I’ve owed this thread a post for a while and things are currently calm so now seems like a good time. First, I’ll give my final Octopath Traveler II thoughts. My ultimate enjoyment definitely got impacted by my rush to finish it and due to the familiar structure / mechanics, but overall Octopath Traveler II was a fantastic game. My favorite improvement over the original game was I really liked all eight characters this time around and I think the conclusions to all of their stories were all strong. In particular, I was invested in following Hikari’s journey to reclaim his kingdom and Castii’s quest to reclaim her lost memories and cure the plague. Partitio is definitely my favorite of the bunch with his infectious enthusiasm and some wild moments (
I loved seeing the 80 billion in your bank account lol) and I especially loved his “Yeehaw!” in battle. I loved the big finale of the adventure with
all eight characters questing together though it was too short. Beyond the story stuff, the other big thing I loved just like the first game was being able to explore more and more of the world and see all of the towns and optional dungeons. Heading into danger always felt so exciting and even though it is ultimately fairly simple I still adored the big
ocean surprise. One last thing, the soundtrack was awesome! It definitely stung beating the game and finding out it’s been basically a year and it still isn’t on itunes so hopefully that changes soon. The battle and boss themes as well as some of the perky town themes were definitely my favorites here.
The second thing I wanted to talk about was I did hit a current stopping point two weeks ago in the Magia Record Arc 2 fan translation I had been slowly watching for a few months now. Since it was still in progress, I didn’t want to rush through what was available so I took my time. While I learned you can still play the RPG by jumping through some hoops, I decided to stick with just watching the cutscenes. It’s been awesome to see more or less half of Arc 2 at this point. All of the main old characters have been getting their chances to shine, some great side characters got promoted essentially to stand alongside them (in particular Karin, Ryo, and Ikumi), and then a huge chunk of new characters and factions all got introduced and I’m invested in a lot of them (especially Promised Blood). I really dug some of the big resolutions it’s had for stories set up in part 1 like Felicia
having to remember and confront her role in the death of her parents and just what story threads they decided to build off of to get Arc 2 going (like Promised Blood’s backstory and motivation) and how they were so strongly executed. When I most recently peeked at their schedule I’m excited it seems the fan translation group has turned its attention back to the Another Story campaign so whenever Chapter 6 drops I’m eager to get back to watching
Last thing, while I was writing this post Like A Dragon 8 just finished installing, so I’m finally starting my next RPG!