‘Octopath Traveler 0’ overview: A protracted, worthwhile journey

Octopath Traveler 0 had each excuse to be half-assed. It may have been smaller, leaner, and fewer compelling than its predecessors, simply by advantage of the place it got here from. It’s a minor miracle that it’s none of these issues.

The most recent throwback-style turn-based RPG from Sq. Enix, in case you don’t know, is a $50 console and PC adaptation of a free-to-play cellular sport from 2020. The builders took a bunch of current characters, enemies, storylines, mechanics, and music, and reconstituted them into a completely totally different and wholly welcome new format. Provided that cellular video games are inherently fleeting, as they depend on storefronts, servers, and cost processes that may stop to exist sometime, I feel that is type of unbelievable.

It additionally helps that the tip result’s only a actual, actual good RPG. Octopath Traveler 0 takes a basis that would’ve produced one thing awkward and rickety and turns it right into a sport that retains increasing and changing into extra compelling the extra time you make investments into it. It won’t really feel as premium as the opposite console video games within the sequence, however that doesn’t cease Octopath Traveler 0 from being probably the greatest RPGs of 2025, and a worthy addition to what’s rapidly changing into an excellent sequence.

Humble beginnings

Octopath Traveler 0 is totally different from the primary two console entries within the sequence in numerous methods, largely owing to the truth that it’s reformed from elements of Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent, a free-to-play telephone spin-off. Meaning the very design cloth that made these first two video games stand out is gone right here.

Particularly, you now not select from one among eight pre-designed characters and spend the remainder of your journey recruiting the opposite seven. That format produced video games that felt extra like brief story collections than grand adventures, as every character had their very own distinct arcs that largely didn’t contain the opposite characters. In Octopath 0, you as a substitute create your individual character, select a beginning class, and set off into the identical prologue that each different participant will see.

Quickly sufficient, your humble hometown will get burnt down by some nefarious evildoers, and it’s as much as you and a handful of different survivors to rebuild and search revenge. There are a number of bespoke story arcs that hardly ever contact one another right here, as in earlier Octopath video games, however they’re centered round heroes quite than villains. You are able to do them in no matter order you need, however you’ll need to do all of them finally.

Your occasion begins out small and will get a lot, a lot greater later.
Credit score: Sq. Enix/Steam

Maybe the largest change, which comes instantly from the cellular sport, is that there are a number of dozens of playable occasion members in Octopath 0, versus simply eight in every of the earlier two video games. You don’t need to pay cash to take part in slot machine pulls to unlock them anymore, as they’re now doled out at an inexpensive tempo over the course of the story, and lots of of them are non-compulsory to recruit. 

Structurally, Octopath 0 is considerably extra interesting to me than Champions of the Continent may ever hope to be. I don’t like free-to-play gacha video games, however I like narrative RPGs. I feel it’s an act of near-genius to adapt a cellular sport to a console sport in the best way the builders have right here. Whereas Octopath 0 feels totally different from its brethren, it hardly ever feels lesser than these different video games. There are fewer fight animations for every character, to make certain, and it’s noticeable to followers of the opposite video games that a lot of the music is reused. However Octopath 0 doesn’t lower corners. That is, for all intents and functions, an enormous, new, fully-featured RPG constructed utilizing the bones of a cellular sport. In a world the place new video games take without end to get made and budgets are ballooning, I can’t assist however applaud this novel strategy to filling the hole between 2023’s Octopath Traveler II and no matter comes subsequent.

Octopath Traveler 0 takes some time to get going

You will do loads of this, a minimum of for some time.
Credit score: Sq. Enix/Steam

As a non-full-priced sport with such an odd origin story, it could be cheap to count on a sport with much less occurring than its higher-budget counterparts in the identical sequence. That expectation couldn’t be farther off the mark, although.

I’ll simply state it bluntly: This sport took me about 80 hours to complete. It’s an enormous funding, and it’s an funding that requires a level of persistence. Most of the early first 20 hours or so are spent setting the desk for what comes later. You’ll spend lots of that point recruiting a full occasion and beginning the method of rebuilding your hometown, which is completed in a reasonably substantial town-building minigame. There are important, game-changing battle mechanics which are hidden behind constructing sure constructions that don’t unlock till you hit that 20-hour mark, roughly. 

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m not saying Octopath Traveler 0 takes 20 hours to get good. I’m saying, nevertheless, that it saves its greatest for later. Like I mentioned, it’s an funding, and I feel it’s a rewarding one to make.

However as soon as it begins rolling, it turns into unstoppable

Fights with a full occasion are thrilling.
Credit score: Sq. Enix/Steam

That reward takes a number of totally different types. One among them is superb turn-based fight, which is a number of the most enjoyable in any sport launched this 12 months.

