Hot off my preview from a few weeks back, SQUARE ENIX’s ‘OCTOPATH TRAVELER 0’ has been my go-to game since. It’s no surprise, really, because the publisher’s latest turn-based Japanese role-playing game is lengthy as all hell—simply pursuing the main story will take well over 70 hours and that assuming you can even best the bosses that stand in your way much less missing out on some of the best aspects of the game.
In OCTOPATH 0, players take on the role of their own created character as a resident of a small, dainty little town known only as Wishvale. It’s your toon’s coming-of-age day and they’re ready to join the watch and protect the town. Unfortunately, after the discovery of a ring of power known only as “Aelfric’s Ring” in a cavern nearby, the discount league of evil becomes alerted to this fact and they show up with armies in hand to raze and pillage your entire hometown. With naught left but the shirt on your back and what few survivors remain scattered across the world, you and your childhood friend Stia eventually build up the energy to do what must be done: rebuild Wishvale and stop the bad guys that upended your lives.
But the ambitions of OCTOPATH 0 are far grander than this “tiny”, little premise. A whole world quite literally awaits.
Eight Hands at Your Beck ‘n Call
I have a disdain for the original OCTOPATH TRAVELER. Released back in 2018, it was essentially a tale told through multiple stories that eventually “converged” into one, but the characters in each of those stories never once interacted. It was what I could best describe as a classroom of students that don’t want to work with each other but have no choice in the matter. A game where absolutely no interaction happens between the player and their environment is one thing, but when the environment doesn’t even amongst itself? It was the very antithesis of what video games have been trying to do for decades and I simply couldn’t stand it.
So, I am very grateful to see that this set up is not present in OCTOPATH TRAVELER 0. Your playable character touches upon the lives of countless characters within Wishvale and the many stories you encounter, be it part of the overarching narrative or side stories. You can interact with well over a hundred non-playable characters, learn more about their background through brief paragraphs about their character, and even invite them to be part of your growing hometown of Wishvale or as helpers out in the battlefield. Interaction also extends to party members, where you’ll be able to check out plenty of skits that feature the characters you’ve amassed over the course of the game—plenty of them being very amusing to catch up on and are worth the watch.
And you can’t just ignore people, either. They’ll have valuable materials that will aid you on your journey, provided you can entreat and contend with them and not sully your reputation in the process. Watch out for that Level 60 grandma—she packs a hell of a punch.
(SQUARE ENIX)
Now, OCTOPATH isn’t just eight stories converging into one. Well, sort of anyway, but I’ll leave that to you to find out. No, what I mean here is that battles in this game consist of eight party members including your playable character. Your toon is special as they can swap between multiple jobs to account for any deficits within the party, but a strong team consists of good damage dealers and healers between the front and back rows, which you’ll be switching between in plentiful amounts to use your party’s various weaponries to stagger foes. Breaking their guard is key and really, the faster you end fights the better off you are—OCTOPATH 0 heavily discourages not exploiting weaknesses as the gulf between damage values is fairly substantial. Not to mention that foes will happily take every chance they get to fire off strong attacks which are best avoided if you can break their stance and force them to forfeit their turns.
OCTOPATH’s combat is, at least compared to what I’ve been playing lately, deceptively simple. It is a bog-standard turn-based RPG that relies on its large party and unit-swapping gimmick to stand out. And yet it’s a lot of fun as nothing quite beats breaking an opponents guard last minute all the while powerful heals and passives activate to help you deal massive damage against your foes. The rings you collect will also help plenty as they will help you deal massive damage or very helpful buffs slash debuffs for when the going gets tough. Speaking of which, I highly suggest grabbing elemental boosts lest you walk into some fights unprepared—there’s no difficulty options here, just the old-school last save point of shame.
Combat prowess isn’t just key to your success: teambuilding is essential, which is why you should not only focus on fighting but meeting new characters and rebuilding Wishvale.
