"I can't say I expected much from Octopath Traveler 0. I've long admired the HD-2D role-playing game series but each new entry eventually leaves me cold. All of the pieces are there but they don't solidify into an experience that's more than the sum of its grindy, retro-infused parts. So I was surprised by just how much I immediately clicked with Square Enix's latest tribute to the genre's pixel art golden age."
"It probably helped that the demo I played last weekend at PAX West pushed me right to the brink of failure in a tough boss fight I ultimately only survived after all of my healing items were depleted and only one party member was still barely left standing. Some fans have worried about Octopath Traveler 0 being based on a mobile game that came out several years ago called Champions of the Continent."
"My roughly 30 minutes with Octopath Traveler 0 was what anyone familiar with the old-school, turn-based RPG series would expect: I ran around town, fought enemies in a desert, and eventually made my way through a brief, cavernous dungeon peppered with treasure chests and dead ends to the boss fight within. The HD pixel art with soft focus backgrounds is still pretty and effective nostalgia bait, and the music in the section of the game I got to play was exceptional."
"But my demo did highlight two of the main features that set Octopath Traveler 0 apart from its predecessors. The first is a settlement sim mini-game in which you get to rebuild a town burned down at the start of the game from scratch. This includes both structures that impact aspects of your recovery efforts and the village's development, like how many villagers come to live with you and the kinds of resources they harvest,"
The game features HD-2D pixel art with soft-focus backgrounds and exceptional music. Combat uses old-school, turn-based mechanics that can produce tense boss fights requiring careful resource management. The remake strips out gacha elements and reworks the story while retaining core series systems. Exploration includes towns, deserts, and brief cavernous dungeons peppered with treasure chests and dead ends leading to boss encounters. A settlement-sim mini-game lets players rebuild a burned town from scratch and construct buildings that affect recovery, villager population, and resource harvesting. The combination of nostalgic presentation and modernized mechanics creates an experience that feels faithful but refreshed.
Read at Kotaku
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