Octopath Traveler: Preview Thread

Only the linear JRPGs with set & designed party members have traditionally had a lot of party interactions. Non-linear open-world JRPGs tend to be as devoid of them as WRPGs.

SaGa, Etrian, several Dragon Quests, Metal Max, mainline SMT, and Pokemon essentially don't have party interactions in the ways that people are treating as genre norms.

scare_crow said:

He wrote a entire review on the game. Go read that if you want to know why he thinks it's trash.

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People in the OP wrote entire previews for the game. You can go read why they think the game is a classic or whatever, then. Dismissing their opinions as hyperbole is fine?

scare_crow said:

He wrote a entire review on the game. Go read that if you want to know why he thinks it's trash.

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I know his taste and his dislike toward Xenoblade series. I don't need to read his same review again and again lol. He like game that i hate like NnK series and FFXV. There is no such thing as me understanding his taste there. But at least, i don't go to call FFXV is trash in other game thread lol.

So the whole reason they have the preorder sticker set is so you can stick them to your screen when you are in a cutscene so you don't feel like there is a lack of character interaction or even experience... gasp... ludonarrative dissonance.

I am ready to love you Octopath.

Fishsnot said:

That is a shame if true throughout the whole game.
Maybe after Chapter 2 or deeper into the game things will change?

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According to Jason who is in chapter 3 there isn't much so far.

Phantom Thief said:

You can say "I dislike Xenoblade 2, and found its flaws to overwhelm what few things I appreciated" instead of "Xenoblade 2 is garbage".

One is a nuanced and balanced statement. The other is dismissive hyperbole, which, ironically, is exactly what Jason was speaking out against earlier in the thread.

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He wrote an entire, long, nuanced review of the game. Read that. He doesn't have to trot out a bullet point list whenever some anime avatar comes at him saying "I don't like your opinion about the game I love!!!!!"

scare_crow said:

He wrote a entire review on the game. Go read that if you want to know why he thinks it's trash.

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Hey bud, you're on the wrong side here.

Phantom Thief said:

People in the OP wrote entire previews for the game. You can go read why they think the game is a classic or whatever, then. Dismissing their opinions as hyperbole is fine?

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scare_crow said:

He wrote an entire, long, nuanced review of the game. Read that. He doesn't have to trot out a bullet point list whenever some anime avatar comes at him saying "I don't like your opinion about the game I love!!!!!"

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^

Why is he allowed to dismiss the previews as "worshiping at the altar of hyperbole" then?

Phantom Thief said:

People in the OP wrote entire previews for the game. You can go read why they think the game is a classic or whatever, then. Dismissing their opinions as hyperbole is fine?

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He just said "I might hold off on the 'all time classic' label." (Or something to that effect.) He disagrees. If you disagree with his opinion on XB2, then fine. That's a-ok.

Okay, I'm hyped as fuck.

Phantom Thief said:

You can say "I dislike Xenoblade 2, and found its flaws to overwhelm what few things I appreciated" instead of "Xenoblade 2 is garbage".

One is a nuanced and balanced statement. The other is dismissive hyperbole, which, ironically, is exactly what Jason was speaking out against earlier in the thread.

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As usual, right on the mark.

casiopao said:

FF 6...... had gameplay variety?...... like......wut?

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Yeah, that's one of the weirdest things I've heard today. I mean, I love the game to bits but its variety came from its characters, it sure as hell didn't come from its gameplay.

The biggest problem I see people having is going into this game with preconceived notions and expectations from certain games, then being disappointed when they realize it's not what it's not

Vesper said:

Hey bud, you're on the wrong side here.

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Hey bud, hey pal, hey buddy, he doesn't like a game you like. You'll be ok, bud.

Meelow said:

Octopath Traveler |OT| Final Fantasy XVI

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Hahaa, perfect!

Yeah that confused me as well. The demo made me appreciate the gameplay for Octopath the FFVI?

Phantom Thief said:

You can say "I dislike Xenoblade 2, and found its flaws to overwhelm what few things I appreciated" instead of "Xenoblade 2 is garbage".

One is a nuanced and balanced statement. The other is dismissive hyperbole, which, ironically, is exactly what Jason was speaking out against earlier in the thread.

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Exactly this. Imagine this forum if all "opinions" were one-liners exagerating something...

Cinemikel said:

The biggest problem I see people having is going into this game with preconceived notions and expectations from certain games, then being disappointed when they realize it's not what it's not

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A game should be judged by what it is and what it wants to be, not by what people think it was going to be or what it should be.

In that case the problem will be of the people.

Plum said:

The review thread is going to be... exciting, to say the least.

