Thoughts on the “10th Anniversary” of My RPG Blog

My RPG Blog 10th anniversaryPsst, did you know that November 1st, 2020 was the official 10th anniversary of My RPG Blog? Neither did I, which is why I’m posting this on November 9th. TBH I don’t acknowledge Nov. 1st 2010 as the start of this blog, because it actually started about a year and a half earlier. The Nov. 1st date only came about because of an accident that reset my blog, which is why the first 40-50 posts are all marked Nov 1st or 2nd.

When exactly did this blog start? I can’t recall the exact date, but it was a month or two before Devil Survivor came out because that’s one of the earliest games I blogged about. That put it around April-May 2009, which makes this blog roughly 11.5 years old. Wheeee! 🎊🎉🎂

I never thought I’d still be rambling away 11 years later on a blog I started out of boredom. And this is my 701st post too! That’s an average of… wait, I can do this… umm… more than 65 posts a year, or a little more than 1 per a week. I’m surprised it’s that high, because my pace has been highly sporadic in the past two or three years, and I’ve even taken whole months off from gaming. There was also that time I said I was planning to quit gaming entirely… but we don’t talk about that incident any more.

Thinking back, a lot has changed in the world since I started writing. Did smartphones even exist in 2009? I’m too lazy to Google it, but either way I didn’t get my first one until 2012-2013. It took a while longer for me to play games on it. From a world with hardly any smartphones to almost everyone having one. Even my nephew in kindergarten knows how to uninstall apps so he can install his favorite “Tom’s Gold Run.” More smartphones means more smartphone games, apps, the scourge of gacha, loot boxes, microtransactions… The gaming world has really changed.

Genres dropped, genres picked up

sony playstation image on tehvidya.comMy tastes in gaming have changed in those 10 years as well, but not by much. The tagline still says “RPGs, SRPGs and otome games,” but I haven’t played any Strategy RPGs since Stella Glow and Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia in 2017 and a failed attempt at Luminous Arc Infinity in 2019. Neither do I have the desire to do so. It’s not them, it’s me: my tastes have changed so now I favor either very simple games or more fast-paced ones, and SRPGs tend to be slow, plodding and complicated. Also I’ve played a LOT of them, so maybe I’ve just had enough.

I still play otome games sometimes, but I’ve stopped bothering with visual novels because they just don’t work for me. In fact I don’t acknowledge visual novels as games, but that’s my own problem. Nowadays I concentrate my otome gaming efforts on games like La Corda d’Oro from Koei-Tecmo, because they have the high production values, good writing and meaty gameplay I crave.

I’ve also gone off Harvest Moon entirely, even though it’s a series I absolutely loved 11.5 years ago. Again it’s not HM’s fault. It’s just that once I discovered Rune Factory which had all the farming and waifuing on top of exciting action RPG gameplay, there was no turning back. And maybe it is a little bit HM’s fault, because it’s just the same thing over and over again. There’s so much more to farming IRL, as I recently discovered when I tried to do some gardening to while away the time.

I was also a huge Atelier fan 11.5 years ago. Right now, I haven’t gone off it entirely, but… it’s getting there? ish? It’s hard to say anything negative when I’ve tried almost every game except Atelier Ryza and the spin-offs and finished most of them to boot. But I don’t feel that same fervent love for it any more. Now it’s just another RPG series I play when I get around to it. But again, I’ve played almost all the Atelier games in existence, so it’s a bit rich to be making such claims now😅.

On the other side, I’ve gotten increasingly into “casual” fare like the Picross series, Candy Crush Soda Saga, Granblue Fantasy and the late lamented Paradise Bay. I still don’t like puzzle games much, but I’m proud of the progress I’ve made in Picross, from leaving half the puzzles unfinished on the DS to voraciously devouring even the massive 40×30 Extra puzzles in Picross S4. I even went straight to Mega Picross when I started S3 recently, and nowadays I’ve stopped using the hint roulette, which I never thought was possible.

I never thought I would get into action RPGs this much either. Apart from the Rune Factory games, I was still a little scared of the genre when I started this blog, so I hardly played any until Phantasy Star Portable turned my life around. Okay, not literally, but seriously it was an eye-opener. Action RPGs are FUN! The boss battles are the best! Maybe in the next 10 years I’ll venture into regular action games where I can’t grind and level up my way to victory, like Monster Hunter and Legend of Zelda. Not any time soon though – if I were that interested, I would have tried them already.

