Octopath Traveler 0 Review – From Zero to Hero

Now the third main game in the series, Octopath Traveler 0 kicks off Square Enix's “HD-2D” renaissance, which blends cult classics and classically styled RPGs and gives them a unique visual look and feel that pays homage to the heyday of 16-bit RPG excellence. Octopath itself has iterated enough that it's developed its own identity within that framework, giving Octopath Traveler 0 the freedom to break some of its own conventions and iterate on others. It reinterprets what a Bafang game is and, more importantly, is a great game in its own right.

Octopath Traveler 0 starts with character creation, which in itself is very different from the Octopath Traveler norm. The games have previously told eight interconnected stories, each focusing on named individual characters. This new approach lets you create your own protagonist, and they remain locked into your party throughout the game, while the rest is filled in by the various companion characters you meet along the way. Character creation is simple, with some options for things like hairstyle and eye shape, but is rendered in a retro pixel style enough to give you a lot of flexibility.

The pixel art style remains largely unchanged from the first two games, and like many HD-2D games, it's an acquired taste. I found the lighting effects on the sprites to be distracting and washed out in the Switch 2's handheld mode, but they look much better on the big screen. Still, I found the overall art style to be rather muddy and desaturated, and would have appreciated the occasional splash of vibrant color, something Octopath 0 rarely offers.

Your protagonist is a resident of the Valley of Wishes, where ritual celebrations are interrupted by an attack by two strangers, Tytos and Augustus, who search for magical relics in your midst. The two set the town on fire, and your friends fled to safety. When you return, the town is completely destroyed and most of the village elders are dead. One of the few survivors gives you the relic that Titos and August are looking for, a sacred ring that makes you the Ring Bearer. The two attackers had their own ring, as well as a third rival who tipped them off: a wealthy heiress named Lady Herminia. The plot between these three men to destroy your village in search of the ring you hold drives the story and gives it dramatic stakes from the start.

These three villains are a prime example of one of the strengths of Octopath Traveler 0, which has an amazing cast of villains. Each represents an aspect of the ways in which power and influence corrupt: Herminia is greedy and lives to excess, and her ruthlessness in acquiring and maintaining wealth earns her the reputation of a witch; August is a playwright whose reputation is so great that most of his audience remains unaware of the sadistic ways in which he abuses others to fuel his dramatic talents; and Titos is a famous war hero with the political and military power behind him that he uses to enforce his will. The theme of all their stories, and the game as a whole, is the corruption of wealth, fame, and power.

To further this, Octopath 0 delves into some very adult-oriented themes with varying degrees of success and sensitivity. August's methods included torture, murder and child endangerment. They're stomach-churning in a way that sells his villainy very effectively. The choice to give August a pale vampire appearance, and his identity as a playwright involves using people's suffering to inform his art, his flair for the dramatic and cruelty reminded me of one of the greatest villains in role-playing games, Final Fantasy 6's Kefka. On the other hand, however, Herminia's past and present include references to prostitution, and her story's treatment of sex work seems insensitive in a modern context.

Octagon 0's story is presented in the form of chapters, which are the backbone of the series and also serve as a reminder of how you should approach its structure. It's not feasible to complete the entire “Master of Wealth” chapter before entering the “Hall of Fame” chapter – you should complete the first chapter of each chapter, then the second chapter, and so on. This can make the pacing feel weird – every chapter ends with some dramatic stakes or plot twist, so it feels weird to abandon that and go do something completely different. Octagon's first two games have a similar pacing, but feel more awkward since this one starts off as a revenge story for a player-created protagonist.

There is no doubt that the strongest aspect of Octopath Traveler 0 is: the stellar combat system, which is even better than its predecessor. It seems simple at first glance, looking very similar to past Octagon games, which themselves were homages to classic 16-bit RPGs like Final Fantasy 4-6. But since the name “Bafang” no longer applies to eight separate stories, it has been repurposed to refer to your party itself. Instead of eight playable characters, you'll find dozens of them – some of them story-critical, others of them optional side quests. And instead of a party of four, it's a party of eight – four in the front and four in the back. The sheer number of characters makes them less fleshed out than the eight core characters in other Octagon games, and even the most central characters in Octagon 0 don't get the attention of the main party members in Octagon 2. The handful of Wishville natives who make up the core story cast get the most attention, and while the other party members have individual stories, they feel more like mini-series. As you take on quests from others, you're also bound to leave some people behind in town, potentially making them lower level and less useful in combat, so they do feel more like disposable tools than real characters.

