I'm just confused as to why you would do everyone's story at the exact same time? Why not focus on one and complete it then move on? It seemed more organic that way.
I think a lot of people got their methodology set by needing to do multiple first acts early on to gather the party and continued in that fashion even after a point they didn't need to with regards to power level.
Dr. ChaosPost nuclear nuisanceRegistered Userregular
Always yearning to play XCX and Pikmin 3 since I never had a Wii U. Particularly the latter.
But I must stay strong and resist temptation in case of Switch port. Don't want to pay 100+ monies only to turn around and see "Pikmin 3 remaster for Switch for only 39.99!".
I’d like to get a Switch release of 3D World (fairly likely) and the story campaign from Splatoon released as DLC for Splatoon 2 (much less likely).
TMS would be ok but I already put 70 hours into it and probably wouldn’t replay it unless they released a version with the localization changes rolled back.
And of course Fatal Frame V, which is the only reason I own a WiiU in the first place and that will otherwise mean that I have to have a WiiU around until the eventual heat death of the universe.
I'm just confused as to why you would do everyone's story at the exact same time? Why not focus on one and complete it then move on? It seemed more organic that way.
I think a lot of people got their methodology set by needing to do multiple first acts early on to gather the party and continued in that fashion even after a point they didn't need to with regards to power level.
Also, the game is designed such that you're not meant to do one person's story straight through. You'd have to do excessive grinding to do one persons story all the way through, and then that would put you way overleveled for every other story, etc.
I mostly... gave up on Octopath. It really felt like I was just doing a sequence of side-stories. Like, the content and backstories you get for the characters were great! But it felt like you got mostly the same thing in other good JRPGs, while also getting any sort of "main" story, which Octopath really doesn't have at all (by design). And the character "side" stories weren't reeeally strong enough to hold up on their own without that central piece. Maybe they could have been, but you are also experiencing them in 1-hour chunks separated by 7 hours of nothing with that character.
I appreciate what they did and I'm glad they attempted it. Just really wasn't good enough for me and I don't want any others like that :P
(Gameplay and art and sound were all great.)
If you think there was no over-arching story, you didn't play it enough.
If I play 50+ hours into a game, completing 3/4ths of every character's storyline and everything is still siloed in terms of stories they done fucked up.
Octopath would have maybe been one of my GOTYs but the lack of a cohesive narrative combined with the repetitiveness across every character completely killed it for me. It's almost like they just reskinned the same game 8 times and it really is a shame. I look forward to a sequel but if it's designed the same way that would be a hard pass from me.
Man, I'm the complete opposite. I feel like they sold the game based on it explicitly not being a grand save the world story. Just these cute little character vignettes. I felt betrayed when I discovered yet another grand save the world story gated behind an insane difficulty cliff totally divorced from the difficulty the rest of the game had gotten you to accept.
Don't get me wrong, I could do without a big world-saving narrative too. Like you I was expecting a story with 8 low-stakes vignettes but I did assume they'd all connect in little interesting ways. The amount they seemed to go out of their way however to keep everything in its own silo was really a huge frustration/bummer for me.
Beyond the story however what ultimately killed the game for me was the constant repetitive loop. Start a new character, learn the problem, use your path action x5, find the boss, fight - rinse and repeat with absolutely no deviation from that formula (which I can't stress enough, it was the same steps over and over). Compound that with how some of the characters weren't even unique from one another in terms of their abilities and the whole thing just ended up dying on the vine for me.
I still get pissed thinking about it because there's a lot in that game to like and I would have loved to finish it.
I'm just confused as to why you would do everyone's story at the exact same time? Why not focus on one and complete it then move on? It seemed more organic that way.
I did them all at the same time because I didn't want the game to end. When you complete a character's story you feel like the game is ending for them. Also wanted to try to keep the difficulty curve as even as I could.
I'm just confused as to why you would do everyone's story at the exact same time? Why not focus on one and complete it then move on? It seemed more organic that way.
I did them all at the same time because I didn't want the game to end. When you complete a character's story you feel like the game is ending for them. Also wanted to try to keep the difficulty curve as even as I could.