Most memorable games of the past 11.5 years

Image of mario luigi yoshi on tehvidya.comNot a top 10, and not in any particular order. Just the games that have stayed with me the longest. A “top 10 favorites” list would be ideal for this kind of anniversary post, but I honestly don’t have one. I’m the kind of person who just moves on once I’m done with a game, and I’m also the kind of person who can see the flaws even in things I really love, so a top 10… the hurdle is high. It’s easier to just write games that were “memorable” for all the right and wrong reasons.

First is definitely the Terrible Trio of Tactical Guild, Elvandia Story and Kamiyo Gakuen. 😆😆😆 Not only did I have a blast playing them because they were so bad, but they also represent an era of my life that is long past. The era where I had the time and energy to press on through crappy games and poor gameplay just for the lulz and even find joy in the chaos. Nowadays I wouldn’t even start them, and if I did, I would drop them super quickly.

Then there are the games that got a big emotional rise out of me, positive and negative. Definitely negative in the case of Sol Trigger… the two posts I did on that game are some of the most satisfying things I’ve ever written. And in retrospect I guess it wasn’t THAT bad. But again I would drop a game like that in a heartbeat if I played it now.

And now that I think of it, many of my positive and negative game memories are linked to the late developer Imageepoch. I really liked the Luminous Arc series, especially Luminous Arc 3: Eyes, Last Ranker, Criminal Girls, the 7th Dragon games. Even Stella Glow with all its flaws had fun gameplay. Almost all the games they made for other companies were great while their JRPG imprint was 💩 💩 💩 💩. But at least they tried, right?

Still on the positive side, much thanks go out to Phantasy Star Portable, which got me into ARPGs in a major way. And I still smile whenever I think of Nayuta no Kiseki, one of my top 10 games if I had a top 10.

Much love also goes to Entaku no Seito, a.k.a. Students of the Round, which is getting a localized remake known as Saviors of Sapphire Wings. Check it out if you get the chance. I’d played other dungeon crawlers before that one, but mostly third person. (Oh, and Class of Heroes. Which I couldn’t get into but maybe I should try it again). I enjoyed Entaku no Seito so much that I went on to play other first-person dungeon crawlers from Experience Inc. and even tried the Etrian Odyssey series. And I’ve been planning to try more Wizardry and Elminage games as well.

Also much love to Shiren the Wanderer for introducing me to roguelikes, though I quickly discovered that I prefer rogue-lites. As far as quality and depth goes, the Shiren games stand head and shoulder above other games I’ve tried in the genre (which aren’t many, TBH), but I still think fondly of the easier ones like Dungeon of Windaria and Dramatic Dungeon Sakura Taisen. Speaking of which, I really enjoyed playing the first three Sakura Taisen games as well.

Oh, just remembered another game I absolutely loved: Shepherd’s Crossing 2. I played it 3, 4, 5 times? And wrote several posts about it. I want to play it one more time before giving the DS away. I thoroughly enjoyed the gritty simplicity and casual brutality of the game. Too bad the series never went anywhere.

Thinking… thinking… many other games come to mind. I remember a lot of disappointments as well – titles I started with high hopes that quickly flagged as the game dragged on. For example, compare the first, second and final posts on Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. Or the first, second and third on Tokyo Majin Gakuen… Plenty of other games went through the same treatment, but these are the ones that stand out the most for how much they let me down.

Man, I had a lot of time and energy in those days. I was wondering where it all went, but maybe it was all drained out of me by mediocre games like those two. I may have said it before, but very bad and very good games are easy to play and easy to write about. It’s the average crud that wastes your time and gives nothing in return.

What else… Oh yeah! I also remember playing Ore ga Omae wo Mamoru and thinking I should try more Metroidvania games. Then I tried Aria of Sorrow and got my 🍑🍑🍑 handed to me after a couple of hours. And that was the end of Metroidvanias and me.🤣 In retrospect Idea Factory may have been on to something when they tried to create dumbed down Metroidvanias for a less experienced audience. Hmm.

A final very special shout-out goes to La Corda d’Oro a.k.a. Kiniro no Corda 😍, because it’s the only game that actually changed my real-life behavior. It made me join the church choir and take up the piano again after years of not playing, just by reminding me of how much fun making music can be. I even flirted with the idea of buying the violin this year, but in the end I bought a guitar instead.

