RPG Progress Report

[MrPopo]

I've been using the four ladies as my primary party, and have one chapter 2 quest left for them (H'aanit's). Having both of the summon abilities in one party adds a lot of damage to things, and H'aanit's higher level beast summons are pretty big damage. It does mean that I have to do some party swapping to finish all the sidequests, but I'm thinking of just doing a big world sweep once I've finished everyone's chapter 2s.

[noiseredux]

Friends, I tell you this: You have not lived until you've rolled an "Exp x 100" from Primrose's crazy Random Dance Generator. I cannot tell you the wide-eyed glee I got out of seeing her go from level 19 to 30 after one battle. I think I actually exclaimed quite loudly, and I know I just sort of sat there in disbelief before continuing on.

Which brings up a good point - I genuinely cannot recall the last time a JRPG got its teeth so deeply into me. Grandia II, maybe? I'm not sure. But I mean as much as I've truly ENJOYED others in the years since, it's often a case of follow the main story; go to the next beat. In other words, it's beyond rare for me to actually spend so much time just tinkering with the game itself. In most JRPG's I find no shame in consulting a map or walkthrough, but in Octopath Traveler I'm having a blast not really knowing anything and just kind of seeing what happens if I try THIS.

Anyway, I just wrapped up Ophilia's Ch2 and I don't know. I feel like I want to maybe continue her story. But the Ch3 is a few levels above where I'm at right now. Unless I can get Primrose to farm us a bunch more Exp quickly, haha.

[noiseredux]

Haven't had a chance to play much over the weekend, but I did do some grinding last night. I've got the majority of my party around lvl 37 with Primrose at 34. I think I'm going to just try do Ophilia's Chapter 3 next, which is recommended lvl 38. I know that probably most players are darting around the map still going for different pieces of different stories, but part of me is wondering what happens if you choose to just focus on following the one thread. I've met all the characters and have pretty much settled in on my preferred four.

I guess I'm curious if the game is open ended in the sense that when do you actually see credits roll - (A) when you finish all chapters of all eight characters? (B) When you finish all chapters of your main character? Or (C) when you finish all chapters of any character?

[noiseredux]

I'm about 28 hrs into Octopath now, and my party have all just hit level 40 except Primrose who is 37. I decided to take some detours and go exploring a bit before starting Ophilia's chapter 3. So we stumbled upon a few shrines and explored some caves to mine for loot and XP. I made H'aanit's second job a dancer which means that I've gotten some crazy combo's going where I'll cast Ophilia's spell that lets spells trigger twice onto Primrose and have her cast Bewildering Grace with 3 BP's, so she casts the spell twice... then another time... then I have H'aanit cast it with 3 BP's... I mean it's effectively just gambling but I've seen some pretty cool/exciting stuff happen this way. But this is the sort of stuff that shows just how much I'm enjoying this game. At nearly thirty hours I'm still having fun just playing with the systems; still having fun wandering around without using fast-travel so that I might level up naturally.

[noiseredux]

I decided to check off the Chapter 2's of my other three characters before going into Ophelia's Chapter 3. I'm leveled up enough now that doing those three quests was almost trivial. As a breakdown, I have Ophelia using scholar as her second job which makes her a great spell caster for the heals, but also for secondary damage; H'aanit has dancer as a second job, though I've really only used that for experimenting with Bewildering Grace - mostly she's a physical attacker and Pokemo- I mean "monster" catcher; then Cyrus' second job is merchant which is mostly only useful for the wind spells. Cyrus is basically just an offense spellcaster at this point, and he's got a perk on him that gives him 150HP at the end of each turn so he tends to not need as much heals. Finally, Primrose has warrior as her second job and she's got some pretty nice weaponry which balances her out nicely for both spell damage and physical attacks. I recognize that this party isn't actually the most balanced, but 32 hours in I really feel like they work with my play style.

(Where's everyone else at in their Octo progress?)

[MrPopo]

I totally got sidetracked by grinding Nightfallen reputation in WoW. When I left off, I'd done three of the chapter 2s, on my way to doing the fourth. I had seven of the eight secondary jobs unlocked. My plan with my characters is to ensure that no matter what my party combination, I have the skills of all eight jobs, and I picked my secondary jobs based on what enhances and fills in the existing job. So Primrose is thief, to buff her dagger damage with skills. Ophelia is scholar to enhance her casting ability. H'aanit is apothecary to get some axe skills. And Tressa is warrior so her spear now has some skills associated with it.

[noiseredux]

I've spent like three hours attempting the boss battle of Ophelia's chapter 3. The level recommendation for that chapter is 38, and my party is ~44 and it's still kicking my ass. It's two dudes and at first they're only weak to physical attacks. The other three non-Ophelia members of my party all have physical weapons to break them. But I can just never get even one of them whittled down. One of them can heal both of them, so I try to focus on him first. But they both also have very strong spells that hit the whole party. It's starting to get frustrating and makes me think I probably need to grind to just get some better weapons or something. I don't know. Anyway, I'm thinking I'll take a break from the game for a bit now. I don't want to grow annoyed with a game that I've enjoyed for 35 hours so I think maybe just a breather for now.

[fastbilly1]

I still havent gotten to the second round of quests, real world kicked my ass recently. Today I will finish Cyrus 1st story and start round 2 for Primrose.

[TheSSNintendo]

Been playing some Octopath Traveler while on vacation at the beach. Got about 5 hours in so far. Started with Olberic (familiar with his quest from the demo), Primrose, and Alfyn.

[marurun]

So I started playing Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen while on vacation, and I picked it back up again a couple days ago to continue. I just finished Torneko's introduction chapter (chapter 3) last night. I really love this game. The DS version is just fantastic. The music is great, the graphics are decent, enemy attack animations are superb... This game had a lot of love put into in, including the localization. It oozes quality in a way that kinda shames Square's Final Fantasy re-releases. I can't wait to tear through the game and put up a review, however long that takes.