"Octopath Traveler 0": A prequel with highs and lows

Kevin Hofer

3-12-2025

Translation: machine translated

Pictures: Kevin Hofer

The prequel "Octopath Traveler 0" captivates with turn-based battles and scores with the familiar HD 2D style. Despite a strong start, the game turns out to be tedious and the town-building system is only partially convincing.

If you like the HD 2D style, there is no way around the «Octopath Traveler» games. They have popularised the mixture of 2D pixel art and modern 3D environments with atmospheric lighting and effects. Now, «Octopath Traveler 0» is the prequel. For newcomers like me, it offers an ideal introduction - even if not everything that is HD-2D shines.

The story starts strong, but loses traction

«Octopath Traveler 0» tells the prequel to the first two parts and is based on the mobile game «Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent». It takes over parts of the game world and spins a story about revenge and the divine rings in the world of Orsterra.

In contrast to its predecessors, I experience the story from the perspective of a single hero or heroine that I create myself. I choose gender - I decide in favour of a female hero -, appearance and a job. The variable job system allows you to learn another of the eight professions after unlocking certain skills. That's cool because I can customise my character. But my heroine remains pale until the end: she doesn't speak a word in the whole game. The story is told by other characters.

The story itself offers little that is new. As so often in JRPGs, my teenage heroine lives in a small village, Wishvale, which is destroyed by attackers. Her parents die and she swears revenge - or at least justice to prevent further suffering. The main story unfolds in acts consisting of self-contained episodes.

First, I must defeat the three owners of the Rings of Power, Wealth and Fame. These opponents are abysmal and disturbing - not people, but beings that lack any humanity. Their stories are gripping and excellently written. Take the theatre director Auguste, for example, who kills the heroine's mother but finds no «satisfaction» in it. So he concocts a plot to humiliate my character.

However, after the fall of these enemies, after about 15 hours of gameplay, the main story has barely reached a quarter. Everything that comes after that pales in comparison. I am no longer surprised. The later villains, like the mad king, seem uninspired. He is also a picture-book arsehole, but the plot drags on and loses tension due to the episodic structure. Even when I string the acts together, the narrative remains fragile. The fact that the main story lasts a good 80 hours doesn't help - on the contrary. What's more, some gameplay mechanics are only unlocked at a late stage, which hampers the flow of the game.

City building remains superficial

A central element is the town-building system: alongside the main story, I rebuild my home village with survivors of the massacre. Like the main story, this also takes place in several acts.

First I build simple houses, later taverns, fields and shops. I can also decorate my village with roads, trees and the like. But the system remains limited. Buildings can only be placed in a limited area, and it is only in the second half of the game, after around 35 hours, that the system opens up a little. Then I can build special facilities such as a monster arena or a museum. In the former, I compete against monsters and can earn items. In the latter, I can listen to pieces of music that I find in the world. But that doesn't add any real depth either.

The menu doesn't make it any better. To populate my village, I search the game world for new inhabitants. Some join me immediately, others have conditions. But even after completing quests, I have to assign them to a building manually in the building menu - an unnecessarily cumbersome process. The menu navigation is also annoying in other areas, such as when I don't have an overview of my current equipment in the shop.

The cumbersome menu navigation continues. In addition to speaking to certain NPCs normally, I can also call up a context menu. Here I can enquire about their state of mind, ask them to fight, buy or request items. I can also hire certain NPCs as support characters in battle. They then help me with their special abilities.

This is all well and good, but not always self-explanatory. In a side quest, an NPC is looking for a certain item. It's not enough for me to have this information and promise in dialogue to lead him to the item in question. I first have to hire him to accompany me so that I can complete the quest. That's awkward.

The battles are the highlight

In contrast, «Octopath Traveler 0» shines with its battle system. The turn-based battles are dynamic and rely on the tried-and-tested break-boost system: enemies have shields that I break by attacking their weak points. A broken enemy is incapacitated for a round and my attacks become stronger. Boost points increase the power of skills, the number of attacks or the duration of effects.

I attack with weapons, magic, special attacks or items. There are eight standard jobs to choose from, all of which my heroine can learn. The support characters, on the other hand, have fixed professions. I put together a balanced party that I adapt to the weaknesses of the opponents.

A new feature is that I can use up to eight characters at the same time - four in the front row and four in the back row. During the battle, I can swap them around to use other skills or exploit weaknesses. For example, if my opponent is weak against fan attacks and I have a dancer in the back row, she gets her turn. Or I deliberately leave a character with a strong special attack in the back row so that their boost points fill up and then bring them to the front for a devastating attack when the opponent is broken.

The highlight are the bosses. Unlike my shrunken characters, they are usually huge and look terrifying. A fight like this can easily last ten minutes or longer. And although the recommended level is always given before starting a mission, I have to grind from time to time so that I emerge victorious from the encounters.

The system invites you to experiment and remains exciting even after many hours. The only downer for long-time fans of the series is that it offers hardly any innovation compared to its predecessors and feels like an extension of the familiar.

Presentation: Strong, but not flawless

The presentation is impressive, especially the soundtrack. The music perfectly matches the respective locations. I particularly like the topic of the town of Sunshade - I keep going back there just to listen to the song.

The HD 2D visuals also impress with their varied scenery: snow-covered mountain villages, gloomy canalisations, lively desert cities. But not everything is perfect. Some of the environmental textures look muddy and the character sprites do not reach the level of the predecessors or the «Dragon Quest» HD 2D remakes. Is this due to the mobile game template?

I don't warm to the English voice acting. Some characters, such as the villain Auguste or the heroine's boyfriend Phenn, sound good. Many others, however, speak like robots. Still others, such as Princess Elrica, get on my nerves. So much so that I often click on as soon as I've read the speech bubble and don't let the dubbing actors finish speaking.

«Octopath Traveler 0» will be released on 4 December 2025 for PS5, Switch 1/2, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Square Enix provided me with the PC version for testing purposes.

Kevin Hofer

Senior Editor

kevin.hofer@digitecgalaxus.ch

From big data to big brother, Cyborgs to Sci-Fi. All aspects of technology and society fascinate me.

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