#first run was with alfyn as the protag

[laufskadus]

been playing octopath the past few weeks in my free time and these two? love them

[semi-imaginary-place]

started playing octopath traveler. i like the visual design, music and general aesthetics. thk it is hard to tell where you can walk and where you cant. im not sure if the xp to next level means exp in this levels bin, like progress so far, or how much exp is need until the next level up. ui weirdness. sunshade section is real uncomfortable between orientalism, sexual coersion and worker exploitation! yall should unionize. oh it really is sex slavery. yikes. this is uncomfortable.

at least i got to kill him. was thinking why did primrose end up a sex slave if she really wanted to kill her father’s murderer why didn’t she train as a assassin or warrior like olberic for 15 years. but then i thought about it and posing as a dancer is exactly the stupid sort of thing a child would think up and then the slimebag tavern owner probably trapped her in a mile of debt and exploited someone vulnerable.

i started with tressa and went counterclockwise around the sea so now im done with everyone’s chapter 1. there’s was no real reason for choosing tressa, her’s seemed to be a less serious story and a soft intro to the game. and now that i have a party of tressa, therion, and alfyn its all about that economy. alfyn has powerful item based abilities and tressa and therion have abilites to get items so i hit the item cap (99 stack per item) before i hit level 20. I also got like a 120 atk bow before level 10 lol. money money money.

can’t believe shinto-catholic girl’s story got to me. h’aanit’s story is the one i find most compelling and the ch 2 i want to see the most. i like cyrus. he reminds me of miles edgeworth. comedically super serious walking sherlock holmes reference. also is it me or are there a lot of pop culture references in this game. my favorite character tho is alfyn. he’s a good boy. he also reminds me of one of my highschool ocs. what a good boy, i love him.

octopath traveler is a weird title. why didn’t they go with like the paths of eight travelers. or eight traveler’s paths. and what’s up that cat burglar enemy

overall i think the ch 1s were decent. there were some tropes that just seemed to be there because they are genre staples instead of doing anything with them, but its also only the first chapter. i said it already but the music is really good.

i ostly picked it up because time limited input games aren’t really enjoyable for me and there are so few games these days that aren’t like that. gameplay is like halfway between goldensun with its character based puzzle solving and the nds era smt games with the elemental weaknesses being a major part of battle. some of the ui stuff is clunky. the transition to battle screen is just bad. also idk if i missed it but weird that i can’t find the protags’ ages anywhere given how you learn the ages of every random npc. i mean i can guess based on the ages of people in their starting town. like alfyn, primrose, and ophilia are all like early twenties like. not quite as sure for h’aanit and therion but probably early-mid twenties too. tressa seems like typical jrpg protag age so like 17. olberic seems a bit older like mid thirties? the blur effect is too strong for my taste, i do like how it puts into focus where you character is at, but just a bit too much. some of the glittery effects seem to be based on where you are on the map so if you run around the white dots move super fast and i don’t like the look. i think there were trying to go for like a  boko or whatever and its fine if you take a screenshot of it, but in motion its really annoying.

oh yeah and i haven’t even started any ch2s and its already been 20+ hours so... im going to be here a while. (i keep getting lost!)

went and spoiled myself on secret classes. primrose deserves warmaster. i dont even play her (i dont get the summoning mechanics) but its what she deserves. read about how making cyrus a sorcerer is redundant, but have you considered, i like big numbers.

so party comp. i can’t get rid of tressa but i always need money anyways. therion is there for the same reason. and alfyn is there to use all the items and because he’s my fav. the last spot cycles between cyrus and h’aanit. i also really like h’aanit but cyrus’s ability is usefulf for finding weaknesses because i struggle to remember which elements i’ve already tried out and its such a bad time for me without cyrus. also big numbers. give me the explosions.