Octopath Traveler II is a videogame I´ve been enjoying for quite time which is impressive taking into account I didn´t like Octopath Traveler that much when I first played it, it´s not because the HD-2D thing which I absoutely love by the way, it´s more because of a game design that I didn´t like or felt used to it, if you ever played the first Octopath Traveler game, you must know what I´m talking about.
Octopath Traveler is based on the fact that you must choose one between eight character, that will be your protagonist, then you can find the other characters whenever you feel like it, you can deepen into their stories and using them in battle, their stories are well written and interesting so there is always a curiosity to find them. My problem begins once I understood that these characters won´t interact between them, never. I know it might sound stupid, but when I see all of the characters in battle, then disappearing when is a monment they shouldn´t be there, I don´t know, it doesn´t make me feel comfortable, it doesn´t feel ¨natural¨, the only way they can interact in the first game is when they ask you if they can join your party, but besides of that, nope.
I wanted a cohesive story, not something like that at the time so I dropped it and forgot about it, then Square Enix released Octopath Traveler II and I remembered the existence of the franchise, I was interested and I was willing to give a chance to the sequel, this time I´d try to forget about that certain problem and just enjoy it, to my surprise, they actually tried to fix what I´m saying with a few things implemented in the game, one of them being short comversations between the characters.
Whenever you are doing one of the chapters of some character, conversations will be added to the story and you can see them, it´s nothing out of the world but it´s cool, I think these conversations will trigger if you have the correct character in your party, as I said, there are eight characters in the game but you can have only four in battle, so it´s up to you to search which characters trigger one of these conversations.
This time, they implemented Crossed Paths too, they are like side quests where the main characters actually interact between them, not everybody tho, in these Crossed Paths, the side quests will be done by two characters, it´s cool because it doesn´t feel unnatural, they even talk between them with their voices and that´s something I appreciate a lot, I think there are like four side quests of these Crossed Paths.
In order to being one of these Crossed Paths is important to keep in mind that you must first progress through the respective stories of the characters you are gonna use, I think you can start them by reaching chapter two of the characters.
I know it might sound weird but trust me I wans´t able to enjoy the first becase of this, looking all of the characters in battles, then, they acting like none of them exist in the first place, it was something that took me out of place, gladly Square Enix took note and they actually tried to do something on the matter, I´m impressed that they did it because I thought I was the only one feeling bad for this to be honest. I didn´t know these Crossed Paths or conversations existed in the first place, I was actually with a mindset of trying to enjoy the game despite the problem I had with the franchise.
Talking about the game, I must say I´ve been having a cool time, I´ve really been enjoying the game so I´m pretty glad I´m actually in good terms with the franchise, I wish it wasn´t that long tho, I´m like 70 hours in the game and I´m starting to feel a little overwhelmed, I´m close to complete the main story but still, man, I wish it wasn´t that long lol. I´d like to give more details about my experience playing the game, but that will be once I do a soon review about it.
All of the screenshots were taken by me