Topic: Octopath Traveler

@Yorumi I don't know what to tell you. Octopath had a decent amount of narration and dialogue in the demo, but the characters' stories were interesting and highly emotionally charged. Trails in the Sky FC has a ton of dialogue, too, but it took 50 hours for anything of real significance to even happen in that game (beyond developing the creepy incestuous romance subplot). The length of the game doesn't really make a difference to me either way. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 was 100+ hours for me and I enjoyed almost all of it.

Granted, I prefer my games to not bombard me with an hour of continuous dialogue, but I'm more interested in the content of a story.

Besides, even if the cutscenes can get a bit overly long, I prefer clearly demarcated cutscenes that are separate from gameplay, as opposed to the design trend in modern Western games where the heavy hand of the game designer can and will direct the flow of the normal gameplay throughout, leading to the feeling that the entire game is a sort of interactive cutscene.

@EvilLucario Xeno- games are kind of bad about heaping on the story in general. I remember when I dropped Xenosaga Episode 1: it was after I watched a video cutscene that went on for roughly 40 minutes or so, the game prompted me to save, and then it launched into another 30 or 40 minute cutscene. That was... a bit much for me at the time. I wasn't really into the game to begin with, though. I survived Xenogears' endless chair sitting, after all.

@Ralizah Xenosaga is particularly infamous about cutscenes that can be even worse than Metal Gear Solid 4's cutscenes. It can be pretty bad if you don't care about the story, and it's extremely heavy-handed. Fortunately they struck a much nicer balance in Xenoblade 1, X, and 2.

Xenogears Disc 2, though, ooh boy. I wasn't around when that came out, but [removed] I would have been so disappointed if I played it for the first time without hearing about how Disc 2 was. I still love that game to death and it overtook Final Fantasy VII as my favorite PS1 RPG (despite me vastly prioritizing gameplay over story in terms of what games I play), but whew that was a rough time.

I'm developing an interested in this game that I didn't have before. I guess it's the prelaunch hype I can feel in the air.

I've started the demo (old one) and I kinda like what I see.

Problem is I have too much backlog, to the point of not having played Super Mario Odyssey or BOTW for weeks, even months. And I think I don't need another RPG, time-consuming by nature, right now.

Plus, I think in time it will be discounted, not heavily, but discounted, being a third-party as it is.

@Yorumi I kind of agree in that, to me, side quests are always the main game in RPGs, the main story is always underwhelming. Doesn't work in Xenoblade where side quests suck. But Baldur's Gate 2, Oblivion, etc, it's all about the side quests (XCX tried that but it didn't really come across.)

OTOH when I think "tell the story through the world" I think of Half-Life 2, the most overhyped awful mess of a story I've ever experienced where I needed Wikipedia to tell me what the heck the story is and even then it made little sense. Having the story happen and hoping you're looking in the right place at the time like it's real life doesn't work either I know that's not what you meant but I can't help but think of it.

@Moroboshi876 I wouldn't count on the discount. Bravely Default still sells for close to full price years later. These Square-Nintendo exclusives seem to be at least partly Nintendo co-published or something, so the Nintendo tax applies.

Any idea why Nintendos site states "No. Of Player: to be determined"? I have found an article or two in these latest days saying it'll be single player, but there is no official source on that info other than it seeming like a single player game. Any thoughts?

@Yorumi
Yea, the mystery for everyone right now is how much Octopath is going to open up after the first chapters for the 8 characters. We'll just have to wait and see. Your best bet, it seems, is to wait for people like me to play it and let you know lol

@Yorumi
Yea, I'm giving it a whirl. These two demos have given me a good impression, which is WAY more than I had when I took a chance on something like Blue Dragon, for instance. I was so disappointed in that game - to this day one of my biggest wastes of video game money, in my mind.

I've enjoyed it all so far so I'll be suprised if it suddenly becomes bad, but with that said I was sold on this game when I saw it last January and others might need more persuading.

