aniki
Well, I cracked. I'd been thinking about Octopath Traveler daily since I finished the three-hour demo, even though I'd thought it hasn't really clocked with me, and now that payday has rolled around I couldn't really resist.
I'm a stubborn devotee of the classic, menu-driven, turn-based JRPG, which are pretty thin on the ground in this age of triple-A action games; this scratches an itch that I've had for a while.
About six hours in, I've found five of the eight playable characters, uncovered what looks like a third of the map, which would feel like a wiring pace except that I get the feeling there's a lot of stuff I've not discovered yet even in areas I've passed through on my travels and I've still not leveled up enough to take on chapter 2 of my first character's story.
I still wish there was a bit more colour saturation in the visuals, but there is thankfully more variety in landscapes than the demos had me believe; the depth of field is a little too aggressive at hiding any potential clifftop vistas but so far it's not gotten confused and blurred out the wrong thing, which is an improvement on some systems I've seen.
The stories feel quite fluffy and inconsequential so far (that they all follow a similar template in their opening chapter probably doesn't help) - they're all very low-stakes. Search for your missing mentor, locate a book that might have been stolen, go off on a fantasy gap year. I'm not going to be saving the world in this one, I'm pretty sure.
It makes a nice change of pace from the vaguely aimless stuff I've been playing recently though. Even the random battles are still mostly an enjoyable curiosity (though I'm sure that'll change eventually), the music is catchy, and the battle system is straightforward but has just enough tactics to keep me paying attention.
