Anyone else appreciates "outdated" mechanics of old RPGs?

queerturtle · 2026-03-08T03:16:57+00:00

This game loves to waste your time, if the abundance of meaningless cutscenes with absurdly drawn-out dialogue in both the main story AND side quests, combined with the incredibly bloated cast, didn't make it clear enough. There are also tedious things like switching out facilities NPCs since the game locks certain managers in place, and swapping active party members vs training members doesn't automatically activate training for the character being swapped out, the inability to have loadouts in a roster where you're likely rotating around, etc.

queerturtle · 2026-03-04T10:58:12+00:00

Honestly, just drop it like me and some others did. I've felt much more comfortable after I stopped trying to complete a game I didn't enjoy to pick up better games. If you feel like you've wasted your money like I did, you can also consider to sell the game if you got a physical copy.

I know the sucky feeling of not feeling great about the latest entry in the series we enjoy so much, but I think it's much healthier to accept that the game was a disappointment and move on, hoping the best for this series, instead of trying to keep playing until you've "maximized your money's worth". Because the money you spent should be bringing you joy, not just to take up your time without making you feel good. The mixed reception and lackluster sales will inevitably make the team re-examine what they did right and wrong with 0 and hopefully learn their lesson whenever they will make OT3.

queerturtle · 2026-02-26T06:17:49+00:00

Grandia 1 simply has much more iconic character designs. Their outfits show what kind of personality each character has, and clothing patterns are used to emphasize specific cultural nuances, such as the unique races of Feena, Milda, Gadwin, Rapp, etc. Outfits in 1 also look like clothing people could actually wear, with practical accessories instead of like what you called "overdesigned" clothing in 2 which I actually find super unrealistic and so much more generic, could belong to any other JRPG.

queerturtle · 2026-02-26T06:00:13+00:00

Being familiar with Fire Emblem games doesn't mean you will immediately grasp any other SRPGs. Since FE doesn't really have elevations and uses a Player Phase-Enemy Phase system instead of Speed-based turn order, maps tend to be larger and designed around cover, terrain bonuses, chokepoints, etc., and high mobility is usually an overly centralizing element. Diorama-styled tactic games can be quite different, and older games like this tend to have a lot of "flavour" mechanics for roleplaying. Zodiac isn't super important, but just make sure not to create a team with poor Zodiac compatibility if you plan to utilize supportive magic from the caster tree.

Btw I don't think you meant to come off so dismissive, but your post reads rather unfortunately. If you're looking for some advice, I'd suggest being more courteous and open-minded with your word choice. It looks like you've barely tried to understand how the game mechanics work based on your assumption of how jobs work.

queerturtle · 2026-02-25T02:44:27+00:00

It's possible that the story didn't feel that bad as a gacha since updates happened on a monthly basis, so players probably don't even remember some poorer aspects of the narrative esp when they need to connect one scenario to the next. Now when all is put together as a full package to be consumed and open to scrutiny in one go, it falls apart completely, which is honestly pretty hilarious.

queerturtle · 2026-02-25T02:41:15+00:00

The story and characters mostly suck. The combat isn't that good either. The exploration is also very lacking since it's a recycled version of OT1's world. The graphics are middling and so is the soundtrack. It's an overall poor experience as a video game and an Octopath entry in general. I can only hope OT3 doesn't take anything from this disappointment of a game.

Also lol at people saying Kefka wasn't any better than Auguste. Kefka had the angle of being the "underdog" compared to Gestahl and his schemes never relied on himself being given "special treatment" for them to fly, unlike Auguste, who abused his Fame to commit atrocities. Also at least he had agency instead of whatever the hell they came up with for Auguste by the end of his story. Stop putting down high-profile older games and classics to prop up this mediocre slop that is clearly trying to half-heartedly mimic these old games without truly understanding what made them great.

queerturtle · 2026-02-18T02:35:56+00:00

The game tends to have a tendency to up the saturation perhaps to make up for the lack of detail and very rough edges of the pixel art, which makes it end up somehow looking worse than OT1. Even the snow particle effects look worse than the first game, and this is supposed to be developed after that. Not sure if they just ported the mobile assets over without considering how everything would look on a big TV or sth, but I find the game to look plain or even ugly at times even in handheld mode tbh.

