Octopath Traveler Liveblogging

Mostly gameplay-related this time – before I jump into Chapter 2′s I wanted to get everyone their secondary jobs.

Can I just say how pleasing I find the world map in this game? It’s a stylized rendition of the actual layout of locations, but the roads are still easy to follow and anything worth visiting gets a map marker as soon as you visit them. Finding the shrines for all the regular jobs was fairly simple, and now I have a bunch of (mini?)dungeons marked down to explore later on when I’m feeling the urge. I can mostly live with some of the abrupt environmental shifts, but I do feel like it would have made more sense if Alfyn’s and Therion’s starting areas had had their positions flipped so there wasn’t a lush river valley sandwiched between a desert and arid canyons.

Anyway, I went with the following for my secondary jobs. At the rate of JP gain I’m experiencing now I doubt these will be the only other jobs I’ll level in for each, even before taking into considering the four secret jobs. Some of the passives are just too good not to pick up on multiple characters. My personal rule was that the secondary jobs would be gender-flipped (i.e. male characters get the jobs of the female characters and vice-versa) and that no job combo would repeat.

Olberic – Cleric: Olberic has about a five level lead on everyone else as my main, so making him more self-sufficient with heals and boosted magic defense and even a group revive is obviously a good idea. I let H’annit take the more often recommended warrior/hunter setup. Also – he’s a paladin. Yay.

Primrose – Scholar: Lots of AoE magic coupled with dancer’s array of buffs makes for a strong combination. Not much else to say.

Alfyn – Hunter: I was originally thinking about cleric, but with his concoctions Alfyn doesn’t get as much out of apothecary/cleric as Ophilia does. This gives him some more physical AoE options (among other things) and better physical stats, to give him more to do when he doesn’t have to heal.

Cyrus – Merchant: He gets a fourth magic type and a bunch of utility to tack onto his existing ability to reveal weaknesses/HP and reduce the number of random encounters (at least until other characters get that support skill). When none of the enemies are weak to his magic he can still nab some money, donate BP to more useful allies, and take care of his own HP and SP by resting.

Tressa – Thief: At first I felt like I was giving Tressa the leftovers, but merchant/thief actually synergizes rather well. She can generate HP and SP herself and then pass SP and BP around to the party, attack decently well both physically and magically with a respectable six damage types (not counting Hired Help), and steal items and money better thanks to one of the thief support skills.

H’annit – Warrior: As mentioned this is considered to be a really strong combination for physical damage, with four weapon types (not counting any captured beasts) and multiple AoE options backed by a streamlined stat build. H’annit can also work as a tank, and while Olberic’s got the edge there with his level lead it’s good to have a backup for when that eventually isn’t the case.

Therion – Dancer: As fast as he is Therion is well-suited to be buffing the rest of the party. Second Wind is an amazing support skill that everyone wants, but since thief can share SP the rest of the group can partially benefit from it already via Therion. Oh, and the guy finally gets an AoE option, even if there are better job picks for that.

Ophilia – Apothecary: Strong single target healing and status removal round out Ophilia’s healing kit, and she also gets an ice spell and axes for some more damage options. With Last Stand even her physical damage numbers aren’t completely terrible. She’s also a throwback to the nuns with axes of memetic FE infamy.

I’ve seen a few of the party banters popping up online, and I definitely am looking forward to seeing them myself when I start in on the Chapter 2 content. They’re basically support conversations in FE, right down to some of them being laden with subtext. I can’t wait to comment….

mariogolmez:

rabbittiddy:

angrybeardedbastard:

nunyabizni:

nunyabizni:

mitchfynde:

friendly-neighborhood-patriarch:

theheartbrokenlibertarian:

anti-ignorance-pro-equality:

check-your-privilege-feminists:

Tumblr social justice: spreading the world apart instead of bringing us together, one group at a time.

The one with the Japanese comments on cultural appropriation really speak to me.

I love the bit where they’re like “eauh mai gahhh why would they give this awful WHITE person their preshious cultural itaaammms??!!?” Um, because only white kids give a shit about “cultural appropriation”? Which is funny because somehow they can’t see that bitching about it is actually appropriating other people’s VOICES and thoughts and opinions and replacing them with their own white voices. They have become the thing they claim to hate.

WHITE SJW KIDS, STOP TRYING TO SPEAK FOR PEOPLE OF OTHER CULTURES. LET THEM SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES FFS. I promise they can, and will if they need to.

Culture – by its nature, by human nature – SPREADS. It just DOES. People contact other cultures, and they share things. That’s just a fact of life. And it’s A GOOD THING! The VAST majority of people ENJOY that and are HAPPY to share culture! Culture is NOT a finite resource that can be stolen, that can be devalued with use, that can be depleted – quite the opposite, actually. In fact, people from other cultures have explicitly expressed, to me personally as well as to plenty of others everywhere, that they feel pride and excitement when somebody from another culture is interested in or wants to emulate their culture. People who are not uptight white American teenagers/college kids are far more often than not quite HAPPY TO SHARE CULTURE.

And even if it somehow WEREN’T human nature to share and spread culture, imitation is not inherently ridicule or inherently bad. What could possibly make emulating somebody or something bad? Even the most “egregious” “cultural appropriation” “offense” – dressing up for Halloween – isn’t necessarily bad or wrong.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. [Which, I think, is a large part of why people are happy to share culture.] When you see somebody in a football uniform on Halloween, do you immediately assume that they’re making fun of football players, devaluing what they do? Or do you think, aw that kid wants to be a football player when he grows up, or I guess that guy likes football/that player? 

