Octopath Traveler 0 Review (PS5)

Now on its third entry in seven years, the Octopath Traveler series and the HD-2D art style it pioneered have quickly become RPG stalwarts. They entertain with retro charm, engaging battles, and cute storylines. On that basis, prequel game Octopath Traveler 0 is another solid dose of turn-based action destined to please — just don’t expect it to match the highs of the second instalment.

That’s because, rather than a completely new product, Octopath Traveler 0 is a reimagining of a gacha smartphone game called Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent. Square Enix has taken the content from that and overhauled it into a standard release to varying degrees of success.

In some ways, it’s a more expansive version of what the franchise has been up until now. In other ways, it’s not.

We’ve never played Champions of the Continent, so we can’t speak to how much of it has been carried over into the PS5 version. However, what has been reworked feels just like any other game.

There’s absolutely no evidence of the content’s microtransaction-fuelled origins; you don’t need to pay for extra characters, wait for countdown timers to tick down, or anything else you’d associate with the genre. Following its transformation, Octopath Traveler 0 is your usual turn-based RPG.

It is slightly different to what’s come before it, though.

You create a custom character, and the story revolves entirely around you. Rather than following the lives of multiple people, you recruit party members so they can help you rebuild your hometown of Wishvale and exact revenge against those who burnt it to the ground.

These motivations divide the plot into four main questlines: three of them focus on pursuing the culprits, while the fourth sees you restore Wishvale to its former glory in a new town-building mechanic. Except for short introductory sequences, anyone you recruit along the way is there purely to help you accomplish these goals.

The story feels much more streamlined and straightforward as a result, letting you focus all your attention on your custom character. Octopath Traveler 0 follows a similar structure to its predecessors, where each questline is broken down into chapters with level recommendations.

Here, though, you get a cohesive narrative where each thread builds to a single, greater whole. That focused vision produces an enjoyable — if unremarkable — plot to follow.

It’s this rudimentary nature combined with an overwhelming sense of familiarity that makes the game feel inessential, even if what’s there is of good quality.

Everything feels textbook Octopath Traveler, right from exploration to the combat system. Story chapters are tied to specific towns and locations, so you venture across the map while opening chests and overcoming random battles, with dialogue and bartering in between.

Octopath Traveler 0 is structured exactly the same as its predecessors, only with an additional feature: town building. You can collect resources during your travels and take them back to the scorched remnants of Wishvale to begin restoring it.

Having cleared out the debris, you can begin placing houses, taverns, shops, farming sites, decorations, and much more. The questline tied to the village alerts you to former residents you can welcome back to Wishvale, all of whom come with perks and abilities if they’re assigned to the right structure. Some excel at farming, while others work best in a shop.

The add-on presents an enjoyable distraction from the main revenge quest and has enough depth to make you care for the town and its citizens. There are limits to the system, with a grid dictating where you can and cannot place buildings. However, it’s still an all-round boon for the experience.

Combat also comes with an overly familiar feel: its turn-based fights still revolve around exploiting enemy weaknesses to break them and deal extra damage. You boost characters carrying weapons the monster is susceptible to so they can attack and remove shield points. Once they’re all gone, the enemy is broken and everyone can attack for more damage.

It’s just like the past two entries, though now the party size has been doubled to eight. You have a front row and a back row of four combatants, and you can swap characters between the two rows as they take their turn. You only have control of the front row, so the strategy comes from trading in and out characters based on their strengths and HP.

A neat enough expansion of the franchise’s combat system, you can accommodate for more enemies and what they’re weak to. However, in practice, combat in Octopath Traveler 0 still plays out exactly as it does in the previous two instalments. Now on a third game, the approach feels solid yet unexciting — you just have an extra bank of characters to play with.

It’s a notion found throughout most of the game: while there are advancements here and there, they’re not enough to distract from what is a very, very familiar experience.

The game is also a slightly dated one, as at least some of its visuals are based on the mobile phone game released in 2020. This released two and a half years prior to Octopath Traveler II, which — across the board — looks considerably better than it. The HD-2D art still shines, but not quite as brightly as it has in the past.

Conclusion

Octopath Traveler 0 is a perfectly solid instalment in the Square Enix franchise, though its overwhelming familiarity will make large parts of it feel like a retread. Its town-building mechanic and expanded party system are smart expansions, and the move towards a single, centralised story is a benefit. However, Octopath Traveler 0 will still feel largely the same in an experience below that of its predecessors.