Each of the dozens of characters you encounter has their own class and special skills—like an apothecary who specializes in healing or a dancer who provides powerful buffs—as well as two weapon types they can equip. The protagonist you create is special, in part because they are the only one who can change jobs and learn skills from any job category. This makes team building incredibly flexible while also providing a satisfying strategic puzzle. You'll want to make sure you have a variety of skills and jobs represented, while also making sure you have at least a few of each weapon type on hand. Matching your weapon and spell types to your enemy's weaknesses will force the enemy into a “collapse” state where they can no longer act and take additional damage. Meanwhile, your team's back row is mostly immune to attack and passively gains combat points that can be spent on multiple actions at once but can be swapped with front row mates at any time. This new element—more characters available at any time, with a focus on positioning and swapping places—acts like the force multiplier for all strategic options that Octopath is known for.

It's so fun to see something both familiar and new, especially as a long-time Japanese RPG fan.

If this sounds like a dizzying array of options, it's certainly not the case in practice. Octopath Traveler 0 has a huge difficulty ramp that leads you through increasingly complex scenarios, forcing you to rethink your strategy and plan your party composition accordingly, and then retest your skills. At the same time, the combat challenges are tough, which makes it all the more satisfying as you crack codes, exploit weaknesses, and defeat bosses. Combat is never a passive experience, but a frantic puzzle where you have to send your members back and forth for healing, damage, status effects, weapon swapping, and more. It's so fun to see something both familiar and new, especially as a long-time Japanese RPG fan.

That said, this is a classic-style RPG, so be prepared for a lot of grinding. I found that even after completing the story and side missions, and not escaping any fights, I wasn't leveling up fast enough to keep up with the recommended mission levels – and even when I did, there were times when I felt under-motivated during a particularly tough boss fight. Monster spawning is slow, which is part of the pacing of this style of RPG, but I can see it putting off some players. The slow upgrade speed appears to be an attempt to discourage over-upgrading. Grinding much higher than the recommended level is impractical, forcing you to engage in the intricacies of the combat system rather than breeze through powerful fighters.

As you gain allies, you also begin to rebuild your hometown. Story characters double as expert shopkeepers in Wish Valley, and you can recruit villagers from other towns you've visited to move in and bring their own resource-gathering skills to you. The interface runs on a satisfying grid system, letting you click buildings into place and then move them around at your leisure. Town building can give you a little break from the rigors of combat, but the two also feed into each other. The better your town is, the more options you have to buy special items or train inactive members. Meanwhile, engaging in intense, optional battles in dungeons allows you to acquire a special material to upgrade your buildings. While it's not complex enough to replace a dedicated comfort game like Animal Crossing, it's still satisfying to see my burgeoning Wish Valley restored to its former glory whenever I need to take a breather.

The Octopath Traveler series is also known for its path-finding action, but that's in sparse service here. In the first two Octopath games, path action was a way to incorporate light puzzle elements into villages, as NPCs would react differently to a specific character's skill set. In this game, your protagonist is the only constant, and other characters may not always be by your side. Therefore, all of the protagonist's path actions are available at any time, but only three are available to any given NPC. One is to always ask them for information, two is to usually recruit them to your town or hire them as a call to arms, and three is to usually fight them to get some special rewards such as discounted items. It's a good enough compromise considering all the other options being considered, but it does make exploring the town a little less appealing. Once you've looked around and recruited all the available people to your town, there isn't much reason to try Path Action after that.

Once you've solved the three main missions against the main antagonist, the story takes a sharp turn into less personal territory as you're plunged into the conflict of kingdoms. I was less invested in the story at first – I'd already avenged my village and was rebuilding my town, so what did I care about this royal drama? But by this point I was fully invested in the fighting, which kept my interest alive long enough to start caring about the various characters in this war of succession. Eventually, I also started to really enjoy the story and care about the characters involved.

Every time I think I've seen everything Octopath Traveler 0 has to offer, another layer appears before my eyes. Around this, I also started opening up mastery skills, which are another aspect of combat that allow for more strategic options. By continuing to earn Job Points (JP) after mastering all the skills for your character's job, you can use these JP to purchase copies of these skills, which can then be equipped by other characters. The permutations seem endless, and I've actually just begun to think about the strategic possibilities.

This is what playing Octopath Traveler 0 feels like: seemingly endless modes, ever-deepening combat challenges and strategic wrinkles, slowly revealed to you over and over again over dozens of hours. In a sense, I've seen the credits, but there's still so much to do and explore. It feels like a game that could go on forever. I might just let it.