Square Enix have announced Octopath Traveler 0, a prequel to the genteel 2019 RPG Katharine Castle hailed as… “a bit of a slog”?? “A big old anticlimax”??? I thought it was quite good!
This is an outrage! I’m going to tell Katharine she sucks at writing and is terrible at video games. What do you mean, she doesn’t work here any more? Well in that case, I’m going to tell Graham he should never have hired her. What do you mean, he doesn’t work here any more? Who does work here any more? Oh screw it, just roll the trailer.
Octopath Traveler Nought takes place in the first game’s Orsterra, a medieval fantasy confection with a few Steam Age flourishes, and sports the same “HD-2D” visual direction – a calculatingly throwback blend of chintzy sprites and lushly illuminated 3D environments, much like a grandfather clock equipped with a wifi speaker.
It brings back the first game’s battle system, which saw you Breaking (aka, staggering) enemies by filling a bar, and spending Boost points to enhance actions performed in each turn. Characters still get unique Path Actions when interacting with townsfolk, too.
So where does it differ? Well, you can now customise your protagonist and rebuild your very own hometown, Wishvale, after somebody inconsiderately burns it down in the prologue. It’s not yet clear how this might affect the rest of the game, but I imagine you’ll be able to shop in Wishvale and give your party members places to live. It’s what I’d do, if I were Enix, Esquire.
Octopath Traveler Nada launches on December 4th this year. That dirty, no-good Katharine also reviewed the second game before she left us languishing in the arms of Ian Games. She remained unimpressed, concluding that “bar a couple of very minor evolutions, this is effectively the same Octopath Traveler as before”. I confess, the first game’s story does drag on, but I greatly enjoyed the alchemy of the Boost and Break systems. I do think Square Enix have run the HD-2D look into the ground at this point, though.
