#octo2

[satsuha]

happy second anniversary!

[kittyofloafing]

ok I need help again octopath2ers

When you start with different traveler they each say something different at different points, when you go to fight the final boss, on the boat I believe, before going up the stairs, answering the question, and at the end of the fight, being the last to leave during the epilogue, and the beginning of the part of the epilogue when they are meeting back up

I don't feel like beating ot2 eight separate times, so if those who have started with different travelers could help me out it would be MUCH appreciated

[willcodehtmlforfood]

Another day, another mobile malware

[loregoddess]

Ancient Beastling Deciphered (literally)

So when I played Octo2, I saw the phrase "Ghormf" ef "thanks" and thought it sort of looked like a simple substitution cipher. This has haunted me long enough that I sat down last night and gave deciphering Ancient Beastling a try and lo, in the English localization it is indeed a simple substitution cipher.

Here's the cipher that's being used in the game:

Using this, we can "translate" the dialogue for the "Ghormf!" side quest:

The quest starts after speaking to the beastling in the Nameless Village (henceforth referred to as NVB, since he doesn't have a name).

NVB:

E'da taar jaolrern huzor fpaach jogajy. I've been learning human speech lately. Tug e bir'g mris his gi foy "ghormf". But I don't know how to say "thanks". His bi yiu foy "ghormf"? E zufg mris! How do you say "thanks"? I must know!

After traveling to Beasting Village, you can speak with the beastling there (henceforth BVB, as he also lacks a name).

BVB: E'da taar jaolrern orcearg fpaach jogajy. I've been learning ancient speech lately. E jaolrab his gi foy "ghormf"! I learned how to say "thanks"!

After the player guides BVB back to the Nameless Village and speaks with NVB, a cutscene plays out.

NVB: E'da taar jaolrern huzor fpaach jogajy. I've been learning human speech lately. BVB: E'da taar jaolrern orcearg fpaach jogajy. I've been learning ancient speech lately. NVB: Ih. Bi yiu mris his gi foy "ghormf"? Oh. Do you know how to say "thanks"? BVB: "Ghormf" ef "thanks". "Thanks" is "<thanks>". NVB: Ih! "Ghormf ef "thanks"! Oh! "Thanks" is "<thanks>"! Sohoho! E jaolrab fizaghern ras giboy! Wahaha! I learned something new today! "Thanks" daly zuch! "<Thanks>" very much!

Afterwards, BVB remains in the Nameless Village near NVB. If the player speaks to them, this is what they say.

NVB: Jaolrern huzor fpaach ef wur! Sohoho! Learning human speech is fun! Wahaha! BVB: Ancient speech... Very hard. But... Jaolrern eg ef wur! Ohoho! Learning it is fun! Ahaha!

And, that's the Ancient Beastling speech translated! Well, almost. As you can see in the cipher images, there's 4 missing letter substitutions. I could only find the guide dialogue for Temenos's guide from a video tutorial for the quest, where BVB says, "All right. Jaob gha soy." ("All right. Lead the way."), but I wasn't going to try and scour every video that's ever been uploaded in hopes of capturing unique dialogue for other path actions.

Despite a few cursory searches, I haven't been able to find dialogue script for all of the potential path actions, which might fill in the missing letters on the cipher. Since both files I currently have in Octo2 are already 100% completed, I also can't go and see what these two NPCs say when I use path actions aside from guide on them to grab the text for myself, nor have I been able to find a text dump to scour.

(If nothing else, I might end up trying to grab screenshots for myself on my next playthrough, whenever that may be. But! If anyone happens to have screenshots or a video or the text handy of the path actions for these two NPCs, I'd love to take a look).

Some more notes on my process, and guesses for the letters missing from the cipher, below the cut.

Deciphering the cipher wasn't really that hard, since we're given the key that "ghormf" = "thanks", so I was able to write out the alphabet, and then start writing in the substitution letters above their corresponding letters (I handwrote everything while working through this, but I don't have pics handy, so no process images this time sorry).

Then I just had to go through and start applying what letters I knew for sure to other lines of dialogue and then filling in the rest of the letters based on educated guesses (i.e. "Ghormf ef "thanks". became "Thanks" [e]s "thanks". so it was pretty obvious that "ef' was "is", which meant that Ancient Beastling e = i; also the phrase "Thanks" daly zuch! seemed to fit the phrase "Thanks" very much! and when I applied the letter substitutions for "very" and "much" to the rest of the cutscene dialogue, it made other words pop out, and so on and so forth until I had the cutscene dialogue completely translated, by which time the entire cipher was all but complete).