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I'm still expecting low 80s. despite these previews, it will score well, I bet

jschreier said:

Sure, but the reason I am posting here is because everyone (including the director of the game) keeps making FFVI comparisons. Aside from the aesthetic style of the character sprites, this game is NOTHING like FFVI. If you're hoping for a new FFVI, look elsewhere.

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Could you comment on the games difficulty? I don't like easy rpgs like ni no kuni 2 and ff15, have you died a good bit in octopath so far?

I went through all of ff15s story and didn't die once

PlanetSmasher said:

Honestly, I think just based on the way the character recruitments go (talking to them in a town, characters exchange names and like half a sentence of context for who they are, a little "do you want to recruit this character Y/N" window pops up and then you have them), there's no real chance things will change.

They would've put more effort into the initial recruitment interactions if these characters were ever meant to be traveling companions.

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I'm currently replaying Tales of Symphonia on PC ... and just because the initial "recruitment" isn't fleshed out doesn't meant there can't be any meaningful interaction later in the game. Remember when Sheena or Regal were just persons who tried to kill Colette? Or Presea was the strange girl that just happened to come along after leaving Meltokio?

Comic Obsessed said:

Yeah, that's one of the weirdest things I've heard today. I mean, I love the game to bits but its variety came from its characters, it sure as hell didn't come from its gameplay.

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As usual, to make sure that a certain classic can be protected from its classic position, i can make up any silly and stupid thing as the buzzword lol.

PlanetSmasher said:

What I would've preferred is every character getting their own slate of optional party members who do matter, like SaGa Frontier. That way I feel like my party choices matter, AND my character isn't alone for the entire story.

The way they did it here is just disappointing. I'm forced to only use the eight story characters, and they made it so they never interact. It's the worst of both worlds.

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Is SaGa Frontier your only experience with SaGa game?
Having no party interactions is pretty standard for most SaGa game.
Frontier 1, 2 and U:SaGa are the only exceptions I think.
Seems like this game is more like RS1 and RS3.

casiopao said:

FF 6...... had gameplay variety?...... like......wut?

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Is this a joke? In the first 20 minutes, you're alternating between parties of Moogles to defend Terra from a gang of invading soldiers. Within the next hour you're stealing uniforms from merchants and soldiers, zipping through an underwater tunnel, uncovering the mysteries behind a ghost train, and feeding raw meat to a wild kid in order to convince him to join your party. Soon enough you're participating in an opera and stealing an airship. The game is constantly throwing new ideas at you, and although the combat system doesn't change much, nothing about the game feels repetitive because there's so much variety at every turn.

Octopath Traveler can be summed up as: Go to a new city, enter a new dungeon, fight boss, repeat. It's nothing like FFVI.

scare_crow said:

He just said "I might hold off on the 'all time classic' label." (Or something to that effect.) He disagrees. If you disagree with his opinion on XB2, then fine. That's a-ok.

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He could just have said he strongly disliked the game. Saying it's garbage is pure troll baiting.

The main thing I got from the gamexplain preview is that the character you start with can not be removed from your party, so I gotta.make sure I choose carefully.

Octopath Traveler |OT| Some people still hate JRPGS

That said, there does seem to be a weird hype that happens with JRPGS on this site (and others). We all want them to be excellent because of many reasons not the least of which is nostalgia. That and when you mix in the exclusivity, you have a pretty intense hype train.

Keep everything in perspective folks. Enjoy the ride.

scare_crow said:

He wrote a entire review on the game. Go read that if you want to know why he thinks it's trash.

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Yet the previews are just "garbage" yall full of it today lol

Cinemikel said:

The biggest problem I see people having is going into this game with preconceived notions and expectations from certain games, then being disappointed when they realize it's not what it's not

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This happens when the people who make the game name drop classics like Final Fantasy 6.

Every time people try to label another game as "the real new Final Fantasy" just because they didn't like the last FF game, it makes my skin crawl. I didn't like FFVIII - that doesn't mean I ran around calling other completely unrelated games "the ACTUAL Final Fantasy 8" just because I liked them more.

Interfectum said:

This happens when the people who make the game name drop classics like Final Fantasy 6.

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Unfortunately, it seems like they were doing this to build marketing hype and not because the two games have anything particularly in common.

Tibarn said:

Exactly this. Imagine this forum if all "opinions" were one-liners exagerating something...

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I wouldn't call that an opinion, I call that a "judgment"

Disclaimer said:

How, precisely, does FFVI have "gameplay variety"? It has some of the least gameplay variety of the Final Fantasies, and I adore the game.

