Oops! I talked about "Octopath Traveler" for 7 Hours
Added 2025-04-12 02:06:22 +0000 UTCI played Octopath Traveler and it's sequel, Octopath Traveler II. And then I talked about them for... seven hours. Whoops!
I played Octopath Traveler and it's sequel, Octopath Traveler II and I really liked them, so I wanted to talk about them. I thought this review would be about two hours long. It is not!
Turns out that explaining sixteen full plot lines and two 60+ hour games' worth of mechanics actually takes a while.
Way-too-in-depth character mechanic ratings chart here. For those who have never seen these, characters are rated on a scale of 1-to-7. I have a few skills marked with a purple star. Those are the SSS-tier hypothetical 8/10s for abilities that are objectively broken.
Simplified image versions of tier lists are at the bottom of this post.
As this review is very long, you may want to use the timestamps below to navigate through it or save your place if you don't have seven hours to spare today.
Please be aware that this is a spoiler heavy review and containing entire plot summaries of every character's story line. Unlike with the Fire Emblem games I reviewed, I think Octopath has a handful of stories actually worth experiencing blind. I've marked the ones I think would be better to play spoiler-free with a šemoji for listeners who might still want to check this game out.
If you're just here to use this as a podcast and listen to me roasting silly JRPG storytelling, I've marked the characters who I think I summarize in a funny or silly way with a šemoji. I'd still recommend listening to the whole thing, but if you want to cherry pick, there you go!
== OCTOPATH 1 ==
0:00 - Intro
10:02 - What is Octopath Traveler?
50:56 - Olberic, the Warrior š
1:06:39 - Primrose, the Dancer š
1:32:48 - Alfyn, the Apothecary š
1:48:41 - Therion, the Thief
2:00:33 - H'aanit, the Huntress š
2:08:00 - Ophilia, the Cleric š
2:16:02 - Cyrus, the Scholar š
2:24:24 - Tressa, the Merchant š
2:34:21 - Final Boss + Wrap-Up
== OCTOPATH 2 ==
2:56:33 - Octopath II, what it does better (and what it does worse)
4:21:57 - Partitio, my Husband š
4:41:22 - Temenos, the Cleric š
5:07:35 - Osvald, the Scholar
5:33:33 - Castti, the Apothecary š
5:46:39 - Hikari, the Warrior š
6:16:08 - Agnea, the Dancer š
6:31:37 - Ochette, the Huntress
6:36:20 - ThronĆ©, the Thief š
6:50:46 - Final Boss + Wrap-Up
CHARACTER STORY + PERSONALITY TIER LIST (full size)
MECHANICS TIER LIST (full size)
Comments
I never played Octopath 1 because after the initial trailer everything I saw of it had this weird brown almost sepia tone and it really started to bother me. Both games are obviously gorgeous but I could never get over that filter. I'm not sure if I was just unlucky and only saw flash backs or something but I was way more interested in the second game because I saw that wasn't a problem.
Bryan Davie
2025-11-02 22:41:41 +0000 UTC1:31:35 "Was it really wrong for me to kill Simeon Sex Trafficker? The inventor of sex trafficking?"
Myths01
2025-10-19 13:43:45 +0000 UTCLate to comment but Iāve listened to this twice now while I am working in a sometimes difficult hospitality job, and there are parts of this that never fail to make me laugh, especially with Simeon and Hikariās whole story. Thanks for making my days a little better. I have always had a different mindset on Therionās story. The way I see it, itās less about him learning an arbitrary teenage angst lesson, and more of him overcoming his trauma and finally feeling comfortable putting his faith in others again without being hurt. But maybe I am overanalysing things lol Thatās just the way I often looked at it. Thatās the fun of games, isnāt it? Everyone looks at things in a different way. have an great day! (PS: I would love to hear your thoughts on Live a Live! Itās a fantastic game and there are parts of it that I feel defo inspired Octo)
Els H
2025-08-25 15:53:27 +0000 UTCSo I started getting regular VA work during that exact part of the pandemic. Actors having different sounds because of slightly different mics was a challenge, but the audio balancing is something that engineers need to be able to do on their own end, and that's something that they should be trained to do regardless of remote recording. Delivering the lines unbalanced like that is straight-up unprofessional and embarrassing. It's just because a lot of Los Angeles engineers are bad at their job. Same as it ever was.
JelloApocalypse
2025-08-21 04:34:10 +0000 UTCI'm still not over how I found Inventor right away and said out loud "Wow! The side classes are tied to side quests this time and you get them throughout the game? That's so cool! What a good idea!" And then the three other classes show up at the end of the game and I frowned so loudly about it.
JelloApocalypse
2025-08-21 03:54:00 +0000 UTCShout out to Conjurer, the special unlockable class that REQUIRES YOU TO HAVE BEATEN A HIKARI'S WHOLE ROUTE TO EVEN UNLOCK. And like. It's a fine class, it enchants ally weapons and can do some other buffing, anf then it has a big heal nuke that revives and heals everyone but stops you from acting for like 6 turns which sucks, and then the divine skill gives BP. But like. For how late in the gane it is, it is not worth it at all.
Sam Lewis
2025-08-17 00:02:50 +0000 UTCJello I need you to know, Xenoblade X Definitive Edition unironically has the line āwell not like he wants to be scruted anywayā in it. Scruting people is real.
