Octopath Traveler 0 feels like a game that shouldn’t exist. Spiritually, it’s the experimental handheld spin-off game of the popular Square Enix IP we saw so many of in the late 2000s. That kind of game eventually died in the 2010s with the rise of mobile gaming and the death of dedicated handhelds. When Octopath Traveler got its first spin-off, it was in the form of Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent. That game is still active, but while it takes a very different shape, being able to relatively match the visuals of its mainline console entry brethren, I feel like the experimental energy of the portable spin-off is alive and well with Octopath Traveler 0.
Octopath Traveler 0 considers itself to be a prequel to the original game, especially with it sharing the setting of the continent of Orsterra. While the map is based on that from the original game, and many characters from it show up, I think it would be best to view this as an alternate timeline if you really care about the lore of the series. It doesn’t neatly click into place of the original, especially with the original cast all joining up with you for a full adventure before their own. I think disregarding any expectations of Octopath Traveler 0 being a piece of the grander puzzle works in the game’s favor. At its best, this feels like a soft remake of the original game with an entirely new story that I found much more interesting.
This game adapts the first few main story arcs of Champions of the Continent while adding its own original story to serve as connective tissue. You create a character who lives their days in the small town of Wishvale, which is destroyed by three greedy people seeking a special ring. That ring chooses you, giving you the strength and resolve to go out into the world to find out why the lives of your loved ones were brutally ended. Along the way, you’ll gather like-minded characters and try to rebuild your town from the ashes.
As soon as the prologue concludes and you set out on your tale of revenge, the world more or less opens itself to you to go anywhere you want. The only thing stopping you is your own strength, and the main story quests will simply guide you to go out and explore the world. The original Champions of the Continent seems to be a stripped-back mobile version of the Octopath experience, whereas Octopath Traveler 0 entirely ditches the original gameplay to make this play more in line with the other two console games. The main thing it keeps is having two rows for battles, a front and back, but outside of battle, this just feels like a normal Octopath Traveler game.
Path actions aren’t as flexible as they were in Octopath Traveler 2, but it makes sense that they had to change with the pivot to a single main character compared to eight. The entire game world is dominated by the three main stats: Power, Fame, and Wealth. People in the overworld respond to how much of each of those you have, which decides how effective your path actions will be on them. Your protagonist can do any path action, but everyone has about three actions you can use on them. Inquire is consistent for most, allowing you to learn their backgrounds. In addition to this, you can hire them to your side as summons, buy items off them, battle them for their gear, or invite them to Wishvale.
Out in the world, you can find other travelers who will join you in Wishvale and in battle. Octopath Traveler 0 has a mix of new characters, Champions of the Continent characters, and cameos from the original Octopath Traveler. By progressing through the Kindlers of the Flame quest, you can eventually use the Inquire path action to learn even more about them, and even see fun party chat moments like those from Octopath Traveler 2. I wouldn’t expect much development from characters not from the Wishvale story, but for this style of gameplay-focused RPG, I think the cast gets enough. I found the cameo characters to be some of the least useful characters to have around in battle, preferring the new cast exclusive to this game (I include the Champions of the Continent cast in this, since most people will experience them through this now instead).
Having two rows in battle gives you the chance to properly make the most of the playable cast of around 30+. The front row are the ones you’ll give commands to, and the back row will take each turn restoring their health and SP. It didn’t take me long to find a way to break the difficulty with all this added power at my hands, especially once you reach the point of unlocking all your ultimate abilities, and an optimized team can start delivering 9999 damage on stunned bosses (this was very helpful during the Master of All endgame bosses).
What makes up for this is that eight characters joining you in battle mean you have to commit to keeping them all stocked and equipped. Money was a lot tighter than before, which got me to not mainline the story and spend my time looking for optional dungeons or new towns. New treasures and new NPCs mean more things to sell, which means better gear or a new kind of summon. Abilities are found out in the field, or attached to NPCs themselves, and those abilities can be equipped onto party members to give them an edge in battle. The game does attempt to ramp up difficulty to meet you at your new level, but it gives you even more tools to exploit if you want to put the time into building your team properly.
