Like pretty much everyone else, I absolutely love HD2D visuals. It’s hard to believe that only ten years ago they simply didn’t exist, and games pretty much either had a retro aesthetic or a shiny modern one with little in between. That all changed thanks to Octopath Traveler, a gorgeous looking JRPG that invoked the classics while adding some modern twists to create a masterpiece. The sequel was arguably even better, and a perfect ten for me. If you haven’t played Octopath Traveler and Octopath Traveler II before then you need to rectify this horrific mistake, and there’s no better time to do so now that both games have Switch 2 versions.
One of the main hooks of the Octopath Traveler games is that they have eight protagonists, and you can choose to begin as whichever one you want. The start of the game then sends you across the kingdom to watch some origin stories, and learn all about your full party as you add them to the ranks one at a time. In most games this would ruin the pacing a little as you waited for the main story to get going, but Octopath isn’t most games.
The reason this works is because the characters and their back stories are all fascinating and intense. These games aren’t twee JRPGs full of plucky young heroes, they’re full of trauma and tragedy. One character has been emotionally and physically abused by adoptive parents who force her to steal for a living, another has been falsely imprisoned for murdering his wife and child. There are dark themes in these games which are really well presented, and will make you seriously invested in these characters.
Octopath Traveler never goes too far into the misery either, and has plenty of more charming and happy characters to help take the edge off. Both games have dancers who dream of fame and fortune with a whole lot of enthusiasm, and the second game has an anti-capitalist merchant who is just delightful to everyone he meets. Even when threats to the entire world emerge you can rely on your party to help you through it, be it with grit earned through trauma or relentless optimism.
Both Octopath Traveler and Octopath Traveler II are huge JRPGs you’ll be playing for dozens and dozens of hours, and thanks to the exceptional combat they never drag on. The traditional turn based battles are made more exciting thanks to the Boost and Break systems, which are both just fantastic. Every turn you gain a boost point, and you can spend these to take more than one action at a time. Doing this enables you to slash or stab multiple times in a row, helping you break enemies that are weak to those attacks. Each enemy has a number of weak spots hits required to break them, and when you do they won’t be able to act and will take loads of extra damage. They’re an easy to understand pair of systems that soon become much deeper with so many skills to utilise, and very few games do turn based combat better because of it.
Each character in your party has a huge variety of attacks and abilities they can use in battle, but they’re even unique outside of battle. Using Path skills they can interact with people in different ways, and this is used to gain valuable items and complete quests. One character will provoke NPCs into one on one fights to get them out of the way, whereas another can charm them into giving you valuable items. It’s fun to experiment with all these across both games, and extremely rewarding if you’re looking to strengthen your party.
The first Octopath Traveler game is great, but the sequel steps it up even more. Additions like Latent Abilities (which are essentially ultimate attacks) make battles even more exhilarating, and side quests that involve pairs of your eight characters working together allow you to see fun relationships form. I love both of these games, but because of elements like this I do think the second is superior.
Regardless of surface level aspects, the Octopath Traveler games are seriously special JRPGs. They are also undeniably gorgeous to look at and listen to as well, which is just the tastiest of icing on the fluffiest of cakes. The soundtracks and the voice acting are incredible, and make for some of the best audio in this genre. Alongside this they obviously look so good they created a new art style single handedly, and with spectacular pixel art mixed with expertly crafted environments and lighting it’s hard to imagine better looking video games.
Both of these Octopath Traveler games were wonderful on the original Switch, but the power of the Switch 2 makes them even better. With a smooth 60fps framerate and improved resolution they are now in line with the other console versions, and it makes a real difference side by side. There’s nowhere else I’d rather play Octopath now than the Switch 2, and I’m jealous of people experiencing these games for the first time on the best possible system.
I really couldn’t recommend Octopath Traveler and Octopath Traveler II any more highly, and the Switch 2 versions only serve to enhance the fierceness of this recommendation. It doesn’t really get better than this, from the combat to the story and everything in between. These HD2D games will be an important part of gaming history for years to come, so celebrate by playing them for hours and hours, you won’t regret it.
