Good day , nintendo people from vgchartz.

I am almost finishing ff16 and i feel like playing some old school jrpg.

I think i go for the octopath Traveler series.

I want to play on portable mode thats why i am choosing switch but what should i pick , one or two? 

U need to play one to enjoy two?

What is the better game , better characters and story?

2. If 2 was the first, the second would have selled higher. Just check the review steam if you dont trust me, im not alone thinking that. There is a gap between the two. But many did not buy the 2 because they were disappointed with the 1.

The stories are not connected to each other.

Also from what I read - the first game's characters stories dont really feel as connected as the second game's character stories.


I would play 1 first then 2 (which is what I plan to do in the future).

Also yes, you should play FF6 on Switch - its easily the best version just for the QoL improvements.

I like the first more as the placement of everyone on the map seemed more logical and the placement of areas and level progression was better. 2 Does have more interesting characters tho.

I guess 2 then ,good characters is top priority in jrpgs for me, if i like it so much i might try the first after

As an overall experience, Octopath was quite the better of the two games. Don't I won't mind any choice you take in the end, there's really good surprising moments in the first game as well.

If I had to pick Id say I liked the second one better, but octopath 1 is just as good.
I also like peanut butter and ff6.

If you’re going for a classic RPG, go with a remaster of the real deal.

FF6 Pixel Remaster fixes issues, such as the gimmicky Sword Tech and Blitz attacks that rendered them unappealing after some use—those are usable now without the gimmickry.

If you’re looking for an experimental old school RPG, Square Enix dumped almost the entire SaGa franchise onto the Switch - many of them remastered. I’d recommend Romancing Saga 2 and 3 - they’re not for everyone, and will probably require a “read before playing” guide, but I really enjoy those two. FF Legend 1-3 (SaGa 1-3) are the original versions ported to Switch. FF Legend 1 has some terrible gimmicks that render the game into a grind-fest (particularly humans). FF Legend 2 was a lot better, but the limited item stash was a bit frustrating—I’d recommend using Robots in that game. The FFL trilogy are decent for those who want to see very early RPGs, the first ones on handheld, but IMO Mystic Quest/Adventures of Mana aged way better than its contemporaries—although, fixing a few small things in FFL2 would make it the best aged of those early handheld RPGs.

Mystic Quest, which is also known as Adventures of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 1, is a rather simplistic hybrid of an action adventure game and action RPG that manages to be a lot of fun. It’s also on Switch, I believe. There was an adaptation of it called Sword of Mana which attempted to make the story and gameplay more complex, and IMO it felt bloated in both - and a lot of the dialogue felt drawn out, losing the oomph of the original Mystic Quest. So, IMO, play Mystic Quest or Adventures of Mana, but not Sword of Mana.

I have II on standby until I finish Persona 5 on Switch... But as far as the first Octopath goes, it's repetive, boring and the stories were, for the most part, uninteresting. Which is a shame, because it was an audiovisual marvel and the combat was excellent. Unfortunately, the bad stuff managed to make me quit the game after like 12 hours or so.

I hope the second one is better at keeping my interest in the story and at designing maps and levels.

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.