ASquared
2025-07-17 01:35:50 +0000 UTCThat's extremely interesting
JelloApocalypse
2025-07-01 02:21:36 +0000 UTCSince you played the first game with Japanese audio, there are a couple of cute battle lines you might have missed. I really how, when you give characters sub classes, sometimes they add their own personal flair to them. My favorite is if you make Tressa a thief and use the steal ability, she very meekly goes "I'm sorry..." Hilarious, 10/10
LittieScorp
2025-06-30 09:32:07 +0000 UTCThe entire latter half of the Primrose summary had me laughing to the point of tears for several minutesā¦ hers might be my new favorite storyline just for that
Marnie
2025-06-23 07:44:57 +0000 UTCFrom the sounds of it, the cockney character is speaking Polari, which is a languge that originated on the London docks in the 1800s. Its a mix of sailors code, yiddish and underworld slang, spoken quite widley, particularly by carnival folk, up until the 1930s, when it became the secret langauge of london's gay community. A lot of modern gay slang, even in America, derives from Polari.
Samuel Barker
2025-06-15 21:56:01 +0000 UTCOK. FINALLY LISTENED TO THIS. I have played triangle strategy and I have thoughts about it, my main complaint with it is just how horribly grindy it is, like you have to alternate between story maps and fire emblem style grind maps every chapter and itās a huge pain in the ass. I donāt really remember a lot of the story despite it only being like a year and a half since I played it, i wound up just looking up if there was a true ending and then following the branching path that lead to that specific ending. I think itās worth a look but I canāt say whether or not you will like it. It would make for more Patreon content at least lmfao
T1ggles
2025-06-10 16:19:24 +0000 UTCThanks for this seven hours review, this was an excellent listen. I honestly couldnāt finish octo2 so Iām glad for all the summaries, but Iām still very much hoping for an octo3! Hopefully with a less gimped scholar. Also in your searches for games to play on switch can I recommend Rise of the Third power? I think itās a fun snacky jrpg that seems to have flown under the radar so I always like to recommend it to people.
Veeson
2025-05-16 16:41:26 +0000 UTCAlright, so I just *almost* finished Octopath 1- but, uh, after a boss rush of 8 bosses in a row, after which they spring on you that you were supposed to have been grinding your B team too? Which I tried anyway and spent two hours on a horrible slogfest against a boss with a billion health and infinite summons, only to get wiped on turn 1 in phase 2 with no checkpoint? I'm... I'm done. Not doing that. That sucks. Gotta say- I did not enjoy that game. It is... pretty? The combat design is elegant? The skills system is good? The way it paces out gear upgrades is well-balanced? A lot of small good QoL decisions? But I also now have 70 hours on a game that just bored me to tears most of the time. I mentioned the frustration with the pauses for animation in all the cutscenes, and that never let up- but maybe I would've minded if the story wasn't so paper-thin. If it weren't for the stuff in Primrose's arc, I would think this was written for middle schoolers- half the cast is no thoughts, head empty, going on the kinds of character arcs that get resolved in 12-minute episodes of saturday morning cartoons. It's weird, because there's like... so much artistry that goes into the delivery of this story, but what they've chosen to deliver is a story for babies. There's emotional beats here that *should* by all means fall totally flat because nothing is happening, but they kind of manage to trick you into thinking the empty platitudes are profound with strategic music cues and bits of animation and nuts-and-bolts competent dialogue writing. It also seemed... kinda confused about its themes and politics? Like, one chapter they'll give you a cartoon evil capitalist to kill as the main antagonist, and then one town over there's a sidequest about how actually the aristocracy want to help the poor so there's no need to do a revolution about it. There's this undercurrent of, like... "hereditary nobility is Good, actually" that might've been an entirely accidental byproduct of writing on autopilot in a medieval fantasy setting. And I'm unclear on whether the writers had a single thought going through their heads while writing Tressa's arc. Was that even about something? I can't even tell. This game gets real confused when trying to handle any topic more complex than a VeggieTales episode. Also- a lot of hilarious ludonarrative dissonance with the Path Actions, particularly around Therion. Yeah, no, we just saved this person from bandits- just, uh, gonna steal everything they own, now, but in a heroic way. You *could* just buy the stuff but *also* you can steal it for free. Don't worry about it! There will be zero consequences for this. They're not people, they're inventories on legs. "I'm sure you won't miss this", he says, entirely correctly somehow. Also hilarious when an innocent bystander is standing in front a door, so you have your noble knight guy just absolutely kick their teeth in unprovoked so you can rob their house. What exactly is my suspension of disbelief supposed to be doing, here? Why did you write unique dialogue for NPCs reacting to you doing this when there's no in-universe reason to be doing it? It's surreal. Bright spots: - Alfyn made a strong showing despite the least interesting introduction- the whole Ogen thing actually had a moral dilemma involved and had a decent resolution. - Okay it *is* pretty fun to stack buffs and debuffs with exactly the right timing to make Primrose deal 100,000 damage to everything in one turn. - H'aanit's story was kind of enjoyable just because of her Ike-style befuddlement in the face of various weirdos. Why are you panicking? It's just a snow leopard. Calm down. And- you warned me about this on stream earlier, but it is *so* fucking funny how stupid and out-of-nowhere everything to do with Simeon is. Simeon's plan: - Groom child - Murder child's dad - Wait like a decade doing nothing - Hide behind a curtain and let my right-hand man get killed - Emerge from curtain and reveal that I'm evil for no reason - Stab her, but not really in a fatal way - Walk away, apparently hoping that she'll survive and chase me down (???) - Write and direct Primrose biopic where she falls in love with me at the end - Convince her that living for revenge would be depressing by, um... lemme think... - Wait, she bought that? Wow! Okay, I wasn't expecting that to work, but sure - Get stabbed anyway - Wait, no In theory, a final dungeon that's a theater where the big bad is putting on a play to mock and psychologically break you is, like, a cool fucking idea for a climax- but they really did not earn any of that and the execution fell super flat. I... really did not enjoy that experience enough to sink another 70 hours into Octopath 2, though. I hear Partitio is really good, so I think I'll look up an all-cutscenes video of that, and then just listen to the spoiler review.
