A promising story with strange scars

I was excited about Octopath Traveler 0 on several fronts. Octopath Traveler 2 was, in almost every way, a deep step back to its commercially successful predecessor and my personal Game of the Year 2023. And as someone who can't seem to stick with mobile gacha games no matter how hard I try, the idea of turning Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent into an ex-appeal-appeal-appeal-up-medium. It was, after all, one of the best mobile efforts Square Enix has ever produced.

During my first few hours with this ambitious reimagining, my sky-high hopes were brought down to more terrestrial territory. For everything I found myself admiring in the early parts of Octopath Traveler 0, something else gets in the way. The result is a decidedly mixed first impression, but please note that I have a ton of hours left on the clock.

Square Enix has repeatedly referred to the main story of Octopath Traveler 0 as a nearly 100-hour effort. This is undoubtedly anathema to some, but for a freak like yours truly, it's a worrisome prospect. In a few hours, so much characterization still awaits me. So many pivotal plot points. A plethora of memorable bosses. Actually, let's start with some positives: everything I just mentioned.

Tired tropes reawakened

Those five or so hours cover the story's prologue, the first chapter for each of its three villain-centric story paths, and the opening portion of the game's all-new city-building plot. The setup here is, on paper, perhaps the least surprising JRPG opening scenario: your hometown is destroyed, your parents murdered, and along with your childhood friends, you survive the massacre and vow to do something about it.

Wait, come back! It's actually quite well done. It's a credit to the smart script of Octopath Traveler 0, who can easily transition from the helplessness of a friend in the midst of flames, to an enemy soldier who's so badass that his diatribe is instantly etched into my long-term memory. Who talks about the rush they experience when they start smelling the blood of their murder victims?

Mastery skill selection menu in Octopath Traveler 0.

All the while, a quiet scholar casually invites the surviving pair to his magical disguised residence, where you train, choose your first job class, and then it's off to the races.

Continuing with JRPG tropes, you're tasked with putting an end to the evil machinations of a self-proclaimed hero who had a great time killing your father. Also, the playwright who has a boring time killing your mother (but the part where you arrive at the scene of the crime and mourn her corpse was beautiful). Also, and an immensely wealthy socialite who sells a powder-based drug that isn't exactly cocaine to the wealthiest egoists in the area. He has a real thing for “calling” his slave population, often with his own hands. In other words, these are despicable people, and you are here to answer for their crimes.

Intense fights, dull spots

The series has never shied away from wearing its themes on its sleeves; The best character in Octopath Traveler 2 is a 'good capitalist' with philanthropic motives who battles a steam engine in the grand finale of his arc. Octopath Traveler 0 is no different in this regard, so the relative lack of subtlety lives or dies on the depth of the story's emotional impact.

This is one area where 0 shines. The epic boss fights that serve as the capstone to each chapter are appropriately challenging, a smart deployment of the series' boost system to break each boss at just the right time. There's a real rush to find weaknesses, exploit them, and then strike with special attacks. There are also randomly triggered bonus abilities for many party members, which can sometimes help turn the tide in a meaningful way. You can't always rely on them to kick you, but knowing they're there as potential boons makes choosing the right party more meaningful.

On the other hand, regular meetings have made it easier to close the eyes. But again, it's going fast. I suspect this may change in time.

During the battle in Octopath Traveler 0, the enemy fired a Wild Lightning Shot.

It's beyond the strength of the story and the climactic chapter-ending skirmishes that cracks are forming for me. Here's the biggest problem: Octopath Traveler 0 is a visual step up from the previous games, and it doesn't even play well on Switch 2. During the game's city-rebuilding mechanic, I encountered scattered hitching. At the moment, the feature is still somewhat bare bones, so these technical issues may worsen as the game progresses, and it matches the interesting sophistication shown in the trailers.

We're still a few weeks out from launch, so I'm hopeful that the kinks will be ironed out by then, but it's disappointing to see suboptimal performance so soon. Neither Octopath Traveler nor Octopath Traveler 2 ran with more than the occasional hiccup on the original Switch, and it's basically the game coming to mobile (in improved form) on more powerful hardware.

The graphics are also a mixed bag, and I don't expect to see that improved. Some parts look great, taking full advantage of Square Enix's experienced HD-2D know-how. It's all the more surprising, then, that environmental textures are mostly muddy, low-resolution messes. I'm not too impressed with the game's character sprites. I booted up an earlier console-bound Octos to make sure I wasn't confused, but sure enough, there's an unpolished look to the 0 that really surprised me.

Octopath Traveler setting first residence to 0.

How can this be? Well, the smart money is on the fact that Octopath Traveler 0 is based on Champions of the Continent, which was both strapped to mobile devices and released before Octopath Traveler 2. Therefore, the properties displayed here may be relatively old. However, there are parts that seem genuinely worse to me than anything in the first game, so it's not “just” a matter of unfair comparisons to the sequel. Either way, it's unfortunate.

Is this also a result of the development of the 100-hour main quest compared to the 60-80 ballpark of its predecessors? maybe If that's the case, and if the continuation and culmination of this epic-length adventure prove to be worth the huge odds, then I might well decide they're worth the odd visual tradeoff.

Right now, I can't talk at length about the depth of Octopath Traveler 0's customization, nor the magnitude of its roster size (my party is still only a quartet), the potential heights of its city rebuilding (I've only recruited three villagers), or many other things that might push me in a positive direction. The jury's out, but I'm definitely looking forward to wiping that smug look off some of the villainous mother-murdering playwright's face.