Finally, a big thank you to all my readers!💖

Thank you very much to everyone currently reading this! Thank you to everyone who has ever stopped by my humble RPG blog. I started writing for my own self-satisfaction, but before I knew it people were actually reading my ramblings. And commenting on them! And putting in up with my flaky nature. One day I’m playing Game A, then next moment *toss* it’s dropped and I’ve started Game B, and then after that I say I’ll try Game C, but instead I start D only to drop it… I honestly get tired of myself sometimes! So thanks for all my patient readers!

I don’t dare speculate on what the coming years and months will hold. I’m just grateful to God to be alive and to have the time, health and money for gaming even after all these years. All we can do, especially these days, is take things one day at a time. But it would be lovely to have 15th Anniversary and 20th Anniversary posts, wouldn’t it? Let’s pray it happens. In the meantime, it’s back to my usual games. See you guys next time!

Octopath Traveler on temporary hold

Alas, all good things must come to an end. I had a good time with my brother’s Switch for a solid month and now I’ve returned it. Since I was so close to finishing Octopath Traveler, I’m negotiating for a little extra time to clear it properly, possibly later in November. But apart from that, my Switch adventures are over for the foreseeable future.

I had a blast playing Picross S4 and S3. I got to try one or two new games. And Octopath Traveler was much more enjoyable than I’d expected. It’s been a while since I played an ordinary JRPG like that, and it felt really comfortable. In my head I’d like to play more action RPGs and other challenging games because they give me a rush of adrenaline, but in practice turn-based play is the most accessible and most relaxing for me.

I also loved the versatility of the Switch. Very often I just want to flop into bed and play something without fiddling with cables and controllers and staring at a huge screen. On the other hand, sometimes I want grand spectacles and nice graphics like Ys VIII offered. Getting both experiences from one console is a great detal, which is why I’ve never considered getting the Switch Lite.

The poor battery life on the original Switch and the joycon drift are the main drawbacks, but that’s not the reason why I’m not planning to buy a Switch any time soon. The problem is the Switch doesn’t have any “killer apps” that I absolutely must play. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was the closest, and I’ve played it. Octopath Traveler was also great, and I’ve also played it. The other games I tried (Tales of Vesperia and Ys VIII) aren’t exclusives and aren’t great either. Plus I’m not that interested in Nintendo-only franchises like Mario, Zelda, Pokemon and Animal Crossing. Honestly the Switch is very nice to play but doesn’t have much to offer me.

That could all change next year if/when Rune Factory 5 and Shin Megami Tensei V come out and there’s an English release of Yomi ga Saku Hana. Or it could change instantly if Nintendo ports Xenoblade Chronicles X to the Switch. They did it for the original, so they can do it for X as well.

What’s next?

Back to Tokyo Xanadu eX+! I also need to do a one hour review of The Alliance Alive. Then I can sort all the games I’ve tried in order of priority. And I just realized that it’s already November but I haven’t done a single thing I planned to in my 2020 New Year’s Resolutions. Ooops~. On top of all that, I promised someone that I would check out Genshin Impact when the 1.1 patch lands on November 11th. So even without the Switch I have a lot to keep me busy. See you in the coming days!

Octopath Traveler – Still going strong after 40 hours (spoilers)

I said I would be back to report on Octopath Traveler once I’d finished chapter 3 for everyone, so here I am! Still having fun!

8 separate stories

I’ve really been saved by my laziness this time. Long time readers may have noticed that I almost never play games at launch. Even if I get them immediately, I don’t start for months and sometimes years after a game was released. There’s no special reason, I just don’t get round to things very quickly.

Apart from putting me at risk for spoilers, there’s no real downside to this practice. If anything, there’s a huge upside, which is that it lets other players be the guinea pigs for me. All the bugs have been identified, all the FAQs written and playthroughs filmed by the time I start playing. For example, I remember a lot of complaints about runey management from players of Rune Factory Frontier on the Wii. When I played it, someone had come up with a “runey farm” strategy that solved the issue while still being incredibly tedious. Imagine if I’d had to do all that work myself!

So it is with Octopath Traveler, where early players were the ones who kindly discovered that the interweaving story promised by Square-Enix was actually a pack of lies. There are a lot of places where it seems like the stories will intersect, and it would be plausible for them to do so. The organization behind the destruction of Hornburg could also be the one manipulating the bad guys in Cyrus’ route, and they could be related to the crows in Primrose’s route, and so on and so forth. But no, they remain completely separate until the end.