I did the same thing, and I ended up insanely over leveled. I think you need to get 4, finish their stories, then start over with the other 4 to have the difficulty stay right in the Goldilocks zone. Constantly rotating out the highest character for the lowest just wasn't doing it quite right.
I thought Pikmin 1 was just alright but 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. Eliminating the time limit did so much for the game.
I played Pikmin 1 way back when, and never touched 2, and finally got around to playing 3 this past summer. I really love 3. It's everything I want in a Pikmin game! Swapping between the Gamepad + Wiimote/nunchuck controls feels great.
One problem: the game is over too soon. This isn't a complaint that the game is too short, but rather about content pacing. They space out the new Pikmin and stuff so that every level has some big new thing, and then there is ALWAYS stuff you can go back and do in old levels with your new buddies, but there isn't a ton of it. I want more opportunities to wield my full mob of colorful plant soldiers! Either by having larger areas open up when returning to old levels, or having one or two whole new levels worth of stuff for me to tackle with my full squad.
I didn't touch the Bingo Battle / Challenges at all, so maybe those would scratch that itch? Gotta go back and check that out.
I'm just confused as to why you would do everyone's story at the exact same time? Why not focus on one and complete it then move on? It seemed more organic that way.
I think a lot of people got their methodology set by needing to do multiple first acts early on to gather the party and continued in that fashion even after a point they didn't need to with regards to power level.
Also, the game is designed such that you're not meant to do one person's story straight through. You'd have to do excessive grinding to do one persons story all the way through, and then that would put you way overleveled for every other story, etc.
Eh, by the time you get 4 party members, you can focus on one person's story to the end. Then rotate who you use for the next story. My primary gripe was that you're stuck with the first character you choose for the entirety of their story. So if you chose poorly you're SOL. That was dumb.
Looking back at Nintendo's WiiU catalogue, the only games I want to see get a Switch port include Wonderful 101, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Pikmin 3 and Super Mario Maker. Dependng on what new games Nintendo plan to release in 2019, any of those would fill a spot in the release schedule.
Some of those would likely require a lot of work since they utilized the gamepad quite a bit.
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I'm just confused as to why you would do everyone's story at the exact same time? Why not focus on one and complete it then move on? It seemed more organic that way.
I think a lot of people got their methodology set by needing to do multiple first acts early on to gather the party and continued in that fashion even after a point they didn't need to with regards to power level.
Also, the game is designed such that you're not meant to do one person's story straight through. You'd have to do excessive grinding to do one persons story all the way through, and then that would put you way overleveled for every other story, etc.
Eh, by the time you get 4 party members, you can focus on one person's story to the end. Then rotate who you use for the next story. My primary gripe was that you're stuck with the first character you choose for the entirety of their story. So if you chose poorly you're SOL. That was dumb.
Like, without grinding you will be under the recommended level if you go straight through one person's story. Maybe you can do it still! Maybe you should! But it's certainly not what the game is implying you should do.
That's correct. By the time you get to even Chapter 2 for a given character you'll be out-leveled. You're absolutely meant to pick all of the characters up and cycle through them.
I'm just confused as to why you would do everyone's story at the exact same time? Why not focus on one and complete it then move on? It seemed more organic that way.
I think a lot of people got their methodology set by needing to do multiple first acts early on to gather the party and continued in that fashion even after a point they didn't need to with regards to power level.
Also, the game is designed such that you're not meant to do one person's story straight through. You'd have to do excessive grinding to do one persons story all the way through, and then that would put you way overleveled for every other story, etc.
Eh, by the time you get 4 party members, you can focus on one person's story to the end. Then rotate who you use for the next story. My primary gripe was that you're stuck with the first character you choose for the entirety of their story. So if you chose poorly you're SOL. That was dumb.
Like, without grinding you will be under the recommended level if you go straight through one person's story. Maybe you can do it still! Maybe you should! But it's certainly not what the game is implying you should do.
I can tell you right now that I never spent over an hour grinding (and that was because I wanted the advanced classes). Once you get 4 characters in your team you can pretty much safely do anyone's story event to the end. By the time you complete one you could complete the rest easily if you wanted, or you could swap your team around and do it again.
