Reviews have started rolling in for the highly anticipated new game in Square Enix’s Octopath Trailer Series, Octopath Traveler II. The long-running Nintendo Switch adventure game currently sits on Metacritic with a score of 84 based on 28 review reviews (11:30am UK time) The vast majority of reviews for Octopath Traveler II are around the 8/10 mark which is good and it looks like the team has listened very carefully to the feedback surrounding the original Octopath game to create something approaching RPG excellence. However, it should be mentioned that IGN’s review notes that the Nintendo Switch version has a few minor issues, but nothing groundbreaking. Hopefully the issues will be resolved with an upcoming software update. There is a demo for Octopath Traveler II on the Nintendo eShop, so if you want to play around with it before buying, that might be a good idea. Here is a selection of reviews:
“But what really surprised me about Octopath Traveler 2 is how much richer the sequel is. It’s a lavish game with unexpected attention to camera angles, lighting and music. It’s incredibly cinematic and dynamic. Even just walking down the roads going from space to space sends people into the foreground and background, moving around all sorts of features. The art is impeccable. There are times when using light during the day can almost eliminate some sprites, but even so, it’s amazing to see the depth, dimension, and details that appear as you explore houses, travel the world, and encounter enemies.
“Octopath Traveler 2 opens with the promise of adventures and journeys that show how characters grow and shape the world, and it sends you through a lavish world as you help each individual and, along the way, make Solistia a better place. There’s so much potential here, everyone can choose how they approach it all. Most importantly, it’s accessible, ensuring that everyone can enjoy the stories told by Square Enix and Acquire.
“While the structure is unchanged, Square Enix has made some welcome changes to most job classes, including a few new abilities that change the flow of battle and manage to make combat feel fresh. One of these new buffs is each character’s Latent Power, an ability that boosts their other skills in powerful ways. Encounters feel better balanced, with a tense pace of well-timed smart choices, and they don’t overstay their welcome.
“Octopath Traveler II does what a great sequel should do. Instead of innovating left and right, it improves on the original in almost every way and feels more confident about the stories it tells. still has room for improvement in some of its stiffer areas, but Octopath II is a remarkable achievement by any measure.
“On Nintendo Switch, I found Octopath Traveler 2 to be kind of a downgrade from the original. The amazing 2D/3D art style returns, and areas seem to be filled with even more candy for the 16-bit paper eyes, but some of the lighting effects I loved all along – especially the sparkles on the snowfields – are gone I also ran into an issue where some boss battles would freeze completely quite long for me to start freaking out, plus some sections of cutscenes that got stuck and required me to hold ‘B’ to jump in. Full stop and load fixed those issues, but it was a huge bummer and led to some battles taking longer – even much longer – than they should have if all went well.
“Once again I fell in love with Octopath Traveler and its style, but five years after the original it doesn’t hit as hard. So little has changed in its battles, and this sequel sticks a little too much to the original systems without expanding them too much. Especially now that the 2D/3D art style is an established look, the ever so beautiful visuals don’t stand out as much. That said, the combat system is still quite fun, and finding the best course of action to exploit weak spots, knock an enemy out, then unload on them with as much power as possible remains satisfying. I also found myself more invested in the stories this time around, and the way it unfolds at the end is more interesting and cohesive than the first. If you liked Octopath Traveler (or even any of the Bravely Default games), Octopath Traveler 2 is another good old-fashioned 80-hour JRPG – it looks like the one I’ve played before.
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Article source https://mynintendonews.com/2023/02/18/octopath-traveler-ii-reviews-roll-in-with-switch-version-at-84-on-metacritic/