Nowhere near “excellent” and not that “deep.” But very good nonetheless

And you know, that’s okay with me because I know it in advance. I don’t think it’s even that strange to have stories that never come together. “Everyone’s a main character in their own story” and all that. But two years ago when I played the demo, that’s not the impression I got. I thought everything would come together someway somehow down the road, even if it was just little changes to the towns depending on whose route was played first.

So since I was forewarned, I’m not particularly disappointed by that development. It’s just that having 8 short stories without a single grand finale is probably going to make me go “Oh, okay” by the time it’s done. Because most of the stories are in the “Oh okay” category, nothing really mindblowing. Explorations of trust, betrayal, looking for hope in life again, finding pride in one’s job, those are all nice to read about and fun to play through. But in an “Oh, okay” kind of way.

Not as dark as I’d expected

Based on the demo which covered Primrose’s and Olberic’s routes, I thought Octopath Traveler would have grimmer and darker stories than most JRPGs, but that isn’t really the case. It’s not like Square-Enix didn’t try at all; they just failed to go the full gamut when it came to brutality. This leads to enemies making all kinds of mistakes a sensible bad guy just wouldn’t. Just for once I wanted to deal with competent enemies.

I’m going to give examples from a few routes, which is spoiler material, so you can look away now if you haven’t played the game yet.

Primrose’s chapter 3: She runs into the big bad boss of the three crows after killing the second henchman. Said boss manages to come close enough to her to stab her in the stomach… then flounces off without making sure she’s dead. This, after the same guy sensibly ensured her father was truly dead all those years ago. Granted, this guy is shown to have a flair for the dramatic and all that, but it’s still an extremely dumb mistake that destroys any previous threat he seemd to pose.

Cyrus chapter 3: Evil Boss 101: if a plucky scholar is on the verge of finding the truth of your scheme, and you manage to sneak attack and knock him out, KILL HIM IMMEDIATELY. Gloating over your clever plan and leaving him to starve to death is very suave and Bond villain-ish, but you know how those movies always end, right?

Aight, aight, let’s say you were careless and let his student rescue him. But you then took the student hostage. And the scholar showed up to save her. KEEP HOLDING HER HOSTAGE! That’s what hostages are for! You don’t ignore the hostage and engage the scholar in hand-to-hand combat. You grab the hostage, make your demands, and wait for an opportunity to kill your enemy. You hear?

Tressa chapter 2: Same goes for the bad guys here. If you’ve got Ali in custody and Tressa shows up to save him, do not engage! Get a knife, grab Ali by the throat and that pitiful idealistic sap of a Tressa will hand over everything to save him. It’s just that their situation is slightly understandable because Tressa doesn’t look like much of a threat. But still, it’s not that hard to have one guy hold the hostage while the other engages, juuuust in case.

Alfyn chapter 3: Miguel! *bonks him on the head* Have you read a single word I’ve written? When you take a little kid hostage so you can escape from town, you don’t put the kid down to fight your pursuers. I don’t care how heavy the little rotter is, you grab that sucker and hold on for dear life. That’s how it’s done.

Ophilia chapter 3: Gaaahh, are you guys even LISTENING?!! The bad guys kidnapped yet another kid and held her for ransom, wanting to exchange her for the ember Ophilia was carrying. Why oh why would you put the kid down and fight? Why kidnap her in the first place if you weren’t going to use her? Knife. Throat. Press. Demands. A softie priestess isn’t gonna watch you gut a kid, trust me on this one.

You might be seeing a pattern here with all the kidnappings and letting gos. I hadn’t noticed the repetition before I set out to write this but… yeah, the stories aren’t really that repetitive. It’s just a pattern of bad guys giving up obvious advantages so that the game doesn’t become too dark. Just like the Redeye on H’aanit’s route doesn’t kill anyone but just petrifies them. And Olberic doesn’t kill Erhardt once he finds him, instead they practically make up. This is a big spoiler for his route BTW, but I did warn you.

The TL;DR is that I was expecting darker, more mature stories based on the Octopath Traveler demo and art style, but it didn’t deliver. And it’s not just that it “didn’t deliver” but that lack of delivery was artificially manufactured by Square-Enix’s writers forcing the bad guys to do dumb things no normal bad guy would do. Not a dealbreaker, but still a letdown.