That's correct. By the time you get to even Chapter 2 for a given character you'll be out-leveled. You're absolutely meant to pick all of the characters up and cycle through them.
That's one way of looking at it. Because once you get to a certain level you can do whatever you want. It may say "Recommended level 25" but it doesn't mean that everyone has to be that level.
Yeah, I'm not denying you can do it. Just that the game is telling you not to. Even if you are going through with the same 4 people, all 4 will be under the recommended level pretty soon. Which, again, may be OK and totally doable!
Yeah, I'm not denying you can do it. Just that the game is telling you not to. Even if you are going through with the same 4 people, all 4 will be under the recommended level pretty soon. Which, again, may be OK and totally doable!
The game only tells you what the recommended level is for a particular story/quest. It doesn't tell you where you have to go or what you have to do.
If you're underleveled though you're not going to get anywhere without tons of grinding. Why would you want to do that?
Not to mention, once you do said grinding when you go back and pick up the other characters you'll be dramatically over-leveled in certain chapters. Just seems like a counter-intuitive way to play.
Yeah, I'm not denying you can do it. Just that the game is telling you not to. Even if you are going through with the same 4 people, all 4 will be under the recommended level pretty soon. Which, again, may be OK and totally doable!
The game only tells you what the recommended level is for a particular story/quest. It doesn't tell you where you have to go or what you have to do.
Maybe we're talking past each other.
If I am level 15, and the game says "if you're level 15, you should go to Town A, and if you're level 25 you should go to Town B." Maybe going to Town B is totally fine and better! But it's not what the game is implying I should do.
To put it back into concrete terms, Octopath was designed to play through the different stories by taking turns on the chapters. That had a negative effect on me playing the game (although I don't think I'd have liked it too much even the way you're suggesting).
I'm not saying Octopath was a bad game. I think it was a very well-made game and in basically every category it's above-average. It just turns out that it feels like playing a bunch of disconnected side-stories to me, and I don't really like that.
If you're underleveled though you're not going to get anywhere without tons of grinding. Why would you want to do that?
Not to mention, once you do said grinding when you go back and pick up the other characters you'll be dramatically over-leveled in certain chapters. Just seems like a counter-intuitive way to play.
I never really had to grind, personally. As I said before I only had to grind when going against the advanced class bosses. By going through the game chapter by chapter per character (so ch1 for character A, ch1 for character B, etc) I felt like the game was a slog (which is what you guys are saying it was, and I agree). So once I got my 4 characters that I liked I just focused on their stories primarily because I was vastly more involved with them than the others.
But I'm also the weird one who liked Diablo 2 way more than Diablo 3 BECAUSE of the lack of skill respecs and whatnot. So that's the kinda person you're talking to lol.
I think my bottom line on Octopath is that if you only are going to play one RPG on the Switch, it should be Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
If you get to play a second one, it should be Octopath. It's not perfect. The things it gets wrong could break the game for you. But the things it gets right could also make it. It's such an idiosyncratic product in that way. There are things I loved about it that I wouldn't want anyone to miss out on. And there are things about it that I don't think anyone should have to trudge through. It shows absolute brilliance and compromising lassitude in equal measure. I wish you didn't have to take the bad with the good on it. I wish it were on PC so that modders could "fix" it like your average Bethesda game.
I find it hard to fault anyone who hears that mixed bag and goes "I really don't want to spend my time and money on such a risky proposition." But I think if you love RPGs, and especially if you love the era of pre-FF7 RPGs, it's worth experiencing, flawed as it is. Because it represents this weird alt-history for RPGs where they haven't been living in the pre-rendered, cutscene laden shadow of Final Fantasy 7 for 20 years. And I think the sequel will be fucking amazing.
Yeah, I'm not denying you can do it. Just that the game is telling you not to. Even if you are going through with the same 4 people, all 4 will be under the recommended level pretty soon. Which, again, may be OK and totally doable!
The game only tells you what the recommended level is for a particular story/quest. It doesn't tell you where you have to go or what you have to do.
Maybe we're talking past each other.
