Octopath Traveler I and II Arrive on Switch 2 with Improved Frame Rates
The rerelease puts the 2018 game back in front of newcomers at a point when HD-2D has spread to the Dragon Quest remakes and Final Fantasy Resonance, so the eight-character split story gets judged again on its own terms.
Reporting from 1 source: Anime News Network.
Square Enix has released Octopath Traveler and Octopath Traveler II for the Nintendo Switch 2, with improved frame rates and resolutions. The two games originally released in 2018 and 2023. The series has sold 7 million units worldwide, about the same as Final Fantasy XIII. The HD-2D style introduced with the 2018 game has since appeared in the Dragon Quest I & II remakes and the upcoming Final Fantasy Resonance.
The reservations here are about structure, not performance. Octopath Traveler places eight characters in eight locations and lets the player pick a starting point. After the chosen protagonist's opening chapter, the game sends the party into Orsterra with little guidance until they reach the level needed to continue. Meeting another traveler brings a prompt to play that character's introduction, which drops the player to level 1 and locks them into a solo chapter before the party rejoins. The reviewer started with Therion, the thief, and marks that handoff as where the game turns disjointed. The advice to newcomers is to expect the storytelling to be as experimental as the visuals.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.
Sources
- Anime News Network Game Review