Benedict Ide
2025-05-07 06:00:48 +0000 UTCOh wow, finally found out and it's the actress who did American Luke Triton instead. Uhh.. that checks out
Bunni89
2025-05-06 22:49:31 +0000 UTCOh man I'm really feeling that bit about "the actor is just audibly not understanding the script, she's just reading words off a paper". Right before I came back to watch the second half I was playing a retro game with the same problem. Jade Cocoon 2's main character is exactly like this, legit wondering if this is the same actress lol. (That game didnt have imdb credits so idk lol)
Bunni89
2025-05-06 22:43:13 +0000 UTCThe amount of love for Partitio makes me so happy. Also hearing one of my favourite creators talk this long about one of my favourite series is a treat. (I say that fully acknowledging the criticisms are valid)
TrailMix46
2025-05-05 17:01:01 +0000 UTCThis was great to listen to during the monotony of work. As someone who has played Triangle Strategy to completion (exploring every story route, unlocking all the characters, ect), I highly recommend giving it a shot. I would compare it to Fire Emblem but it is not. Every single unit has their own unique loadout of abilities and passives (some passives are shared but that is mostly because units are the same "class"). Some are more recommended for specific maps, but really you can bring whoever you want to any fight and experiment. I don't think there are any characters who are objectively better than others, except when it comes to archers, but even those units have their niches that can help in strategies. The optional units you unlock, for the most part, have very weak personal stories and arcs, but they make up for it with how diverse they are and it's genuinely fun putting together a team to beat a mission your own way. The story and world building I would give a high grade. The game has multiple branching scenarios based on a group voting system. Your band of main characters will be split on what to do next. Some have their minds set to do one thing, some will want to do the other, and one or two will be neutral and dont know what to do. During these intermissions you can walk around and talk with your allies to convince them to vote the way you want to go or change their minds with dialog opinions. Some of the options dialog options are unlocked based on knowledge you find talking with npcs or reading journals and notes during exploratory periods of maps. During my first playthrough i think they did a really good job of setting up the stakes and making it genuinely hard to decide which path to go is the right one or not. It has been over a year since I last played, but I do remember that even on my third playthrough, I was still sitting through cutscenes and being very engaged with listening to every line of dialog (the game is fully voiced) because every branching path was interesting to it's own degree. There are 4 endings (1 true ending) to the game, and it took me 4 playthroughs to see all of them, unlock all the characters, and i thoroughly enjoyed it all. I do have some gripes with the game, it's not perfect. Each character has 3 tiers of promotions (default what they start as, a middle and a master tier). To unlock their promotions it is rather easy. You get these Kudo points as a reward for doing special strategic things in battle such as attacking enemies from behind or attacking from high ground and other things. Those are spent to get promotion items. But each promotion tier has skills you spend other resources on to alter how one of their attacks funtion or give extra points in a stat. These resources, if you don't get them as a reward from completing missions, cost money. And skills in the same tier will get more expensive when you unlock one in that tier. Money is a very valuable resource and it is not the easiest thing to grind. You get enough to unlock the more impactful skills just playing the game normally but do not try maxing every character out. I do not recommend it. My other complaint is kinda minor. There are not a lot of unique objectives unless you do optional challenge missions, which is something I would have liked playing the main story. There are a few sprinkled in such as "X needs to reach destination" or "Clear out a specific part of the map", but most of the story missions are "Defeat all enemy units" or "Defeat boss". It is hard to complain about that though with how unique each and every chapter's map design is. You not only have to strategize around the enemy composition, you have to take the terrain into consideration too which i think is one of the game's greatest strengths
PocketSheep
2025-05-03 02:22:37 +0000 UTCYeah and then the game makes fun of you for daring to play it the fun way by going "uhhh, don't you think you could have done it faster"
Sam Lewis
2025-04-30 22:03:45 +0000 UTCYay! Finally took the plunge and finished listening to this big boi of review for some of my favourite games ever! Honestly, the parts I was most looking forward to listening to were Partitio and Throne because I adore Partitio from the bottom of my heart even two years later (also thank you for replying to the commission I got of my OC/Canon ship with Partitio on tumblr!), meanwhile the end of Throne's story was just buck wild LOL I vividly remember walking into Lostseed and immediately feeling So Uncomfortable and being like "oh this is gonna be some messed up shit huh?". I don't know if this was ever confirmed officially but I remember it being a prevalent theory that went around when the game came out about the bad audio mixing but I remember lots of people were saying that because the voice actors probably had to record in their own studios at home because of COVID, that might have impacted the quality of the audio as a whole because it was a unique circumstance? I'm not a voice actor and I frankly don't know much about the process or how common that is but, that's something I've heard a lot at the time!
carefreejules
2025-04-27 03:12:51 +0000 UTCWell this was talked about in a hades stream and now I feel dumbo :(
Lolhellogod
2025-04-25 19:54:53 +0000 UTCYou touched upon it a number of times, but it would be interesting to hear your perspective on how writers can tackle older characters. Octopath has no excuse, but are there any scenarios in which adults learning basic life philosophy would be satisfying - e.g emotionally stunted, or too occupied doing other introspection, - or would that just be an excuse? Steven Universe does a similar thing, where the tribulations and lessons that the gems go through are important lessons, especially for children. But they have lived for thousands of years; would that make their difficulties less meaningful? You could argue that theyāre aliens, living in such a strict system that they wouldnāt learn such lessons. But does that enrich the narrative, or is it a justification? Iām interested in writing more adult characters, but Iāve just turned 18, and while I have introspected to the point where I feel comfortable with who I am right now. Goodness knows I have a lot more to learn and improve. But I can sort of imagine what type of journey I might encounter. Would an adult character's journey be about refining the beliefs they already hold, perhaps coming to comprehend the significance of their belief? Like the difference between telling yourself you believe in something and acting it out. For example, instead of Olberic concluding āI fight to protect peopleā - it would be something more akin to - āI fight to create space and time so I can understand and help people, time and space in which I can then process the consequences that come from violenceā. Itās marginally better than āI fight to protect peopleā, but Olberic could have started the journey with āI fight to protect peopleā, meet Erhardt and go āShit, I thought I protected Erhardt but I missed the hardship he was going through despite being allies.ā and then you could have had an interesting discussion on whether Olberic problem was that he was fighting for the "wrong" people or whether fighting itself is not enough to protect people. Then a conclusion. Still relatively simple and not nuanced, but would that seem more āadult-likeā?
