OCTOPATH TRAVELER II
scariest words in the english language? reflecting on chapter 1.
many rpgs are built like theme parks, but octopath’s closer to a shopping mall: each compartment (and those within those) operating independently and without consideration for the rest. even the characters themselves scarcely interact, their individual routes never acknowledging the other party members while almost all interstitial adventuring occurs in silence. it’s less an assortment of whirring, blinking attractions than a series of isolation chambers
this becomes troublesome early as you’re pressed into eight different tutorials, each with their own long-winded introductory sequences, sludgy set pieces, “dungeons”, and so on. soon as any given arc gains any momentum it’s time for yet another pacing catastrophe as you’re hurled into the first chunk of yet another easy bake jrpg. what’s worse is that the open-ended structure needs to account for significant variations in sequencing, so most of these end up being as structurally interchangeable as late era FFXIV dungeons
characters exchange greetings, advice, warnings, and threats in the most plain and stilted manner possible. little is said, yet every interaction takes an inordinate amount of time as pregnant pauses and animated flourishes drag even the smallest nothings to an absolute crawl. at the same time, since each chapter’s an instanced hour~ long vignette built around one-time-use supporting casts, plot points and character arcs are rushed through at such breakneck speed that all it can afford to linger on are the bullet points. bad guy does bad thing. good guy does good thing. bad guy has a change of heart. bang! bang! bang! then you’re off to the next sparknotes hosedown after another million encounters where you’re dared to match the axe shaped shape with the axe shaped hole
the breeziness of random encounters in tandem with the lack of resource pressure or item scarcity means that anything outside of a boss is altogether without consequence. encounters neither contribute to a greater march of attrition nor function as memorable obstacles in a vacuum; they nominally fulfill the role of random encounters insofar as they are encounters that appear randomly, but if there’s a greater vision behind them than being the means for numbers to grow larger i have yet to see it
the combat itself’s yet another permutation of the Elevated Simon Says format that games like SMT & FFX popularized and is rounded off with a stagger system (a reminder that FFXIII is the most mechanically influential and prescient FF in decades) and the build/spend resource dynamic that often accompanies it. there’s nothing notably high minded or tactical here, but it’s not a bad iteration of the formulae if you’re inclined toward liking them. difficult to give it too much credit when most of the material’s filler, but the bosses are compelling enough to make it clear that problem’s less the skeleton than the meat it’s been saddled with
this divide raises a point about how “friction” functions in modern games, which is to say, like a quarantine. dark souls gave an era defined by patronizing design trends a shot in the arm, but over time much of that bite’s been slowly sequestered in smaller and smaller containment zones while “quality of life” continues encroaching elsewhere. in most cases, and certainly here, this divide's most prominent between combat and non-combat, while the sub-partition could be said to be bosses and non-bosses. in both dynamics the latter category has been all but entirely deprioritized, becoming valleys while “friction”’s constrained to atomized expressions of difficulty that serve as their corresponding peaks. unlike classic titles which had broadly similar macro-dynamics, the local dynamic in these latter categories is no longer distinct in relation to the former so much as altogether flattened
there is no threat to exploration, nor to random encounters, no lack of resources of any kind, nor anything particularly disorienting or unwieldy beyond the particulars of a few minor side quests. dungeons are brief and simple, their sidepaths and dead ends are telegraphed, and there are constant save points, autosaves, and a map that knows what you need to do and where before you do. at times it’s hard to consider the gameplay between major encounters as being truly active at all. consider how often non-boss interactions are truly participatory; how often they require decision making of any kind; how often they allow for the possibility of error; how often their solutions are found outside of the central flowchart
it occurred to me while writing this how often i described elements as being self-contained. compartments; chambers; containment zones; sequestered; atomized; independent; incongruent; etc. nearly everything here feels isolated from the larger whole. it’s an incredibly elaborate machine built exclusively of parts that never meaningfully make contact with one another. hover hand jrpg with hover hand stories, hover hand characters, and hover hand combat
but even if that wasn’t the case, i just don’t think much of this is very good. the (frankly deranged) structure and pacing don’t help, but i can’t imagine any alterations that’d make me care about the benevolent capitalist, benevolent samurai, benevolent amnesiac, benevolent dancer, benevolent beastling, or any of these other cutouts. can’t imagine caring about multi-classing or elaborate character building in a game that only lurches to life once every couple hours. can’t imagine caring much about any of this under any circumstance
finally found something worse than a bad jrpg: eight bad jrpgs