Octopath Traveler Liveblogging

Just some quick notes on endgame content, since I’m getting to the point where there’s not much left to say without tackling the final boss.

With all the sidequests and dungeons finished and all but one of the optional bosses defeated I’ve finally hit the need to grind levels. It’s not so bad as some other games I’ve played though; leveling everyone through different jobs keeps the gameplay fresh, and now that I’ve started using Bewildering Grace regularly there’s a strong element of RNG that’s both exciting and mildly annoying. At least it’s better than games that lock the best endgame equipment behind rare drops.

Some of the best sidequest content comes at the end, wrapping up the storylines of some major NPCs while leaving others with just a hint of closure. Zeph may get a girlfriend and in so doing crush what most of us assumed was an established relationship from the start of the game, but Ophilia’s sister gets some cute subtext with H’annit’s knight friend and those two scholars from Therion’s second chapter are apparently back together so there’s still some NPC gayness to go around. I haven’t really been keeping track of the three-way tavern chats, which range from entirely innocuous to entertaining and insightful though usually leaning more towards the former. I’m sure there’s a YouTube compilation video of them out, because just like the party banter during chapters the game doesn’t keep track of them.

All the theorycrafting and min-maxing number-crunching has already been run elsewhere for this game, but I have to say that I have trouble identifying any characters in particular that I prefer to use in combat over others in all situations. I know I haven’t used H’annit’s beasts or the summons to the fullest extent available, and I’m still plumbing the depths of how useful Concoct can be. Whoever works best for me therefore usually comes down to whatever job I’m leveling them through at the moment. At this point I’ve only got that one really hard wolf boss and the finale left, and with my party all in the upper 60s I wonder if I should just go for it.

Results to follow.

Idea for something to occupy my time once I’m finished with Octopath, since it’ll be nearly a year before the next FE releases and I don’t foresee anything else coming along in the meantime that would get me blogging much: I want to get in early on the inevitable re-evaluation of Fates once Three Houses comes out.

No, seriously. I’ve mentioned before that I do appreciate Fates’s narrative ambitions, and that I consider the premise of the setting and the story structure to be up there with Jugdral and Tellius. Of course it’s deeply flawed in execution, far more so than either of those settings, but I’m more motivated to prop up its good points than I am those of the flat greatest hits experience that is Awakening.

This warrants a replay sometime soon, preferably before the hype/counter-hype cycle for FE16 begins in earnest.

Tomorrow I can go back to using Tumblr on my desktop. No more weird formatting issues to wrestle with.

Octopath Traveler Liveblogging

Chapter 4 content concludes with Primrose and H’annit.

Primrose

Now this is a finale. I don’t even care that there’s no real explanation for how or why Simeon has taken over an entire town by virtue of owning a theatre in the middle of nowhere. The chapter has good pacing, some dramatic highs, and a solid boss fight that surprises (you fight him twice!) even if it doesn’t really challenge provided you can handle being silenced constantly.

Most interesting is that there are two separate narratives running against one another here: Primrose’s life as experienced in flashbacks to her past and to events the player has witnessed in her earlier chapters, and Primrose’s life as envisioned by Simeon and literally dramatized as a stage play. The endings are very different, and there’s even a disconnect there between how Simeon wrote his ending as a sort of redemptive romance and how he gaslights Primrose into feeling that she’s stuck in a tragedy and doomed to at best a hollow victory in vengeance. I’ve seen criticism of Simeon that he’s so obviously crazy that he’s hard to take seriously as a villain, and true enough this chapter doesn’t convey the same feeling of betrayal by a former lover as Therion’s does *ahem*, but it succeeds on a level all its own that speaks of storytelling and the subjectivity of art. As Simeon points out Primrose is herself an artist – as a dancer and (implicitly) as a sex worker – so her story is the most fitting to explore this theme.

And really, shouldn’t a game with such an unconventional narrative approach have something to say on how stories are told?

Party banter highlights: Cyrus asks the same question I did about the Everhold theatre, H’annit gets protective in an arguably romantic way, and Primrose wants to marry Tressa. Primrose also comes around to appreciating her diverse company here for their insight and support, which is pretty sweet even as all the action of the story unfolds with her on her own as always.

H’annit

Nowhere near the dramatic end that Primrose’s was, but I wasn’t expecting it to be. Even H’annit acknowledging that her beast-slaying adventures are first and foremost a personal quest, and any incidental heroism on her part is just that. I don’t have much to say about how this chapter depicts its setting except that it’s a bit too close to what we saw in Wellspring in one of Olberic’s chapters. Another desert town menaced by monsters in a cave that sees the playable cast fighting alongside the town guards. Slap a king and a petrifying gaze on this story and it’s basically the same minus the Erhardt drama. At least this time dialogue actually acknowledges how uncomfortably hot it must be in the Sunlands.

Redeye was no harder than most of the other Chapter 4 bosses, and I didn’t even have to use the consumables H’annit got in the last chapter to cure petrification. Knowing as I do from spoiling myself that the creature is what’s left of Graham Crossford I get how this ties into some of the other stories, but I’m just now realizing that without context from elsewhere neither H’annit’s nor Primrose’s final chapters would have any apparent connection to a bigger story at all. I suppose getting to see that story told in the game itself will leave more impact, because as of yet I’m not really feeling it. H’annit’s reunion with her master is heartwarming, but it was never a conflict or character types I was much interested in so I feel fairly neutral about her ending on the whole. I do however like the final narration and its nods to oral storytelling, which lends itself well to a Canterbury Tales-esque headcanon for the game’s story structure as a whole.

