Did you play Triangle Strategy? That did (to me) what you were saying you’d like to see (have a bunch of individual characters’ stories that fed into a larger storyline). I loved that game.
theJaw wrote:> ^lol yes
>
> Anyhow, I've played through a good chunk of Octopath Traveler II and am still enjoying
> it for the most part, especially the visuals, music and combat. And to be honest,
> I do enjoy each character's individual stories when viewed in a vacuum. They're interesting
> and the characters are cool. There are just two elements of the game that are starting
> to wear on me a bit:
>
> -I don't know if this changes, or if we truly just focus on each individual character's
> stories as we find their chapters, but I really do sorta miss the JRPG trope of a
> LARGER story that connects these characters into one focused objective. Final Fantasy
> being an obvious example - you still amass a vast cast of unique characters with
> their own stories and motivations, but ultimately they're all going after the big
> world-ending threat. While I do somewhat appreciate the lack of the cliche that comes
> with said "world-ending threat", it does make the individual stories seem a little
> less important and makes each one seem inherently small in the grand scheme of things.
>
>
> Each story is only important to one character at a time, and the other characters
> are just there for the ride. Again, I don't know if any larger event arises later
> in the game, but it hasn't been introduced in my play-through yet so I assume it
> doesn't. I'd really like an Octopath Traveler III to keep these smaller, character-driven
> stories, but also play around with adding some overarching narrative thread that
> connects each character's story into one big story as an endgame scenario or something.
>
>
> -And the my other small hiccup sort of piggybacks off that last one. I've now played
> through a decent chunk with my core 4 characters and gotten them up in the mid-20s
> as far as levels go... so I now find myself sorta dreading any time I stumble near
> a new character who I've yet to meet. I always feel obligated to play their first
> chapter when I find them considering that's sorta the whole point of this particular
> game, but at this point it just feels like replaying the game's tutorial. The first
> chapter for each character is a very simple portion where you learn the first bit
> of that character's story, learn what their initial abilities are, and then face
> a boss to cap it off. So at this point, having played long enough with certain characters,
> I find myself not wanting to have to pause my play-through to play yet another tutorial
> section.
>
> And going back to my first issue, any time this "first chapter/tutorial" situation
> occurs, I find myself thinking "what's the point?" because there's no LARGER story
> to build toward. It's just the start of another small character-driven arc, so it
> feels more and more arbitrary to keep starting each character's story.
>
> Sorry for the essay, didn't realize how much I typed lol. TL;DR - I still enjoy the
> actual gameplay and the core concept of OT2 is still very cool, I just wish there
> was something more to drive my interest as far as an overall story goes. I am still
> looking forward to seeing how a few of the characters' stories develop and where
> they ultimately end up, I just wish they factored into some greater good or larger
> theme to keep me interested overall.
