Octopath Traveler

[Seacliff]

A demo for Square Enix's new JRPG, from the same team as the Bravely game, is now on Nintendo Switch's eshop.

Anyone else played this? I personally enjoyed what was shown. The usage of character's skills on the map is executed in an interesting way and the darker story and more serious tone give the game's world a greater sense of insecurity compared to Bravely Default which seemed to flip-floped from comedy and drama a bit too suddenly too often.

The battle system seems to take elements from Final Fantasy: Four Heroes of Light and combines it with the BP system from Bravely. And it feels more... fluid? Battles don't feel tedious even when you are only playing with a single character in the party and breaking guards with combos to inflict more damage feels rewarding.

A few faults though:
-Real time lighting is gorgeous, but there is too much bloom in direct light.
-Can't skip cutscenes, hopefully, this is changed in the full game.
-Battle Transition isn't easy on the eyes after seeing it repeated times.

Thankfully, a survey is opening soon for feedback. So it seems like they are interested in polishing the game the best they can before a full retail release.

I don't know how popular the Switch is on this board, but this is definitely I title I'm keeping an eye on. It's more of my style than more 'retro-inspired' JRPGs on the market or even most modern JRPGs.

 

[Chaos17]

This game show how much people are influenced by "aesthetic" while the combat is dull (the enemies are not even animated!). Also it seems they took Bravely default battle mechanic wich is kinda... just play Etrian Oydssey 5 and you will understand what's true j-rpg with evolved systems and depth, lol

 

[Seacliff]

Also it seems they took Bravely default battle mechanic wich is kinda...just play Etrian Oydssey 5 and you will understand what's true j-rpg with evolved systems and depth, lol

'Kinda' what? Your not making a convincing argument since Bravely Second is one of my favorite 3DS games.

I'm a huge Etrian Odyssey fan who has already been playing the EO5 demo and I enjoy it, but it's a completely different RPG that's trying to attempt something completely different. Octopath Traveler isn't trying to accomplish an 'evolved' battle system any more than the previously mentioned Four Heroes of Light.

 

[Parallax Panda]

I'm looking forward to it. But... the random battle encounters does lower the fun in my book.

It's not like all random encounters are terrible, but they are almost always tedious and puts unnecessary stress on the player. The only game series that I like it in is funny enough, Etrian Odyssey (previously mentioned). It's my favorite RPG franchise actually, but in those games you have that color changing orb that tells you the chance of being attacked at least. Also it fits better in a 3D maze game (personal opinion).

Now when I think about it, I guess Pokemon does it well too where the encounters can only happen in the tall grass - that's a good solution. You can easily avoid unnecessary battles in Pokemon thanks to that (in a combination with fast travel and repels). Oh, except for the caves I guess. I HATE caves with a passion in Pokemon games (just because of the random encounters are everywhere).

But, back to the Project Octopath...

I've not downloaded the demo because I didn't want to spoil it. Instead I just skimmed though a "let's play video" to see what it looked like, and it looked good. Almost everything about it looks good. From the the dark story line to character selection and their abilities, as well as the overall aesthetics of the game. The battles? Hm, I really can't say until I play it. They don't look amazing though. Maybe they're "okay:ish", but they will suffer because they are connected to the random encounter mechanics which I don't like. If I play this game (which I probably will), I'll play it 100% for the story, not at all for the battle system.

Random encounters are cheap and rarely enhance the game they're used in. It's often more a way of saving time and resources. TOTALLY OK for indie/RM devs to make use of, but, I had hoped that Square Enix would've used on-map enemies instead. That's my only grief with the game so far.

 

[Seacliff]

@Parallax Panda I'm not a fan of random encounters either. They aren't too common in this game, but that's like saying I only accidentally stepped on a nail a few times when transferring a school.

I prefer an 'encounter meter' like Etrian Odyssey had as well. It's not so much random as much as it makes sure you don't get an encounter one step after the last one. They should either do that or at least include the encounter control bar from Bravely Default. If they really plan to go minimal at least make it painless.