Your protagonist also has access to the full job system from the other games, being a jack of all trades, with the biggest strength being the access to early game ultimate attacks gained from clearing the Master quests. I would often use my main character as a way to make up for missing spots in my party line-up, allowing me to put all my attention into team composition. All his jobs get the job done in every possible area, but he worked great to support characters that specialize in specific parts of those jobs. I enjoyed having him play the role of a cleric to provide generic full-line healing so other characters didn’t have to waste a spot playing that role. Eventually, though, I could just take that healing skill, master it, and give it to Laurana, who is more specialized in regen abilities. This levels out one of her weaknesses, and is the kind of thing you can experiment even more with in the second half, with just about anyone in the cast.
Dungeons play out as they do in the other mainline games, but I think area design is a bit too straightforward in Octopath Traveler 0. While these games have to have maps that consist of hallways with small paths branching off by the nature of the HD-2D style, areas feel simplified further from how they were in the two prior Octopath games. It’s not egregious, but it does make dungeon crawling a bit less enjoyable compared to the other key pillars of exploration in the Octopath formula.
Rebuilding Wishvale is enjoyable enough, but if you’re going in expecting a complex town builder, then you will likely be disappointed. Wishvale is great for reinforcing the themes of the overarching narrative, but mechanically, it’s merely serviceable. The building mechanics are expanded very slowly, really only properly opening up once Kindlers of the Flame concludes. Everything has a place in the world. You can build houses and fill them with NPCs you recruit in the world to give you passive buffs. Farms can be built, which will give you materials to cook food. This food can be given to specific NPCs to join you back in town. Rinse and repeat. This is a satisfying loop, but I think it feels only just good enough to not come off as tacked on. There are some good ideas here, and I like the idea of customizing my own space, but I want to see an Octopath Traveler 3 take this concept and run with it.
The Nintendo Switch 2 was my console of choice with Octopath Traveler 0, and while it didn’t feel as stable as last month’s Dragon Quest 1+2 HD-2D Remake, I think it holds up well enough to recommend. It aims for 60 frames per second and has only some occasional dips and stuttering. I’d recommend turning off the aggressive vignette filter to allow the visuals to properly breathe. HD-2D has come a really long way, and it’s nice to revisit the setting of Orsterra with better lighting and presentation.
Octopath Traveler 0’s writing ended up being a particular highlight to me, but it takes its sweet time getting there. If you’ve spent any time around gacha game fans, or have even dabbled in it yourself, you’ll often hear something along the lines of “it gets really good X amount of hours in, after Y number of arcs”. Since Octopath Traveler 0 was claiming to use the mobile game as the foundation of a new experience, I wasn’t expecting this game to recreate that baggage. However, a 20-hour slog of a story while the game builds up to the “good stuff” is more or less what you get.
The initially available main quest lines are Kindles of the Flame (new to Octopath Traveler 0), Master of Fame, Master of Wealth, and Master of Power. These Master quests involve you tracking down the trio that ruined your life, having you learn more about their backstories and rise to power. The villains felt flat despite their cartoonishly evil actions, not being charismatic or threatening enough to make the story compelling. Power probably does the most with the story thanks to the side characters, but the more the routes focus on the villains, the worse they are.
The new Kindlers of the Flame questline is quite literally the biggest motivator for the early third of the game. Not only does it require you to engage with exploring the world, but it will often leave certain quest resolutions for you to figure out yourself. It subtly teaches you how to best engage with these games, while giving you an endearing story to keep you coming back and checking in on the town. Each of the survivors you find have a good amount of trauma to work through, and there are a couple of moments that genuinely got me to tear up. They come together to comfort each other, bonding closer than they ever did before and making a found family. Stia, Phenn, Laurana, and the rest of the villagers ended up as probably some of my favorite characters in the series.
