Notice I didn’t say I finished Octopath Traveler proper, or that I finished “the whole story” or anything like that. When I beat H’aanit’s chapter 4 boss, the credits rolled and I got the option to take her out of the party at that point. So in a sense you could say I did finish the game. But once I had cleared all the final bosses for all eight paths, all progress just stopped. A few new side quests opened up but that was it. No new credits, no “Thanks for playing,” no nothing. The game kept going but there was nothing left to do, or so it seemed.
I was more than a little confused by this turn of events so I took to the ever-trusty Google to find out all the tedious and obscure requirements to unlock the final, “true” ending of the game. Octopath Traveler was good all along about providing clear guidance about where to go and how to proceed to progress the story. I never expected them to throw something like this at me in the final instance. So those of us who like to play without referring to a FAQ should just take a hike?
It’s been about two weeks since I completed the chapters. I was holding off on saying anything because I thought I’d miss the game and somehow feel compelled to complete the extra quests for the true ending. But the longer I waited, the more disillusioned I felt. 50-60 hours of gameplay for a lukewarm non-ending. And this is a game from Square-Enix, the largely undisputed masters of JRPGs. This is why I’m turning into a casual player. The “big name” games cost so much, and in the end all you’re left with is a hollow feeling and a ton of wasted time.
All the things I wanted to say about Octopath Traveler are stuck in my mouth because of that hollow feeling. I played a bunch of fairly interesting stories, fought some battles, the battle system wasn’t bad, the music was nice. It was okay. Now I just want to go back to my Happy Color and Picross. At least when I’m done with a picture, I feel like I really achieved something.
The article mentions an “extremely difficult dungeon” and points out that this “true” ending doesn’t even provide all the answers a player may want… Why, that sounds like a total scam! I’ll definitely give that extra dungeon a hard pass when I replay the game. 😜
Hehe, “total scam.” Okay, I am overreacting a bit, but I’m still disappointed at the poor non-ending.
And there goes all my motivation for ever trying this game. Just like I never got into the Bravely Default series because I heard the first one has time travel crap that forces you to go through the same content 3 or 4 times. It’s amazing how much BS Square Enix is allowed to get away with and still have their games be highly praised. I’d rather play something from a ‘crappier’ company like IF or Kemco; at least they have the decency to respect my time a bit more in most of their titles (looking at you, True Ending requirements for Omega Quintet) and don’t pretend to be anything more than what they are.
Hopefully the new TWEWY game is good, cause couple this with the fact I’ve never cared for Kingdom Hearts, and all SE has given me these past few years is Dragon Quest 11 and the Dragon Quest Builders spin-offs.
Bravely Default was such garbage, I still regret wasting my time with it. But Octopath I would actually recommend for fans of old school JRPGs, as long as you go in aware that you’re going to need a FAQ and/or a lot of patience to get the true ending. I was upset because I was blindsided, but it wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d known it up front.
You just reminded me that I meant to try Dragon Quest 11…
Octopath Traveler sort of strikes me as having some talent working on it but not a strong cohesive vision to pull it all together, which probably explains the bizarre decisions like this one.
Actually that kind of sums up the division as a whole – there’s a lot of games where I could say with a little push could become the ones people remember but didn’t quite make it, but the BD’s team tend to have mistakes that are very blatantly boneheaded.
BD team really should have known better. The people who okayed all five time loops should be whipped and fired.
Octopath IMO was a good first attempt with some rough edges that could be worked out with time… except the true ending thing. I’ve been trying to look past it, but it was a really poor finish to a promising game. It would have been preferable if there was no true ending at all, and they just rolled end credits and said “Thanks for playing!” at the end.