Not like earlier Octopath video games, by which you had 4 occasion members on display without delay, Octopath 0 allows you to work with eight homies on the sector at any given time. They’re organized right into a entrance row and again row. These within the entrance can assault and take harm, whereas these within the again are guarded from hits and slowly recuperate sources with every passing flip. You’ll be able to immediately change between one character and one other character who’s in the identical horizontal slot as them on the formation display, and determining who performs second fiddle to whom is a large a part of build-crafting on this sport.

This works exceptionally properly with the primary battle conceit of each Octopath sport, which is the Enhance system. Initially of every flip, each character earns one Enhance Level, they usually can maintain as much as 5 at a time. You should utilize as many as three in a single flip to energy up no matter you’re about to do, whether or not it’s an enormous assault or a therapeutic spell. In earlier video games, you needed to be a bit of stingy with Enhance Factors, however not right here. Having an entire backup crew progressively increase factors means you’re incentivized to make use of extra of them extra usually, and the fight is balanced accordingly. It’s an thrilling and totally different problem from one thing like Octopath II.

Increase your hometown is plugged into your development, as properly. As I mentioned earlier, it’s a must to construct sure constructions and home them with sure recruitable NPCs to unlock many key options of the battle system. Constructing requires sources, however gathering them is usually painless so long as you’re observant and ensure to choose issues up on the street. Maybe a bit annoyingly, there are additionally vital quality-of-life options like quick journey which are locked behind constructing and upgrading constructions.

I do have one criticism about town-building, which is you can basically “end” your city (that’s, construct each important gameplay construction) midway by means of the primary story, at which level there’s now not a lot want to consider it. I might have most well-liked extra hooks for the endgame, however I suppose there’s additionally one thing to love about simply specializing in exploring and preventing as the sport winds in the direction of its conclusion.

The story will get higher later

This dude is the perfect character within the sport.
Credit score: Sq. Enix/Steam

Talking of which, the opposite primary vector of satisfaction when you select to take a position your time in Octopath Traveler 0 is the narrative. This sport is all about how greed is unhealthy, and every villain represents a special type of greed. Some need fame, some need wealth, some need energy, however all of them need, and that’s the place they find yourself harming these round them.

At first, it feels very heavy-handed and predictable. Keep on with the story lengthy sufficient, nevertheless, and also you’ll discover that the early predictability provides method to later twists that truly have weight to them. Octopath Traveler 0 is an exceptionally earnest sport, by no means attempting to trick or outsmart the participant. It simply desires you to care about this world and these individuals, and I feel it does a high-quality job of extracting these emotions from the participant by the point it’s accomplished.

A part of that could be a prolonged finale chapter, which quantities to perhaps 1 / 4 of the sport by itself. That is the place each different previously-disconnected storyline comes collectively, and all of the characters you’ve met as much as that time begin interacting with one another for the primary time. The sport’s greatest narrative swings all occur within the finale, together with a villain reveal for the ages. That is simply the perfect antagonist of any Octopath sport, however to say any extra would wreck the enjoyable for you.

Simply sit with it for some time

Earlier than we’re accomplished right here, I’d be remiss to not point out that Sq. Enix’s “HD-2D” artwork model that began with the primary Octopath sport remains to be nice right here. I actually dig the deliberately low-fidelity look of the sprites and 3D belongings, mixed with trendy lighting and depth-of-field results. It doesn’t actually seem like an outdated sport, nevertheless it appears superior, nonetheless. Yasunori Nishiki’s music can also be a standout component of Octopath 0, as he has develop into one of many best RPG composers working proper now. One of many boss struggle themes is such a smoking scorching banger that I’ve been listening to it for per week straight in my free time.

Sadly, efficiency within the Nintendo Swap 2 model (which is what I performed) isn’t nice. It targets and comes near hitting 60 frames per second more often than not, however there is a noticeable stutter that appears most prevalent through the first few seconds after getting into a brand new space. Not unplayable by any means, however definitely a bit of disappointing.

Nonetheless, Octopath Traveler 0 is a remarkably lengthy and usually worth-the-effort expertise, particularly for anybody who vibes with the opposite video games within the sequence. That is the type of sport that you just’d yearn for as a teen on summer season break with nothing else to do. You’ll be able to sink into it for dozens of hours, and it simply retains getting higher the extra you play it, because of wonderful fight and a narrative that finds its greatest self in its later phases.

I perceive not everybody has time for that type of factor of their grownup lives, however when you can create a window in your life for Octopath Traveler 0, your persistence will largely be rewarded.

Octobpath Traveler 0 is accessible for Nintendo Swap, Swap 2, Xbox Sequence X, and PlayStation 5 for $49.99.