I don't know if there's a protocol for making spoiler threads like there is for OTs. Mods feel free to lock this for that or any other reason I didn't think of.
The game's only been out for a week and some change, but several people I know have beaten the game and I'm assuming many others have as well. So I'd like to have a place on ERA to discuss the game in its entirety, without any concern about spoilers and such. This is a very spoilery game, for instance it appears at first glance that Alfyn and Tressa's stories have little to do with the "main plot" (inasmuch as the main plot is even apparent for the majority of the game). In reality, it's quite the contrary; because both of those stories deal directly with Graham Crossford, they're arguably the most central to understanding the overarching narrative and how all the chess pieces have come together to finally give Lyblac a shot at reviving Galdera.
So I'll start it off with the elephant in the room, which is the bait and switch (in my opinion a masterful one) between seeming like a game about loosely-connected character stories, but in reality being a legitimate, full-blown "save the world from dark god" JRPG filtered through the lens of character vignettes. I just love the way that these seemingly innocuous connections between the stories, as well as the recurring names/characters like Crossford, Hornsburg, Gate of Finis, etc., are easily missable or can be ignored - and end up being critically important later on. I thought even the way you access the final dungeon was awesome; what starts off as this filler fetch quest sidequest to help Kit, and spends a lot of time mucking around as a generic questline helping him fit into a group of actors and such, ends up ramping up into this colossal beast of a sidequest that, well, ends up not being a sidequest at all - it's the main quest, and at the end of this filler questline is the true final boss and the true ending of the game.
That, in and of itself, is something that I think Octopath should be commended for. It's not simply a "twist"; it's a deliberate setup that feeds back into the themes of everyone having their own story, everyone having their own journey in which other characters, who may or may not be cosmically important in the big scheme of things, play insignificant roles. Octopath Traveler is Kit's story. Kit is the JRPG protagonist, going on a search for his father; finding a party to travel with; and so forth. Kit is the one who meets his parents again at the end, and is the chosen one from an illustrious bloodline. The eight stories we play through aren't the center at all; they orbit around this other, seemingly innocuous center, and it's not until the incredible revelations in the final dungeon that everything comes together and we realize that a literal apocalypse was brewing right under our noses. Then, in one of the most awesome implementations I've seen of the very traditional "power of friendship" themes, we come together as eight travelers, only tangentially related to Kit in any way, to save him from the utter destruction that he would've faced if he was alone. In my opinion it's a pretty bold subversion, not just of our expectations, but of JRPG conventions in general.
Another facet of this is Lyblac herself. It was quite clear from several of the eight stories that there is some kind of shadowy, sinister group orchestrating a lot of events. But the really interesting part is that, generally speaking, none of these villains of the eight character stories are currently involved with Lyblac. The eight stories are effectively sidestories dealing with the individuals and situations previously affected by Lyblac's involvement; however, at the moment, Lyblac isn't helping any of them, and is instead in the final phases of searching for Kit and bringing him to Hornburg. It was a really satisfying feeling for me to see these bizarre loose ends morph into these sinister plot threads that eventually come to a head in a battle where the stakes are absurdly high.
I'll post about other aspects of the game more, but for the moment I'm curious what you all thought of the plot as a whole (or any individual part of it, such as any self-contained character story), or any other spoilery aspect of the game.
The game's only been out for a week and some change, but several people I know have beaten the game and I'm assuming many others have as well. So I'd like to have a place on ERA to discuss the game in its entirety, without any concern about spoilers and such. This is a very spoilery game, for instance it appears at first glance that Alfyn and Tressa's stories have little to do with the "main plot" (inasmuch as the main plot is even apparent for the majority of the game). In reality, it's quite the contrary; because both of those stories deal directly with Graham Crossford, they're arguably the most central to understanding the overarching narrative and how all the chess pieces have come together to finally give Lyblac a shot at reviving Galdera.
So I'll start it off with the elephant in the room, which is the bait and switch (in my opinion a masterful one) between seeming like a game about loosely-connected character stories, but in reality being a legitimate, full-blown "save the world from dark god" JRPG filtered through the lens of character vignettes. I just love the way that these seemingly innocuous connections between the stories, as well as the recurring names/characters like Crossford, Hornsburg, Gate of Finis, etc., are easily missable or can be ignored - and end up being critically important later on. I thought even the way you access the final dungeon was awesome; what starts off as this filler fetch quest sidequest to help Kit, and spends a lot of time mucking around as a generic questline helping him fit into a group of actors and such, ends up ramping up into this colossal beast of a sidequest that, well, ends up not being a sidequest at all - it's the main quest, and at the end of this filler questline is the true final boss and the true ending of the game.
That, in and of itself, is something that I think Octopath should be commended for. It's not simply a "twist"; it's a deliberate setup that feeds back into the themes of everyone having their own story, everyone having their own journey in which other characters, who may or may not be cosmically important in the big scheme of things, play insignificant roles. Octopath Traveler is Kit's story. Kit is the JRPG protagonist, going on a search for his father; finding a party to travel with; and so forth. Kit is the one who meets his parents again at the end, and is the chosen one from an illustrious bloodline. The eight stories we play through aren't the center at all; they orbit around this other, seemingly innocuous center, and it's not until the incredible revelations in the final dungeon that everything comes together and we realize that a literal apocalypse was brewing right under our noses. Then, in one of the most awesome implementations I've seen of the very traditional "power of friendship" themes, we come together as eight travelers, only tangentially related to Kit in any way, to save him from the utter destruction that he would've faced if he was alone. In my opinion it's a pretty bold subversion, not just of our expectations, but of JRPG conventions in general.
Another facet of this is Lyblac herself. It was quite clear from several of the eight stories that there is some kind of shadowy, sinister group orchestrating a lot of events. But the really interesting part is that, generally speaking, none of these villains of the eight character stories are currently involved with Lyblac. The eight stories are effectively sidestories dealing with the individuals and situations previously affected by Lyblac's involvement; however, at the moment, Lyblac isn't helping any of them, and is instead in the final phases of searching for Kit and bringing him to Hornburg. It was a really satisfying feeling for me to see these bizarre loose ends morph into these sinister plot threads that eventually come to a head in a battle where the stakes are absurdly high.
I'll post about other aspects of the game more, but for the moment I'm curious what you all thought of the plot as a whole (or any individual part of it, such as any self-contained character story), or any other spoilery aspect of the game.
