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Octopath Traveler 0's very existence makes it one of Square Enix's most unique JRPGs to date. In the company's packed lineup of role-playing games, impressive 'HD-2D' style games that embrace retro-inspired visuals and mechanics now sit alongside boundary pushing visual stunners like Final Fantasy 16.
Likewise, those HD-2D games encompass brand new games like the original Octopath Traveler and the upcoming The Adventures of Eliot, as well as being used for remakes such as the incredible Dragon Quest 1 & 2 HD-2D Remake. Octopath Traveler 0 might share a graphical style, but it's not really any of those things. It's something else entirely, and that might be why I can't help but be fascinated by it.
We are the champions
That's because Octopath Traveler 0 both is and isn't a remake of the gacha-style mobile game Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent, the publishing rights for which transferred from Square Enix to NetEase at the start of the year. "We see it as closer to a new game," affirms the game's producer, Hirohito Suzuki. Though he does admit that "the story itself is perhaps 70% the same content as in the mobile game", plenty of rewrites and new elements mean that Octopath Traveler 0 diverges from its source material in terms of feeling as well as narrative. "Part of the reason why we called it 'zero', is because we took the mobile game, [and] we wanted to go back to the beginning – to start from zero with it," says Suzuki.
The approach has paid off. In our Octopath Traveler 0 review, we even call it "the strongest entry in this retro-styled JRPG series yet". Champions of the Continent may still be accessible despite the strange transition of publishing rights, but it reflects a growing trend around the idea of 'what comes after' for a mobile release in a landscape where many have come and gone, progress and in-game purchases rendered meaningless.
Coincidentally, Koei Tecmo also approached the same issue this year following the mobile Atelier Resleriana: Forgotten Alchemy and the Polar Night Liberator, with a console game set in the same universe called Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & The White Guardian, which I really enjoyed. But, where Atelier's approach ploughs forward with something new, Octopath Traveler 0 is about reworking the strong foundations the developers believed in with Octopath: Champions of the Continent.
We were the same team that worked on the original mobile game.
"We don't look down on mobile games at all," says Suzuki when we ask about prickly reactions console RPG fans can have to their smaller-screen cousins. In fact, the Octopath Traveler 0 developers have a strong connection to the original. "We were the same team that worked on the original mobile game too, [and] what we really tried to do with Champions of the Continent was to deliver mobile players a console-like experience. The fun of console games on a mobile platform. I think that was quite successful and we managed to do that."
It puts the team in a good position when it comes to building up the foundation of Champions of the Continent to work in a more complete context. "The original game was designed to be a console-style experience. I think in that sense, there's no problem at all," says Suzuki. "Obviously, we understand there are some elements that console players may be a little bit put off by in mobile games, things like the random item drops, the gacha-style mechanics. That's all been completely removed from the console version of the game. You get everything through gameplay."
There's an interesting parallel between Octopath Traveler 0 and one of its biggest new features – rebuilding. With the customizable protagonist's hometown being burnt down by the villains you go on to seek revenge upon, a new questline has you working to restore the town from the ashes. No mere gimmick, it's actually vital to Octopath Traveler 0's tone and its ultimate story. "Depending on the players actions, what they do during that townbuilding section, that can change the ending of the game and how the story concludes," says Suzuki.
Which isn't to say Octopath Traveler 0 is built from ashes, but there is the almost tactile sense when playing it myself that parts have been pulled out of a wider mix and assembled with care and purpose – perhaps using one of those little hammer things for affixing small joints. Turning a mobile game into a console game and having it feel like its own thing, while respecting what worked from the source, is an impressive feat when a choice often deployed in other situations is to cut-and-run. Like a lovely little coffee table, fit for a newly rebuilt village, this is a fine restoration indeed, and an excellent bit of craft.
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