Octopath Traveler - They've Got a Good Thing Going

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exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I've played through the opening chapter of OT2 and so far my observations are that Throne is cool.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2023 11:57

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 07:16

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

It was very heartwarming to play through Partitio's tale of building up his town through grit and determination and then immediately rob them all blind with Throne.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2023 11:37

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

The righteous and honorable Hikari, challenging 80-year old grandmas to duels so that he can learn needlepoint.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2023 12:43

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Harrow posted:

The best part is how the grandmas are like "A duel? Cool, let's throw down"

"You have much to learn" as I knee a dude who looks like my local teamsters' union rep in the balls. One day, I will rule these lands with a righteous hand.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2023 13:02

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

All right, I've played the intro chapters and a little more of my first four characters. Here are some impressions so far as a Tetrapath Traveler.

Throne - Her story is like playing the fandub version of this game whereas every other character has a normal script. I like how she overcomes threats by simply having nothing to lose.
Partitio - Wants to eliminate systemic poverty with... the good kind of capitalism? Insufficient revolutionary politics but I find his optimism and fashion sense charming.
Hikari - Noble samurai swordsman with a dark lineage, snooooze. Inarguably kind of owns at combat though.
Castti - Do you like hearing the word apothecary as much as I do? It's a fun word. Amnesiac Apothecary would be a good name for a Dream Theater album c. 2003.

Things are moving along nicely and I am enjoying the story!

# ¿ Jul 13, 2023 22:58

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Oh yeah that was definitely a highlight. I expect to hear it many times more.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2023 23:09

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Does it make more sense to give my characters their secondary jobs whenever I find the licenses or just wait until I get the one I want for them?

# ¿ Jul 14, 2023 21:00

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I like Temenos as a character but I think they probably could have had a better introduction to his deductive acumen than "investigates the scene of the crime, then slowly repeats everything he just spent the last five minutes investigating to his dumb-as-rocks companion."

# ¿ Jul 15, 2023 12:23

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

"What would a book of holy scripture be doing in a pulpit" had some big "why would an ambulance be leaving the hospital" energy.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2023 12:37

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I enjoy Throne's arc the most because every other traveler's story is here like "la dee da I'm on a quest for truth and justice" and then we all get to stretch our legs for the human trafficking and child murder segment. Today I found really nice dagger by drugging a town dad and then shaking down his daughter, it feels like my merry band of wanton criminals is really starting to gel together.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2023 10:50

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Simply put, the world's salvation demands sacrifice, and sometimes that sacrifice involves wresting stuffed bears from the hands of little girls to sell for $1 at the nearest vendor. No, I will not be elaborating further.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2023 14:59

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Castti Chapter 3: I'll admit, I did not see that twist coming. I'm somewhat impressed that the game managed to make me feel so dumb.

If I ever play this game again I'll probably start with Osvald, we're all just living in that smooth Valjean-rear end motherfucker's world.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2023 11:21

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Throne Chapter 3: That fight with Father goes hard. To find out your mentor/abuser killed your birth mother, after she aborted her own child with him, and then raised you as his own all in the span of about five minutes. And then after all that, to still mourn him in a really hosed up way because he's the only father figure you've ever really known. What a tragic character! Didn't expect this cutesy retro JRPG to get that dark.

And then the complete tonal whiplash as you head to Beast Island and now it's a Disney film with sprightly feral children and talking animals. I got Throne a pair of cat ears as consolation and immediately robbed BOTH the human and beast villages in a heroic display of equality.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2023 11:47

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I try to follow everyone's story individually until you can unleash a spirit bomb of 3-4 character quests within a single town. Wellgrove is about to burst.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2023 14:40

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I meant moreso that Throne was the tragic character for loving him, although there is a twisted pathos in raising the daughter of the woman you murdered out of jealousy in the hopes that she would one day kill you.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2023 15:10

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Giving Dancer to Partitio was the best decision I've made in this game yet.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2023 11:29

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

While we're discussing wishlist features for Octo 3, I wonder if in the next game they could make it so you didn't have to complete every character's story to see the end, but there were a lot more crossed paths and interstitial chapters along the way to encourage repeat playthroughs. I like it when the gang finally gets to interact with one another but I got almost 30 hours in before those quests started popping up. I feel like most players are probably going to stick with the first 4-5 characters they meet anyway so having more individualized pathways would make every new game feel more unique.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2023 11:18

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I was thinking more like maybe every character has only say 4 chapters in their main story and it's even possible to beat the game without finding everyone, but the characters themselves all play a larger role in one another's stories and give you different ways of doing stuff. Like maybe in OT3 Mecha-Temenos can bring along Robo-Hikari or Throne 3.0 to help him complete a questline, and there are some slight variations in outcomes and dialogue depending on who you bring. So it's a shorter game overall but a lot of replay value as the character order and party composition make a much larger difference.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2023 15:59

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Is there an 80-year old granny I can rough up somewhere to get an all-hit staff attack for Hikari?