If I am level 15, and the game says "if you're level 15, you should go to Town A, and if you're level 25 you should go to Town B." Maybe going to Town B is totally fine and better! But it's not what the game is implying I should do.
One thing that I realized was that while the game tells you the recommended level for starting another character chapter, that's not the same as the recommended level to start heading on over. There were some cases where a character's chapter 3 that unlocked after I finished their chapter 2 was in the same location as another's chapter 2 and by the time I reached the location I was leveled up enough for that 3 if I wanted to start it. If one didn't hit one of those orderings it's quite understandable that they'd think they had to level up using another chapter 2 first.
I really need to get Xenoblade. I've just been burned by every single previous entry lol.
That actually sounds like a reason to consider passing? Even among its fans people acknowledge it's not for everyone even among JRPG enthusiasts. It's really good at what it does well but doesn't do everything well. There's just not a ton of non-strategy JRPGs on the system yet.
I really need to get Xenoblade. I've just been burned by every single previous entry lol.
That actually sounds like a reason to consider passing? Even among its fans people acknowledge it's not for everyone even among JRPG enthusiasts. It's really good at what it does well but doesn't do everything well. There's just not a ton of non-strategy JRPGs on the system yet.
It's just hard because every time someone mentions an RPG everyone goes on and on about Xenoblade. So I feel like I should give it a shot? The only concerning thing is the whole "20-30 hours of tutorials until you get the good parts" just doesn't sound fun.
I mostly... gave up on Octopath. It really felt like I was just doing a sequence of side-stories. Like, the content and backstories you get for the characters were great! But it felt like you got mostly the same thing in other good JRPGs, while also getting any sort of "main" story, which Octopath really doesn't have at all (by design). And the character "side" stories weren't reeeally strong enough to hold up on their own without that central piece. Maybe they could have been, but you are also experiencing them in 1-hour chunks separated by 7 hours of nothing with that character.
I appreciate what they did and I'm glad they attempted it. Just really wasn't good enough for me and I don't want any others like that :P
(Gameplay and art and sound were all great.)
If you think there was no over-arching story, you didn't play it enough.
If I play 50+ hours into a game, completing 3/4ths of every character's storyline and everything is still siloed in terms of stories they done fucked up.
Octopath would have maybe been one of my GOTYs but the lack of a cohesive narrative combined with the repetitiveness across every character completely killed it for me. It's almost like they just reskinned the same game 8 times and it really is a shame. I look forward to a sequel but if it's designed the same way that would be a hard pass from me.
Man, I'm the complete opposite. I feel like they sold the game based on it explicitly not being a grand save the world story. Just these cute little character vignettes. I felt betrayed when I discovered yet another grand save the world story gated behind an insane difficulty cliff totally divorced from the difficulty the rest of the game had gotten you to accept.
Don't get me wrong, I could do without a big world-saving narrative too. Like you I was expecting a story with 8 low-stakes vignettes but I did assume they'd all connect in little interesting ways. The amount they seemed to go out of their way however to keep everything in its own silo was really a huge frustration/bummer for me.
Beyond the story however what ultimately killed the game for me was the constant repetitive loop. Start a new character, learn the problem, use your path action x5, find the boss, fight - rinse and repeat with absolutely no deviation from that formula (which I can't stress enough, it was the same steps over and over). Compound that with how some of the characters weren't even unique from one another in terms of their abilities and the whole thing just ended up dying on the vine for me.
I still get pissed thinking about it because there's a lot in that game to like and I would have loved to finish it.
This.
Octopath is a really, really solid and polished prototype. The music and combat are top-notch, the field actions add an interesting wrinkle, and the 3D 16-bit aesthetic is pretty amazing, with some of the best sprite work SE has put out in years.
But, it's repetitive to a fault, and the character stories are largely paint-by-numbers. It's a lot more "Mechanics: The Game" than I was anticipating, and RPG combat (mostly) alone, no matter how well constructed it is, isn't enough to keep me interested for long. I primarily play games for immersion - stories and setting*. And there's simply not enough of it in Octopath to hold my attention.