The gameplay isn’t completely tedious yet

I’ll wait to give my final verdict when I finish once and for all, but I’m still not sick of the Break system. I just wish there were more ways to deal damage to large group of enemies besides soulstones and a few select attacks. I’m running more and more from random enemies these days, which may end up screwing me over when I face the last bosses.

More attacks like Level Slash, please!

Another thing I really wish for: more sidequests. Especially more updating ones. As it is, you finish all the quests in S’warkii and that’s it. I wish they could have added maybe one or two with every new chapter, because I enjoy sidequests.

Nothing further to report. My save file reads 42 hours or so, about to face Redeye on H’aanit’s route, then will do Therion, Alfyn, etc. in the order that I got them in. I’m guessing I have another 10 hours or so to go to finish Octopath Traveler. But my next post will be about Picross S4 and S3 because those are the games that really matter 😀

See you soon!

One Hour Review: Ys VIII Lacrimosa of DANA

To briefly recap my history with Falcom, developers of the Ys series, I think their turn-based RPGs like the Trails games are too slow and plodding but I really like their action RPGs. Or at least, I absolutely loved Nayuta no Kiseki, and I seriously enjoy the combat in the Tokyo Xanadu eX+.

Somehow I haven’t been able to get into the Ys series as much as I thought I would. The originals with the bump system don’t need to be mentioned, but I’ve also briefly tried Memories of Celceta, Ys Seven and most recently whichever Ys it is on the PSP where the main character washed up in this jungle village place. Can’t remember the title right now, but it’s one of them.

But I haven’t given up on trying to like them, hence this attempt at Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of DANA. And thanks to the system of “One Hour Reviews,” I figured out one of the problems with the Ys games: there’s too much talking early on! In Celceta you have to walk around some large boring town first, Ys Seven has a large boring dock, Ys Jungle Village has a large boring jungle village, and now Ys VIII has this large boring ship.

If not for the One Hour system, I would have lost interest when forced to roam around the ship. But because I’d committed to playing a full hour no matter what, I managed to keep going, and eventually stuff started to happen. Where “stuff” means a giant tentacle monster attacked the ship and knocked us all overboard! That was dramatic.

The story in Ys VIII is that the main character Adol happens to wash ashore yet again, and this time there’s a whole ship’s crew with passengers washed ashore with him. Now he has to gather all the castaways so they can find a way home. TBH it’s pretty unrealistic that they can build a ship large enough and get enough provisions to sail anywhere meaningful, but they have an experienced captain with them, so it’s not entirely impossible. More importantly, Adol also has to explore the Isle of Seiren while he’s at it, because that’s just his thing. And my thing too, to be honest.

What I liked

🌴Fancy moves and flashy attacks! Bright happy colors! Especially after playing Octopath Traveler, seeing bright blue skies and bright green grass is great. I like the island motif especially. It reminds me of Nayuta and Shining Ark.

🌴It doesn’t seem too difficult yet, even though I’m playing on Normal. I wanted to start on Easy TBH, but I did that with Nayuta and later on it was just too easy. That said… I almost died against the tentacle monster on the ship. And I haven’t fully gotten the hang of the battle system, so I’ll need to spend some time practising on mobs. There’s a slight chance I will indeed restart on Easy if I decide to play the game for real.

🌴The controls aren’t quite as confusing as in Tokyo Xanadu eX+ yet. There’s no complicated platforming yet, no annoying dungeon puzzles yet. But this is all me talking after 1 hour of gameplay and only fighting one boss – two if you count the tentacle monster. So far so good.

🌴I can save almost anywhere in the field! I remember getting really stressed with Celceta because of the vast areas to explore with no save points in sight. With Ys VIII I won’t have to worry about that, and if I keep a couple of different saves, I won’t have to worry about locking myself into a death spiral either. Phew.

What sucks

🙄Talking sequences. I used to say “dungeon crawlers don’t need stories,” now I’m starting to think “action RPGs don’t need stories either.” At the very least Falcom’s ARPGs don’t, because their games already tend towards the wordy side. But it’s only the first hour, so this could be a set up and then they let me roam as much as I like. That would be nice.

🙄The idiotic Laxia girl and the whole peeping sequence revolving around her. Basically this idiotic girl washed up on the island. And being somehow armed with a big fluffy white towel, she decided to take a bath the middle of a stream, in full view of passers by. But oops, what is this, she “accidentally” dropped her towel in front of Adol! Then she slapped him for looking, even though she’s the exhibitionist pervert tsundere idiot who flashed him. What the heck is this nonsense. I thought that kind of stupidity went out of fashion with Love Hina 20 years ago. I can’t wait to replace her in my party.

