Octopath Traveler 0 Review - All Paths Lead Here
I was an instant convert to the Square-Enix HD-2D Engine titles. With the games evoking the glory days of the Super Nintendo and boasting a crisp, modern layer that helped them pop off your screen, I was sold on how they looked immediately, beginning with the original Octopath Traveler in 2018. But it cannot be all style and no substance, and despite it being brilliant in a host of ways, Octopath Traveler was critiqued for its storytelling and the disjointed connection between story arcs within the larger narrative. That feedback was taken on board and effectively acted on in the lead-up to the release of the 2023 release, Octopath Traveler II, and the title was significantly improved for the increased focus. Between core releases, however, there was Octopath Traveler: Champions Of The Continent, a mobile-only release that returned to the world of Osterra, and gave players a new take on the franchise. Being a modern mobile game, there were gacha systems layered atop the game’s free-to-play core, but all of that has been stripped out, and the core game reworked to underpin the release of Octopath Traveler 0, a reimagining of Champions Of The Continent, that exceeds what the original achieved in every respect.
Where previous Octopath Traveler titles have focused on eight individuals and their stories that collide and diverge at a range of different stages, Octopath Traveler 0 is more traditional, focusing on the villains and asking players to navigate a series of story arcs around each of those, which will then come together later on in an epic finale. This allows the storytelling to be more targeted than we’re used to from other Octopath Traveler games, and feels more akin to a traditional Final Fantasy game because the scope of the plot is much smaller. Simultaneously, story events that transpire in the game’s prologue lead to your beloved home town of Wishvale being burned to the ground, and the rebuild coming next. As players work towards exacting revenge on the culprits, the witch Hermania, the leader of the Scarlet Wing army, Tytos, and the famous playwright, Auguste, they will also be working to reconstruct the fallen remains of Wishvale, as a series of main missions unlock that facilitate just that.
I was deeply facilitate by the game’s primary story arc, but as well as this, there are dozens of characters that can join your party roster, and while you can only bring eight with you at any given time, I was fascinated by the opportunity to explore the backstories of many who come into your orbit, and go on to potentially become members of the party. It is well worth exploring the many nooks of neighbouring townships to see who might be there with a story to be explored, as they could become one of the next main members of your combat outfit, while simultaneously providing excellent world-building and narrative depth.
As well as working through a relatively accessible town-building mechanic, Octopath Traveler is, at its centre, a very traditional JRPG. This means turn-based combat, menus, XP to be distributed, and more. It’s in this regard that Octopath Traveler 0 stays true to the foundations laid by prior games. Party members can be equipped with one or two different weapons, which can be alternated between at their next turn in combat, allowing the player to exploit the exposed weaknesses of enemies. Where previous Octopath titles would allow you to only take four combatants into an encounter, Octopath Traveler allows for eight, with four of those in reserve, ready to be swapped in at any moment. The addition of these four other fighters allows you to get more strategic in the way you choose to party up, the way you mix the abilities, and even how and when you swap someone out. Benched party members accumulate BP (Boost Points) at the same rate as your active characters, allowing longer stretches of combo abilities to exact as much pain on the opponent as you can, and even to just afford certain characters who have been bashed up in combat, something of a break. As each chapter of the game progresses, the difficulty rises, more variables are introduced into the mix, and more level grinding and clever play are required by the player to succeed. The systems all intermingle incredibly well and make Octopath Traveler 0 one of the deepest experiences in the market today.
While there are several new additions to the formula, the core of the Octopath Traveler IP has been preserved, from the way that BP is used to stack additional attacks, bolstering your damage output or restorative potency, to the ability to break enemies if you strike them with enough techniques that they’re vulnerable to. This even extends to the myriad of ways you can interact with NPCs, where you can explore a range of options, from haggling the prices down of items they’re selling, to leveraging goodwill to get free loot, fighting them to add them to your Wishvale community, or probing for additional information.
Earlier, I highlighted my love of the look of the HD-2D games, beginning with the original Octopath Traveler. While Octopath Traveler 0, perhaps due to its mobile roots, is somewhat inferior to Octopath Traveler II in the visual front, there’s no arguing that the game has a beautiful, retro look to it. The detailing on a number of the environmental elements isn’t up to the same standard that we’d previously seen in other designed-for-console entries, suggesting that some might have simply been lifted from the mobile release and polished to an HD sheen. Setting these minor visual blemishes aside, Octopath Traveler 0 is a searingly good-looking game. The game’s soundtrack also meets the mark with a wonderful orchestrated score, and the voice acting included in the experience is also of an impressive quality as well. With a cast of characters as vast as what Octopath Traveler boasts, there are certainly some performances that are weaker than others, but none that you could define as poor.
Octopath Traveler 0 is going to set you back close to 100 hours by the time you have explored all that is contained within the world of Orsterra. I would have been perfectly satisfied with another franchise entry that simply continued on where Octopath Traveler II left off, but the additions made to the franchise’s core, spliced in with Champions Of The Content and the changes made to its DNA, make Octopath Traveler 0 an incredibly engaging and constantly enticing prospect. The Path Of Restoration begins now, and I hope you’re along for the ride.
Octopath Traveler 0 was reviewed on PS5 with a code kindly provided by Square-Enix.