Lolhellogod
2025-04-24 08:45:06 +0000 UTCI hear the term āgirl dadā literally everywhere
Chrono101034
2025-04-22 10:19:33 +0000 UTCAh. Of course, you're addressing that next. I need to listen to the whole thing first š¤£
Sam Asher
2025-04-18 20:24:54 +0000 UTCAre you sure that the focus is on murder as bad for society (altruistic avoidance) versus bad for the soul (selfish avoidance)?
Sam Asher
2025-04-18 20:21:48 +0000 UTCYour description of Temenos' route for the first time was delightful, it painted an animation in my mind of all the hijinks
Sam Asher
2025-04-18 19:55:04 +0000 UTCIt's not necessarily unrealistic but it does make me respect the character a lot less
JelloApocalypse
2025-04-18 17:06:34 +0000 UTCSeveral hour-long reviews of media I may or may not have consumed before is apparently one of my favourite types of content, so Iām psyched to get through this one! I might have more to say later, but for now Iād just like to defend Olbericās arc. Disclaimer: I havenāt played Octopath, so maybe it does come off as silly in writing, BUT Iāve been around enough men in their 40s-70s who have the emotional self-awareness of a Brick Wall, so Iām honestly not that surprised that it might take an emotionally stunted/traumatized man 40 YEARS to figure out something as simple as āHelping People is Goodā ĀÆ\_(ć)_/ĀÆ
ver.
2025-04-17 22:04:51 +0000 UTCGirl dad IS an instagram term, actually!
Folkloric
2025-04-17 04:06:58 +0000 UTCI'm playing through 1 right now so I can unlock these seven hours, and... man. There's a lot about this game that I enjoy, but what drives me *up the fuckin' wall* here is the way you can't click quickly through character dialogue. They animate all these little microexpressions on the little chibi Final Fantasy sprites, which would be perfectly good polish if they didn't *pause for like a full second* to show you the tiny inconsequential animation between *every single line*. Just do it during the text! I'm trying to read a thing, here! It makes every single cutscene like three times longer than it needs to be for no good reason.
Benedict Ide
2025-04-16 16:13:54 +0000 UTCSO happy to hear another Jello talk, especially about JRPG mechanics. I'm always glad to hear that I'm not the only one who has the "death of a thousand cuts" mindset with menu layouts and combat.
OK-MK
2025-04-16 14:24:05 +0000 UTCI wonder if you'd ever play Bravely Default, the predecessor to these games. I like them but I think I know ya well enough to know that you'd hate them, but I dunno.
Blue Glasses
2025-04-16 13:07:08 +0000 UTCYeah! That one has a lot of charm!
LuperisLua
2025-04-16 08:25:26 +0000 UTCI think most people say it like that
ASquared
2025-04-15 12:47:53 +0000 UTCOkay, I will actually go to bat for Paper Mario: Colour Splash, the one that no one played. The combat is basically unplayably bad, itās embarrassing. But it has a ton of really interesting areas like āthis is a ghost mansion full of dead toads you have to helpā āthis is a public park but the canals got poisonedā āthis is a whole pirate worldā āboss fight on a circus topā āget this train to workā and the painting things system makes it fun to explore the different areas! Plus there are a ton of random npcs who just have really neat or funny dialogue and are likeable. Itās still not *good* but it has that Bad Game Sauce thatās really fun to play while poking fun at it, like scooby doo first frights
PurpleIsDebeste
2025-04-15 07:58:22 +0000 UTCI'm sorry, what the actual fuck? So you just like HAVE to make him a armsmaster? What were they thinking???
JelloApocalypse
2025-04-15 07:20:10 +0000 UTCThanks for listening! I am not gonna lie I STRAIGHT UP forgot that boring bit in Alfyn's chapter 4. That was actually one of the only bits I swapped to the English for and I did not like it as much. Maybe that's why, I tried to block it out, haha.
JelloApocalypse
2025-04-15 07:17:48 +0000 UTCYou should go and play Triangle strategy, love the political structure and the conflicts that inform the story.
Andreas JemtegƄr
2025-04-14 23:10:39 +0000 UTCOctopath Traveler was sadly the game that made me realize I don't like turn based combat games anymore. I was on the way to collect my third character, enjoying the game, when I started to realize just how many random encounters I had to go through and I just didn't want to go through that.
