Much like how liking JRPGs is a sickness, Octopath Traveler is riddled with the greatest disease of all. Being a great game.

From it’s gorgeous pixel graphics, to its brilliant twist on turn based combat and all the way to its gripping stories, Octopath Traveler manages to rock up to the JRPG watering hole and smash this mixed metaphor right out of the park while its ancestors look on in shock. An outstandingly brilliant JRPG that can act as an easy entry game to the genre for some and still retain the depth required to hook even the hardest of veterans. It’ll set your nostalgic bones quivering, even if it doesn’t ever talk to itself.

Most who were born prior to the turn of the century have dabbled, at least once in their life, in a 2D RPG. Whether that’s classic Final Fantasy titles of yore, classic Dragon Quest games, also of yore, or even the more obscure entries to the genre, such as the Breath of Fire games… Also of yore, again. Prior to the invention of the third dimension RPGs were rich with fixed perspectives, pixel graphics and maze like dungeons, and while that pesky third dimension has since changed everything, everywhere, Octopath Traveler harks back to those simpler days where everyone stood in a line to fight a giant sprite of a man whose grown to be four times his normal size, without even using any magic.

Therion likes to let everyone know he’s a cool thief, a lot.

Octopath Traveler follows the individual tales of 8 different characters. Ranging wildly from the young, bright eyed merchant, Tressa, all the way to the old and battle hardened warrior, Olberic. Each character’s own story is a tale unique to themselves that’ll see them running all across the continent of Orsterra. These stories can be something as simple as tracking down the lost possessions of an esteemed noble, or could be a dark hunt of vengeance as you chase down and work out the mystery of your father’s murder. Each character is so brilliantly well realised that even if there’s one or two that don’t take your fancy, there’s bound to be a good chunk that still draw you to the edge of your seat in anticipation and tension.

The handling of these different stories is chapter based, allowing you to pick up and drop a character’s story as you please, provided you finished that quarter of their story. This freedom in exploring the story is one of Octopath Traveler’s major strengths as the game asks you who your favorite characters are and just willingly accepts that you’ll run off down their paths. While there are obvious level requirements for each increasing chapter, there comes a point where you’re almost free to just chase up the last parts of your preferred character. Being Primrose, because Primrose is the best character. This can see you swinging from the fun, feel good romp of Tressa as the ball of sunshine jumps around looking for great deals to watching Cyrus deal with demonic rituals in a room filled with dead or dying bodies. The tonal shifts of the stories only act to highlight the differences in each. The hard hitting dark moments of crying and despair hit all the more harder as you’re fully aware that elsewhere in the world Ophelia is befriending young children and teaching them a lesson on personal safety.

Somehow scenes with such simple pixel art manage to be so gripping and exhilarating

There is an issue in that while you form your party of eight characters, there’s rarely a moment where they interact with one another. You get the feeling that the stories are very much set in the idea that they’re all happening at once and it’s purely a technical and gameplay reason that leads to you having a combat party filled with varied characters. So while you may have just finished a mighty boss, there’s never a moment of “Curse you all for defeating me!”, instead it’s purely “Curse you singularly for being the only person to defeat me. By yourself. With no help. As it’s just you and me in this room. Not another soul”, or it’ll be a moment in which you’ve been locked in a prison of some form, despite your party containing a master thief who could easily break you out. There are moments in which you’re given the prompt to watch a skit play out, in which either two characters have a conversation that acts more as a recap of the story you just witnessed, or the rare fun and lighthearted chat about drinking, hanging out or dancing that you may get when you enter a tavern. But these are very rare and don’t ever feel like they integrate naturally with the story at times.

The different characters and their stories allow for a great reflection of all walks of life throughout this world, as it’s as much about the side characters of each town as it is the main characters. From slums, to churches to humble towns you’ll get a great sense of world building that slowly grows on you as each character’s story begins to murmur about something greater than simply living in the world itself.

While the world and story feels modern and exciting with its dance with morally grey characters, the meat of the gameplay dunks your head deep in the harsh nostalgia of turn based combat, job based skills and thick menus laden with changing your equipment as you come to new towns. As you walk along your merry adventure you’ll be accosted by random encounters, you’ll be unlocking new skills and more powerful skills for your characters and fine tuning your parties equipment depending on what role you want them to fill. It’s classic, but it’s great.

This isn’t even a boss and I already feel out of my depth.

