It’s been a while since I got to sit down to a good old-fashioned 16-bit RPG experience. Sure we’ve seen 16-bit indie games like Undertale come and go, but they never recreate the feelings I had while binging Chrono Trigger in my childhood. 16-bit RPGs were a unique construct of the time. From their maze-like dungeons to their sprite-based graphics, they attempted to be as engaging as possible on consoles with limited power. Then CD-ROMs became the standard and RPGs became obsessed with voice acting, cut scenes, and game length. The condensed narrative experience of the 16-bit RPG was lost to time.

It’s about this time that I say “until now” in articles like this.

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But I’m not going to, because Project Octopath Traveler, Square-Enix’s Nintendo Switch project, isn’t a return to the classic 16-bit RPG. It’s something new. It feels familiar to SNES RPG fans like me but it’s created with modern gaming sensibilities in mind. It’s less of a return to form and more of an evolution of form. It’s like we traveled to an alternate dimension where technology progressed but no one thought to make graphics more detailed than 16-bit sprites.

A sprite-based pop-up book style

All characters are 16-bit, and look straight out of the SNES RPG style guide. They even move like they did in the SNES days, swinging their swords with exaggerated overhead swings. Environments, on the other hand, are fully three dimensional. Dungeons have depth, buildings have height, and a lighting engine casts shadows on walls when your character carries a lantern or ignites with a fiery aura during a special attack. Despite the three-dimensional world, textures are all still 16-bit. It looks as if Secret of Mana was suddenly turned into a pop-up book, and it’s just so nice to look at! Honestly, 16-bit graphics have a style and charm all their own and it’s nice to see a modern game finally utilizing them.

In terms of gameplay and story, Project Octopath Traveler feels a combination of Saga Frontier and Seiken Densetsu 3. About ten people know what I’m talking about and were sold on that alone. For everyone else, it’s an RPG with an ensemble cast but only one member of the cast ever plays the role of the protagonist. There are eight main characters, which is where the “octo” in Octopath Traveler comes from. These characters’ stories will intertwine and intersect, but each character also has their own motivations and goals and you won’t necessarily see the story from the same point of view depending on which character you are controlling.

As for what the overarching story is, I can’t say. The demo only let you play as two characters: Olberic and Primrose. Olberic is a knight whose best friend betrayed him, killing his lord and pushing him into the exiled life of a sellsword. Primrose is a daughter of a noble house hiding as a dancer in the red-light district of a desert town while searching or her father’s killers. The demo only lets you play through the introductory chapter of either character’s story so we don’t get to see how they will eventually come together and presumably fight against a greater evil. We do, however, get to see a nifty map and story screen in the menu, which will likely keep track of how all these characters are connected.

As for each character’s personal story, they feel oddly like a pencil and paper RPG. Each has an introduction written in the second person, placing the player as “you,” the main character. This is something I’ve experienced rarely in video games but is a convention that is used often in tabletop gaming. This feeling of tabletop familiarity strengthens when the narrator cuts in between major game events to give you a recap of what happened and to push you toward your next goal. It’s a good feeling, a nostalgic feeling for nerds like me, and if Project Octopath Traveler is trying to sell you on anything its nostalgia.

Each character has their own unique class and this determines what weapons, armor, and skills they can use. They each also have a map action that lets them interact with the world in unique ways. Olberic can choose to fight almost every NPC in the game, while Primrose can cause NPCs to follow her and sometimes even aid in battle. These map actions fundamentally changes the way each character experiences the game’s environments. If someone is standing guard outside a door, Olberic can solve this problem by grinding until he can beat them in a fight while Primrose can lead the guard into a trap. These are only two options out of the eight we will have access to when the game launches and I suspect this means players will have multiple ways to traverse every town and dungeon.

Battles and bursts

Project Octopath Traveler’s battle system is another fusion of modern with retro. On the surface it’s just a basic turn based system. Players have HP and SP (the MP analog for this game) and every turn characters act in roughly speed order. When it’s time to act, characters can attack, use a special ability, use an item, or defend.

A few deeper systems make battles delightfully complex puzzles. The first is shield points. Enemies are constantly defending and to break their guard you have to hit them with something they are weak to. Hitting a weak point reduces their shield points by one. When an enemy’s shield count hits zero they enter a guard break state. In this state they skip their actions for the current and subsequent turns and all attacks deal increased damage. This focus on enemy weaknesses and manipulating character turn order makes the battle system feel like a combination of Persona, Grandia, and Bravely Default, and as a fan of all three I couldn’t be happier.

The second important system is the burst system. Every turn you get one burst point. Using a burst point allows you to power up an action, or use an action multiple times. For example, normally your attack command makes you attack once, but using burst points will allow you to attack up to four times which is great for reducing an enemy’s shield count. This makes battle flow very dramatic. In general you and your opponents will trade blows until someone’s guard breaks. Then you’ll bring out all your cool max level anime-style signature attacks. Both the burst and shield system make every battle engaging, far more than hammering on the attack button to get through random encounters.

Project Octopath Traveler put a huge grin on my face. It felt like I was finally playing the next big 16-bit RPG without any of the flaws of the 16-bit era. Granted, Square-Enix doesn’t have a fantastic track record with retro games. Their last retro outing, I Am Setsuna, could only be described as solidly “OK.” But I still have high hopes for Project Octopath Traveler. If the final version gives us more of what this demo gave us, it could be a must-have Nintendo Switch RPG, especially if the melodramatic anime hijinks of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 aren’t your thing.