Jesper Van Miert
2025-04-14 20:22:47 +0000 UTCI can't explain how I felt when I heard you say "etcetera" rather than "eccetera"
FeyHaeven
2025-04-14 17:25:56 +0000 UTCIs Noah Caldwell already on your radar. Jello was talking about his reviews recently. They are pretty long, going over a whole franchise at a time.
nightstar6
2025-04-14 17:05:22 +0000 UTC7 hours later, I am free! Thoughtful and humorous as always. While listening I wrote down some thoughts in response, so here are those: - Cyrus' English VA really kills it. My favorite performance in either game, he is just so funny. I also really like how his they localized Cyrus' stock action lines just a little differently from the other characters (for example, Primrose's "The peacock strut!" becomes "The peacock... shall STRUT!") - Alfyn chapter 4 frustrates me because it feels like Alfyn's strengthened resolve doesn't come from anything really sensible or compelling within him. He just finds the letter from Zeph and the letter says "Keep doin what you're doin!" and Alfyn's like aw shucks... maybe I SHOULD just keep doin what I'm doin. I get that they had pretty limited time for him to process All That Shit from his chapter 3 (and, like, Ogen's life is on a literal timer, so...) but it just feels so sudden and boring. Deus ex mailman - Temenos himself gets way more boring when he doesn't have Crick to bounce off of. Like, who's he gonna spit his witticisms at now? Kaldena? ORT EDGEWORTH? Pfft - Also it felt so weirdly over-indulgent to kill off Crick when Temenos already had his adoptive father and brother to angst over. They don't even DO anything with Roi. They're like oh yeah Temenos had this other guy who was important to him and then he was transformed into a monster off screen and became the final boss of Ochette chapter 1, which is not relevant to anything and is never acknowledged by anybody. God Temenos' route is such a mess - Osvald chapter 1 used Mug in an interesting way that makes you really Feel Osvald's struggle and then they kind of forgot to do anything with it ever again. It's a shame. Osvald's first chapter was SO good. That bit where you're going around punching people and taking their Cursed Stones to Cure Them Of Curse in his final chapter is really funny though - Remember when they were trying really hard to contrive one character from every path into part of being on the Evil Team OCTOPATH Of Evil Shadow Guys and they couldn't figure out what to do for Agnea so they just decided that one of the girls from Giselle's troupe was in love with the secret villain with Temenos' route and got thrown into the Evil Fire off screen for basically no consequence. What was up with that
Henry Dyer
2025-04-14 17:05:03 +0000 UTCTriangle Strategy is very good imo. It was fun, tough, and has endings based off of cascading choices rather than just one or two. Itās final fantasy tactics gameplay and I liked it. You should try it.
Masofuts
2025-04-14 13:49:31 +0000 UTCShoutout to my fav joke in Octopath 2. In Partitio's Chpt 2 the boss is this big mean pug Roque sicks on you. As the screen transitions from cutscene to boss fight, Partitio gets a one liner and it's "Uh, I don't wanna fight a dog" Also had him as my starter and gave him the inventor 2ndary job and it was cracked
dollqueen
2025-04-14 11:52:56 +0000 UTCThereās Freud, and then thereās whatever the fuck was going on in Throneās route
ASquared
2025-04-14 07:22:33 +0000 UTCOh, did you ever learn the *worst* part of Hikariās learned skills? The skills scale off the weapons you have equipped and your own stats. Sounds good right? Well, that means if you donāt have, say, a staff equipped, you attack as if you donāt have a staff equipped. Itās complete and utter bullshit, because attacking without a weapon does **nothing.** and guess what? If you use a staff attack and donāt have a subclass with a staff, guess what? YOU ACT AS IF YOU HAVE NOTHING EQUIPPED. Because you did NOT have the OPTION to EQUIP a STAFF.
ASquared
2025-04-14 06:55:02 +0000 UTCāWhos simianā is the the other side of the āwhats up with boschaā coin
Psycho
2025-04-14 04:59:59 +0000 UTCGonna pause here a moment to guess truso's motivation before it get to thst part. I'm gonna guess that he one time, stubbed his toe really bad and was like "Wow, that hurt so bad, I would rather die than feel that pain again."
Drednot
2025-04-14 04:20:55 +0000 UTCI'm listening to this as work, getting a little emotional over your second hand account of partitio's story. That's how awesome he is
Drednot
2025-04-14 01:30:46 +0000 UTCThere's a cute line of dialogue somewhere that mentions a local saying of "desert nations have short names like Ku and U so that you don't have to have your mouth open long when saying them, that way sand can't fly in"
JelloApocalypse
2025-04-13 20:56:14 +0000 UTCTressa's story has no hook but I cannot deny that I did enjoy her and I had a better time on her route than I did on over half the Octopath II characters
JelloApocalypse
2025-04-13 20:55:05 +0000 UTCmakes it a lil sad he played OTP1 with jp dub. Cyrus was so busted I used him a lot back when I played, and loudly repeating "my focus is unparalleled!!!" is a lil brainworm vocal stim that my friends and I STILL quote to this day.
Abby_Gale
2025-04-13 20:04:41 +0000 UTCSimian. His name is Simian. Wasnāt even close!
PurpleIsDebeste
2025-04-13 17:42:26 +0000 UTCHighly recommend reading the spreadsheet before listening to the review because it made me presume I knew what all the flaws in primroseās route were (stupid revenge moralising, for instance) so I was taken out by scrimp or whatever his name is. Best octopath character, five stars, thatās my president.
PurpleIsDebeste
2025-04-13 17:40:20 +0000 UTCI think a good way of putting Octopath 2 vs 1 is āThe quality of life is better, but thereās less life there.ā Things are more convenient, but itās also easier in a way that isnāt fun, and again, thereās just less depth to the world.
ASquared
2025-04-13 16:27:39 +0000 UTCHonestly Jello, your really dumb explanation of Tressaās story somehow made me love it even more. Iām sorry I canāt help but be entertained by the lil goober
ASquared
2025-04-13 15:26:57 +0000 UTCI like how Jello has a physically hard time stopping himself from doing the Cyrus voice
ASquared
2025-04-13 15:14:23 +0000 UTCGod I saw this early and it still fucked me up when I got to it
ASquared
2025-04-13 15:08:43 +0000 UTCGod the Primrose chapters 3 and 4 are so much worse than I thought- Simeonās VA was doing a pretty decent job tho
ASquared
2025-04-13 14:08:57 +0000 UTCTurbo speed features in modern RPGs are SO important, you're so right. The Trails games would be literally unplayable without them. I actually hated the auto-advance feature, though? On switch it's tied to the right bumper which is where my finger rests and I would always press it by accident and miss 2/3 lines of dialogue. Very weird. But I'm glad the feature exists!
