An HD 2D Japanese-inspired story of eight people
OCTOPATH TRAVELER II is a retro pixel art adventure game that explores the stories of eight people who learn more about their history and how some of their stories intersect. There are battles, jobs, skills, and very mild exploration in this RPG game.
This is a direct sequel to Octopath, taking place in the same universe and same time period, but this time features brand new people, skills, abilities, and stories. It is purposefully reminiscent of the earliest Final Fantasy games, though this game has far better graphics and several 2.5D elements.
It is not an indie game
This 2D adventure story operates in a style that is popular with indie developers but was actually made by Square Enix in their attempts to recapture early Final Fantasy nostalgia. Its name was chosen because the developers thought Octopath would sound cool to their Japanese teenage audience.
Break and boost
Like the later Final Fantasy games, there are added technical elements to the combat. They are made up of boosts and debuffs that apply to your team and to the enemy. The story still takes center stage as the groups learn more, taking on three stories per play session (determined by which characters you pick).
Single-use stories
The developers tried to address the fact that very few stories intersected in any meaningful way until the end of the first Octopath role-playing game. There is a dynamic interaction between the characters, but the stories are still very finite and very structured. This limits replayability to a certain extent.
More content and more options
The party-based RPG stuff is great, and they have added much more to do during the night and day. The world of Solistia is fuller, richer, and a little more alive, but this does mean there is more busy work and more time-sink activities than in the first game.