*I'm not saying I require some sprawling, world-changing epic. Low stakes stories are fine. They just need to be more... present than what Octopath provides. More story beats, better NPCs, etc.
I really need to get Xenoblade. I've just been burned by every single previous entry lol.
That actually sounds like a reason to consider passing? Even among its fans people acknowledge it's not for everyone even among JRPG enthusiasts. It's really good at what it does well but doesn't do everything well. There's just not a ton of non-strategy JRPGs on the system yet.
It's just hard because every time someone mentions an RPG everyone goes on and on about Xenoblade. So I feel like I should give it a shot? The only concerning thing is the whole "20-30 hours of tutorials until you get the good parts" just doesn't sound fun.
Maybe it's been too long for me but I don't remember that being the case. I enjoyed it from the start. They keep introducing various things throughout but the story was so engaging (even compared to past Xenoblades) that I just kept playing and leveling and seeing everything I could.
It's possible they were talking about XCX or whatever was on the WiiU. I went into that game wanting mechs, but after 15 or so hours I put the game down.
I really need to get Xenoblade. I've just been burned by every single previous entry lol.
That actually sounds like a reason to consider passing? Even among its fans people acknowledge it's not for everyone even among JRPG enthusiasts. It's really good at what it does well but doesn't do everything well. There's just not a ton of non-strategy JRPGs on the system yet.
It's just hard because every time someone mentions an RPG everyone goes on and on about Xenoblade. So I feel like I should give it a shot? The only concerning thing is the whole "20-30 hours of tutorials until you get the good parts" just doesn't sound fun.
Again, there aren't a lot of options on the Switch yet which kind of skews discussions a bit. I'm not entirely sure I'd agree with the 20 hour tutorial part though it's been a while since I picked up the game. It's a somewhat paced introduction of systems but the game is incredibly lengthy that it's not like you're anywhere close to done by the time you've got access to the last major system. In fact, that's been one of the criticisms that not a lot changes in how you approach fights after a while. You get more options but not necessarily more depth in terms of mechanical considerations.
There's a ton to love about the setting, characters, etc. so people that play for that can get a lot out of the game but it's not exactly the one JRPG to rule them all.
Looking back at Nintendo's WiiU catalogue, the only games I want to see get a Switch port include Wonderful 101, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Pikmin 3 and Super Mario Maker. Dependng on what new games Nintendo plan to release in 2019, any of those would fill a spot in the release schedule.
Some of those would likely require a lot of work since they utilized the gamepad quite a bit.
TMS and Xenoblade would only need an extra menu screen accessed by a button. The few sections in Wonderful 101 that required the gamepad could be easily removed, and I'm sure most players would use simple button controls for changing forms anyway.
Mario Maker would definitely need a bit more work. Ideally you'd need to swap between editing mode and testing mode, with all the different selections mapped to the shoulder buttons. And there could be an option to use it in handheld mode with the touchscreen.
i wanna see that commercial play during the super bowl strictly as is
I come from a more innocent, pre-internet time and remember when the Sports Illustrated ads were pretty much 10 seconds of "get sports news and a football phone with your subscription" and the rest was devoted to "and you will also get the swimsuit issue", so that would fit right in I think.
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I think a lot of people got their methodology set by needing to do multiple first acts early on to gather the party and continued in that fashion even after a point they didn't need to with regards to power level.
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But I must stay strong and resist temptation in case of Switch port. Don't want to pay 100+ monies only to turn around and see "Pikmin 3 remaster for Switch for only 39.99!".
TMS would be ok but I already put 70 hours into it and probably wouldn’t replay it unless they released a version with the localization changes rolled back.
And of course Fatal Frame V, which is the only reason I own a WiiU in the first place and that will otherwise mean that I have to have a WiiU around until the eventual heat death of the universe.
Also, the game is designed such that you're not meant to do one person's story straight through. You'd have to do excessive grinding to do one persons story all the way through, and then that would put you way overleveled for every other story, etc.
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I thought Pikmin 1 was just alright but 2 is one of my favorite games of all time. Eliminating the time limit did so much for the game.
