It’s funny how something can feel so familiar and yet so different all at the same time, an experience I felt on a fairly regular basis during my nearly 100 hours with Octopath Traveler 0. I have been an avid fan of both the series and the HD-2D aesthetic it pioneered, and while the underlying DNA of Octopath is still present in this adaptation of the mobile title, Champions of the Continent, the end result is a mixed bag that left me grasping for how I felt about it.
Octopath Traveler 0 separates itself from its predecessors right out of the gate by letting you create your own custom character that will serve as the vessel through which you will experience Zero’s narrative. Right away, you are introduced to the peaceful village of Wishvale, where your character and their family live, and things quickly take a turn as the village is burned to the ground, people are murdered, and your character is taken in by a nearby scholar. Fast forward some non-specific period of time, and your character and friend Stia set off to not only rebuild Wishvale but also seek out those who destroyed their home and see justice done.
What follows are three multi-chapter stories, seeing your character and the survivors of Wishvale track down and deal with those who destroyed their lives, all culminating in a fourth conflict resulting in even more surprises and losses, with the fate of the continent being decided before the finale and rolling credits. This more focused narrative that had my character front and center with a strong motivation was a welcome chang,e and I was riding high, but little did I realize at the time that despite this already taking me about 50 hours, this was only the first credits, and I had in fact only finished somewhere between a third and a half of the game.
It was around this point that I started to hit a bit of a wall with Octopath Traveler 0. The story and my character’s role in it shifted from one where he had a personal stake and purpose in it into more of a support role where my group and I were helping out the various characters we met in the previous arc or due to a more generic “chosen one” responsibility.
The structure was also nearly identical, with three routes being open to me to freely pick from, each composed of a multi-chapter story which, when all completed, resulted in another massive story being unlocked. While there were still moments of surprise and some interesting foes, none of them gripped me nearly as much as those in those first 50 hours. It all reminded me a bit of different seasons or arcs of an anime, and feels very much like a remnant of Zero being a retelling of the mobile game, Champions of the Continent, and these having been released over the course of a long period of time that players would come back to and check out.
Thankfully, while the plots themselves were a mixed bag, I largely enjoyed and fell in love with the characters these plots revolved around, with Bargello and his mafia family of particular note. It is just a shame that so many of these characters don’t actually join you until very late in the game, with much of my expanded party instead being composed of characters I couldn’t tell you the names of that I recruited by encountering them during my travels.
In place of only eight fleshed-out characters to compose your party, Zero lets you field eight characters at a time from a vastly larger roster of choices at the expense of the job system from Travelers 1 and 2. With these larger party sizes and far more expansive roster, Zero suffers the same troubles as other RPGs that opt for this approach — it is really hard to keep everyone geared up. Even completely forgoing attempting to keep those not in my active party kitted out, it was a monumental task trying to keep everyone up on the best weapons, armor, or accessories. Thankfully, levels and skills seemed to matter more than gear, and occasional upgrades got me through well enough.
Having access to a bunch of characters is neat and all, but it requires a good battle system to make it worth it, and thankfully, Zero continues Octopath’s pedigree for great combat. Your party acts more as four sets of paired characters rather than eight completely independent characters, with one set in the back row and the other taking more of an active role in front. During a pair’s turn, they are freely able to swap places, which adds an interesting new layer to the tried-and-proven Octopath combat.
Combat itself, despite the change, feels just as engaging and pulls me in like the others. I’ve always loved the trial-and-error puzzle that is Octopath’s battles, where you need to discover an enemy’s weaknesses in order to break their defenses to unload the BIG damage on them. Due to having a larger group on the field and more skills to pick from, enemies have far larger shield pools you need to break through, which required me to really plan when I would actually land the final break, making sure I did it at the start of a round to take full advantage of the opportunity.
For all my issues with the main story, I was surprised by just how much side content Zero has, and more than once did I find myself spiraling out into random side quests and checking off lists that I would look up, and hours had passed. Path actions in the earlier games proved to be my Octopath kryptonite, where I had an insatiable need to make sure that I had interacted and completed actions with everyone in a town that I could before moving on. This habit returned and proved to be as alluring as ever.
I also became a particular fan of hunting down new special Elite Enemies that lurked in many of Zero’s regions and dungeons. These foes always served as great tests of strategy and skill, and vanquishing them would yield a special item known as a Radiant Cornerstone, which allows you to upgrade your buildings in the village-building system that is brand new to Octopath Traveler 0.
Before the release, this was the part I was most intrigued by, but after experiencing it, I felt it was a bit too restrictive and limiting. Rebuilding Wishvale lets you place homes, businesses, and special buildings like a giant monster arena, but the system limits what you can build behind town levels, requiring you to complete quests to increase. I wish that parts were perhaps only tied to rare items but could be placed however you want to your heart’s content as long as you had the materials. Once I had fully leveled my town, I enjoyed it more, since those limits had been removed.
Had I not been aware prior that Zero was a reinterpretation/remaster of a mobile game, the thought wouldn’t have crossed my mind, but with that knowledge, the more I played, the more I felt that some parts of Zero were remnants from this adaptation process and mobile roots.
I could see how the different arcs would make more sense with a mobile release schedule, with a new main quest coming months, if not longer, after the last. Low XP, money, and JP values in the early game gave me hints of playing a mobile title trying to suck time from me, and the large pool of possible party members wafts of gacha systems. These shadows of the mobile game don’t muddy the fact, though, that the team has done a fine job taking a mobile experience and making it into a full console RPG, despite some blemishes.
Octopath Traveler 0 is a strange game for me. It offers some of my favorite moments from the series, such as the more focused and cohesive narrative in the first arc, where I felt like my character mattered, to the most disappointing, with a majority of the playable cast landing flat, where I remember them more for what weapons or skills they possess than even their names. And then there are things in the middle, like the combat adjustments, where I still love the basic combat loop of discovering and exploiting weaknesses and then letting loose a ton of pain on my enemies, but I still vastly prefer the job system from OT 1 & 2 over the 8-man party. Zero is still a solid RPG and one that I had a good time with, even if I was hoping for a great one. I find myself wondering what I would feel had the game ended at those first credits instead of going on for another 50 hours, but regardless, it’s a fascinating case study on how a mobile title can be adapted into a full-on console experience, for better or for worse.
Octopath Traveler 0 was reviewed on the PS5 using a code provided by the game’s PR group.