So why is it different for cultural outfits, or for adults? It isn’t, not inherently.

Dressing up in a kimono isn’t making fun of kimonos or Japanese culture. It’s appreciation. Now, if somebody is going around dressed in a caricature of a culture and openly and maliciously mocking people, then they’re… mocking people and that’s fucking rude. But they’re not stealing culture since culture can’t be stolen, and they’re not devaluing cultural items because culture is far stronger and more meaningful than somebody’s clothes.

I mean, are YOU not happy and excited to share YOUR culture with people? Do YOU get offended if somebody dresses up as something from your culture or learns your language or eats your food or wears your culture’s clothes? If you do, you’re an asshole. That’s not normal.

Like the example in the OP I, too, have been given cultural items as gifts, by people (or race traitors???) from the same culture. I have friends who bring back gifts, including grammar/vocab textbooks, from their home country when they go back to visit, and they get genuinely excited and happy to see me (and anybody they gave gifts to) use/wear their gifts. Once a sweet Cameroonian lady my gramma worked with gave her a cultural dress and actually helped her dress up in it for Halloween. That was super cute. Also, I was once asked to sing at a big, important party celebrating a big, important CULTURAL holiday that we don’t even celebrate in America, BY people from that country, because I could speak (and sing, though not sing well) in their language. I got a massively positive response from every single person there, some of the older ladies actually had tears in their eyes, absolutely everybody there wanted to hang out and speak to me in their language, a couple even invited me to come sing at their wedding later, and the host’s wife even HAND MADE a beautiful cultural dress for me afterward (ooh, so I guess she’s an evil race traitor, right???). Because sharing culture is a WONDERFUL thing that should be CELEBRATED and not fucking OUTLAWED you nazi freaks.

And here’s another example, which actually comes from an excellent YouTube channel where a Japanese guy excitedly shares his culture (or betrays his people????) with the world (TRIGGER WARNING: don’t click that link if you can’t handle watching a man intentionally teach people how to “appropriate” his culture!!): 

In this video, he went around asking random people (I don’t think I’ve ever seen the same person twice in his “man on the street” videos) what they think of otakus, and specifically about people from other countries being obsessed with anime and such (that question starts at about 3:15). This is three separate groups of unrelated people who all independently stated that sharing culture is a good thing. There were plenty more answers, ranging from take it or leave it to it’s awesome, but nobody was protective of their culture in any way. (Side note, I think I might be in love with the girl in the 2nd-to-last pic. She is sooo sweet and her smile is sooo pretty and she is just sooo cute!)

So in conclusion, shut the fuck up about cultural appropriation, especially if you’re not from the culture you think you’re defending. Speaking on people’s behalf, as if you know what they want or what’s good for them, is the REAL APPROPRIATION here. Stop doing that, ya dicks.

YESSSSSS

CULTURAL APPROPRIATION MASTERPOST

this got so much better

Ya ever go through your master post tag and just feel like something needs to be brought back. Yeah this is one of those.

This needed to come back

It always does, because the term has been so abused it’s not even funny.

Also erase the ideas that south european people cannot be white and that the world is divided in poc and white, with seconds always being the bad guys.

More Octopath liveblogging (which I might make into a full series or something when I get to the Chapter 2 sections):

I’ve been going around doing everyone’s first chapters before I move on to any content I haven’t see before. Getting to play with a full party makes it a fresh experience, and the equipment and skills management aspect of the game is extensive enough to be interesting without being overwhelming even before the introduction of subclasses. I’m heavily tempted to look up story spoilers for the later game as they come in. I won’t have the opportunity to play much over the next four days and I’m impatient to see what happens. My experience with the demo along with discussion and spoilers that have cropped on online in the last few days has already left me with some impressions of the overall game, but I’ll reserve my full opinions until I’ve actually played through all or most of it either way. 

I will say however that, as regards what is apparently the most controversial element of Octopath, I don’t mind the separate storylines at all and think it’s a bold new way to shake up the standard JRPG formula. Anyway, based on everyone’s Chapter 1 alone I can’t fathom any logical way to tie together all eight storylines in a way that could possibly be satisfying.

Today we will find out if France’s opponent for the finals will be either

1) one of those little Balkan countries about which I can’t really find anything to say. I think they’re Catholics?

or

2) simultaneously both the greatest and most unworthy rivals we have ever had, a hatred that spans centuries and crossed an ocean to ruin my family’s fortunes and no this has nothing to do with petty personal vengeance shut up. The world is not ready for France vs. England.

Octopath Traveler’s Medieval Literary Roots

Interesting theory on a potential literary influence for both Octopath Traveler’s narrative structure and the distinctive speech patterns of H’annit and her village in the English localization. Having read The Canterbury Tales at university I’m still not entirely convinced that the localizers were aiming for strict fidelity to the rules of Middle English (essentially English with even more obvious French influence, both in spelling and phonetics), but at the same time it’s not a completely arbitrary writing choice.

Octopath Traveler’s Medieval Literary Roots

markoftheasphodel said

Actually there is a Dutch king, he’s just super low-key compared to the Windsors

Huh. And here I was running off the Netherlands’s reputation as one of the earliest modern republic states in Europe. But apparently they changed their minds sometime in the 19th century?