Topic: Octopath Traveler

@kyleforrester87 Yeah I am Setsuna lost them money apparently ($2.4mill) https://www.technobuffalo.com/2016/08/03/i-am-setsuna-develop... & Lost Sphear performed worse iirc. That was before the Switch releases though.
Looks like Octopath is going to do much, much better though.

"It remains to be seen how well the game sold in North America, and I have a feeling it will actually do better here."

Let's be honest, many Japanese games would be ****ed if they only were released in Japan. Including a shocking number of games you would assume would do better in Japan. The United States is a vastly bigger audience. So that article doesn't matter much without info on how it did over here.

My assumption is that it did well because there's no reason an early Switch release wouldn't. Mediocre reviewed Bomberman game, Puyo Tetris game that no one cared about before Switch release, niche animu tactics game 4 games after its peak in popularity (AFAIK), and Street Fighter 2 for 40 bucks all sold incredibly well on Switch so it would be weird if a decently reviewed Chrono Trigger nostalgiafest wouldn't make a good amount of money.

I strayed from the path a bit and visited couple of towns that had no story stuff for me for now. I completed couple of sidequests and unlocked two secondary jobs as well. Now my Cyrus can heal and use axes while Tressa has access to swords.

Back in the demo, I used Olberic to defeat every single NPC but now I've avoided battles unless they are part of side quests. I really like how each of the characters you can battle against have some kind of gimmick (at least the side quest battles). For example, one person was constantly trying to put Olberic to sleep while another one, threw mud to blind him. The latter was a thief so it really fit the person as well.

I've also noticed that there are quite a few changes between the first demo and the full game. I liked how that one old man in Sunshade was the strongest opponent in the demo but now he's just a regular old man. Did Primrose have a very short flashback in the demo or was that thing new as well? I don't remember seeing it before. It happened during that thing where the little girl wanted to become a dancer, she looked at Primrose and said she's beautiful. I was also trying to take the amnesic girl to the place where she had to go in the demo but found out that the other person wasn't there. I found the right place a bit later.

Really enjoying my time. 4/8 characters recruited.

@Fight_Teza_Fight you know that article is from before the switch release, right?

@Nekoo77 I'd be suprised if you didn't like it because most people seem to agree that she has a great first chapter, and now I'm about to start the second yay!

@Late Yeah Primrose's section has changed quite a lot from the demo. The short flashback was added and I'm pretty sure the dungeon some differences as well as different music (not 100% sure but it seems different). They changed a couple of things to so it fits in with the whole game instead of being your main or second character.

To be honest I think the game will sell well in most places, there's whole generation or two of people who will buy this based on nostalgia from Final Fantasy and that's not even including JRPG fans. The setting also makes it a lot more attractive to the public instead of some the cringey anime stuff we see in so many RPGs.

...the Switch also doesn't have many big RPGs and there doesn't seem to be many coming that we know of. The only big JRPGs I can think of that are coming to Switch are Tales of Vesperia this year and SMT V at some point in the future. Might as well make the most of Octopath

@Kimyonaakuma

Xenoblade Chronicles 2, YS VIII and Octopath Traveller are 3 big JRPGs already out for Switch, all of them among the very best I've played all generation. And Shining Resonance Refrain just released, which is a fine game in itself- shame its getting overlooked due to Octopath and YS.

And we have Tales of Vesperia, Valkyria Chronicles 4, Pokémon Let's Go, Pokémon 2019, Dragon Quest Builders 2, Dragon Quest XI, Shin Megami Tensei V, The World Ends With You, Fire Emblem Three Houses, Disgaea 1, Xenoblade 2 Torna Expansion, and games like Dark Souls Remastered and Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate which, despite not being JRPG's, are Japanese and technically RPG's. Plus some Western RPG's like Pillars of Eternity 2 and Victor Vran. Also some lesser knowns like Atelier games, God Wars, RPG Maker MV, etc.

@kkslider5552000
Well, that's one (rueful) way to look at things lol

It's a good game, man. Lighten up.

@SVTornado You do know I mentioned that in my original comment, right?

Octopath Traveler is 3rd in the UK chart & would’ve been 1st based on revenue.
Sales are also almost double of Bravely Default.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-07-16-uk-charts-c...

Another few hours into it... REALLY liking it.

The characters are so cool, but the thing that's really keeping me around is the combat system. Whether or not I can get into an RPG usually comes down to the combat, and this one is brilliant. Fast with some cool abilities, but also a couple layers of strategy for the bigger fights.

@JaxonH Hmm I guess that's a few, but I wouldn't personally call a lot of them JRPGs...

