Happy Life
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Octopath Traveler
An interesting approach to the JRPG genre: instead of one grand story about a shonen party, demons, dragons, and various powerful artifacts, there are eight storylines, each with several chapters, focusing on eight ordinary characters in a very pleasant setting. At first, this approach caused some discomfort because you open the world map, see a lot of unexplored territory, eight markers with characters, and essentially no overall plot – you just collect "Pokémon," complete their prologues, take on side quests in each city, and as you progress, complete them. Once you level up, you go for a second round, complete the next chapter for each character, and so on. All of this, of course, is accompanied by non-stop battles with monsters outside the cities. To be honest, it turned out to be not very comfortable at the start, even a bit heavy. But overcoming this feeling and getting past the initial barrier was helped by the feeling of getting used to the street battles and the peaceful city life, and then the stories themselves started to improve.
The downsides:
1. An obvious bias towards grinding. No one forces you to go somewhere specifically to level up, but there are a lot of battles. The combat itself is not particularly deep, but it's also not particularly challenging, and overall it's satisfactory. This is true for most of the time, but in the second half, it becomes more challenging (not enough to be frustrating, but enough that you'll find a use for many things you haven't used before).
2. Strangely, there is a relatively small amount of narrative compared to a standard JRPG. In particular, there is a lack of interactions between characters, and interactions with NPCs in side quests are also rudimentary.
3. Almost complete lack of progression in terms of mechanics for most of the game (haha, again about this – well, I was just spoiled by the Tales of series, where they easily give you new mechanics even after fifty hours).
The advantages:
1. Very pleasant graphics, design, and atmosphere, a flawless soundtrack.
2. The characters' stories, although they lack some grand twists, compared to standard JRPGs, are generally very warm and believable. And more often than I would like to admit, I found myself in a situation where I thought that the current event in the chapter wasn't particularly exciting, but something happened that made me change my mind – it was either beautiful or emotionally well-directed.
If you are a "normal" person who is uncomfortable with anything overly anime-like, but who doesn't mind a bias towards combat and is willing to spend fifty+ hours on heartwarming/drama content and a pleasant atmosphere, then you will like it.
If you are a fan of grand stories, various twists, and cartoonish humor, then you should not touch this game.
An interesting approach to the JRPG genre: instead of one grand story about a shonen party, demons, dragons, and various powerful artifacts, there are eight storylines, each with several chapters, focusing on eight ordinary characters in a very pleasant setting. At first, this approach caused some discomfort because you open the world map, see a lot of unexplored territory, eight markers with characters, and essentially no overall plot – you just collect "Pokémon," complete their prologues, take on side quests in each city, and as you progress, complete them. Once you level up, you go for a second round, complete the next chapter for each character, and so on. All of this, of course, is accompanied by non-stop battles with monsters outside the cities. To be honest, it turned out to be not very comfortable at the start, even a bit heavy. But overcoming this feeling and getting past the initial barrier was helped by the feeling of getting used to the street battles and the peaceful city life, and then the stories themselves started to improve.
The downsides:
1. An obvious bias towards grinding. No one forces you to go somewhere specifically to level up, but there are a lot of battles. The combat itself is not particularly deep, but it's also not particularly challenging, and overall it's satisfactory. This is true for most of the time, but in the second half, it becomes more challenging (not enough to be frustrating, but enough that you'll find a use for many things you haven't used before).
2. Strangely, there is a relatively small amount of narrative compared to a standard JRPG. In particular, there is a lack of interactions between characters, and interactions with NPCs in side quests are also rudimentary.
3. Almost complete lack of progression in terms of mechanics for most of the game (haha, again about this – well, I was just spoiled by the Tales of series, where they easily give you new mechanics even after fifty hours).
The advantages:
1. Very pleasant graphics, design, and atmosphere, a flawless soundtrack.
2. The characters' stories, although they lack some grand twists, compared to standard JRPGs, are generally very warm and believable. And more often than I would like to admit, I found myself in a situation where I thought that the current event in the chapter wasn't particularly exciting, but something happened that made me change my mind – it was either beautiful or emotionally well-directed.
If you are a "normal" person who is uncomfortable with anything overly anime-like, but who doesn't mind a bias towards combat and is willing to spend fifty+ hours on heartwarming/drama content and a pleasant atmosphere, then you will like it.
If you are a fan of grand stories, various twists, and cartoonish humor, then you should not touch this game.
My sword, my trusted ally, unphased by my aspect.
