The Eightfold Path (original) (raw)

I guess I should say something about Octopath Traveler, since I’ve been playing it recently. I know I’m late to the (eight-person) party on this one, but that’s often how I am. It’s an old-school sort of role-playing game in many ways, with turn-based battles and old-fashioned character sprites, although the backgrounds are much more detailed. The name refers to the eight different characters all having their own stories going on. You can start with whichever character you want, but they’re locked into your party for a while after that. When you encounter a new party member, you find out their backstory, then join them on whatever it is they’re trying to accomplish. The overworld map shows where each person’s next chapter will start, as well as a suggested level, which makes it somewhat easier to determine where to go next. There does seem to be a significant jump in difficulty between everyone’s first and second chapter. You can have four party members at a time, and can change them at a tavern. While participating in a certain character’s chapter, people usually only interact with that one character, although having certain other members in your party can trigger conversation sequences.

I started with Cyrus Albright, the scholar from Atlasdam, who is forced to go on sabbatical from the Royal Academy and uses that time to track down a missing tome.

He’s not one of the better fighters, as the only weapons he can use are staves; but he does have access to a variety of offensive magic. Since I’ve had him in the party throughout the game, he’s become stronger than the others in many ways, if not so much in physical force. He also has the very useful skill of determining an enemy’s weaknesses, and will automatically learn one for each monster at the beginning of a battle. Weaknesses include specific weapons and spells. I’ve also stuck with Ophilia Clement, the cleric, as it’s nice to have a healer around. I’ve switched around the others based on whose story I’m playing and who’s on a lower level than the others. The others, in the order I recruited them, are the huntress H’aanit, the apothecary Alfyn Greengrass, the thief Therion, the dancer Primrose Azelhart, the warrior Olberic Eisenberg, and the merchant Tressa Colzione. H’aanit has some interesting abilities, being able to call in animals to help her fight, including her snow leopard companion Linde, while hitting pretty hard on her own as well. She and the other people in her home village of S’warkii speak in a strange dialect that I think is inspired by Old English in its verb conjugation.

Tressa can use some offensive spells, but also sometimes finds money while walking around.

There are also skills that each party member can use during interactions with other people, like starting fights, learning their backgrounds, seducing them, or stealing from them. I find Alfyn’s Inquire ability useful when visiting a new place, as it lets you gather information and can reveal hidden items and discounts. Non-playable characters have their own stories, and you can earn rewards for helping them with their issues. Cyrus has a similar skill, but it can lower the party’s reputation if he fails. While there’s some darkness in everyone’s past, I do think there’s a definite difference in tone between Tressa subduing pirates with drugged booze and then setting out to be a traveling merchant and Primrose tracking down her father’s killers and being sexually harassed by her employer.

In terms of which weapons certain characters can wield, I’m kind of surprised that the thief can equip swords as well as knives, and the apothecary uses axes. I’ve finished the first chapter for each character, and the second for Therion and Primrose. I tried Ophilia’s second chapter first, and reached the boss, the direwolf Hrodvitnir (another name for Fenrir in Norse mythology) but haven’t yet been able to defeat him.

There’s no overworld screen, with the characters instead walking various paths, each with a difficulty rating, between towns and other locations. That often seems to be the case in what I would consider more recent RPGs. I have had a bit of trouble determining where I can and can’t walk, which I guess is largely a graphics issue.

This entry was posted in Animals, Language, Magic, Monsters, Mythology, Norse, Video Games and tagged alfyn greengrass, atlasdam, cyrus albright, direwolves, fenrir, h'aanit, hrodvitnir, linde, merchants, octopath traveler, olberic eisenberg, ophilia clement, primrose azelhart, s'warkii, sexual harassment, snow leopards, swords, therion, tressa colzione, weapons, wolves. Bookmark the permalink.