Years ago, I got shouted down repeatedly on this forum for calling Octopath Traveller bloated… basically more work than necessary to achieve the same results as a simple attack command… often resulting in much less strategic battles than it’s more efficient counterparts.
With game design for RPGs, the classic design was for battles to be as simple as possible to achieve the greatest amount of strategy. Chrono Trigger is an excellent example of that. More recent RPGs that attempt to mimic the classic style RPGs (Octopath Traveller, Bravely Default, and Child of Light being some examples) usually add in a lot of extra interface requirements to achieve what amounts to nothing more but a simple attack or a special attack. The defenders say they found it more interesting to have a challenge or extra work to make an attack rather than simply hitting attack… it seems that’s changed to some extent. IMO, the complexity to execute an attack becomes a chore REALLY fast. Also, usually the battles have rather simple strategies - attack them, it’s only that you have to attack them win different ways or with different combos.
Whatever the opinions (people can like what they want, they don’t have to agree with my tastes—that’s why it’s tastes), this design philosophy of these newer games is completely backwards from the classic RPGs they’re attempting to emulate. Rather than having simple execution to achieve complex results, they have complex execution to achieve simple results. Chrono Trigger is the perfect example of a game with a lot of diverse and fast paced strategy and very simple execution to achieve it.
Of course, there are some pluses to Octopath Traveller which I haven’t mentioned - the graphics are really nice. But I didn’t play it enough. I was overwhelmed by the volume of battles and using the battle system over and over and over again. That’s another thing about classic RPGs, they have fewer battles… most of them, some of them (like FF5) have far more than necessary, FF4 is better than 5 in that regard and FF6 is much better. But there’s a lot of good written about Octopath Traveller out there, you don’t need me to repeat it.
Last edited by Jumpin - on 29 July 2023I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