Home. At least, it was…
Unsurprisingly, after being torched, Wishvale is in tatters. Rubble lies everywhere, foliage peaks out of every orifice as Mother Nature claims what is her own. It’s an ugly mess and unfortunately, the clean up job falls unto you, Stia, and Phenn. Rebuilding Wishvale is the game’s second overarching narrative mission, which grows alongside your adventure to reclaim the rings of power that were bestowed by the gods but ultimately used for nefarious purposes. Now this isn’t just a typical side story that you’ll complete when you’re out of ideas on what to do to progress the main story—Wishvale’s recovery is a tiny city building mechanic of its own.
I say tiny because it really isn’t all that interesting of a system. You don’t get a lot of options to work with in the beginning and you can’t clear all the rubble at once. Instead, you have to level up the town over time by completing the objectives listed under the questline. And you really don’t get to add your finishing touches until, maybe, thirty hours into the game. At least in my case, as I was focused on completing side quests and exploring the game world. But even then, once you’ve gotten around to setting up the facilities the game mandates you place, there isn’t any life in Wishvale. It’s a very static system and ultimately I only placed objects when the game told me to so that I could progress. And, well, of course, that occasional moment of being side tracked into trying to be creative. Woe is me.
The best part of Wishvale’s recovery isn’t in the facilities you build (though they are helpful, such as the merchant’s shoppe and the training facility), but the stories within it. As part of the questline, you’ll occasionally hunt down the whereabouts of survivors and listen to them sort their feelings out after they’ve lost everything. Not everyone is willing to come back so adamantly, however, and that’s where your skills as a peacemaker come in, o pure of heart. I would say that these character stories are the best part of OCTOPATH 0 because I’m not particularly keen on the main narrative arcs.
(SQUARE ENIX)
It’s hard for me to discuss the story without spoiling things, because OCTOPATH TRAVELER 0’s main narrative branch is far bigger than you’re expected to believe at first glance. The rings of power are a contentious point, being used for evil by the worst-of-the-worst that you can imagine. So evil they are, that the people who make those books for dummies will likely call SQUARE and let them know that while they are happy that their “Ethics for Dummies” likely helped with how to craft the biggest scumbags imaginable, they likely weren’t expecting the publisher to make characters this awful. So much so is the story of good triumphs over truly terrible evil played straight for the majority of the game’s runtime that I ultimately found the overarching narrative to be a chore; blocking my path to the more interesting character stories scattered all over OCTOPATH 0. You can only exploit shock value so much, you know, and this game will scatter flesh into the wind like a server rack fire sale when the LLM bubble inevitably pops.
It’s a good thing that the cutscenes are carried by the company’s signature HD2D pixel art style, which still breathes new life into the way sprites can be interpreted by the player through bountiful particle effects and the perfect lighting. Yasunori Nishiki also makes a return and that man is just so good at creating pleasant fantasy tunes, particularly the sandy dunes of the overworld or some of the combat themes. And though I found the story to be a chore, there were some shining moments that, again, were portrayed through character development and the completion of their desires to see a brighter future for all. Oh, and sometimes the voice acting is good. It’s not the actors, I just thought that the direction was rather… Bland at times.
Oh right, before I forget, I played OCTOPATH 0 on several Windows-based PCs and my ROG Ally Extreme running Bazzite. The game had absolutely zero (hah!) issues running at its maximum frame cap of 120FPS and the ROG even managed to push 4k at a decent framerate from what I could tell. Best of all, for my keyboard warriors, the game is fully playable with just your keyboard! I used a controller maybe a handful of times, but I preferred smashing away at my keys, especially when a main story cutscene popped into the viewport.
OCTOPATH TRAVELER 0 is a damn good JRPG. The world, despite my grievances with the main story, is interesting and fun to explore when the game lets you. Wishvale’s rebirth’s best parts aren’t the uninteresting city building but, again, the stories of the characters within. With great music and visuals accompanying all this, you can’t go wrong with SQUARE ENIX’s latest turn-based title. ∎
OCTOPATH TRAVELER 0
Played on
PC
PROS
- Lovely visuals, art style, and fantastic music.
- Great character stories and sidequests.
- Combat systems lets you employ lots of strategies.
- Strong job system.
CONS
- Overarching narrative is a snore.
- The city building aspect of Wishvale isn't particularly interesting.