# ¿ Jul 21, 2023 11:48

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

All right, I am up to or have completed Chapter 3 for all of the travelers. My gang of criminals, charlatans and thieves is really coming together and making a name for themselves terrorizing the local populace for their own personal gain. Did you know I got 35 hours into this game and only just realized that everybody's initials spell OCTOPATH? I am very intelligent. Here is my running ranking of their stories so far:

Throne - By far the darkest and most tragic of the tales. "Goes there" in ways you wouldn't expect from a cutesy pixel art JRPG. I feel like I definitely chose my first hero correctly since her chapters are always the ones I most look forward to seeing.
Partitio - The second character I came across, so I'm two-for-two here. I find Partitio's methods of defeating capitalism with nicer capitalism to be insufficiently revolutionary, but what can I say, when he says it in that polite Southern drawl I almost believe him.
Osvald - The strongest opening sequence, they even stretch it out to two so you know they mean business. I like fantasy worlds where dudes create fireballs with like, math and poo poo. Also the appropriately scholarly revenge tale mashup of Les Miserables and the Count of Monte Cristo they've got going on.
Castti- I don't normally like amnesia as a plot device but I was dumb enough to genuinely be surprised by some of the twists in this one, so somehow it has the capacity to surprise me. The second-darkest storyline after Throne's, I guess that on balance I tend to like the more serious arcs in this game.
Temenos - I feel like the character of an impious, irreverent and somewhat effeminate priest investigating medieval crimes could get its own spinoff game. They could call it... Cleric.
Agnea - No real surprises here but I can appreciate a character whose quest is to just be a really good dancer, and goshdarn it, I hope she succeeds!
Hikari - I suppose every RPG needs its generic noble swordsman hero to anchor the team but I was hoping for a little more tension. Hikari is an MVP on the battlefield though, I've beaten up countless elderly men to ensure it.
Ochette - I think JRPGs are a lot more in love with the squeaky feral child archetype than I am. Don't hate her chapters or anything but it feels the most disconnected from the other tales. I think if I found her earlier I'd bother to get more into the wildlife pokemon minigame.

Will my final character rankings change? Who knows! Does anyone care? Not likely!

# ¿ Jul 22, 2023 00:46

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Partitio is 100% in his element as a Dancer. Almost feels like he missed his true calling, ya know.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2023 17:51

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I always roll a 4-stack Beguiling Grace at the start of every boss fight. Let the die be cast.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2023 18:42

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Hikari makes a good Cleric because staves have really high melee damage and he can refill his entire meager SP bar in two bonks.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2023 01:59

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

More hired help is always good though. Pay 2 Win, baby!!

# ¿ Jul 25, 2023 11:13

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I ended up with a main death party that's kind of overleveled for all the content and the other half that I have to sub in for their story missions. I'm approaching the end of everyone's chapters and it's pretty drastic now, like Throne/Castti/Partitio/Hikari are all 55+ while my B-team are mid-30s or below. I'm not exactly sure how under these circumstances anyone could end up with every character overleveled for the content. What I've been doing is just taking two carries through the story missions and throwing in a couple B-team characters to get them a few levels. But the leveling curve isn't drastic, so they remain pretty consistently underleveled for their story chapters. It doesn't matter though when you have Super-Throne and Mega-Hikari destroying everything.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2023 00:05

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

You can remove party members from town and no, not until you're like 45+ with your strongest character.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2023 08:21

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I just wrapped up Agnea's storyline and I think that's going to land somewhere near the top half for me. The final chapter was really sweet and felt like the culmination of a journey.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2023 11:42

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I enjoy the smug confidence of guessing in advance what the boss' weakness will be just by looking at them followed by being completely wrong about 90% of the time.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2023 17:49

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

I'm not smart enough to remember the order so I just choose to embrace chaos.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2023 18:01

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Just have Osvald's last chapter remaining and probably a half-dozen remaining sidequests. A few quick impressions of the characters.

