Octopath Traveler II (Main Theme)
Octopath Traveler II released on Steam, Switch, and PS4 on February 24, 2023. It is the sequel to Octopath Traveler, a JRPG that featured eight characters exploring a large world together while following their own stories in a beautiful graphical style of mixing sprites with 3D elements dubbed "HD-2D".
Many of the things that made OT1 great, like its beautiful graphics, excellent soundtrack, and cast of eight distinct characters all return in OT2, but it also greatly improves on OT1's weaker areas. While OT1 cutscenes lacked a lot of action, OT2 has more dynamic camera work and better cutscene design to make the big moments really shine. There's more of a focus on character interaction, between the return of party banters (this time even showing up in the journal so you can't miss them!), the introduction of four new two-part quests featuring two specific characters, and tons of battle lines having the characters supporting each other during fights.
There's a day/night cycle that's thankfully as simple to change as the push of a button. NPCs may show up only at one time, and now each character has both a day and night Path Action they can use to obtain information, items, allies, or just the pleasure of knocking someone out. Likewise, random encounters are generally more dangerous at night, though a couple of characters make up for that by buffing your party or debuffing your foes. And speaking of battles, the battle system returns mostly unchanged, with the main new addition being Latent Powers, which are basically limit breaks that give characters another unique option in battle. The eight main jobs return with slight tweaks, with four new jobs hiding out in the world. There's even EX Skills, which are two character-exclusive skills that each character gets. Foes have a lot more animation this time around, and are just as intimidating as ever.
Overall, OT2 is a huge improvement over OT1, and considering how much I loved the former, it's no surprise I'm LPing this game as well.
Once again, my focus will be on showing off as much content as possible using the screenshot format. I will have videos of important cutscenes (unlike OT1, everything in story cutscenes is voiced, but I'm only going to show off stuff that doesn't benefit from the screenshot treatment) and boss battles. GIFs and the like will likely be used sparingly due to size constraints, but I'll still have plenty of music links and screenshots to show off the game.
Structurally, this game is a lot more loose with progression than OT1, so besides everyone's Chapter 1's, I'll be doing a lot more jumping around, which means there won't be as much voting going on, and likewise some Side Stories will be split up due to how they're set up. Even with less side stories overall, I'd expect to surpass OT1's massive 208 updates pretty easily. But hey, more to enjoy!
I'm still on Twitter while it's burning down. I may add other ways to follow updates later.
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