Octopath has a deep character customization system through its job combinations and learned passives, very reminiscent of FFT. In FFVI, the optimal battle strategy was for everyone to learn the same spells from the same magicite, and forget their personal fight commands. (Of course, that's boring, and I'd much rather have Mog using dances while dragooning people.)

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The only thing I can think of would be the battles like the one with the Mogs joining you where you have to split into 3 teams and position them on the map to defend against incoming attackers.

There's also some sequences/set-pieces like on the river or the Ghost Train where you're going through automated battles.

And some people might think that running around on a world map is gameplay variety.

I'd agree that Octopath from what I've played has more gameplay variety mechanically and I love FFVI.

scare_crow said:

He just said "I might hold off on the 'all time classic' label." (Or something to that effect.) He disagrees. If you disagree with his opinion on XB2, then fine. That's a-ok.

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Go re-read the original post in the thread. He believes those people whose previews are cited may be hyperbolic, and that it's best to not be hyperbolic in your criticism. That's fine, I agree with him on that. No issues so far.
Two posts later, he goes and dismisses an entire game as "garbage". Which is even more reductive hyperbole than what he spoke out against (at least the presumed hyperbole in these previews is substantively backed up with what the folks playing the game liked). The irony and dissonance in these two statements was what people latched on to, and called him out on. No one has any issues with him disliking Xenoblade 2, he's allowed to, and there's enough in that game to dislike.

Raven117 said:

As usual, right on the mark.

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Yeah, thanks. Nothing against Jason, I generally respect his work (if clearly disagree with his opinions lol), but in this case the dissonance was almost unbearably ironic.

jschreier said:

Is this a joke? In the first 20 minutes, you're alternating between parties of Moogles to defend Terra from a gang of invading soldiers. Within the next hour you're stealing uniforms from merchants and soldiers, zipping through an underwater tunnel, uncovering the mysteries behind a ghost train, and feeding raw meat to a wild kid in order to convince him to join your party. Soon enough you're participating in an opera and stealing an airship. The game is constantly throwing new ideas at you, and although the combat system doesn't change much, nothing about the game feels repetitive because there's so much variety at every turn.

Octopath Traveler can be summed up as: Go to a new city, enter a new dungeon, fight boss, repeat. It's nothing like FFVI.

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None of those denote gameplay variety though. Just different scenarios based on the same gameplay systems.

jschreier said:

Is this a joke? In the first 20 minutes, you're alternating between parties of Moogles to defend Terra from a gang of invading soldiers. Within the next hour you're stealing uniforms from merchants and soldiers, zipping through an underwater tunnel, uncovering the mysteries behind a ghost train, and feeding raw meat to a wild kid in order to convince him to join your party. Soon enough you're participating in an opera and stealing an airship. The game is constantly throwing new ideas at you, and although the combat system doesn't change much, nothing about the game feels repetitive because there's so much variety at every turn.

Octopath Traveler can be summed up as: Go to a new city, enter a new dungeon, fight boss, repeat. It's nothing like FFVI.

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Honest question, how far into the game are you?

I'm not buying this if the story doesn't deliver.

jschreier said:

Is this a joke? In the first 20 minutes, you're alternating between parties of Moogles to defend Terra from a gang of invading soldiers. Within the next hour you're stealing uniforms from merchants and soldiers, zipping through an underwater tunnel, uncovering the mysteries behind a ghost train, and feeding raw meat to a wild kid in order to convince him to join your party. Soon enough you're participating in an opera and stealing an airship. The game is constantly throwing new ideas at you, and although the combat system doesn't change much, nothing about the game feels repetitive because there's so much variety at every turn.

Octopath Traveler can be summed up as: Go to a new city, enter a new dungeon, fight boss, repeat. It's nothing like FFVI.

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By this logic, you can put all 8 of the chapter 1s for each character into different gameplay scenarios and it's more varied than the ones you listed.

jschreier said:

Is this a joke? In the first 20 minutes, you're alternating between parties of Moogles to defend Terra from a gang of invading soldiers. Within the next hour you're stealing uniforms from merchants and soldiers, zipping through an underwater tunnel, uncovering the mysteries behind a ghost train, and feeding raw meat to a wild kid in order to convince him to join your party. Soon enough you're participating in an opera and stealing an airship. The game is constantly throwing new ideas at you, and although the combat system doesn't change much, nothing about the game feels repetitive because there's so much variety at every turn.

Octopath Traveler can be summed up as: Go to a new city, enter a new dungeon, fight boss, repeat. It's nothing like FFVI.

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That's... not gameplay variety. The actual gameplay is the same, it's just contextualized via different scenarios.