Throne - I'm gonna guess that final boss probably made more sense if you played Octopath 1. Still, I think the buildup of tension as you take the very slow gondola ride up to Lostseed and see how messed up everything has become is great. I also appreciated how messy her resolution is compared to all the other characters, the hollow feeling of finally having gotten what you wanted at great personal cost. My favorite tale of the bunch throughout.
Castti - I knew Thosseau would end up being the bad guy from the moment he was introduced because he has the most European-sounding name.
Temenos - This one kind of disappointed me. I feel that Temenos should have used his powers of insight to own Kaldena with facts and logic instead of getting another conventional cackling villain. Also, kind of a hard boss fight!
Agnea - Her story started out as nothing particularly special but has one of the strongest conclusions. I feel like the relatively low stakes of her quest allowed more freedom to write a character story that doesn't resolve in the usual godkilling way.
Partitio - Another crowdpleaser ending. I like that they give you 80 billion leaves to immediately spend on the Steam Engine. I'm sure there must be some kind of exploit to keep all the leaves while still progressing the quest. Now THAT'S capitalism!
Ochette - No big surprises here. Feels like the shortest and least connected of the questlines. I think Ochette needed one more personality trait besides "is cheery, is hungry all the time."
Hikari - Again, not too many surprises. I feel like Hikari should have been tempted more. Once he sets out on his journey you kind of know he's in no actual danger of succumbing to the demon curse, which makes his arc somewhat uninteresting.

Now to hopefully wrap this all up before Thursday so that I can slip right into Baldur's Gate 3! It's been quite a journey, nearly at 70 hours played now. Fortunately to help me I've got 2 fully kitted out Merchants and the Foreign Assassins. Pay 2 Win, baby!!!

# ¿ Aug 1, 2023 11:55

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

About how much time hours-wise is the final chapter of the game?

# ¿ Aug 2, 2023 12:49

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

If you spend the time to go get Foreign Assassins then hired help is even better, they do 4x 9999+ damage to all enemies and refill your entire party's HP/SP. You were right all along, Partitio - Capitalism DOES rule!!

# ¿ Aug 2, 2023 18:42

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Hoo boy, that final boss was a doozy! My main party was all 65+ and well-synergized with one another but my B-team really struggled to survive even one AOE blast. Pulled it out with only Partitio and Hikari still alive while panickedly funneling enough silver to my Foreign Assassins to retire for life. P2W always prevails!

This was a great game. Somehow I put over 75 hours into it over the past few weeks and I could have easily put in much more (and probably would if BG3 were not coming out literally today). Great characters, surprisingly deep gameplay, amazing soundtrack, decent story overall. It seems to be a common complaint but I hope they put more frequent crossed path interludes into Octo 3 since those were my favorite parts and it's wild how you can get 30+ hours in without seeing a single one. Since we love listing names here, here is my final hot ranking for all the character stories:

Throne
Partitio
Castti
Agnea
Temenos
Osvald
Hikari
Ochette

Imagine if someone's personal ranking actually spelled out OCTOPATH? Seems very unlikely! But I'm sure they're out there.

# ¿ Aug 3, 2023 09:33

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Ibblebibble posted:

When it's time to level up my B-team, would y'all recommend doing them as a low-level quartet of their own or should I just powerlevel them one by one with 3 beefy A teamers? I assume the second option is faster but you never know.

When it came time to level up my B-team I kept two of my best characters (usually Throne/Hikari) and dragged the other two through the overland areas. You might need to go 3:1 gosu/chob for the level 45 chapters since some of the bosses are still quite tough.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2023 17:30

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

Temenos and Castti's felt like the hardest to me, although I suppose it all comes down to how strong your characters are at the point at which you encounter them. I could see how Partitio's would be challenging but I had Foreign Assassins by that point and their multiattack just comically shredded the final boss in two rounds.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2023 17:37

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

The overland maps don't always line up with where the branching passages are actually located so I did travel up and down some areas for awhile looking for some hidden pathway that was really just 100 feet further up the road.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2023 11:35

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

You want ~10 more levels on your B-team because the final boss requires them to be able to hold their own for at least a few rounds.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2023 08:42

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

If anything I think Octo 3 could really go in the opposite direction and make the stories far more intertwined. It's annoying that you can get 30+ hours in without uncovering any of the crossed path interludes, since they're some of the most entertaining segments of the game. I think it'd be cool to have a shorter ~40 hour experience where maybe you don't have to complete every single character's story to see the end, but the dialogue and mission structure change based on who you've already recruited and in which order.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2023 12:06

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

The dissonance of saving the world from an ancient evil while at the same time roughing up 80 year old grannies for their meager coin is one of the Octopath's finest features.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2023 11:52

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 07:16

exquisite tea: Apr 21, 2007; Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."

buddychrist10 posted:

I would definitely like to see more story segments that involved the entire group since the endgame cutscenes with everyone around were some of the best parts of the game. I think the best way to do it would be to have them unlock once you beat everyone's 1st chapter, 2nd chapter and so on and just make it obvious that if you put them off they might be a bit easy.

Yeah even a segment during one part of Agnea's story where a random character interjects with a canned reaction (Hikari: We should help them / Throne: We should murder them) would add so much to make it feel like you're building out an actual party. Personally I know that I would take different squadmates through ME2 just to hear their mission-specific banter.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2023 12:32

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Octopath Traveler - They've Got a Good Thing Going

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