JelloApocalypse
2025-04-13 08:18:04 +0000 UTCnever played the the 2nd game and never finished the 1st but the evil corruption thing you describe sounds like how despair works in danganronpa and that sucks
tikimanlele
2025-04-13 04:24:04 +0000 UTCIn octopath 2, there is allegedly a nation that until a couple decades ago ruled the entire western continent, until Ku destroyed it. They call the nation "U" Not Yue, or Uhe, just "U" What the actual fuck?
Noah Finch
2025-04-13 04:14:18 +0000 UTC2:17 "sharing knowledge is cringe!"
Drednot
2025-04-13 03:05:12 +0000 UTCIāll be so real, the way you described Cyrus and his interaction with the story made him my absolute favorite. A stupid idiot doing his own thing apropos of anything in the story is so funny to me
BobTheNova
2025-04-13 01:25:36 +0000 UTCFiiinally done, haha. Thanks for putting that together - it's always fun to listen to you ramble on about stuff. Funnily enough, as one of those people who does prefer the second game, I don't think you actually talked about the thing that, for me, ultimately pulls 2 ahead of 1. (Or maybe you did and I just missed it - I dunno, it's a long video, ha). See, the big thing for me that makes me want to replay 2 but has kept me back from replaying 1 isn't the combat upgrades or the slight improvement towards characters interacting or anything that actually has to do with the content of the game itself - it's two specific QoL features that were added in 2 but were missing from 1: the ability to auto-advance dialogue during cutscenes, and the ability to speed up combat. And like, yeah - that's got jack-all to do with the narrative or any actual gameplay mechanics, which is probably why you didn't talk about it. But in a game as long as the Octopath games, both of these features feel almost necessary to me. Going from 2 to 1 feels jarringly slow and somewhat cumbersome in comparison without these 2 features, and I'm still silently praying they get patched in one day. Anyway - your video has gotten me to go back and revisit the first game for the first time in years, so thanks for that.
Zesty
2025-04-13 00:25:52 +0000 UTCOh I did not think I'd get sworn out for playing TTYD while listening to this lol. At least it's not Sticker Star, which is definitely awful
Crimson Claw
2025-04-12 22:17:07 +0000 UTCOh thank goodness a long review. I need something like this. Personally as someone who loves these types of games I bounced right off these games. Which was really disappointing because it's right up my alley. I hope one day Jello does a review of Bravely Default & Bravely Second (not BD2) because they're some of my favorite RPGs of all time
Crimson Claw
2025-04-12 18:44:59 +0000 UTCI have never seen a collective audience knock so many points off a game for a single incorrectly advertised feature as Octopath Traveler. And I disagree with them! And that's coming from someone who *adores* character writing and gives a lot of points for it. Going in, I knew the cast didn't interact, so I was able to enjoy it. And it's not really that hard to overlook? But literally 95% of the discussion I've seen online absolutely lambasts the first game in favor of the second, and I swear to god it's mostly just because of the party not interacting in the first one and interacting in the second. And that's wild to me! It'd be one thing if the character writing in Octopath II was notably stand out or the party had incredible dynamics, but it isn't and they don't. It's fairly standard JRPG writing, and speaking as a JRPG fan, JRPGs are *not good* at this kind of writing. None of the Crossed Paths are any good and half the interactions you get are scenes like Partitio talking about peaches and Agnea thinking he's talking about squeezing her boobs. Was that really what the first game was missing? Would that have made it better? I don't think so. It's classic Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger style writing. When the characters are focal they matter and when they're not they're just a warm body on your menu screen. That's... the genre. That's how it always is. Even Paper Mario's first three games, which DO have good writing, don't really have a focus on your party members after you get them. Like, there *are* RPGs where the party dynamic is incredible and adds to the experience. Skies of Arcadia is definitely above average and I think Bug Fables is a great example of a game carried by its core trio. I hear the Tales games are good at this. And with bigger budgets and cutscenes in the gaming industry it's become more "normal" for games to be about a smaller, focal party who have lots of conversations with each other. But that's not how it was 20 years ago, and Octopath is literally trying to be a modernized versions of games from 20 years ago. Sorry for the long post but for years I heard people shittalk this game because "the party doesn't interact and that's lame", and at the end of the day it just like... Doesn't? Matter? The gameplay is so tight and in the first game especially the world and its NPCs are really likeable and well-written and fun to explore. It's definitely a mistake on the marketing team's part to have advertised the game as an adventure where all the stories are interwoven, but if you just know that's not how it is and accept it, the game is totally fine. I cannot BELIEVE how much I see people shit on the first game and praise the second for the presence or absence of this feature. It is literally not a big deal. As for the writing, I'm coming off of two shitty Fire Emblem games and Danganronpa so this game feels Actually Great in comparison to those. And while I think both games have some absolute garbage storylines, the first game has Alfyn and the second has Partitio. And almost every lame storyline has at least one or two good chapters. Hikari's second chapter is good, Agnea's second chapter is good, Primrose's first two chapters are amazing, Castti's finale is incredible from a mechanical perspective even if her villain is the dumbest character in the franchise. An RPG in this style having any good storytelling is above average imo. I was talking with my friendgroup awhile back and I was like "JRPGs have bad writing as a rule" and they disagreed with me but uhhhh I'm right so there lmao.