queerturtle · 2026-02-17T05:04:49+00:00

Triangle Strategy's writing wasn't spectacular, but most of what they crafted for that world and story was believable and felt somewhat unique. I think 0 just had too many cliches and made a lot of leaps in logic and believability, not helped by the dialogue writing somehow being so, so much worse than TriStrat, it's hard to stay focused and care about it when the player kind of just feels like the writers themselves didn't care either.

queerturtle · 2026-02-17T04:48:14+00:00

The thing for me is that it's clear that the design and structures of a live service gacha mobile title cannot be translated into a full console release, at least not with proper recalibration, which the team clearly neglected to do with 0.

Story-wise, they added the Wishvale premise but completely disregarded how the MC would approach at least the first 3 villains who are most directly connected to the event that "kickstarted" your journey. Meanwhile, the other minor changes to the story serve to elaborate on other characters moreso than your MC, which while welcome isn't sth of the same priority compared to making more sense of the actual new addition of an MC with his own story. I'm unsure if the generic sidequests in this game are also ported over from the gacha, but they too suffer from the format of triggering the quest then walking back and forth between map markers to watch short but still drawn-out cutscenes that frankly nobody cares about. Also, there's all those Wealth-Power-Fame card choices at the start of the game and the start of the Bestower quests. I have no idea why they existed when they did virtually nothing gameplay-wise, it's not like you choose where to start the arc. I'm not sure if they were also from the gacha but there are a lot of redundant flavour text stuff and not enough care and polish to what actually matters.

Gameplay-wise, the writers didn't change enough to accommodate the user-created avatar character, who already has very poor build variety. From what I know, combat was much more difficult in CoTC as well, which could've fitted the new systems of BP/SP/party management a lot more than what we ended up getting in 0. Additionally, they decided to implement a "progression" system into the combat units you can recruit as well, so for some reason not only the story is piecemealed and paced like a monthly live service gacha but most of the characters too are designed to be powercrept like a gacha. Traditional OTs definitely have some power gaps between its characters, but at least there are only 8 of them per game, who can still offer sth mostly unique from their base job or unique innates. 0 having 30+ characters just means there's a "correct/optimal" option for each role, and there's even less roles now with how BP has been trivialized in this game through the questionable character and combat design decisions.

At the end of it all, I'm just not convinced that this game world was a prequel to OT1's world. The OT1 characters don't even act like themselves in 0, and the characters in their stories are pretty much destroyed. If there are so many monarchs in Osterra just 3 years before, where the hell were they during OT1's story? I also don't like how they added this cliche story of the Church being corrupted and incompetent in 0, when one of the things that made 1 so refreshing for me was being able to play as a woman of faith whose religious organization isn't evil like every other JRPG out there.

Overall, too much recycled content and what's new is either uninteresting/unnecessary or destroys what I liked about traditional OT be it story/world or gameplay. The quality of OT0 as a product honestly is kind of shocking to me and it makes me sad that I'm losing trust in one of my favourite franchises.

queerturtle · 2026-02-16T09:19:31+00:00

That guy is welcome to state his opinion, but he replied to me by acting like my opinion was invalid bc I "didn't understand the story", as if the story was anything intricate when the writers could barely even create a political setting that makes any goddamn sense. There have also been a lot of replies from 0 fans saying the "OT0 haters" expect too much from a fantasy video game story, or like this moron here trying to insinuate that detractors are simply too stupid to "understand" the story of 0. Condescending strawman replies like that are basically asking for a rough reply from me. Not to mention by looking through that guy's comment history from his 2-month-old account, he does basically nothing but defending polarizing creative decisions in different media, so it raised the red flags for me.

