OCTOPATH TRAVELER

Octopath Traveler is a Square Enix JRPG created for Nintendo Switch. The game offers everyone to play eight main characters, each of which has its own class, personality, and gameplay mechanics. As the story progresses, all the characters sooner or later will meet, but their storylines will remain “personalized”.

All these characters will explore a beautiful, 16-bit magic world with plenty of riddles, challenges, and legends. So if you are ready for beguiling adventure, download Octopath Traveler. To know more about the game before playing, faster read our Octopath Traveler review.  

Graphics – 5/5

The first conspicuous feature of Octopath Traveler is the visual style of the game. Pixel 16-bit art places in a three-dimensional world with dynamic lighting, a particle system, and other graphic HD-delights.

The atmosphere in the game is very cozy, and it all thanks to the game artists and designers. The unusual visual style that the authors call HD-2D may not be appealing to everyone, but it does a great job with the main task of offering the graphics of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System era, making it more modern.

Here, the “pixel” two-dimensional characters walk through cute three-dimensional locations with a beautiful lighting model and lots of details. The glittering snow drifts, the blinding desert, the mysterious forest - outwardly they all noticeably different, although they are structurally similar: curved paths with paths leading to chests.

In addition to the perfect visuals, there is perfectly-matched background music. The sweet sounds of flutes, acoustic guitars and Irish accordions with medieval tunes accompany you through the game. When a fight begins, the electric guitars, drums, violins, and tambourines join the orchestra to make it sound tougher.  

Gameplay – 5/5

There are eight main characters in the game, and the first letters of their names together form the word OCTOPATH. They all live on the continent of Osterra and don’t know about the existence of each other. And they may never know — only you decide who will meet another one. The first character you choose will be the main one. The rest of the characters can be met along your way.  

Each hero has its own reason to travel along Osterra. For example, Primrose avenges the death of her father, tracking down his killers: her story is the darkest compared to the rest. Cheerful girl Tressa receives a diary of a wanderer as a gift and goes on his trail. Each character — new story and unique skills.

Everyone also differs in battle. Alfyn can do alchemy and mix ingredients, Olberic is stronger than the rest, Tressa steals gold from severely wounded enemies, Primrose has the funniest power: to produce a random effect that can either greatly help or harm.

The combat system in Octopath Traveler is based on the vulnerabilities of enemies. When you encounter a new opponent, the player sees squares with questions under his figure: there will appear icons indicating how to damage the opponent’s health. And next to these icons there is a shield icon with a number indicating how many times it is necessary to hit the enemy in order to beat him. If it works, the enemy will be stunned and will miss his next move. Fighting in Octopath Traveler is pretty exciting, especially if opponents are stronger than you.

As you progress through the game, you learn a lot about every hero and each characters' past.

Controls – 5/5

Octopath Traveler offers a convenient system of controls. The battle mechanics do not require furious button-mashing from players. On Nintendo, use L-Stick / D-Pad to move a character or select category, X    to enter the Main Menu, A to confirm or select, B to cancel or dash, Y to path action. All the controls are straightforward and intuitive. Even the novice will quickly enter the gaming process.

Replay Value – 5/5

For ten hours of playing, the player can explore almost the entire map, visit all the cities of Orsterra and complete the first chapter for each character. That is, go through eight chapters and dungeons with bosses, destroy a lot of monsters, open almost the whole world for quick movement.

Octopath Traveler offers lots of content: so many locations to discover, so many characters to get to know. The game is definitely worth replaying.

The Bottom Line

A charming story with many possibilities and discoveries along the sights of beautiful Orsterra really worth your attention. Download Octopath Traveler to immerse into the unique atmosphere of wonders.

• Graphics 5
• Gameplay 5
• Controls 5
• Replay Value 5

Pros

Retro spirit.
Lots of content.
Addictive gameplay.
Stunning graphics.

Cons

Only key characters are voiced.
The game is rather slow at the beginning.