Storywise, it makes very little sense why selfish thief Therion would donate his time to help selfless apothecary Alfyn heal the sick or why dancer Primrose would take time from her time-sensitive mission of revenge to assist merchant Tressa on her quest to, uh, sell stuff. In fact, no reason is presented why these characters are traveling with each other at all.

Though they do fight and travel with you, party members rarely (if ever) acknowledge each otherРІР‚в„ўs presence within their storylines. After selecting your main character and completing their first chapter, you head out into the world and find the other seven characters who join you on your quest - sort of. (Wait a minute, O.C.T.O.P.AРІР‚В¦) Each character has their own dedicated story, very loosely connected, and divided into four chapters each. In Octopath Traveler, you take on the role of eight characters living in the land of Orsterra: Ophilia, Cyrus, Tressa, Olberic, Primrose, Alfyn, Therion, and HРІР‚в„ўaanit. And while Octopath Traveler does regularly evoke fond SNES childhood memories, it lacks the heart of what made classic Squaresoft JRPGs timeless and special: the story and the characters. It looked like a fuzzy blanket of pure video game nostalgia.

I clearly remember first seeing screenshots of Final Fantasy III (VI) back in 1994, thinking that no video game would ever look more beautiful than this.Р”Р„ccuracy of my prediction aside, I felt a similar twinge the first time I saw what was then called РІР‚Сљ Project Octopath Traveler.РІР‚Сњ (Surely a temporary name, right?) The retro-inspired HD-2D graphics sparkled with pixels, particle effects, and imagination.

Project octopath traveler ost