I tried this for an hour on handheld and the art style didn’t bother me much. I wasn’t crazy about it, but it was kind of charming. However, when I switched to docked mode it started hurting my eyes. I think a combination of the movement and the way the pixels seemed to bleed into each other. Playing as the merchant, I had a hard time distinguishing features when in movement. I’m not sure if it’s ideal for larger displays. Maybe I need to readjust the brightness setting or maybe it was just that one area. I can’t handle this game for more than 15-minutes at a time on a TV as it stands. Is this a me thing or has anyone else had this issue?
While it doesn’t hurt my eyes like it does you, I think it looks disgusting on my 46 inch tv. It hadn’t occured to me to look at it in handheld mode since I never use the device this way, but I guess it would look better that way. As it stands, the pixelated character artwork is just trash blown up so much, the ground/world textures are commonly misaligned, muddy, and flat, and spell effects look like 3DS shit.
I think this is meant to provoke a certain type of nostalgia for this genre I don’t experience. So to me it just looks like a glorified 3ds game.
I just don’t get the heaps of love the demo is getting other places, but it’s obvious I’m not its target audience. Given all the adulation I’ve seen for the game from long-time fans of the genre, I’m willing to accept the fact I’m the problem here and not the game itself.
This is the best game in a decade.
I … broke down when i read that Titan Quest was coming out on the Switch and i was able to pick up an Open Box one from B&H for like $220. And i wanted to try out Skryim.
So despite the, really, horrible horrible name and possibly some non-family friendly questionable content going on with some of the characters (Primerose’s storyline) man, this pushes all the buttons.
Combat is fast, the game is beautiful, it doesn’t waste my time. Sound design is strong, artistic style is “on point” as the kids say. JRPGs all seem like crystallized versions of Disney cartoons from the 50s and 60s and sometimes these almost naive storylines seem like a fresh air compared to the grimdark games of today.
A lot of what you say mirrors how I feel about it thus far. Also, why does this game have save points? How are those still a thing in an RPG?
I played on my 46" TV and I thought it looked fantastic. But then again I didn’t think to play it undocked, and historically most of my gaming on the Switch ends up being undocked while I sit at my PC anyway and watch TV or a movie, so if that looks even better I’m all for it.
So is this more of a “one main story with eight different startings and endings” thing, or a “multiple unique but interweaving main stories” thing? Or do we not really know yet?
I’d be more compelled to play through the latter more than once, but there’s no way I’m playing through a mostly-identical game eight times to see everything.
We don’t really know yet (or my sluething turned up nothing, at least) but I suspect the former, not the latter.
That’s what my gut says too. Only a minor bummer – I’m still excited for it. I just doubt I’ll play through it more than once. More likely I’ll play through once and then check YouTube for whatever I missed.
Didn’t somebody say upthread that when you meet a new character you had the option to play their intro? That would strongly suggest the former, but without the need to replay everything.
That was me, and that’s why I also think it’s going to work the way we think it is. It’s fine, the other way would have been mind blowing and pretty awesome for sure, but I think what it will be is going to be memorable and enjoyable all the same.
memjoyable.
You’re welcome!
Yes, I’ve done it in the demo. Started with the Cleric and then made my way down to the Scholar’s starting city. When you meet you can just add him to the party, or play through his origin from the beginning. All the starting character cities are marked in green on the world map so no matter where you start you can go through and collect everybody and play their stories. Each character has their own specific goal in mind when they set off for adventure, and in the first three hours with the demo I didn’t encounter a distinct “main” storyline. Presumably that will emerge deeper in the game as the different character threads start to intersect.
Hahaha I started with the scholar too, and got my ass beat by the boss the first time too!
Second time I went for all the chests, so I got level 5 and enough JP for a new spell, so the fight was easier.
Spend Mana. You are a caster, so just spend mana (SP) in almost every turn. Every time you level up you fill your mana, so spend it a lot in early levels because you level up quickly.
Famitsu review is in:
Octopath Traveler (Switch) – 9/9/9/9 [36/40]
Does that mean four separate reviewers at Famitsu loved it or do they score their reviews in separate categories (sound, control, graphics, whatever the fourth was) like GamePro magazine in the ‘90s?
I still don’t like Octopath’s art style, but I wouldn’t mind a meatier RPG-type game to close out the summer with, especially one I can play in Switch’s portable mode.
Yes, theoretically. Though I’ve been told by people who pay more attention to the Japanese gaming scene than I do that Famitsu’s reviews make minimal attempts at critical analysis, just cheerleading big names, and that the reviews just regurgitate bullet points from the box.
Yeah, I heard similar - their reviews used to be highly regarded way back in the days of yore but now they’re a shadow of their former selves. Kind of like Edge magazine.
Personally I’m a bit uncertain if I’ll get into it - I played the latest demo but I’m not sure I get on with random encounters anymore.
Sucks that this is Switch exclusive, but I admit I was shocked when I read a $60 pricetag, surely if it encases the SNES era of JRPGs (and upgrades them with modern bells and whistles) I could see $40 being the maximum for a pixel art game.
Owlboy, as gorgeous as it was, is only $25, and while it’s probably not as lengthy as an RPG, in general RPGs have never had price tags attached to length, which funny enough despite loving them, was what i’d always pick out once a month when I got a new game because they held up longer, so i’m not factoring that in.
Is there any speculation of the length? It would definitely need to be at least a 30 hour endeavor for me, I’d wait for a sale. If the new Pokemon games coming deliver the fresh approach I’ve been hoping for it’ll push me over the edge and the Switch will be the first console I’ve owned since PS3
It’s usually more about the size of the development team and the resources put into the game to make it what it is, than the length of the game. Owlboy could have been made by a much smaller team; certainly big RPG’s with lots of ideas are going to be quite a bit more expensive to develop than a platformer would be, generally speaking. Plus Nintendo puts a premium on all their exclusive titles, they’re sort of like the Apple of the gaming world.
I totally get that, I’m working on a game, and 10,000 in revenue for me would be A LOT different for a team, but at the same time, we can’t exactly say it’s fair to revisit that on the player.
It’s just a hard concept to wrap my head around, I remember paying 60 bucks for Super Mario RPG, at the time, I thought it was one of the BEST LOOKING GAMES on SNES, the top of technology so it was totally worth it. I guess after seeing the era of Playstation and 3D make a lot of people and my friends leave the 2D era in the past, it’s bizarre, bold, and partly revolutionary to slap a 60 dollar tag on a nostalgic 2D SQEX experience.
Heck even the 3D Secret of Mana Remake (despite seeming like a let down) in full 3D which is a CLASSIC RPG that I highly regard came with a $40 tag.