Think of Octopath Traveler II as a dim sum of RPG storytelling, a collection of eight savory novellas. Though there’s an epilogue of sorts that more traditionally links together the eight playable characters, their stories are until that point standalone. These characters intermingle as you recruit them in the order of your choice and occasionally offer up comic banter between chapters, but they’re largely silent outside of the four-person turn-based battles.
This is a feature, not a bug, and one that better showcases and develops the unique flavors and mechanisms of each tale, from amnesiac apothecary Castti’s search for her missing memories, to the exiled warrior prince Hikari’s conduct on various battlefields, to the inquisitor cleric Temenos’s murder investigation. Focusing entirely on one character during each tale helps to expand the player’s perspective of the world of Solista, where, say, a steampunk town like New Delsta has a very different vibe depending on whether you’re approaching it as an assassin thief from the slums or an idealistic country dancer seeing a big city for the first time.
Because each story only takes five or six hours to complete, none overstay their welcome. Beyond your initial investment in traveling the world of Octopath Traveler II to unlock towns and harbors as fast travel points, and any incidental grinding that you need to do to reach the recommended levels of experience, you won’t find yourself wasting time before you get to the heart of each chapter: a torturer’s garden, a prison break, a sandlion’s den, and so forth.
Even the world itself is condensed to avoid stretching out the journey between chapters. The result is conspicuously EPCOT-like in design, as places with vast differences in culture are very close to each other on the map, such as the Old West-like Wildlands and the Venice-like city of Canalbridge. But in a time when too many games are riddled with realistically empty open worlds, it’s nice to encounter one that’s so respectful of the player’s time and enjoyment.
Each storyline spans up to five chapters, and each leans heavily on the abilities of its central character. Hikari, for one, will have to individually duel some opponents to make them yield, while Temenos does a sort of mind-palace battle where he forces confessions from his subjects by breaking their will. Also new to Octopath Traveler II is that each character has a latent talent that can help against bosses, including Osvald’s penchant for focusing his multi-target spells on a single unit for heightened damage and Throné’s ability to instantly steal a second turn.
Pushing things even further, the game introduces a few Crossed Paths chapters that force two specific characters to work together, which organically allows players to experiment with various pairings of heroes and their jobs. Between the mechanism that lets you bank and eventually spend up to four boost points (BP) at once to enhance an ability or attack multiple times and the ability to break foes by hitting their weaknesses a certain number of times, the game’s combat requires more planning than the standard turn-based RPG. Thankfully, this chapter-based approach does a good job of highlighting each hero’s special abilities in turn, among them the merchant’s tendency to pay for mercenary support and buy a turn from the enemy, as well as the apothecary’s method of mixing multipurpose potions or poisons mid-battle.
The game’s eight stories have different stakes, from becoming a dancing star, to avenging the murder of one’s family, to even taking down capitalism. And the boss fights demonstrate Octopath Traveler II’s finest and densest storytelling feature: its 2D-HD pixel art. Every boss, whether flesh-and-blood or phantasmal, is exaggeratingly drawn to be larger than life. It’s a fitting demonstration of how monsters take all forms, be it an overtly gelatinous and glowy laboratory creation, a dangerous murderer whose billowing cloak glitters with dozens of daggers, or just an uncompassionate usurer with his arsenal of forged contracts.
Save for a handful of generic caverns and forests, the game is largely packed with secret dungeons. Having a wide variety of areas to explore helps to mask the fact that you have to grind eight different characters. These optional expeditions also emphasize the game’s non-linear design. With the exception of a few areas that are gated off by the campaign—a frigid island on lockdown, a nation at war—you can attempt these challenges whenever you discover them.
Those expeditions also encourage you to scour each area and pay attention to the details shared by NPCs, because unlike the main quest, these side stories aren’t marked on your map. To complete them, players must remember key details from the places they’ve visited, such as how the equipment requested in Winterbloom can be found in the silver-mining village of Oresrush.
Octopath Traveler II’s ultimate triumph may be the tightness of its design and how it wards off repetition. It presents itself with the confidence and experience of a deluxe guided tour, marking all the key spots for you to visit but also encouraging you to wander off the beaten path. It’s utterly engrossing without ever feeling overwhelming—the bite-sized narrative chunks help in that regard—and every system feels fine-tuned for maximal enjoyment. And with so many different experiences in one package, it’s a great game to get lost in eight times over.
This game was reviewed with code provided by fortyseven communications on 2/27.
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