Great previews
Predicting 82 at Open Critic and Meta Critic.

Anything over 80 I'll be happy.

Alrus said:

None of those denote gameplay variety though. Just different scenarios based on the same gameplay systems.

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I mean, if that's the case, then Octopath has even less variety.

FFVI at least goes through the trouble of giving you interesting setpieces and sequences to navigate, even if yes, the core combat is always the same. The split-party sequences are really cool, and complex areas like Zozo were almost unheard of in RPGs at that point in times.

Octopath is just...slow. It's almost all dialogue, and the combat is incredibly rote early on.

Vesper said:

By this logic, you can put all 8 of the chapter 1s for each character into different gameplay scenarios and it's more varied than the ones you listed.

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It's really not, though. All of the Chapter 1s are a long-ass cutscene and then one dungeon with some easy, generally boring battles and then a boss fight. Mechanically they're almost completely interchangeable from what I've seen out of the four I tried.

*Guaraná said:

Great previews
Predicting 82 at Open Critic and Meta Critic.

Anything over 80 I'll be happy.

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Still holding out for 88 on Metacritic!

jschreier said:

Is this a joke? In the first 20 minutes, you're alternating between parties of Moogles to defend Terra from a gang of invading soldiers. Within the next hour you're stealing uniforms from merchants and soldiers, zipping through an underwater tunnel, uncovering the mysteries behind a ghost train, and feeding raw meat to a wild kid in order to convince him to join your party. Soon enough you're participating in an opera and stealing an airship. The game is constantly throwing new ideas at you, and although the combat system doesn't change much, nothing about the game feels repetitive because there's so much variety at every turn.

Octopath Traveler can be summed up as: Go to a new city, enter a new dungeon, fight boss, repeat. It's nothing like FFVI.

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I never been so lost on one being unable to separate a gameplay and story progression lol. You are the one who mention gameplay which constitute as the battle system, before and after the battle. And then suddenly you throw out......story? Thats not gameplay lol.

Let's fuckin' GOOO!

Interfectum said:

This happens when the people who make the game name drop classics like Final Fantasy 6.

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He was referencing the game mechanics of FFVI

In the same way he's referring to the game mechanics of FFV when saying Bravely Default is the spiritual successor

jschreier said:

Sure, but the reason I am posting here is because everyone (including the director of the game) keeps making FFVI comparisons. Aside from the aesthetic style of the character sprites, this game is NOTHING like FFVI. If you're hoping for a new FFVI, look elsewhere.

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Just to clarify: that wasn't the director of Octopath; it was the producer of Octopath (and Bravely Default) saying that "in terms of game mechanics, if Bravely Default was an evolution of Final Fantasy V, Octopath Traveler is an evolution of Final Fantasy VI." I don't know how true that is, but it was clearly a comparison focused on specific mechanic parallels, presumably mostly surrounding the combat system as I believe that is where Bravely Defauly took inspiration from FF V, not meant to imply that Octopath's storytelling structure is a carbon copy of FF VI's. (Although the back half of FF VI is a nonlinear trek to optionally recruit various characters, so there is a point of similiarity there!)

Cinemikel said:

He was referencing the game mechanics of FFVI

In the same way he's referring to the game mechanics of FFV when saying Bravely Default is the spiritual successor

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But the game mechanics in Octopath are nothing like the gameplay mechanics in FFVI.

PhazonBlazer said:

The main thing I got from the gamexplain preview is that the character you start with can not be removed from your party, so I gotta.make sure I choose carefully.

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I started with hannit in the demo like the gx guy and quite enjoyed her so I'll stick with her.

jschreier said:

Sure, but the reason I am posting here is because everyone (including the director of the game) keeps making FFVI comparisons. Aside from the aesthetic style of the character sprites, this game is NOTHING like FFVI. If you're hoping for a new FFVI, look elsewhere.

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This is untrue. The producer of the game said the mechanics of the game were viewed as an evolution of FF6. That's it.

jschreier said:

Is this a joke? In the first 20 minutes, you're alternating between parties of Moogles to defend Terra from a gang of invading soldiers. Within the next hour you're stealing uniforms from merchants and soldiers, zipping through an underwater tunnel, uncovering the mysteries behind a ghost train, and feeding raw meat to a wild kid in order to convince him to join your party. Soon enough you're participating in an opera and stealing an airship. The game is constantly throwing new ideas at you, and although the combat system doesn't change much, nothing about the game feels repetitive because there's so much variety at every turn.

Octopath Traveler can be summed up as: Go to a new city, enter a new dungeon, fight boss, repeat. It's nothing like FFVI.

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But that's not gameplay variety, that's narrative variety