Walking The Land

As the identify implies, Square Enix and Acquire’s Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent shares a universe with 2018’s Octopath Traveler. A prequel to the primary sport, Champions of the Continent options an authentic story on the identical continent as Osterra. It additionally boasts Octopath’s retro JRPG impressed gameplay and exquisite 2.5D environments and backgrounds.

Instead of selecting between eight characters, gamers randomly draw one in every of eight five-star characters. This beginning character is the Chosen One, who’s the sport’s protagonist and the celebration’s chief. Players can accumulate the opposite seven by way of CotC’s gacha mechanics. However, the sport doesn’t deal with them as completely different from the opposite 64 Travelers gamers can accumulate and add to their celebration.

Swords and Spells

CotC additionally break up its Travelers into Octopath’s courses of Merchant, Warrior, Hunter, Thief, Dancer, Cleric, and Scholar. Of course, not all of CotC’s courses line up with their counterparts within the authentic sport. For instance, Octopath Traveler’s Merchant Tressa was an all-rounder with a bias towards spellcasting. CotC’s retailers are comparatively tankier, having talents that draw agro from their teammates. CotC additionally lacks the console sport’s combined courses, and every class can solely equip one sort of weapon.

Two components considerably offset this diminished flexibility. The first is that every one courses in Octopath Traveler: CotC both begin with or can unlock one class of elemental injury. The second is that gamers can have eight Travelers in a celebration as a substitute of 4. The 4 within the entrance row are the Active celebration, with the opposite 4 being Inactive. Inactive Travelers regenerate some well being and talent factors each flip and might Switch with the Traveler in entrance of them anytime. Switching between Travelers is useful for restoration and benefiting from the enemy’s weaknesses to particular spells or weapons.

Combat in Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent is similar to the unique, each being turn-based retro-inspired JRPGs. Enemies have weaknesses to completely different Weapons and Elements, which gamers first want to find by way of trial and error. Travelers may also construct up a number of ranges of Boosts, which multiply the injury and results of Attacks and Skills. The result’s a system that requires sufficient talent to be satisfying whereas remaining accessible to new gamers.

Tripath Traveler

The story of Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent is the place the sport actually deviates from its predecessor. The authentic Octopath Traveler lacks a “Main Story” within the ordinary sense, following a celebration of eight characters on unrelated quests. Instead, Champions of the Continent has three “Main Stories” with a single protagonist.

A mysterious determine bestows the Chosen One with a magic ring and duties them with recovering the others from three tyrants. He asks the Chosen One whether or not they’re on a quest for Wealth, Power, or Fame. This determines which of the three areas the participant begins in and which villain they go after first. However, gamers can swap freely between the three tales after finishing the primary chapter of their beginning zone.

The writing is fairly good, although it may be melodramatic, and some scenes stand out as significantly ham-fisted. The phrase “anime camp” popped into my head mainly each time an antagonist was on display, and the emotional beats have been hit and miss. My essential drawback is that the Chosen One by no means feels just like the protagonist. Each storyline has its personal protagonist and supporting solid, and their actions drive the plot. The Chosen One takes over in fight, however the plot occurs round them as a substitute of to or due to them. I loved the story general however would have most popular if the Chosen One had a extra lively position in it.

True Companions

The 64 Travelers even have their very own sequences of quests for gamers to discover. Players unlock every Traveler’s first quest after finishing the primary Main Story Chapter within the Traveler’s residence area. After that, nevertheless, gamers have to recruit them into their celebration earlier than persevering with the story. Obviously, 64 characters shall be more durable to flesh out than eight. However, they nonetheless have extra character than the unlockable heroes in most gacha video games.

It additionally signifies that Octopath Traveler: CotC locks a good chunk of its content material behind the random gacha pulls. I’m personally not a fan of withholding story content material on this method. I additionally suspect that builders included “free” quests to maintain gamers coming again for extra random attracts. Still, so far as sneaky gacha sport techniques go, it’s in all probability the least sinister. Overall, Champions of the Continent doesn’t really feel practically as predatory as some gacha video games.

Overall, I used to be very happy with Octopath Traveler: CotC. While I had my criticisms of the story, every thing else was top-notch. Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent is a must-play for followers of the sequence or anybody searching for a nice retro-inspired turn-based RPG.