The turn based combat is streamlined to cut down on any waiting for an Active Time Bar (or whatever it was) to fill and instead the turn order is listed along the top of the screen, sectioned into full rounds of combat. You can plan ahead with your moves as you see that maybe while Therion is the last to act this turn, he’s the first to act the next, so you can quickly drop a debuff on the enemy to immediately turn around and hit them with a bigger, stronger attack. This tactical planning is increased ten fold with Octopath’s stagger system which sees you seeking out the weaknesses of your foes and exploiting them to reduce their indicator to zero, at which point the enemy staggers and their moves for this round and the next are gone. This initially goes from a simple tactic of making sure the simple enemy monsters never get a go to trying to work out the best timing of all of your skills to stagger the hard hitting boss, while they’ve got enough debuffs on them, as well as making sure Alfyn’s got enough attack bonuses that his next charged attack hits harder than an axe to the face.

The spinning of plates that is trying to get the optimum moves off is added to with BP, or… Big Points (It’s probably Burst Points). Each round your characters all gain a BP and you can use these to charge your character up. This either turns your skills into heavier hitting moves for a limit break-style explosion of damage, or get off consecutive normal hits with your weapons to potentially knock down your foes stagger meter as fast as possible. All of these combat systems add up to turn bosses from meaty encounters of punching down a tank into something you have to think about, and you’ll definitely have to as things begin to ramp up quickly. Don’t give the boss enough respect and you’ll find yourself eating dirt. The systems in place can be cheesed and messed with to turn yourself into something crazy strong, but the game will see your crazy strong and raise you extra bosses that are even stronger.

The combat in Octopath Traveler is so satisfying as everything just manages to work out and what felt like some descent into the bizarre tactical plottings of someone who’s not slept for three days, turns out to be the winning strategy that finally slays this imposing foe. All of this combat is added to by the sheer beauty of the sprite work and spell effects. Bosses are massive, detailed depictions of the characters or beasts you were just talking to, like it’s Pre-Final Fantasy 7 all over again, and some of these are downright startling and imposing. Spell effects are massive and leave an impact in your heart and soul as you summon forth the powers of hell fire or you don’t manage to stagger the boss in time to stop it’s large purple smoke move that all but destroys everyone you know or loved. Or both.

Sunbeams in a forest. Something oddly magical about them.

The combat’s not the only area where the sprite work and visuals shine forth as the various maps and dungeons literally shine. With the sun! A pixel graphics game with intense lighting effects, who’d have thought? One moment you’ll be stalking through a hauntingly dark forest, the next you’ll be battered by a sombring snowstorm. You can watch the waves lap against the coast in pleasant seaside towns or the rays of sun beat down across a bustling market. The world of Octopath Traveler is both varied and gorgeously presented and I dare you to go through the whole game and to not once catch your breath at at least one area of awe inspiring beauty. Not to mention that you’ll find yourself exploring these lands feverishly, looking for all the hidden loot you can wrap your tiny pixel hands on. There are secret passages littered through the dungeons and maps, obfuscated by walls and waterfalls. While your time in towns will see you seeking out every NPC you can using each character’s unique “Path Actions” to steal, chat, seduce or fight your way through your problems. While acquiring extra items are the convenient side effect of these actions, solving a lot of the side quests is the main attraction for using your Path Actions, and plenty of quests have numerous ways of solving them. You might be able to literally beat the problem away using H’aanit’s wild animals, or use Ophilia to guide an interfering party into the mix. Who knows! The Side Quests are open and never tell you what to do, you’ve just got to try and decide which character you’re meant to deal with and how, or it’s not even a character, maybe it’s a dungeon. I dunno, you read what they said, the game’s not going to tell you where to go.

Octopath Traveler holds this blazing flag of nostalgia over head and waves it around a little just so you’re fully aware as to the classic style of JRPG you’ll be dabbling in. You know exactly what you’re going in for when you start and that’s going to be a 60 hour game that involves a fair number of those dedicated to rummaging through menus. None of this is bad, however, as while it is woefully nostalgic, all of it lands pretty solidly thanks to the improvement of modern and interesting game design. It’s engaging story keeps you wanting to plow on with at least a handful of characters, and those who may not take your fancy, you can always skip their scenes if you’ve decided you can’t stand Cyrus’s overt intelligence.

Reverberating with nostalgia, Octopath Traveler delivers a modern take on a classic format and firmly cements itself in the prestigious halls of JRPGs that you HAVE to play, even if you’re not into the genre all that much. Sure it suffers from a lack of party interaction, but the stories are littered with enough characters to more than make up for it, and the random encounters can sometimes feel like they’re overstaying their welcome towards the end of the game (when there are games like Bravely Default and Bravely Second that allow you to turn them off, it feels a little jarring to go back to constant encounters) but the combat is a such a delight of a puzzle that each new enemy presented yet another challenge to untangle and eventually destroy in the overwhelming powers of fire. So much fire.