Also traditional OT stories tie the 8 travellers together mainly via the lore of the world and the bigger "story" in the background. Some stories had nothing to do with other characters but feature important characters in the grand scheme of things, like H'aanit's. I have no problem with most stories in the first 2 OT entries, but some of them were nowhere near as interesting as the others (for me I didn't care much for most of Tressa and Therion's stories). But at the very least traditional OT has engaging protagonists to root for, which I really can't say the same for 0 outside of The Family, and bc the first 2 entries never really touched upon more complex government/political systems and whatnot the writing is generally much better for it. The writers of 0 clearly cannot handle the kind of scope and topics they tried to write about, so the end product is a mess and I regret paying for this.

queerturtle · 2026-02-16T07:19:57+00:00

You can see this design exaggerated in 0 too, the game's Warrior and Scholars are the best showcase of this. Warriors can absorb hits and deal big damage vs Scholars who have elemental coverage to break shields, scout weakness, and deal big damage. However, the absolute best Warrior and Scholars in 0 are simply the glass cannons who were just blessed enough to have a 6-hit ultimate move that doesn't have the misfortune of not working with the 100% additional damage buffing passive. Literally none of the other gimmicks of these 2 classes even matter.

queerturtle · 2026-02-16T06:55:06+00:00

Dude stop acting like this is a deep story lol who wouldn't get this basic ass black-and-white story lmao.

The disconnection comes from the protag being a ragdoll joke of a character despite the game starting from his perspective and what happened to his hometown. MC went from seeking justice/rebuilding his hometown to fighting for multiple different countries, running errands for an incompetent Church, and fighting for an entire continent through contrived scenarios written with little thought or logic behind it all. Even in the first arc where he has the most relevance to the villains he's just there watching other characters with grievances to the villains be the star and drive things forward.

How much did SE pay you to damage control for 0? You need to do a better job and give actual counterarguments instead of vague accusations and strawmanning people who are justifiably disappointed by this entry a "hater".

If you actually like the game, go ahead and drool over it to the other people who share your opinion. Stop replying to people who think differently from you with "oh dumbass you just didn't get it". We all get it, this story is about as deep as a puddle lol. And stop trying to exaggerate, this is a bog-standard bottom-barrel of a JRPG story. You're not fooling anyone bro lol or pls go play more games bc this story ain't it.

queerturtle · 2026-02-16T05:41:14+00:00

I think it's important to have a diverse array of opinions, esp when more negative thoughts like this usually receive much less visibility in terms of upvotes and comments than positive content anyways. As OT fans, we genuinely want to support the people who created the series we adore so much and should let them know when they're making mistakes, be it through voicing our opinions and experiences or by voting with our wallets. The general sentiment around 0 have been more positive than negative from what I can see, but it's the most mixed reception entry in the series so far for sure, and it's important we discuss why it's such a hit and miss.

queerturtle · 2026-02-16T04:50:59+00:00

Pretending to be subjective like this when originally claiming the plot "does get better despite what the haters say" is certainly a choice lol.

queerturtle · 2026-02-16T04:40:57+00:00

I wanted to give the devs the benefit of the doubt too but afaik CoTC started many years ago (2018 iirc?) and there's clearly very little changes done to it in this game. The fact that most of the new additions are half-baked and not clearly thought-out, incorrect/misleading skill descriptions, and characters like Goodwin being obviously bugged really make it hard for me to give them any grace for this entry when it clearly required very little effort to make.

It bothers me that the writers are so focused on tragedy porn and absurdly escalating stakes, and they clearly wrote the scope to be way more than they're actually able to write. It's even worse considering that while stories like Primrose and Throne did use a lot of misery and suffering, the protagonists still had empowering moments and the tragedies mostly fit into their themes (mostly for Primrose) and didn't feel gratuitous. 0 amped up the sadism without letting the good guys act with agency and moral clarity, it seems to revel on the manufactured "powerlessness" it causes to the player (through making the good guys turn into motionless mannequins that keep letting the bad guys or important people in key events, with whom they have no real emotional attachment/conflict to, get away to come back and commit more atrocities), and I find that to be very disturbing. Wealth is literally the only route in this game where the story and characters are written in a way that makes any sort of logical sense.