Kindlers of the Flame picks up the slack a lot as the narrative slowly builds up to the Master of All questline that results from completing the initial three Master arcs. From my understanding, this was the last main quest available in the 1.0 version of the game, and suitably feels like it has the weight of a proper finale. It isn’t the finale of the entire game, since there’s another story arc after, but if you’ve played any MMOs or mobile games, you’ll understand. Master of All could easily be its own small RPG, and is the first example of Octopath Traveler 0’s disparate storytelling putting its best foot forward. The side characters get more interesting and have an active presence in the conflict, and the main villain is a great representation of an almost unreal threat of political power that motivates you to get stronger to overcome. I don’t really want to spoil any of it, but it’s a high-stakes drama that interrogates the abuse of the very same wealth, fame, and power that drives man to sabotage our own progress.
Master of All shows that, at its best, Octopath Traveler 0 is capable of pushing the storytelling of the series forward to new heights. From this moment, the writing started to pick up a lot more, almost feeling like an entirely different writing team took the reins. Given how live service games are handled, this is honestly possible. Writing teams either get chances to improve their craft based on immediate feedback from the audience or simply get swapped out with new writers. With the disjointed way mobile games tell their stories in connected but separate arcs, though, it’s hard not to feel like the game also has some of the weakest. Such a satisfying pay-off is only possible with proper build-up, and I just wish that the original Fame, Wealth, and Power stories had been able to accomplish this. That’s kind of what you get by trying to recapture the nearly serialized writing style common from mobile gacha, though.
Everything works here in a vacuum, but the whole experience doesn’t feel as cohesive as the brilliant Octopath Traveler 2. There’s a lack of general polish that comes from all of these new mechanical experiments I’ve talked about. This isn’t even death by a thousand cuts, but those cuts certainly add up over time. It never ruins the game, but for everything I loved, there were a lot of little problems that stood out to me. Wishvale offers great incentives, but the mechanics of town building feel half-baked. Dungeons feel too linear and simplistic, even if the constant battles you find on the way are really fun. The story can be so compelling when it wants to be, but some of the carryovers from the mobile game can also be duds.
I’m conflicted, though. I can’t deny that this fragmented experience is exactly what endeared me to Octopath Traveler 0. Those numerous cuts add texture, and that texture meant I just couldn’t put the game down. The experimental energy found so often in portable spin-offs is exactly what I miss in modern gaming. This feels like the ambitious PSP Octopath spin-off I never knew I needed. It might not be the most polished game in the series, but it packs in so many clashing elements that I can’t help but love it. The disjointed sense of progression was freeing to me, especially as I find myself increasingly burnt out from modern, story-heavy RPGs. Ignoring the main plot for hours on end to explore parts of the map where level recommendations exceed the party average to find treasure, or more towns with extra quests or party members as a reward is consistently a thrill. The game is so often content with you just doing whatever you want in the world it gives you, and doesn’t feel the need to condescend you by over-explaining itself.
The writing quality might flip-flop unevenly, but I’m also glad that even the awkward beginning was preserved from the original mobile game. The time I spent was eventually rewarded with story beats that surprised me in the best ways. Every new town is an opportunity to learn about swaths of NPCs, get new gear, challenge people to battles, or find new allies. The core loop of Octopath Traveler is still here, and as strong as ever. Yet now, instead of endless roaming, you have a place to come back to and check on from time to time. Wishvale, despite it not being the most mechanically complex, adds a heart to the experience that really only shines for those willing to commit to the full 100-hour experience. It’s hard not to care about the home you build for yourself, even if it isn’t ideal.
Despite its quirks and oddities, I think Octopath Traveler 0 is a worthy entry in the series. It’s genuinely impressive to take the bones of a mobile game and turn them into such a beefy, console experience. If you played this without ever knowing anything about the game it was based on, you likely wouldn’t even be able to tell. All of the strengths and weaknesses of the series come together to make for a fascinating experiment, and one that works more than it doesn’t. I genuinely recommend it if you’re looking for an interesting and long RPG to dedicate your winter to. More Octopath Traveler is always a good thing, and this particular game makes a strong case for Square Enix to give their mobile game teams the chance to make full-on console games again. I’m glad that the core story of that game was able to be preserved, and I hope Square Enix considers another one of these conversions of its catalog of mobile games.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review Copy Provided by Square Enix
