Square Enix shared a batch of screenshots and info for Octopath Traveler with more on two of its eight protagonists in Tressa and Alfyn along with details on Ability and Battle Job systems.

Tressa Corzione

Base Job: Merchant

Age: 18

Gender: Female

Tressa worked as a merchant at the lodging home run by her parents in the port city known as the Coastland Region. Tressa spent a lot of days lost in thought while looking at the sea. What do I want to do? What do I want to get? “What’s beyond the horizon?” And one day, a merchant ship arrives before her.

Tressa’s Path Action is “Purchase” that allows her to obtain special items from townsfolk. This includes items not sold in stores as well as items that might come in useful.

In addition to skills for attacking enemies, the Merchant job can use money to hire mercenaries, share BP with allies, and other situational methods of fighting. With the ability to recover their own HP and SP, having a Merchant around will come in handy for keeping down the item expenses.

Alfyn Greengrass

Base Job: Apothecary

Age: 21

Gender: Male

Alfyn is an Apothecary from a small town in the Riverland Region. When he was young, his life was saved by someone. It was an Apothecary who left him medicine without asking for pay. “I want to be like that person, and save people across the continent!” Alfyn has yet to set foot on his adventure, but one day a friend talks to him…

Alfyn’s Path Action is “Inquire” that allows him to gather information that you can’t get from standard conversations. With this ability, he can acquire useful information from the town shops, info on the whereabouts of hidden items, and can learn people who keep low profiles.

The Apothecary class has skills that recover HP as well as skills that recover status ailments, and even the ability to revive fallen allies. While they’re considered healers, the Apothecary can use an axe for powerful attacks to help out as a damage-dealer as well.

Learning Abilities

After defeating enemies you’ll earn experience points and JP (Job Points). The protagonists can use JP to learn new abilities for their jobs. Abilities can be learned in any order you like, so deciding on that will be part of the strategy.

Learning abilities that are easy to use early on will certainly help out in regular battles. However, learning big abilities that consume plenty of SP first might come in handy for taking out bosses and powerful enemies.

Equipping Battle Jobs

After meeting certain conditions, the protagonists can equip something other than their Base Jobs, called the “Battle Jobs.” When equipped with a Battle Job, the character’s stats will be fixed according to the Battle Job and it also adds weapon types they’re able to use. They can also learn Abilities from those jobs. As for which job a character should have, players will get to choose for themselves as part of its strategy.

A character’s appearance also changes depending on the Battle Job they’re using. For example, here’s a look at Olberic Eisenberg using different Battle Jobs to go with his Swordsman Base Job:

Base Swordsman and Swordsman + Merchant

Swordsman + Apothecary and Swordsman + Dancer

The above is a look at Tressa the Merchant equipped with the Dancer job. With this setup, she’s able to perform powerful Dancer attacks that hit all enemies and support allies with buffs using the Merchant’s abilities.

When the Swordsman Olberic equips the Apothecary Battle Job, he’s able to equip an axe as a Swordsman to perform powerful axe attacks while having access to healing abilities.

Having more options for weapons to equip also means you’ll have an easier time finding the enemy weakness to inflict a Break status.

Octopath Traveler releases worldwide on July 13, 2018. You can check out its latest trailer from the recent Nintendo Direct and a look at its Collector’s Edition in our previous report.