I think the problem isn't the lack of games, it's that many of these games ports of remasters, and the number of exclusives is even smaller. It's a good selection but even I have played a couple of these upcoming games already, and I don't play tons of games compared to hardcore RPG fans. But more options can't be a bad thing can it?

Octopath Traveller is still fun! I was worried that it would run out of new things but it hasn't so far, I love how much control you have over the everything and the variety of it all

The amount of backstory they have added is impressive too, it's nice to see that everything in the world is connected and intertwined, I was sure if they meant it or it was some cool marketing tagline

@Kimyonaakuma
But ports are great when it's games like Tales of Vesperia, which is not only considered the best game in the entire series but one of the best RPG's to ever release, and has been held hostage on the Xbox 360 for the last decade.

So for all intents and purposes that's a brand new release. I bought the game years ago hoping it would make it to the backwards compatible list on Xbox one but it never happened. Game has been sitting there unplayed for three years.

And as for the non-exclusive games, that becomes much less of an issue when these are all exclusive handheld versions. So even if they are not exclusive to the system, they are exclusively portable on the system. And while that may not carry as much impact as a fully fledged exclusive it definitely carries more impact than a standard multi platform game on any other console.

And I would say a fair a few of those are actually exclusives- Xenoblade 2 (and its standalone Torna expansion) Octopath Traveller, Pokémon Let's Go, Pokémon 2019, SMTV, The World Ends With You (DS and mobile aside, you can't play this game on any other rival console or even PC), Fire Emblem Three Houses, Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate...

That's actually a crap load of exclusives. Granted, not all of those games have released yet. But they are all coming, and I think the vast majority of them will have released by spring time.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it's not nearly as small a selection as you initially seemed to indicate, or at least, that I perceived you to initially indicate. But I'm sure that list will only grow in time since we are still just a year into the console's lifespan- I'd say that's a reasonably respectable RPG lineup thus far (and absolute night and day from the Wii U RPG lineup, which got all of two whole releases all generation long- XCX and #FE... well, it got MH3U too, so I guess three)

Twelve hours in.
Can personally say this satisfies even me, the guy who's super critical towards retro-inspired JRGPs. It has a lot more soul than Tokyo RPG Factory games (IMHO), with more cohesive mechanics. It also outclasses literally every Kemco JRPG by having a battle system with more depth than 'spam strong attacks to win' for every encounter.

But I'm probably doing it a disservice by comparing it to those games.

As far as writing goes, some stories are better than others. That's all I can say for now until I finish all the chapters.

Love this game but only one problem, I have been playing in handheld, has anyone else's battery just getting really drained by this game??
I played on Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze for hours with no battery warning.
But played it for only just under 3 hours yesterday and a battery warning only 10% left.

Yup, definately a Battery drainer, only played it for 30 mins (during lunch break) and already down to 70% battery left, from 100% when I started.

Just gotta remember to save whenever possible i suppose, and find a cheap charger that won't brick my machine

Bought the game today and have already played 5 hours and all I can say is the game is an absolute masterpiece. 10/10 from me

@Bunkerneath
Yea, I've also noticed it drains more battery than you would expect. I chalk it up to the game actually be graphically intensive despite its outward appearance of "simple" sprites. There are actually lots of cool layers and effects going on.

@rallydefault Yeah it's not the most complex game in terms of graphics so that's strange. The game is made of simple elements and depth of field effects aren't technically demanding at all.

All that I could think of is maybe the lighting? The shadow quality is good and there is a good amount of dynamic lighting, even though you can see some of the technical shortcuts they had taken at times to keep performance good. The game definitely doesn't have any, or at least really good AA either :/

How do other Unreal Engine 4 games perform battery-wise? Unity and Unreal aren't as streamlined as custom engines so it could just be issues behind the scenes...

Finally have some time to continue Octopath... goddamn everytime I play it, I just end up distracted by "I need to steal everything as Therion"... have to force myself to leave around 2 3% chance items + 1 8% chance item at Ophilia's place because I want to get Cyrus...

Guess I'm now putting rules on myself to only steal the ones in 2 digits! 15% isn't too bad, I only savescummed around 5 times, better than the 10-20+ times I have to do for 8% ones.

Golden Sun has impressive visuals effects for being a GBA game. I just remembered that reading the comments above.

I asked this before but is technical performance (frame rate) good for all of you?

@BlueOcean It's usually okay but but there are a few occasions where it slows down. The frame rate is slightly off when the title screen loads or if I enter a really big area, but it goes away after 30 seconds or so. I guess it's slowing down while it loads everything?

Apart from that it drops some frames occasionally on some spells but that isn't suprising. It's good 95% of the time, and it never becomes unplayable...at least for me

@Kimyonaakuma Good to know, thanks.