Video Games Baby Let's go Come On Now!

I was so excited about the first Octopath traveler game way back when it came out. It was completely and utterly mid but it was so refereshin to play something that was really not trying to be anything other than an homage. Take the bravely default battle system, stick with HD 3D 2D pixel art and slap a classic Final Fantasy Job system on and BAM! Literally what else could you ask for. I completed the first one, got the extra end game jobs and made it to that crazy like evil spawn entity boss battle. It was totally exactly what I wanted. Then came 2, which was more of the same. The gimmick began to ware off pretty qucik. No change in the UI, how the battles worked at all, or even new classes. It was literally just more. Which was fine, but I guess that nostalgia itch had been scratched sufficiently by the previous one. I never made it more than 20 hours into the Octopath 2, and I tried a couple times.

Now I'm 24 hours into Octopath Traveler 0, and I gotta say that some itch is being scratched. The big thing is the 8 charaacter combat does a great job of making battles feel brand new. Everybody is squishier and has less mana pool since you can be swapping between rows and recovering whoever is not actively in the front row. The characters in the back are also still charging up BP (Brave Points is what it was called in Bravely default, I actually don't know if its the same thing here) which means while you are wailing on enemies with a party of 4, there is an entire other party of 4 charging up and getting ready to tag in. This fundamentally transforms what was such a conventional, clean battle system into something much more frantic. I was so worried about not having a dedicated healer when I first started the game, but I quickly realized once I had a full party of 8 that the switch out system is the main way to heal. You don't need a healy necessarily, you can just switch out the character near death for a couple turn and let them recover in the back row. The best part is how natural this all feels to do. It seems like there's so much going on on screen. But you get into a kind of rhytem. Weaving people in and out, breaking enemies and then bringing people up to dish out massive damage. Or taking a brutal attack and being forced to switch a character who was building up BP to the back to catch their breath, while the new character keeps ticking away at the break or does suplimental damage. It turns what was a classic waltz into something like Jazz. It will be impossible to go back to the battle system of other games after this, and I really hope that Octopath 3 retains this multi-row combat system to some extent. Oh Also there are new weapon types FINALLY.

The story in all of these games thus far has been meh at best. The core cast never interact in each other's "paths" and its such a waste of a premise. In an effort to gave more control to the player, they really narrow the experience of what could have been. So, instead of focusing on individual charachters, what octopath traveler 0 does is focus on the WORLD. The original set up is pretty generic with saturday morning/edge lord villians that are hard to take seriously, but then it shifts to be about the other half of the continent and it starts to take on a more of Game of Thrones type of narrative (that is my only reference for fantasy and I havent even read the books or like the tv show sorry). You are a nobody who just happens to be witnissing a lot of crazy political drama happening. I am only a few chapters into this new arc but it is definetely already a lot more intereting than anything either of the previous games did...

Completed on 03/03/2026

This game is frustrating for me. I really love the opening section with Grace, but it quickly ends up falling flat once her half is over. The medical facility instantly felt so classic with the move back and forth between wings and zombies coming back to life more annoying than before. The inclusion of a crafting mechanic here actually elevates the experience. providing more options but with scarce resources where every craft feels like a huge commitment. The puzzles are lacking though. You’ll never not know where to go. Leon’s portions though are a slog. I enjoyed his sections when they were short bursts of action, but it quickly gets old when you’re in the back half. You’re immediately heavily armed so there’s no building up an arsenal like in 4. That also means you’re fighting swarms of enemies right off the bat. There is no dodge but it feels like there should be. Instead there is a parry but you can’t parry everything and there’s insects ion as to what you can or can’t. Ammo is also so plentiful. I played on the "classic" difficulty and never struggled with resources or enemies really as my time with Leon. His half feels like a truncated 360-era shooter.Narratively, this game undermines anything that has happened after 3 with no reference to anything in 4, 5, 7, 8 and only a passing reference to 6. Graces story is… fine but really is not interesting and she gets not characterization other then being caring for a little girl. Leon’s dying of the T virus, though they never make a suggestion as to when or how he got infected other than he was in raccoon city. But he was also infected in 4 with a parasite so does that change anything? Anyway, we gotta go back to raccoon city which just happens to be right outside this medical facility and get “Elpis.” They don’t do much with the one tone destroyed raccoon, and it’s still just zombies aside from one big spider. The RPD made my eyes roll because it’s so forced how much the game wants you know it’s a big deal Leon is back here, as if we didn’t just return here ourselves in remake 2. We already did this nostalgia bate and it worked great, I don’t need it again. Oh and Mr x is back, also there’s a Hunk axe fight that means nothing cuz why not. Even the final boss is a version of nemesis, undermining its own villain they introduced. It was this last section with Leon where the game was trying so hard to remind me of cool things from the series it forgot to do anything substantial for this game. It eft a sour taste in my mouth and ultimately feels like filler with no unique identity of its own. It’s short, and doesn’t give you much of a reason to replay it. This might be my least favorite one yet. At least 5 had boulder punching and 6 has #Nivenfield

Completed on 03/21/2026

I’m not a huge fan of these walking sim adjacent games, but this one makes up for it in its visuals and atmosphere. It’s really gross and visceral. Not really a platformer and definitely not a puzzle game, you just kind of wander between set pieces. At times it can be hard to figure out what the game wants, so dying regularly feels like a requirement and I wish the loading times were shorter. Still worth playing for all the body horror and unique monster designs. War is BAD and won’t someone please think of the children?! (genuinly)

Completed on 04/23/2026

I got this because of the Undertale soundtrack DLC and it was half off. I don’t love even love undertale but that’s a whole different word vomit. I tried getting into the original crypt of the necrodancer but found its blend of rogue like had rhythm game just had a little too much going on. it never clicked for me and I just wasn’t good at it. Their Zelda spinoff was fun though. I was mostly able to finish it because you could rely a lot less on keeping rhythm and just play it as a classic Zelda game. Rift is totally solid all around. It’s a much smaller, classic rhythm that really doesn’t have much going on. I still get that euphoric feeling of slipping into a trance, being in synch with a cool song and seeing number go up. That’s really all I need when it comes to a rhythm game. Kind of a testament that maybe there really is no need to complicate the formula by trying to blend genres. Not that I fault them for trying.

The story is serviceable, given I don’t know anything about the cast or their relationship. The art style is cute and I’m sure there’s a ton of Candace x Dove fan art out there.