I think the stories will be good, just not as deep as some grand "save the world" RPG. I actually like how the stories are more personal because I never really care when the game is just about a great evil and this one person who can save everything. My only concern is if these stories connect in any way or if the characters actually acknowledge eachother. I feel like how the game is structured we'll probably see references to other character's stories during their quest and we might piece together a bigger picture, however each character will not join acknowledge eachother in any meaningful way. But if we're forced to recruit every character first then that could change, I feel like that won't happen though and it will be more free and open.

But that's my only concern, we're pretty much guaranteed a beautiful game with great combat and 8 interesting stories, anything else is an extra in my opinion.

Also, did anyone see what they showed off at Japan Expo? Seems like the battles are going to get more interesting and difficult as things progress

@Moroboshi876: I get where you're coming from. A lot of my backlog is clogged with RPGs and has made me reluctant to pick up more at the present time. It doesn't help that I just picked up DQ VIII (3DS) new at a decent price; the game is supposed to be amazing, but pretty long to boot.

As for a discount....It's a possibility, but I wouldn't expect one for some time. Bravely Second, last I checked, is available at a decent price online. Bravely Default? Not so much.

@Tyranexx @NEStalgia Yes, I wasn't counting on any permanent discount. What I meant was sometimes a specific retailer puts some games on sale for one or more days and third-party titles are more given to receive that treatment. Anyway, if it doesn't go on sale it's not important when I buy it, right?

So I have noticed that a lot of people are acting like this game isn't new. Even though it still isn't out for a few more days. I know we heard about it way in advance, but that doesn't change the fact that it is a brand new game this week.

I've caved. Two days to go before release, and I have just fired off that preorder. I am a slave to hype. Also, I really want Octopath to succeed and show that the Switch is going to have a strong core of RPG players. We each do our part...

I'm getting it as well but probably wont start it till after I beat some games. Like 5 of them so maybe I'll start it this year lol.

I've been finishing random parts of games so I can just focus on Octopath Traveller, so I finished Octo Expansion and Limbo (both were amazing! ).

I preordered the Pearl and Marina amiibo too so it's an expensive weekend...even though I preordered them two weeks ago

I'm hoping the Octopath developers are a permanent part of the Switch exclusive team at Square Enix so we will get something from them every couple of years. That combined with Atlus and SMT V is good news for Switch players!

So much happening this week. Splatoon 2 Amiibos, Fortnite season 5 and Octopath. Oh my.

I have to finish Sushi Striker and maybe Wolfenstein...maybe DKCTF before I open up the 1000 hours of Octopath

I still need to finish Crash. And my get my Monk to 110 in WoW.

I'm going to resign Xenoblade 2 back to my list to finish until the doldrums of early next year. And Skyrim. And Disgaea 5...

Definitely starting Octopath as soon as I get it on Friday!

Bravely Default was published by Nintendo in the west.

In my opinion, if the story is written well enough and presented good enough, any amount of text is tolerable and even welcomed in a story-driven RPG. However, I think Octopath has not the most well-written story from what I've seen so far (demo) but still a pretty interesting one (heavily depending on your tastes in a characters backstory and origins).

Anyway, if you don't have the time, patience or excitement to "read yourself" into a new game, then you should take a pause from the gerne and look for something different. Sorry to be the one to tell you, but there's more than a dozen great action-RPGs on the system that don't expect you to read that much story and dialogue.

I'm sure Octopath Traveler opens up to have you enganged in battles, puzzles, and exploring as well, but you have to get through the intro and prologue chapters to get there. I ranted a lot about similar games, like Xenoblade 2 etc., but in the end the games were great as they rewarded patience and keeping at them. Yes, some games have a slow start and sometimes we have different expectations, and sometimes we are just in the mood for something else, so I'd like to see you ranting again when you're 90 hours into the game and everything is completely unfolded rather than 90 minutes into one of the main characters' story-heavy intro.

I haven't tried all characters but from the ones I tried, all their intros were certainly not longer than 15 minutes. Who is the 90 minute intro character you are talking about?