The controls are a bit confusing right now, because the on-screen controls assume you’re using the joy-cons, but I’m using the pro controller. The camera controls are also uncomfortable. I have to adjust the camera all the time to see where I’m going. But controls are things you can get used to with time and it’s only been one hour.

Will I continue playing Ys VIII?

Yeah sure, why not? It didn’t set my heart aflutter or anything, but after 1 hour they set me free to explore the Isle of Seiren and that’s what I’ve been itching to do from the start. I really wanted to play the Ys games in order, but it looks like that’s not possible for me tastes-wise so Ys VIII will have to do.

Whether I do continue Ys VIII or not, it won’t be for a long while anyway. On the Switch, I’m almost done with Picross S4, then I have to play S3 while continuing Octopath Traveler. Plus Tokyo Xanadu eX+ takes priority in the ARPG rankings, followed by a retry of Dark Cloud 2. So for now I’ll file Ys VIII under “Promising,” and try to get back to it in the future.

25 hours into Octopath Traveler – Still good

octopath traveler bannerOctopath Traveler was good when I started out. It’s still good now that I’m over 25 hours in. I hope it will be good all the way through.

I’ve done all the Chapters 1s for all 8 characters, now I’m almost done with the Chapter 2s. IIRC I only have Ophilia’s, H’aanit’s and Olberic’s left. It seems there’s no feasible way to just focus on one person’s route all the way through, because the jump in level requirement from chapter to chapter is huge. For example, H’aanit’s chapter 1 had a recommended level of 1, but chapter 2 has a recommended level of 27!

I think you’re expected to do at least 4 characters’ routes at the same time, possibly more. This leads to the problem of a disjointed story with wildly shifting moods: from comical hijinks on Tressa’s route to bloody revenge on Primrose’s followed by a gory detective mystery on Cyrus’s. Early players expected all these plot threads to intersect eventually, but since I’m playing years after release, I already know they will be separate all the way through.

Gameplay/combat

I’ve made a bit of progress. My main party consists of H’aanit (fixed), Therion and Alfyn and all three just hit level 30. H’aanit and Therion are working on their sub classes (Thief and Hunter respectively) while Alfyn is cooling his heels and racking up the job points because I’ve only unlocked two sub classes so far. I could get more by FAQ’ing the location of the rest of the jobs, but it’s more fun to try and discover things for myself. The last slot in my party is taken up by whoever’s story I’m currently working on. If I had to pick a favorite fourth member it would be Cyrus. Mainly because his personality is funny, but also because his elemental attacks and Analyze skills are really useful in longer battles.

Least favorite character is Tressa because she’s too cutesy. Also I’m a hater.

I’m not quite sick of the Break system yet… yet I can see the clouds on the horizon. Breaking just gets tedious when you’re fighting a lot of mobs who are not that strong but nevertheless have a ton of HP so you have to break them several times just to get rid of them. Cyrus’s skill that reduces random encounters is another reason why I like him. Can’t wait to get the Scholar sub class so I can have it on at all times.

That doesn’t mean I dislike the Break system entirely… yet. I do look forward to getting to new areas so I can fight new enemies and figure out how to break them. It’s just that because of the way the system is designed, you won’t be doing much damage especially to bosses without breaking them. That means many battles are going to take a lot longer than they have any right to, just because you have to figure out weaknesses, break, break, break and break again before a boss finally goes down. I’m not even halfway through the game but I’m already dreading the last boss battle =___=

As for the individual stories in Octopath Traveler, I have nothing to say about them at this point in time. That’s because nothing much has happened on any individual route yet. And probably won’t happen until chapters 3 at the earliest, most likely chapter 4. Because one game is telling 8 separate stories instead of 1 or 2, they all come across as really shallow. And trivial, to be honest. Blah blah revenge~ Ehhh. Blah blah I wanna travel the world~ Yeah okay, whatever. And there are two revenge plots, two solve-the-mystery plots and two travel/adventure plots, so they lack a bit of freshness. But I shouldn’t be judging this early, so let’s allow the game to develop a little further first.

That’s enough for an early update on Octopath Traveler. When/if I finish chapter 3 for all characters, I’ll be back with more comments and opinions.