Don't get me wrong, I could do without a big world-saving narrative too. Like you I was expecting a story with 8 low-stakes vignettes but I did assume they'd all connect in little interesting ways. The amount they seemed to go out of their way however to keep everything in its own silo was really a huge frustration/bummer for me.
Beyond the story however what ultimately killed the game for me was the constant repetitive loop. Start a new character, learn the problem, use your path action x5, find the boss, fight - rinse and repeat with absolutely no deviation from that formula (which I can't stress enough, it was the same steps over and over). Compound that with how some of the characters weren't even unique from one another in terms of their abilities and the whole thing just ended up dying on the vine for me.
I still get pissed thinking about it because there's a lot in that game to like and I would have loved to finish it.
I did them all at the same time because I didn't want the game to end. When you complete a character's story you feel like the game is ending for them. Also wanted to try to keep the difficulty curve as even as I could.
I did the same thing, and I ended up insanely over leveled. I think you need to get 4, finish their stories, then start over with the other 4 to have the difficulty stay right in the Goldilocks zone. Constantly rotating out the highest character for the lowest just wasn't doing it quite right.
I played Pikmin 1 way back when, and never touched 2, and finally got around to playing 3 this past summer. I really love 3. It's everything I want in a Pikmin game! Swapping between the Gamepad + Wiimote/nunchuck controls feels great.
One problem: the game is over too soon. This isn't a complaint that the game is too short, but rather about content pacing. They space out the new Pikmin and stuff so that every level has some big new thing, and then there is ALWAYS stuff you can go back and do in old levels with your new buddies, but there isn't a ton of it. I want more opportunities to wield my full mob of colorful plant soldiers! Either by having larger areas open up when returning to old levels, or having one or two whole new levels worth of stuff for me to tackle with my full squad.
I didn't touch the Bingo Battle / Challenges at all, so maybe those would scratch that itch? Gotta go back and check that out.
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Eh, by the time you get 4 party members, you can focus on one person's story to the end. Then rotate who you use for the next story. My primary gripe was that you're stuck with the first character you choose for the entirety of their story. So if you chose poorly you're SOL. That was dumb.
Some of those would likely require a lot of work since they utilized the gamepad quite a bit.
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Like, without grinding you will be under the recommended level if you go straight through one person's story. Maybe you can do it still! Maybe you should! But it's certainly not what the game is implying you should do.
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I can tell you right now that I never spent over an hour grinding (and that was because I wanted the advanced classes). Once you get 4 characters in your team you can pretty much safely do anyone's story event to the end. By the time you complete one you could complete the rest easily if you wanted, or you could swap your team around and do it again.
That's one way of looking at it. Because once you get to a certain level you can do whatever you want. It may say "Recommended level 25" but it doesn't mean that everyone has to be that level.
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The game only tells you what the recommended level is for a particular story/quest. It doesn't tell you where you have to go or what you have to do.
Not to mention, once you do said grinding when you go back and pick up the other characters you'll be dramatically over-leveled in certain chapters. Just seems like a counter-intuitive way to play.
Maybe we're talking past each other.
If I am level 15, and the game says "if you're level 15, you should go to Town A, and if you're level 25 you should go to Town B." Maybe going to Town B is totally fine and better! But it's not what the game is implying I should do.
To put it back into concrete terms, Octopath was designed to play through the different stories by taking turns on the chapters. That had a negative effect on me playing the game (although I don't think I'd have liked it too much even the way you're suggesting).
I'm not saying Octopath was a bad game. I think it was a very well-made game and in basically every category it's above-average. It just turns out that it feels like playing a bunch of disconnected side-stories to me, and I don't really like that.
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I never really had to grind, personally. As I said before I only had to grind when going against the advanced class bosses. By going through the game chapter by chapter per character (so ch1 for character A, ch1 for character B, etc) I felt like the game was a slog (which is what you guys are saying it was, and I agree). So once I got my 4 characters that I liked I just focused on their stories primarily because I was vastly more involved with them than the others.
But I'm also the weird one who liked Diablo 2 way more than Diablo 3 BECAUSE of the lack of skill respecs and whatnot. So that's the kinda person you're talking to lol.