JelloApocalypse
2025-04-12 18:22:46 +0000 UTCBecause the dialogue bubbles are still in English and I can read? I was tired of hearing the exact same actors in these games over and over because LA only casts like sixty people in the same roles. After 200+ hours of Fire Emblem games, I started Octopath and heard Patrick Seitz as both the first character in Tressa's route and as Olberic and I went "No. No. No. I'm not doing this again." and swapped to Japanese.
JelloApocalypse
2025-04-12 18:03:44 +0000 UTCi work 12 hour shifts on weekends. im currently about half way through the review. this has made my shift much more bearable.
CogSentient
2025-04-12 18:01:01 +0000 UTCYay, another video to listen to while at work.
nightstar6
2025-04-12 17:25:51 +0000 UTCJust FYI you can beat the bosses in Sticker Star without the 'required' things, and if you choose to do that it's a satisfying challenge imo. I'm fully aware of Sticker Star's mechanical flaws in some places mostly people's criticism is valid, but those problems don't actually bother me and I actually really like the modern PM trilogy, Origami king especially.
George Marionerd
2025-04-12 16:26:06 +0000 UTCGirldad IS indeed an internet term, but it doesn't have the meaning you used it for. It's a term used to describe fathers who are super supportive of their daughters in a similar manner to the way wifeguys are super supportive of their wives. I actually think Kobe Bryant popularized it after he used it in response to some shitty person giving him an interview who asked him if he was worried about not having a son to carry on his basketball legacy. Later on it started getting used even outside of the context of sports in honor of him and his daughter after they both tragically died in a helicopter crash.
Fan Trades
2025-04-12 16:07:48 +0000 UTCOf course Jello of all people would think the nickname "lost little lamb" is hot... I mean he's right but it sure is comedically on brand LMAOOO~
Fan Trades
2025-04-12 15:10:05 +0000 UTCI'm actually deeply surprised you enjoyed this. I picked up Octo 1 when it released and people were clowning on it. I liked the dialects, the combat, and a handful of characters, but didnt even reach the second ring of quests because I was so disappointed that the party only banters in like, Tales-esque skits. Combined with... Not anime bullshit but Japan bullshit (the idea thay Primrose has any moral greyness is absurd) i thought youd fuckin dumpster these games
Daniel
2025-04-12 13:18:29 +0000 UTCI canāt explain it, but at around 5:15:30 I was reminded of that Make some noise skit where Izzy Rolandās characterās resume was just āKickinā Dogsā
BigMoffers
2025-04-12 12:59:47 +0000 UTCMy focus when I listen to this later will be unparalleled!
Abby_Gale
2025-04-12 12:51:34 +0000 UTCI don't think this is explained in the actual game, it's like in the mobile game I think? (Which is dumb it should definitely be in the first game) But Simeon is actually somehow over a hundred years old, maybe several hundred. I think his motivation is supposed to be that he's a playwright who wants to see real tragedy stories play out and he doesn't die of old age so he's willing to spend decades setting up this whole tragic story with Primrose on purpose because he thinks it'll be fun to watch? I don't think his character or his implementation into Prim's story is good either but that's my read on it.
George Marionerd
2025-04-12 11:47:03 +0000 UTCI'll write a more proper comment once I've finished the review, and forgive me if you explain this later and I just haven't reached it yet, but why did you play the first game with Japanese audio if you don't understand it? I don't understand why you'd do that?
George Marionerd
2025-04-12 09:50:10 +0000 UTC"I'M GOING TO SCRUTE YOU"
LuperisLua
2025-04-12 09:13:14 +0000 UTCWhen he meets that kid Partitio has no money or influence whatsoever. He's not rich. Literally the last thing that happens in his storyline is Partitio giving that kid a job.
JelloApocalypse
2025-04-12 08:41:52 +0000 UTCI actually dropped Octopath 2 because I found Partitio annoying - specifically the part with the little orphan boy in his chapter 2. Maybe I'm just remembering it wrong, but he doesn't like... pay off the kids debt or anything. He just lets the poor little orphan boy who is going to get his kneecaps get broken keep being a shoeshine and goes "ah, capitalism lets everyone take care of themselves!" meanwhile the debt collectors are probably gonna get the child that very night. I'm gonna replay the game soonish so maybe I'll see it differently, but the "good capitalist beating the greedy ones at their own game" archetype wears on me greatly.
Azelhia
2025-04-12 08:32:42 +0000 UTCIt's always nice to hear to yout talk something interesting like this. When you played the other fire emblems you said you wanted to try and see if they had anything interesting you could steal for Winds of Change. I know the actual mechanics are totally different, but you get any inspiration from Octopath?
Megabutler
2025-04-12 07:12:12 +0000 UTCRegarding you asking if Triangle Strategy is good at the end of the review, the gameplay was decent from what I recall, but the voice direction put me to sleep (except for Dragan Aesfrost). Alternatively, I hear a lot of people who like OT enjoy Live a Live, which is an HD-2D remake of a Japan-only SNES game that has independent stories in random settings like a Ninja castle infiltration, robot on a space team, martial arts student, etc. Since you enjoyed the distinct settings and flavors of each town in OT1, it might be up your alley.
Act One
2025-04-12 07:09:20 +0000 UTCYeah, actually I liked Octopath I better than Octopath II as well. The latter always felt a little bit worse to play, a little less fun, but I could never really put my finger on why exactly and assumed it was just because when I played Octopath I, I was like 4 years younger and wasn't really bothered by any game flaws.
