Welcome to our full review of Octopath Traveler, the new Nintendo Switch exclusive from Square Enix.
Octopath Traveler is without a doubt a very special game. A tribute to retro RPGs like Final Fantasy 6, but also clearly influenced by the likes of Vagrant Story or even the current day Bravely Default. In a beautiful hi-bit art style, this game is both special in graphics and approach to the RPG genre.
Usually, a game follows the path of the hero, who befriends others that in return join your group to fight off evil. Octopath takes a completely different approach. Octo as a word stands for “eight” and you can easily just say this game is called “eight paths of travelers”. I do love Octopath more as it is more mystical, but hey, you get the point.
You pick your main hero first and you embark on his or her story. For my gameplay, I chose H’aanit, a huntress from the Woodland region who is on her own quest to find her master, who disappeared while pursuing a dreadful fiend called Redeye. H’aanit finds out he is missing when his companion shows up back in town. She understands what animals are saying so she figures out her master might be in danger. We set out to find her master in the last place he was seen.
Important to note here, if you pick her, she speaks “ye olde English” and as I did not expect this to happen, I did get a little annoyed about it. I just think it does not belong in any gaming in general. Once I switched to Japanese voice acting, I was back to really enjoying the game again. I know it is silly, but that is just me.
Back to the game. On the world map, you can see the location of other travelers and where you need to go. I chose to meet up with some other travelers as I was experiencing some longer battles. For being new into the game, I wrote it up to being inexperienced and not having found my way yet. I will refer to my preview article here as I did thoroughly report on all the battle methods you learn at first. It becomes clear quite quickly that Octopath Traveler pretty much forces you to use the same attack patterns to effectively lead a combat situation to fruition. If you do not follow the system, prepare for some very long battles. One of my first big battles took me near 14 minutes. At the beginning of the game no less.
Once I started picking up other travelers, I also started encountering more dangerous monsters and as long as I made sure to buy all the needed items to either stay alive or upgrade my weapons, I made it through most battles without breaking a sweat. Long battles, sure, but still somewhat enjoyable. I do love how H’aanit is able to capture animals and use them in battle, though only her own companion Linde, the snow leopard, is able to keep attacking. All other captured animals can just attack a few times.
Octopath Traveler is a great game, but I must say it has some parts that can get tiresome. I read somewhere this game was supposed to be very lengthy. As I have not finished it, I most certainly can not vouch for this, but how some battles go on and on… I think it might even break the 200 hour mark. Again, at the time of writing this review I did not finish the game and can not say how long it lasts, this is for you to experience yourself.
Like mentioned in my preview, there is a demo available which lasts 3 hours and the save data transfers! This is how a demo is supposed to be, not forcing you to experience the first few hours again. I commend them for bringing such a great feature to the game and eshop.
In conclusion, I think the game is aptly called Octopath Traveler, a great new approach to one of my beloved genres. I dislike the feeling of certain combats being dragged on and on and on. So yes, I have a bit of a mixed feeling in regards to the review and how to score it. The novelty of this approach versus the forced way to fight swiftly. I think the storytelling is the main attraction and my rating is 75%.
