Octopath Traveler: The most epic fighting fest of them all

An awful lot has been said about OT's unsatisfying narrative structure, about the clumsiness of its disjointed storytelling, about the asinine quality of its writing. And, well, most of it is true: this is poor storytelling we're dealing with indeed, and OT couldn't hold a candle to its forebearers of Square and Enix fame even if its life depended on it. But on the other hand, I daresay that it needn't hold a candle to said forebearers in the narrative department, because it crushes them down when it comes to all things fighting. Let's face it: OT's tentacular story is nothing more than a pretense, a multipronged excuse to move your party around — and engage in thousands of battles along the way. At its core, this game is all about the fighting — nothing but the fighting. And boy, does it excel at it indeed. OT simply boasts one of the best turn-based fighting systems I've ever had the pleasure of handling, a system blessed with a depth I could never, ever have suspected when I started playing. It takes a long time to reveal its full potential — maybe a mite too long, actually; but if you can soldier on until said potential unfolds, you're in for a real treat.

 

I'll admit it: I intensely disliked OT's fighting system at first. This is a pretty grindy game we're dealing with; and as far as my RPG expectations and experience are concerned, grindy games should go together with swift, easy, promptly-polished-up random encounters. Which, oh dear, is so not the case in OT. This is a game that makes you go all out and pull out the stops in every single battle. Forget about spamming regular attacks and mashing the A button to win: you'll need to think, strategize and, last but not least, use skills like it's going out of fashion. Forget about brute-forcing your way through with sheer overleveling: foes will remain a menace and a challenge even when crawling fifteen levels below you. That's a very good thing, of course; but I certainly didn't see it that way at first. Heck, I didn't fancy at all being forced to give my full attention to every battle; I nearly took it as a personal insult, and an undue attack on my precious time. How dared that game make me toil on trash mobs like they were the local boss, darn it? Also, thrifty little me balked at the thought of using SP-consuming skills during random encounters, after a whole lifetime spent saving such resources for boss fights. I very nearly quit right after recruiting my fourth character, when a particularly buffed-up bunch of trash mobs wiped the floor with my poor party. This is it, I thought; that's not what I signed for, count me out. 

 

Of course, I didn't sign out, as you know already; I soldiered on, and soon learnt to make the most of OT's fighting system. I learnt to use the Break system to my advantage, swiftly and neatly erasing foes' turns to give myself more leeway and opportunities to strike. I learnt to spend my SP wisely, using fitting weapons and single-hit skills to Break the opposition first and then pummeling my defenseless foes to death with multi-hit skills. I learnt to study my opponents carefully instead of going straight for the attack command, and I discovered the giddy joy of Breaking a round of foes in one turn through the thought-out use of weapons and skills. I learnt to make the most of the characters' natural complementarities, and to supplement them neatly with added ones through the clever use of Secondary Jobs. I learnt all that and more, and I enjoyed myself tremendously doing so. And then it dawned on me that OT's fighting system is truly the stuff role-playing dreams are made off, with its heavy emphasis on character complementarity and pitch-perfect use of weapons and skills. That game elevates combat to an art form, daring you to wipe the battlefield clean in the most efficient and elegant way with every single battle. 

 

I've been certainly doing my fair share of that in the last hours, especially since I started dabbling in Secondary Jobs. I made Tressa a Thief, Cyrus an Apothecary and Ophilia a Scholar, getting nearly full weapon and elemental coverage in the process; the only attack type I'm still missing is Dark, but I can make do without it. My calculations led me to the conclusion that there is simply no way to get full weapon and elemental coverage with three party members, no matter how you arrange Secondary Jobs. The game was obviously designed with a party of four in mind — a party of four whose members are switched on a regular basis to boot. I could totally ride fighting complementarities much more than I currently do and design a tailor-made team for every single area through job-switching; but I'm not sure I'll ever have the courage to do that, all the less so as I've grown quite attached to my Trio of Awesomeness already. On top of that, they are ridiculously oveleveled compared to the rest of the crew, which doesn't make for slick fighting dynamics; smoothing out those unbalances would require level-grinding, and I'd rather eat my Switch than level-grind in OT. Guess I made my bed by stubbornly sticking to the same three characters, and now I'll have to lie in it — which I do kinda joyfully, given how much I love said three characters. But more on that very soon. 

 

Here ends my ode to OT''s sheer brilliance and awesomeness in all things fighting, dear fellow gamers. I'll see you soon with more tidings from Orsterra; I'm nowhere near done with that game indeed, oh no precious. Thanks a million for reading as usual, and drop by anytime!