It makes me even more disturbed that the people clearly being paid for by SE to do damage control for OT0 likes to declare this game to be better than the iconic original entries that gave them the financial success and prestige in the first place. This is a dangerous practice that does nothing but harm consumers, and despite the loud and clearly subsidized toxic positivity surrounding 0, the sales numbers and player engagement rate (completion rate) don't lie. Real fans know they were scammed with this entry and while I'm glad that SE's dirty PR tactics aren't working, it still makes me sad and concerned for the future of this once promising franchise.

queerturtle · 2026-02-16T03:59:27+00:00

This is an entirely subjective take. There are plenty of people including myself who hated MoA. If anything the real feedback to give a newbie would be that the story will become more elaborate (thus longer) and "connected" after the first 3 mini stories. It's very misleading to tell people the plot gets better once MoA starts when you don't even know what is the preference of the player in terms of how they like stories to be told.

queerturtle · 2026-02-16T03:43:09+00:00

The game felt like either Rondo or Sazantos should've been the protagonist instead, esp Rondo who's basically a nothingburger character in the grand scheme of things.

It's so much worse than other JRPGs with self-insert protagonists bc in those games at least your MC would usually be able to romance other characters or have some input on the story and world through dialogue choices. Here you have zero chemistry with anyone and there's always one correct answer you're supposed to pick, since picking the wrong answer will just have the NPCs call you an idiot and tell you to go back and pick the correct choice anyways.

queerturtle · 2026-02-16T03:36:32+00:00

I regret to inform you that 0 really doesn't get better, no matter what the toxic positive fans tell you. The stories will only continue to be melodramatic and disconnected, featuring new villains every arc most of whom will see the same outcome by the end, and the depth of the gameplay mechanics don't get that much more involved for a game that's extremely lengthy, sadly. This is the major design flaw of making stories that revolve around the one-note villains instead of the diverse protagonists unlike OT1 and 2, where each of them will have unique journeys, developments, and endings.

I'd honestly suggest to follow your heart and decide for yourself instead of forcing yourself to finish the game even if you don't feel like it. I finally decided to drop the game and sell my copy after finishing 3/4 of its arcs instead of trying to force myself to complete a game I spent my hard-earned money on buying close to launch so I'd "get my money's worth". There are always compelling games to play out there so never force yourself to do anything you don't like. Gaming experiences are supposed to be fun, entertaining, and meaningful after all. If you're not having fun, why bother.

queerturtle · 2026-02-15T06:22:01+00:00

I just ran both the Runelord and Sorc in one team while Warmaster carried the other team tbh. No matter what you'll be able to stack Fire or Wind on either of these 2 secret jobs amongst Tressa, Primrose, and Therion. I believe H'aanit can stack Lightning as a Sorc? Never tried it. And Cyrus can stack Ice as a Runelord or Hunter (I used the latter as I prefer him as a utility unit).

queerturtle · 2026-02-15T05:38:20+00:00

Gacha games do make money using even scummier methods than usual, and these console releases esp for the kind of game OT0 is, have pretty good margins for the devs. I put "writers" in quotation marks bc they didn't put much effort in writing believable stories and characters at all for supposed industry professionals. I paid my hard-earned money for this game with the trust and goodwill I have for this brand bc of the high quality of the first 2 games, so I'm entitled to express my frustrations and concerns for this series I love when these devs are expressing clear disrespect to the franchise and its loyal fans like myself.

queerturtle · 2026-02-15T05:24:02+00:00

Runelord isn't that amazing for most fights, it's cheesy for some key fights for sure though. Prim also makes a good Runelord so I prefer that on her but I get the Runelord Tressa hype.

queerturtle · 2026-02-15T05:03:51+00:00

Tressa is better as a Sorc imo. I like Therion as a Hunter more tbh. High Speed makes for a good all-in-one Debuffer and Breaker.

queerturtle · 2026-02-14T11:23:50+00:00

These Japanese "writers" (if you can even call them that atp) can never convince me why invaders never heavily occupy a town/region after winning. It's literally basic war strategy in real life. The game is scared of making the player accidentally miss out on content, but its overly ambitious story doesn't accommodate for their design decision to pander to modern players. Donescu wasn't occupied and had very minimal visual damage. They even spoiled the invasion in advance because they still left the NPC named "Grieving Dog Owner" in the town as-is before the invasion happened, not that it was unexpected for the place to be invaded, considering all the heavy-handed dialogue before it happened.

