisons, a lot of the goals in the first Octopath game are fairly vanilla. There's nothing wrong with vanilla goals but higher stake ones do feel much interesting in the long run.
- There's also more animation, which is much appreaciated. You don't know how shocked I got when bumped to 4 BP and they did pretty cool angles for the attacks. God that looked so cool.
That's all for no folks. Gotta go get the TOOT squad.
She/Her | Currently cleaning: N/AFinally got the TOOT squad. Now it's time for another round of general thoughts.
- Jesus, is this game darker than the first one. Ochette has to save her island from a calamity, Thronè is essentially a Tyke-Bomb who wants to be free, Osvald is framed for murder by someone is Driven by Envy, and Temenos has to deal with corrupt church a-holes. This is definetly the massive cry from their respective first game counterparts, whose stories are fairly tame by comparison.
- Ochette's interaction with the other party members in combat is pretty adorable, calling them nicknames. I also like that Mahina just sits comfortably on the boat ride.
- God, I already ship Temenos and Crick so much. I can already feel the tension in the air between the two. It's amazing how I already feel for these characters.
- For substories, I really need save up. Looking up the boat price, its super steep. So maybe I'll start with the lower level ones before I move Partitio Chapter 2.
That's all for now folks!
She/Her | Currently cleaning: N/AI was considering getting the first Ocotpath game on the eShop sale, but I'm not much of a fan of Random Encounters, which I hear exist in this game in abundance. So I ask this: How easy is it to disengage from battles? In Dragon Quest XI it was basically impossible to run away unless your party was supremely overleveled for the region, an unlikely scenario without intentional grinding, but thankfully its modern iteration had visible enemies for which to fight or avoid. Live a Live's final chapters had Random Encounters, but I always had no trouble running away from them if I wanted to.
I'd rather not get too many headaches of Random Encounters when at times I simply want to go from A to B.
ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad.If you're in a random battle, you can choose to run. If you succeed, well, the battle ends, but if you fail, your entire team will be unable to act for the remainder of that turn, leaving them open to enemy attacks. One thing I want to note, every zone has a "danger level" which is the recommended level the game thinks you should be to to fight the local enemies. I have been known to run through zones that are too dangerous for me, just because I wanted to get to the town at the other side to make it available for fast travel. Oh, also, the scholar class can learn a skill that will halve the rate of random encounters.
Edited by WillKeaton on Jun 20th 2023 at 3:57:00 AM
Is there a mechanic that determines how successful your retreats will be? I believe in Pokemon it's mostly by your Pokemon's speed compared to the wild Pokemon who ambushed you. Just a metric on how consistent retreating is and if the game gives you enough implications that determines if it's a good idea or a waste of time.
ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad.I don't know the exact mechanics but I assume it's RNG. However, you can 100% run away from battles that started with a surprise attack (also RNG but boosted by a Hunter passive skill), and when all enemies are broken, and the Cleric's third passive skill boosts the base chance to at least near-guaranteed.
The Scholar's first passive skill significantly reduces random encounters, and combined with their AOE magic and weakness reveal makes for smoother sailing in the early game.
So I downloaded the demo and started with Olberic. I did attempt to reach Tressa next, but the passage between the two territories was level 15. So I went after Primrose instead.
One thing that concerns me are the sidequests. You're basically left on your own to decipher what to do, without indications on the world map. I guess I'm used to more recent RPGs that lend you a hand; I'd rather not have to frequently resort to Guide Dang It! for something potentially mundane.
How fares the sequel when it comes to solving these issues? Is there a Continuity Lock-Out where playing the second game without the first results in a lot of lost context?
ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad.Sidequests are the same in both games. They don't get too complicated, talking to every NPC and using path actions is usually enough, as long you're loosely keeping track of where the answers might be (ex. NPC A in Town X needs to meet NPC B, who you saw earlier in Town Y).
And some have alternate solutions depending on which path action is used (which doesn't change rewards), so there is a little freedom in tackling them.
The only direct carryover from 1 to 2 is the bonus boss, so you could jump straight in if you want. Biggest reason not to would be, if you ever do want to finish 1, I imagine it would harder to go back after the overall improvements made in 2.
Nuts. I'm not too good at tracking names. At least the main stories are straightforward, and I've got the basic gist of combat (break an enemy's shields to stun them, certain weapon types and spell types are super effective, etc). Random encounters aren't too much of a hassle, as I tend to fight more often than not, and I can fast travel to towns anyway.
Case in point: There were a few sidequests in Cobbleston starting out as Olberic. Turns out I'll need to get a certain party member's path action for some fertilizer, and one other requires a visit to Noblecourt. This is going to chisel at my OCD for sure...
Edited by RainingMetal on Jun 23rd 2023 at 12:56:10 PM
ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad.Purchased Octopath Traveler II and recruited over half of the members so far. I've noticed that the levels for mundane roads have been climbing whenever I finish a new character's first chapter. Does this apply to every time I complete a character's chapter? How far does it go?
ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad.@Ayumi: You are going to love Partitio. Note he is played more as a support character. Donate BP is his most important skill.
I really loved his route. His story can best be summed up as capitalism vs corporatism. Partitio basically being “capitalism the way Adam Smith intended it to work” (he like Partitio believed avarice is the root cause of poverty, hoped capitalism would slay poverty, and that treating lackeys right should be basic human decency).
You want Temenos as Scholar. His limit is busted with elemental barrage.
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Temenos is basically a historically accurate depiction of how church inquisitors are SUPPOSED to work ie their job is to expose and root out corruption within the church (prevent a church from becoming a Corrupt Church).
Much like Partitio represents how capitalism was intended to work.
Finished the (second) game. There's one question I've found unanswered. There's an NPC in Crackridge with a small girl who only appears at night. I can't interact with her; pressing the action button on her just makes her run away without a word. After finishing every sidequest and the final boss, I still don't know what the deal with this character is.
ASAB: All Sponsors Are Bad.
There's nothing quite so restricting that you need to have all the time, at least. Locked chests are no longer a thing.
The only influence your starting location has IIRC is that you can't get that character out of your party before endgame.
Basically, Partitio, Agnea and Cassti are support characters, Temenos is a healer, Oswald is a mage caster, and Hikari, Throné and Ochette are melee fighters - at least in their starting jobs.
This might help you picking which one you'd rather be stuck with, even though obviously with class changes it won't really matter too much (and Partitio and Temenos are versatile choices, much more than Throné or Hikari).
Finished some chapters in the game. I’m not going to lie, some of the plot twists are really great Castti’s Chapter 3 and Osvald Chapter 4 really felt like massive gut punches to me. The former revealing that Malaya and Eir’s apothecaries were dead all this time and the latter revealing that Osvald’s daughter was alive only be revealed to be brainwashed by Harvey into thinking that Harvey is her father and making her forget her own real father. My jaw literally dropped on those scenes.
She/Her | Currently cleaning: N/AGot Castti. I was wondering what her "Soothe" does outside of story sequences, and she just drugged random people to incapacitate them
. Psychopath Travelers indeed. That said, her 2nd chapter has 2 routes? Does this affect anything in the long run?
Now I have 6 out of 8 travelers recruited. This game seems to encourage doing each side of the continent first before crossing to the other. I started with Temenos and tried going counter-clockwise (Osvald, them crossing for Agnea and Partitio) and I got a lot of overlapping Path Actions. Didn't get any "Knockout" type actions until Hikari as my fifth.
This is unlike the first game where traveling halfway through the continent will get you the full set of Path Actions regardless of where you start and which direction you go.