Obviously, there's a few missing letters: we don't have the Ancient Beastling equivalent to j, q, x, or z, since those letters weren't used in any of the dialogue I could find, and the letters k, q, x, and v weren't used, meaning they're the substitutions for j, q, x, and z but we don't know which letters they substitute for.

There's probably an official cipher, but until it's released (or if I find more letters in the path action dialogue eventually), I don't know for sure what the substitution letters would be.

I do have a guess of course, if you're into speculation.

Based on the pattern of the cipher, and the fact that Ancient Beastling looks like something I could read out loud if I wanted to, we can assume the missing letters of the cipher should still be "readable" for phrases translated to Ancient Beastling.

Therefore, my best guess is that x = x and q = q because they're weird letters, and my tentative guess is that English j = k, and English z = v.

x isn't used in English often, so keeping it as it is avoids losing the use of a more versatile letter, and also avoids the various phonetic qualities of x being lost when put through the cipher.

Keeping q as q would preserve the "qu" rule that appears in English, making encoding words with "qu" less awkward looking in Ancient Beastling: i.e. "quiet" would become "queag" which still doesn't look like English despite preserving 40% of the characters, and could still be pronounced out loud.

I'm tempted to have English j become k and z become v simply based on the phonetic qualities of the letters: z and v have a slight buzz when enunciated, and then j and k are the leftover letters. However alternately using j = v and z = k doesn't make the encoded Ancient Beastling unreadable per se.

For example:

the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog (using j = k, and z = v) gha quecm tlasr wix kuzpf idal gha jovy bin (compare against j = v and z = k) gha quecm tlasr wix vuzpf idal gha joky bin

Here's another:

pack my bag with five dozen liquor jugs (using j = k, and z = v) pocm zy ton segh weda bivar jequil kunf (compare against j = v and z = k) pocm zy ton segh weda bikar jequil vunf

So, I guess if you're going to use the cipher to write Ancient Beastling into a fanfic or something like that, you'll have to come up with your own headcanons for the missing letters based on your preferences. At least until either the path action dialogue that I'm missing potentially reveals the missing letters, or until we get access to the official cipher that was used.

In any case, I had a lot of fun cracking the cipher, and I hope you enjoyed reading about it as well. If you made it this far...

ghormf wil laobern!

[musicat9]

i know different people have different interpretations of things that aren't super clear in canon, etc etc, but it's truly baffling to me how some people seem to want to make the travelers all Chosen Ones directly blessed by the gods when to me the entire point of them is that they're each just some guy living their own lives

[blvcklizard]

Thank you for enabling me to post this lol

[brbgensokyo]

the more jrpgs i play the more i realize how much BD specifically resonated with me. It's hard to describe but theres a lot of the more critically acclaimed shit i dont click with but the scuffed bullshit with heart is what gets to me

[witchblade]

adds another 60 hour game to my replay list

[energysynergymatrix]

I’m so sorry to my octo1 mutuals but octo2 being a better game in every which way might be true

[satsuha]

🎉 happy anniversary 🐙Ⅱ!! 🍻

can't believe it's been a year already!! i love this game to bits

[beantothemax]

I feel like the people in octopath 2 are generally more shippable than octopath 1.

I remember reading a post somewhere that said the octo2 gang felt like one big polycule and I think about that a lot

also as a resident multishipper I can confirm I’m smashing a lot more characters together in octo2 than I did in octo1.

[loregoddess]

still working on my newest Octo2 analysis, and I JUST realized that Ophilia and Ochette--the leading O-characters in the OCTOPATH naming theme--both have the deepest ties to the Sacred Flame in each of their stories.

Ophilia literally carries part of the Flame around as her journey's main objective; and the Flame speaks directly to, and also saves, Ochette in her story.

I mean sure, there's the implication in both games that each set of eight travelers were each chosen by the gods, and it's more or less directly stated in Octo2 that part of the Flame burns in the hearts of all the travelers (and possibly all people, but especially the Chosen Travelers), so everyone has some connection to the Flame, but it is really neat that the leading O-characters are like, directly linked to the Flame.

[convxction]

ooc. like for an ask!!! multi comment~

[blvcklizard]

I'm so sorry, modern AU Trousseau absolutely had a danganronpa phase.

[starkittnd93]

it is canon that therion is 170cm tall and hikari is shorter than therion!

Wait… 170cm is like…. 5’7” … and I’m 5’5”…

Wait so if Hikari’s shorter than than then he’s.. around my height…?

OR IS HE SHORTER THAN ME?!?!?!

[ajdrawshq]

octopath liker 🫵

perhaps. or maybe even.... octopath lover