If you get to play a second one, it should be Octopath. It's not perfect. The things it gets wrong could break the game for you. But the things it gets right could also make it. It's such an idiosyncratic product in that way. There are things I loved about it that I wouldn't want anyone to miss out on. And there are things about it that I don't think anyone should have to trudge through. It shows absolute brilliance and compromising lassitude in equal measure. I wish you didn't have to take the bad with the good on it. I wish it were on PC so that modders could "fix" it like your average Bethesda game.
I find it hard to fault anyone who hears that mixed bag and goes "I really don't want to spend my time and money on such a risky proposition." But I think if you love RPGs, and especially if you love the era of pre-FF7 RPGs, it's worth experiencing, flawed as it is. Because it represents this weird alt-history for RPGs where they haven't been living in the pre-rendered, cutscene laden shadow of Final Fantasy 7 for 20 years. And I think the sequel will be fucking amazing.
One thing that I realized was that while the game tells you the recommended level for starting another character chapter, that's not the same as the recommended level to start heading on over. There were some cases where a character's chapter 3 that unlocked after I finished their chapter 2 was in the same location as another's chapter 2 and by the time I reached the location I was leveled up enough for that 3 if I wanted to start it. If one didn't hit one of those orderings it's quite understandable that they'd think they had to level up using another chapter 2 first.
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What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
That actually sounds like a reason to consider passing? Even among its fans people acknowledge it's not for everyone even among JRPG enthusiasts. It's really good at what it does well but doesn't do everything well. There's just not a ton of non-strategy JRPGs on the system yet.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
It's just hard because every time someone mentions an RPG everyone goes on and on about Xenoblade. So I feel like I should give it a shot? The only concerning thing is the whole "20-30 hours of tutorials until you get the good parts" just doesn't sound fun.
This.
Octopath is a really, really solid and polished prototype. The music and combat are top-notch, the field actions add an interesting wrinkle, and the 3D 16-bit aesthetic is pretty amazing, with some of the best sprite work SE has put out in years.
But, it's repetitive to a fault, and the character stories are largely paint-by-numbers. It's a lot more "Mechanics: The Game" than I was anticipating, and RPG combat (mostly) alone, no matter how well constructed it is, isn't enough to keep me interested for long. I primarily play games for immersion - stories and setting*. And there's simply not enough of it in Octopath to hold my attention.
*I'm not saying I require some sprawling, world-changing epic. Low stakes stories are fine. They just need to be more... present than what Octopath provides. More story beats, better NPCs, etc.
Maybe it's been too long for me but I don't remember that being the case. I enjoyed it from the start. They keep introducing various things throughout but the story was so engaging (even compared to past Xenoblades) that I just kept playing and leveling and seeing everything I could.
Pretty sure I binged 200 hours of that game in a month. And I'll do it again!
Again, there aren't a lot of options on the Switch yet which kind of skews discussions a bit. I'm not entirely sure I'd agree with the 20 hour tutorial part though it's been a while since I picked up the game. It's a somewhat paced introduction of systems but the game is incredibly lengthy that it's not like you're anywhere close to done by the time you've got access to the last major system. In fact, that's been one of the criticisms that not a lot changes in how you approach fights after a while. You get more options but not necessarily more depth in terms of mechanical considerations.
There's a ton to love about the setting, characters, etc. so people that play for that can get a lot out of the game but it's not exactly the one JRPG to rule them all.
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TMS and Xenoblade would only need an extra menu screen accessed by a button. The few sections in Wonderful 101 that required the gamepad could be easily removed, and I'm sure most players would use simple button controls for changing forms anyway.
Mario Maker would definitely need a bit more work. Ideally you'd need to swap between editing mode and testing mode, with all the different selections mapped to the shoulder buttons. And there could be an option to use it in handheld mode with the touchscreen.
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I come from a more innocent, pre-internet time and remember when the Sports Illustrated ads were pretty much 10 seconds of "get sports news and a football phone with your subscription" and the rest was devoted to "and you will also get the swimsuit issue", so that would fit right in I think.
Give me back that filet-o-fish, give me that fish
As if videogames need to be more vilified.
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