Also, Z’aanta does that thing he did in a flashback last chapter and picks up H’annit by…something in a way that makes her uncomfortable. That is such a weird recurring gesture.

Party banter highlights: Primrose makes a proposal straight out of an FE paired ending, H’annit engages in pet play(!) with Tressa, Alfyn is the biggest social drinker, Cyrus teaches us about Marsalim, and Therion and H’annit agree to disagree on what it means to take pride in one’s work.

I finally downed the runelord boss, leaving me with only the warmaster. I’m going to be diving into endgame sidequests and dungeons next, so that’s still to come.

Top 3 class promotions

Not counting lord promotions since those are more character-based.

3. prince(ss) -> master knight

Unquestionably the most broken promotion in FE history, and a big incentive to train Lachesis and Leif through their unimpressive starts. It’s only at #3 because I don’t like how there’s no in-universe explanation for why these two characters in particular become amazing at everything. Is it to make up for their being noble and highly significant characters who don’t get a holy weapon?

2. bishop -> saint

This class line is statistically terrible and populated by playable units who are also individually terrible for a variety of reasons, but I love the design regardless. They trade in the kind of cape generically used by fantasy caster classes for a backwards-draped stole resembling those worn by priests celebrating Mass, they keep the amices worn by bishops (here and in FE9), and the lower portion of their robes is split in a way that’s probably meant to evoke a chasuble worn over a cassock – a look also connected to the celebration of the Eucharist. Some of their models also include an ornate cincture, and Oliver at least has a rosary (or the Asheran equivalent) tucked into his belt. So yeah, an inspired and well-researched look, very Catholic…and yet so terrible.

1. troubadour -> butler/maid/strategist

This was an inventive way to make this class line gender neutral. Troubadour is still a silly name, but strategist works well as a replacement for valkyrie that comes with some fitting skills for flavor, and I like butlers and maids (more so butlers) for putting a secular spin on healing while also employing daggers as a serious weapon type. I could have done without the ninja association, but that’s part of the game’s cultural binary motif so I can live with it. I find it’s a rare case of a promotion dropping a horse that doesn’t feel like a total downgrade.

Top 3 FE dispossessed aristocrats

It’s hard to think of any truly dispossessed aristocrats in FE, more so characters who have aspects of that condition even if they maintain power and (usually by assumption) wealth. For every Raven and Priscilla there’s two others who are not literally in that position but get related sympathy points from me anyway.

3. Fernand – he’s an irrational dick, but I understand why he’s an irrational dick. The ruin of his family was more literal than usual, his obvious infatuation with Clive would have been impossible even in better times (half because Clive is kind of an idiot, granted), and he’s killed by his failed attempt to leave all that behind him and start over in a new country with a new man. I get the classist bitterness too, much more so than his semi-predecessor Peri the murder doll.

2. The Nohrian royal family – yes, all of them. They may be a long way from fallen despite all the doom and gloom about Nohr’s precarious economy, but the ferocious competition among mistresses and siblings and the extreme performativity on display by all of them save Elise is telling of an upbringing where there was never enough to go around and no certain future to speak of. It’s even such that I once joked with Amielleon that I could write a Créole AU headcanon of the Nohrians if it weren’t for the awkwardness of who their mortal enemies are. I’m not up for, er, Anglo-washing the Hoshidans.

1. Almedha, for reasons I’ve gone into elsewhere. I’d link to that post, but I’m stuck on mobile.

top 3 religious characters in FE? (I’d say “cleric” but I’d also want to include monks and whatnot)

3. Kenneth – a small role, but he’s an atheist bishop which says a lot about how faith and organized religion work in FE

2. Natasha – for all the discussion of theology and the nature of light magic, and for at least attempting to adhere to a vow of chastity

1. Celica – gets a lot of focus as a protagonist, and her pseudo-Marian devotional cult faith is highly important to her and ends up clashing against a contrasting dogma in the Duma Faithful

For the meme, your fav twinks.

Gah, twinks are my competition. I have very little incentive to think well of them. Note that I’m not counting shotas, as that’s not *quite* what a twink is.

3. Reyson – see previous post. It’s hard not to envy *that*.

2. Eliwood, who pulls off a twinky appeal with no hint of effort or guile that Hector can’t be the only guy who gets all confused around him. He ages pretty gracefully too.

1. Leon, because he’s actually identifiable as a twink in the fully contemporary sense. Sometimes it’s refreshing to cut through all the winking and nodding and have a good cry over the daddy who’s not checking out your ass.

top (ha) 3 FE tops?

I love how this requires me to not only evaluate who I think would top in FE but also who I think would be *good* at topping. My Fates husbando might have everything I could ask for in a sugar daddy, but he’d be a fairly passive top if he even wanted to at all.

3. Jesse, because unlike most of the incorrigible flirts of the series he’s most likely up to stick his dick in literally anyone, and unlike Python he’s not consumed by laziness. With experience comes skill…and some wild stories of what *not* to do as well. (NB: I do however consider him to be fully vers, because what hasn’t he done?)

2. Any (good) swordmaster, because expert topping is just as much about precision and patience and being able to read your partner as it is about raw power. Overall Ryoma is probably the best in the series at combining those aspects, though this comes at the expense of how generally ridiculous he looks.

1. Tibarn, full stop. Just about the most bara of all the Tellius bara out there, Ike’s role model/gay uncle, and husband to a twink so waifish he probably risks breaking bones just from getting an erection. And yet they’re together anyway…and engaging in bondage to boot! How Tibarn manages that superhuman level of skill we’ll never know.