Will I like this if Octopath 1 felt boring to me?

[TrickedFaith]

Octopath Traveler was always a game I really tried to like. I tried multiple times to play it however every time I found myself just basically falling asleep. Is Octopath Traveler 2 more engaging than 1? I really enjoyed games like Chained Echoes and if it is anything like the pacing or quality of that, would this be worth picking up?

[Juicy Pork Chop]

I played Octopath Traveler 1 and absolutely hated it, felt incredibly boring and very "stop and start" with the story which I found frustrating. OT2 is sort of reminiscent of this but basically everything about the game is vastly improved in my opinion. Currently 60 hours into OT2 and enjoying it quite a lot.

[Darkstar77]

I loved both but it's more of the same.

[culpinha]

The core of the game still the same, so it depends of what is boring to you.

Possible "boring" aspects that still the same:
- In and out story Dialogue pace;
- Traversal at foot;
- The annoying interval between encounters before you get scholar class;
- Game progression;
- Equip/Store system;
- Agnea story;

Possible "not boring" aspects that are new:
- The soundtrack alone should be enough for anyone to buy the game, needless to say that Nishiki is bringing his best here.
- More interactions between the gang members;
- Day and night cycle;
- Skills that change with the day and night cycle;
- Job system is avaliable up to 4 members, so you can have 4 merchants and become as rich as Tressa at the end of OT1;
- Most of the "special" jobs are not restrited to a boss fight;
- They added a new system for character, which unlocks a bunch of skills for you to try;
- They changed many classes, including (and specially) the hunter, the fact that you can get ALL and use UNLIMITEDLY all the monsters you find throughout the game is impecable;
- Side quests are more diverse;
- Traversal not at foot (i won't spoiler that);
- A brand new end game pace, one that is open and other that is hidden (same as OT1);
- You don't have to grind (at least i didn't and the game went more than ok);
- God, there are so so so many good storys be it related to the main characters or not (some of them point stuff of OT1, not relating them isn't a problem tho).
- They added sprite for EACH weapon the character holds, this is a minor detail that shouldn't be count as a boring aspect but i have to add that too.

[Dr. Chaos]

Originally posted by culpinha:

The core of the game still the same, so it depends of what is boring to you.

Possible "boring" aspects that still the same:
- In and out story Dialogue pace;
- Traversal at foot;
- The annoying interval between encounters before you get scholar class;
- Game progression;
- Equip/Store system;
- Agnea story;

Possible "not boring" aspects that are new:
- The soundtrack alone should be enough for anyone to buy the game, needless to say that Nishiki is bringing his best here.
- More interactions between the gang members;
- Day and night cycle;
- Skills that change with the day and night cycle;
- Job system is avaliable up to 4 members, so you can have 4 merchants and become as rich as Tressa at the end of OT1;
- Most of the "special" jobs are not restrited to a boss fight;
- They added a new system for character, which unlocks a bunch of skills for you to try;
- They changed many classes, including (and specially) the hunter, the fact that you can get ALL and use UNLIMITEDLY all the monsters you find throughout the game is impecable;
- Side quests are more diverse;
- Traversal not at foot (i won't spoiler that);
- A brand new end game pace, one that is open and other that is hidden (same as OT1);
- You don't have to grind (at least i didn't and the game went more than ok);
- God, there are so so so many good storys be it related to the main characters or not (some of them point stuff of OT1, not relating them isn't a problem tho).
- They added sprite for EACH weapon the character holds, this is a minor detail that shouldn't be count as a boring aspect but i have to add that too.

I really appreciate the additon of that last one.
It might seem like a small thing but it always makes getting a new weapon actually exciting rather than it being an invisible stat stick where you're just still swinging an ordinary sword around at lv80 with the best in slot.

[sorethroat]

Soundtrack is subjective, I don't think it is that outstanding, but still above average. Still not as good as the FF games or anything composed by the popular JRPG composers such as Mitsuda, Uematsu, Hamauzu, Sakimoto.

Also since you mention you liked Chained Echoes you might find OT2 quite boring and repetitive compared to its structure, since basically it's still the same as OT1.
But I don't know, I have seen several people saying "I hated OT1 but OT2 is much better!" which I don't understand since it is practically the same, not changes at all particular in battle system and structure.

[Sombrero]

I never really liked OT1 past the introduction and unfortunately I had the exact same feeling with OT2, just that it took me slightly longer to get aggressively bored.

Why? A few major game design flaws are still present in this game mainly that the game sort of expects you to play through all 8 characters stories. Which means the first characters you do have a good/balanced challenge and combats are fun but by the time you do the chapters of characters 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 you are severely overleleveled and it's a complete snooze fest. Basically the game was fun until about level 45 and then I started one shotting every random encounter (litterally one shot with a single actio on one single character, not even 4 characters) and bosses didn't last more than a couple of turns.

I might give the game another shot and force myself to balance the XP throughout the team more but you can't really do that either because you still keep your super good gear (which is a big part of your stats) and anyway even if you split your 8 in 2 groups of 4 you'll still be overleveled for each team's character story 3 and 4.

Other than that I still find it insane that there are so few jobs with so few combat abilities each. FF5 on the SNES had more jobs for potato sake. I was slightly ok with OT1 being undercoocked because it was an attempt and Square Enix did not wanted to waste money on a project that would not sell but after seeing that OT1 sold like crazy (despite being an objectively heavily flawed JRPG, sorry not sorry) serving more of the same in OT2 is really crazy.

Also almost all of the "new features" marketed on the store page are pretty much the worst aspects of the game, the boat in particular feels like the goofiest thing in the world it's totally immersion breaking and serves absolutely no purpose.

In a world where Chained Echoes and Sea of Stars exist it's really hard to recommend OT2. It's not the worst JRPG ever, far from it. The voice acting, soundtrack and the combat at first are all amazing. But after 15h you basically have seen the entire gameplay loop and it never gets better (and the story isn't good enough to keep you hooked either).

[Neme]

It's the same game