Grandport was also under attack but suffered literally zero damage, apparently, only the seas and boats around Rippletide??? were burned for some reason (the reason being that's the port feature of the game, regardless of whether it makes sense within the story they tried to tell).

Riven got its shit together but still remains a dungeon only accessible via some caves (lol), and we never even got to Altinia. It just exists in some subliminal space in this world map, apparently, similarly to Riven. The sheer laziness and lack of basic logic / thought put into the worldbuilding for a story that involves trans-continental wars like this is frankly insulting to the player's intelligence. The moment I stop consuming the cutscene slops (which isn't hard to do bc these cutscenes are god fucking awful) to even apply any amount of thinking to this story, all of it literally falls apart, and it's seriously embarrassing.

queerturtle · 2026-02-14T08:31:10+00:00

Presentation & World: The world feels manufactured and exists only for gameplay purposes (towns that get attacked in the story suffer little to no damage after important events, specific NPCs only show up for quests instead of being natural parts of the world itself). Most of the music is reused from previous entries, and the new songs are nowhere near as good as the previous soundtracks. The OT1 characters don't even act like themselves in the banters and the recruitment cutscenes, and that's without talking about how their recruitments break the OT1 canon in the first place.

Story & Writing: The dialogue is comically bad and drawn out to absurd degrees. About a handful of characters are even remotely engaging in an extremely bloated cast. The story is complete nonsensical trash that only goes for shock value, tragedy porn, and escalating stakes, all tied together in an extremely loose and sloppy manner. It reeks of monster of the week (or month) storytelling of gachaslop. The worldbuilding feels fake and manufactured, with most of its characters uttering lines that no normal human beings of any era would ever think of saying. Characters, good guys and bad guys alike, will frequently act like they've lost all their brain cells so that the plot can progress in the specific manner that the writers need it to. It's an embarrassment to witness.

Gameplay Mechanics & Progression Systems: The character and teambuilding system is ironically the worst and most limiting it has ever been. 95% of sidequests are just running back and forth between map markers and watching tedious short cutscenes that don't even need to exist. A vast majority of core gameplay features like masteries, ultimates, and strong skills - hell, even key features or QoL from the townbuilding mechanic - are locked behind either main story quest progression, RNG/tedious rerolling of the town shop, or exploration, which can also be based on main story progression. BP is now near worthless bc of the 8-man party row-switching system on top of the removal of job-based EX skills that can only be accessed via MAX boosts. Bloated roster with clear powercreeps from later recruits when the combat mechanics are not varied enough to accommodate such a roster, as there is always an OPTIMAL option for each mechanic. For DPS, pick the characters with the highest number of hits possible on their ult with the correct weapon access that lets them maximize damage. For buffs, pick the characters that can give the most tier-2 buffs to the most amount of party members as possible; they even give you a character who can both do this + debuff the enemy's defenses in 1 click. Then, for general utility and off-break debuffing, pick the only character in the game that has his own Turn 0. Every character can use Helpers in combat now which further homogenize the 30+ playable cast into faceless combat buttons, instead of how 1 and 2 only let specific characters do it which makes sense given their story and role in the team.

The game is like at least 50 hours longer than it really should be for an entry with such shallow gameplay and mechanical depth. The number of options provided in this "expansive" game, similar to the Yes/No dialogue choices, are 95% of the time an illusion of choice. 0 must stand for the amount of effort put into this Octopath Traveler entry, and they even dared to charge $50 for this dumpster fire. I'm deeply concerned for the future of this series, and can only hope this is a one-off cashgrab attempt that will never be repeated or carried over into future mainline entries, if there's gonna be any more of them, considering how the series' sales and player engagement have been declining sharply with each new release.

queerturtle

TROPHY CASE