- "Eight travelers. Eight adventures. Eight roles to play in a new world brought to life by Square Enix. And now, you can enjoy all of them in the new demo. Step into the shoes and live the stories of each of the eight travelers and freely explore the world of Orsterra. Then, carry your choices and adventure into the main game with save data transfer. Use each character’s special abilities in and out of battle. Break through enemy defenses by discovering and targeting weaknesses. Store Boost Points with each turn and then spend them at strategic times to strengthen abilities, chain attacks, or provide aid. Choose the path you wish to walk and discover what lies beyond the horizon." —Description from the Nintendo Website
Octopath Traveler (オクトパス トラベラー, Okutopasu Torabera) is a role-playing game for the Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows.
Gameplay
It is expected to take up to 50-60 hours to complete the main story, which expands to 80-100 hours when adding on side quests and other optional content.[1][2]
Characters
- Ophilia Clement, a Cleric from the Frostlands.
- Cyrus Albright, a Scholar from the Flatlands.
- Tressa Colzione, a Merchant from the Coastlands.
- Olberic Eisenberg,a Warrior from the Highlands.
- Primrose Azelhart, a Dancer from the Sunlands.
- Alfyn Greengrass, an Apothecary from the Riverlands.
- Therion, a Thief from the Cliftlands.
- H'aanit, a Hunter from the Woodlands.
Story
Prologue
Set in the land of Orsterra, the Order of the Sacred Flame believed their world was created by thirteen deities before twelve were forced to seal the fallen god Galdera, who refused to relinquish what they created, within the afterworld that can be accessed through the sealed Gate of Finis.
This is a story of eight different protagonists each with their own quest:
- The cleric, Ophilia Clement, from the Order of the Sacred Flame who embarks on a pilgrimage to renew the flames of the church in her step sister's stead, unaware that her faith's benefactor Mattias established a cult dedicated to Galdera.
- The scholar, Cyrus Albright, seeks an ancient Hornbergian grimoire known as From the Far Reaches of Hell, whose theft was arranged by the current headmaster's aide Lucia.
- The merchant, Tressa Colzione, is spurred by the journal of the apothecary Graham Crossford to see the world while contending with the Obsidian bandit Esmeralda.
- The warrior, Olberic Eisenberg, as a former knight from the fallen kingdom of Hornburg, seeks the truth of his homeland's destruction by the mercenary Werner and his former brother-in arms, Erhardt.
- The dancer, Primrose Azelhart, a woman of noble birth who witnessed her father's murder by three crow-tattooed men who make up Obsidian's leadership, demeans herself to extract her revenge even after learning the Obsidians' leader is her childhood love Simeon.
- The apothecary, Alfyn Greengrass, who was cured during a plague as a child by Graham, seeks to follow in the man's footsteps to help others.
- The thief, Therion, is forced into the servitude of house Ravus to retrieve the stolen Dragonstones and settles things with his former friend Darius.
- The hunter, H'aanit, sets out to find her master Z'aanta and to finish his task of slaying a nightmarish monster called Redeye.
Epilogue
After progressing though all the characters various stories, the heroes' quests become intermingled as Mattias, Lucia, the Obsidians, and Werner were all under the employ of the immortal witch Lyblac who is seeking a certain man.
Revealed to be Galdera's daughter, Lyblac orchestrated the acquirement of From the Far Reaches of Hell and the dragonstones, along with the destruction of Hornburg, to unseal the Gate of Finis while using the Obsidians as her personal army to eliminate threats like Primrose's father.
Lyblac only required Graham Crossford as an ideal vessel for Galdera to gain corporeal form due to his bloodline's ties to the god, only for Graham to escape while he mutated into the monster Redeye. This forced Lyblac to seek out Graham's only living son Kit to complete the ritual.
After tracking down the Gate's location, the eight characters fight a vicious battle against a fully manifested Galdera after he absorbed Lyblac, sealing them back into the afterworld while saving Kit who receives closure with his father's spirit.