LuperisLua
2025-04-12 06:55:14 +0000 UTCLetās goooo otcopath fravlerrr Next you should play hit game wondering sword, the game which answers the question, what is octopath traveler was. Bad (Please donāt actually wandering sword only looks good)
Vic Cutting
2025-04-12 06:37:28 +0000 UTCThis is so sincere that I kind of feel bad because I do talk about Therion's arc and I was like "I'm glad the cast in this game are all adults, but it feels weird because Therion and Olberic's personal arcs are lessons *for* teenagers, but it feels kind of weird to see a 22 year old or a 40 year old go through them" haha
JelloApocalypse
2025-04-12 04:51:40 +0000 UTCIdk that sounds pretty sick to me, I wish it happened
JelloApocalypse
2025-04-12 04:45:42 +0000 UTCi Played Octopath 1 when i was in high school and at the time i was struggling with stuff. I picked Therion as my starting Traveler and i resonated with the story at the time maybe now the theme to let yourself be vulnerable again even when you were hurt before sound silly but i needed to hear and feel it at the time as for Octopath 2 i cleared the game twice over and enjoyed each story instead of picking 4 from 1 and going with them. Either way i enjoyed and cherished my time with both games and hope others enjoyed their time with it as well
AXIN8
2025-04-12 04:42:40 +0000 UTCThere's something beautiful about how this review of a thing you actually love completely crushes the runtime of the fire emblem ones combined. Excited to listen to it all, hell yeah!!
Bunni89
2025-04-12 04:41:16 +0000 UTCI'll have to finish listening to this later, but I'm at the part about Primrose and I'm so glad you were also utterly baffled by that entire ending. I kept hoping that the final battle would take place on the stage - like, you'd tumble off the balcony and take the place of the actors, and the audience would be confused but they'd go with it thinking it was part of the play, and then you'd hijack the ending by killing him on stage in front of the crowd. And like, that'd be goofy, for sure. But it's a video game, and I just really wanted this guy to die, haha.
Zesty
2025-04-12 03:58:14 +0000 UTCLooking forward to listening to this in depth! The last time I played Octopath was its release in 2018, and I had played the two demos leading up to it (back when the game was called 'Project Octopath Traveler' and I mistakenly hoped it would have a better name). The first demo had just Primrose and Olberic's first chapters, so it was a great sell. However, my experience with game was hampered by the false expectation of the characters interacting that everyone anticipated and the horrible final boss being my last memory of the game, so I hope this review can help remind me what good was in the game. Also, I personally don't enjoy the HD-2D style, though I'm not sure if it's because it's used so much now or because seeing it in Triangle Strategy gave me a literal headache (might be because it was combined with an isometric view, but I never had a problem with that in games like Hades or Pokemon Conquest so maybe I just have an issue with the particle effects or looking at it too hard because it's an SRPG). In my mind, it looks like character and enemies are placed on an unrelated diorama, and something about it just causes a disconnect in my mind, which I wish I could describe better. The character sprites just seem less expressive compared to something like Chrono Trigger, and the dungeons and overworld areas were never particularly memorable, though the latter isn't helped by all being named 'The ____Lands'. Regardless, looking forward to seven hours of discussion!
Act One
2025-04-12 03:26:37 +0000 UTCI love these games, so seeing someone take the time and give each character and ability the time of day and analyze their benefits vs drawbacks combined with your unique style of text descriptions (that I totally read out in an impression of you because that's how naturalistic they were) really warms my soul. I hope to see you cover a game like Small Saga in this kind of detail but even if that never happens, I greatly appreciate you covering these games in this much detail. It really shows how dedicated (sometimes to your own personal detriment) you are to critical analysis. Keep up the good work, Mr. Apocalypse.
Cronomancer
2025-04-12 03:17:43 +0000 UTCYesssssss can't get enough of these (if anyone knows other folk who do this sort of very long very in depth review {because they also have thoughts the entire time not just going long for the sake of going long} plz make recommendations)
SinfulSloth
2025-04-12 03:02:12 +0000 UTCCongrats on dodging the worst Final Boss in history then
JelloApocalypse
2025-04-12 02:41:18 +0000 UTCI remember enjoying the first game but not enough to finish it so this should be interesting
T1ggles
2025-04-12 02:38:41 +0000 UTCI can't believe they dropped the ball with Primrose's story in the first game and they were like "Okay. Take two. Let's stick the landing this time." And they did everything the first one did but WAY WORSE
JelloApocalypse
2025-04-12 02:38:09 +0000 UTCI literally thought this would be like an hour and a half long ;_;
JelloApocalypse
2025-04-12 02:37:04 +0000 UTCNobody could have expected jello to make a review longer than three houses, and ESPECIALLY nobody could have expected it to be about something he liked.
SockTheMighty
2025-04-12 02:22:56 +0000 UTCThe idea is that you're supposed to pick up all 8 party members before tackling the Chapter 2 quests, and by the time you've walked around the inner loop of the world you should be around Lv. 15 and ready for the second tier. Octopath II is formatted the same way. I'd definitely recommend giving it another shot, though! Just know the game isn't about picking ONE character and seeing their story, the objective is to move forward equally with all eight quests.
JelloApocalypse
2025-04-12 02:18:16 +0000 UTCVery glad you also got to Throneās final chapter and went: ā¦.what the fuck?!
LupinKaiser777
2025-04-12 02:17:55 +0000 UTCwoohoo!
pictrable
2025-04-12 02:15:37 +0000 UTCThe fact that Partitio is shown on this. Clearly jello has a type
Kent Greene
2025-04-12 02:12:06 +0000 UTCThis is gonna make me wanna re-buy octopath traveler.. this'll be a good 7 hours
Noble Sol
2025-04-12 02:11:12 +0000 UTCSo, I sort of got put off of playing the first one because once you finish a tier of quests the next tier have such a large level gap. Does the second game fix this issue?
Myths01
2025-04-12 02:09:51 +0000 UTCYaaaay, something to distract from EXAMS! YAAAAY
Bird Krow Fly
2025-04-12 02:08:19 +0000 UTC