Music
Main article: Octopath Traveler Original Soundtrack
01 : OCTOPATH TRAVELER -メインテーマ-
02 : 剣士オルベリクのテーマ
03 : 踊子プリムロゼのテーマ
04 : ハイランド地方
05 : サンランド地方
06 : 山間の村コブルストン
07 : 緊迫
08 : ちょっとひと休み
09 : 洞窟ダンジョン
10 : バトル1
11 : 勝利のファンファーレ
12 : 敗北のレクイエム
13 : 砂漠の歓楽街サンシェイド
14 : 張り詰めた糸
15 : 忍び寄る悪意
16 : ボスバトル1
17 : 絶望
18 : ボスバトル2
19 : 絆
20 : 渦巻く凶兆
21 : 再起のために
22 : 復讐のために
Development
Octopath Traveler was announced on January 13, 2017, under the working title of Project Octopath Traveler. A playable demo was released on the Nintendo eShop on September 13, 2017, with a second demo being released on June 14, 2018. The second demo included improved mechanics and all eight playable characters, as well as save data transfer to the full game. The game was released worldwide on July 13, 2018. A special edition that includes the game's soundtrack, a replica of the game's in-game currency, a pop-up book, and a map was also released the same day.
The project was started by producers Masashi Takahashi and Tomoya Asano,[7] who previously headed the Bravely series. Acquire was chosen as development partner for the game based on their previous work on the What Did I Do to Deserve This, My Lord? series.[8] During the development process, various graphics options such as the depth, resolution, saturation, as well as other features such as whether water should be pixel or photorealistic are taken into consideration to perfect the "HD-2D" look. The eight main characters, four male and four female, are chosen to provide different party variations. All characters have different classes, and the character design, as well as the field commands, are based on different occupations in Medieval Europe.
For the demo, Olberic and Primrose were chosen to be the protagonists as their stories started in a similar place, and the developers wanted people to be able to recruit the other character after beating the story. According to Takahashi, no downloadable content or other large post-release content updates are planned for the game.
A Microsoft Windows version of the game is planned to come out on June 7, 2019.
A prequel for Android and iOS, titled Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent, will be released in Japan in 2019
Battle system
The battle system in Octopath Traveler is a turn-based battle system, similar to early RPGs such as the older Final Fantasy games. Players control up to four characters in battle against enemies. Each player character and enemy will (generally) act once each turn, and turn order is determined largely by the relative speed of each character. A player character who defended on the prior turn or an enemy who recovers from being broken (see below) will always act at the start of the turn regardless of speed.
A unique element of the battle system is the Boost system. Each player character receives a boost point at the start of each round, provided they did not spend any boost points in the prior round. Each player character can save that boost point (up to a maximum of five) or spend between one and three boost points to empower their action for that turn. Class skills can be empowered to deal more damage, provide more healing, impose status effects for increased duration, or improve the odds of chance-based skills. Basic attacks can be empowered to provide multiple attacks on a single turn, which is critical for leveraging the break system described below.
Another unique element is the Break system. Each enemy has a defense strength, paired with weaknesses to certain weapon types or elemental attacks. Damage from such attacks is increased by 30% and reduces the defense strength of the enemy by one. Reducing an enemy's defense strength to zero will break them, causing them to lose any remaining actions for the current round, prevent them from acting on the next round, and will double all damage taken (regardless of their weaknesses).
Production credits
Demo
See the main page for Project Octopath Traveler Demo.
Gallery
Reception
Octopath Traveler received "generally favorable" reviews on Metacritic getting a metascore of 83/100 on Nintendo Switch based on 79 critic reviews[3] and 80/100 on PC based on 23 critic reviews.[4] On whatoplay.com, it receives an aggregate score (playscore) of 8.53 on Nintendo Switch based on 55 critics and 2,480+ gamer ratings[5] ranking 7th place on the "Top 10 Best Switch JRPGs of All Time" list. It also receives 8.07 on PC based on 17 critics and 2,830+ gamer ratings.[6]
Trivia
- The game will not have post-launch DLC.[1]
- The first initial of each Traveler's name, in the order they appear on the selection screen and in official artwork, spells out Octopath (Ophilia, Cyrus, Tressa, Olberic, Primrose, Alfyn, Therion and H'aanit).
- Olberic and Primrose's Japanese voice actors were also previously party members together in Tales of Symphonia.[7]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Kotaku - Nintendo Switch RPG Octopath Traveller Won't Have DLC Because It's 'A Finished Product'
- ↑ http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/06/octopath_traveler_features_80_-_100_hours_of_content
- ↑ Metascore for Octopath Traveler on Nintendo SwitchMetacritic, Retrieved March 18, 2020
- ↑ Metascore for Octopath Traveler on PCMetacritic, Retrieved March 18, 2020
- ↑ playscore for Octopath Traveler on Nintendo Switchwhatoplay.com, Retrieved March 18, 2020
- ↑ playscore for Octopath Traveler on PCwhatoplay.com, Retrieved March 18, 2020
- ↑ https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Trivia/OctopathTraveler