As you might guess, Octopath Traveler 0 is set before the events of the first game in the series. It instead follows a young hero from the town of Wishvale, where the idyllic peace has been shattered with the discovery of a magical ring. This ring holds the power of a god, so it's sought after by a group of ne'er-do-wells who raze the town. In the greatest of ironies, their violent rampage leaves your protagonist with a desire for revenge and access to the potent power of the ring. Now they must set out to defeat the evil that plagues the land and restore peace to the continent.

Changing from a group of protagonists to a single one who travels between stories is something that works heavily in the game's favor. While having a mute main character may feel a touch odd sometimes, having a single link between every story helps them feel like part of a cohesive whole, rather than the previous games feeling like separate plots that you jumped between. It allows for eventual crossovers and interaction between the various stories in a way that Octopath 1 and Octopath 2 were missing. It also allows the story to contain more surprises because the fates of characters are not set in stone just because they're in your party.

However, the storytelling is very slow at the beginning, and it leans very heavily on some of the most abhorrent evil villains you'll ever encounter in a video game. While the game occasionally tries to offer them some pathos, it's tough to get past the fact that every major villain is a cackling malicious monster, twisted and torn by the allure of power, fame or wealth. When the game tries to give you those moments, it can ring false, particularly when it's attempting a redemption arc. There's one particular late-game party member who feels so drastically out of place that it was almost comical.

It's worth noting that Octopath Traveler 0 isn't an entirely original story. Instead, it's taking the story presented in the mobile gacha game Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent and rewriting it as a single-player RPG. If you've already played that, you'll be familiar with a good chunk of the plot, even if (from the comparisons I was able to make) it's revamped to omit the egregious mobile game elements and rebuild the plot as a single-player game. I think this worked out very well. Unlike Mega Man X Dive Offline, Octopath Traveler 0 feels like an actual RPG and not recycled content.

The structure of the game is built around a series of mini-plots based on the desires that drive humanity. You get a mini-plot that follows Wealth, one that follows Power, and one that follows Fame, and you'll also get a series of side-quests and mini-quests beneath. You're free to tackle them in any way you want, but once you reach the end of a major plot arc, you'll need to finish the other two arcs before you can advance the world to the next set of quests. Your home base is Wishvale, and you're free to return there any time you want. Outside of that, the game is entirely nonlinear, aside from some quests and characters being gated by plot.

Rather than having eight customizable characters like in the previous games, Octopath 0 has an absolutely massive recruitable party with over 30 distinct characters who join you. Aside from your protagonist, each character has their own job, set of skills, and passive and ultimate abilities. Leveling up unlocks more skills and new passives for them, and once you've maxed out their skills, you can then spend their job points to "master" their various skills, and that lets you transfer skills to other characters. Each character has three ability slots and two passive slots, which means you can further customize them based on your needs. You can also find or unlock mastered skills in other ways, further amplifying the number of available options.

Even characters who share the same job have a completely different set of skills and abilities, and there is rarely overlap between them. (Multiple scholars can have the analyze ability.) Your protagonist has access to all eight of the main Octopath jobs (apothecary, cleric, dancer, hunter, merchant, scholar, thief and warrior) and can swap between them at will, in addition to all of the previous customization options. There are even a few characters who have their own distinct jobs that aren't accessible elsewhere, just for some added spice.

This lends itself to a far more customizable party than in previous games. Since each character is different in their own way, I was constantly considering which characters would best fit my lineup. The game was pretty good about only rarely having one character stand out from the crowd in terms of pure power and ability — and usually having that balanced with some kind of drawback. As you get more characters, you will eventually settle on a few reliable standouts, but it's great to have the ability to craft a party that you like.

The biggest change to Octopath Traveler 0's combat system is that it has doubled the amount of people in your party. As in the previous games, combat is a turn-based RPG based around the concept of breaking enemy weaknesses. Most attacks have some sort of element associated with them, ranging from fire and ice to sword and spear. Hit an enemy enough, and they'll "break," leaving them massively vulnerable to damage and oftentimes undoing specific defenses and barriers they have. You also have access to the boost system, where you gain a boost point for every turn, and you can spend up to four boost points per turn to amplify the power of your next action. If you played the previous games in the series, this will feel very familiar.

New is the aforementioned fact that you can bring eight people into combat with you. Your eight-person party is divided into four front row fighters, who you actually combat, and four back row fighters, who are naturally recovering HP, SP and BP. Each front row fighter is tied to the back row fighter behind them, and you can swap between them instantly on their turn. Likewise, if a character in the front row goes down, their back row counterpart instantly takes their place. There are also certain abilities and skills that can instantly swap rows or gain additional power on a turn where you are swapping between characters.

This adds a really interesting push and pull to combat, as you're strongly encouraged to swap between front and back row characters. Is it worth keeping a strong durable tank out front and swapping in your powerful mage only for attacks, or is it better to risk the mage, who can hit weak points more often? Do you keep your healer on the front lines where they can use buffs or keep them in the back and only pull them out when healing is needed? It also allows the game to branch out in terms of combat design and enemy lethality. Many enemies have gimmicks that encourage you to swap regularly, such as being able to inflict the front row with a constant miasma that gradually stacks bad status effects, so leaving one character out too long will leave them debilitated. The fact that you always have a character in the back row who can pick up where the front row left off means enemies can hit surprisingly hard or have a rather nasty gimmick.

Overall, I feel like Octopath 0 has the strongest combat in the series to date. While it lacks the most character-specific gimmicks of Octopath 2, the huge variety of characters, skills and abilities feel like they matter more and are more customizable in the long run. Just figuring out my cast and set of skills kept me busier longer than the previous games in the series. However, near the endgame, I was easily nuking enemies for absolutely absurd amounts of HP, and it made some of the late game boss fights feel too easy. On the other hand, when I did run into a cool boss fight, it made it feel all the more engaging.

As in the other games in the series, you can access Path Actions, which are special actions you can take while exploring towns and interacting with NPCs. These include the ability to Investigate NPCs to learn their backstory, purchase items, battle them, recruit them to fight for you as helpers, or invite them to live in Wishvale. The success rate of these various attributes is determined by your three measurements of attributes: Wealth, Fame and Power. Every quest you do or character you recruit gradually raises your success rate, which allows you to access to rare items.

The most interesting is the ability to invite people back to Wishvale, which is a fully customizable town. Beyond a few buildings that must be placed in certain locations, you're free to build and customize the town as you like. You start off with a few small houses and quickly gain the ability to build a tavern hub, shops, training zones to level up characters who aren't in your party, a monster arena, and more. There's a huge amount of potential customization options, with your limit being only plot progress and the system you're playing on. (Every system allows you to place more than enough buildings to get every mechanical advantage, but stronger systems like the PS5 or Switch 2 let you place more decorations and flavor items to customize your town.)

People you invite to town can be assigned to every building you create, and that changes the benefits of the town. Some NPCs will provide rare items from time to time, but you can put them in a building with a cute cat, who increases the rate at which items are given. Some might function as special shopkeepers that increase the selling value or reduce the purchasing cost of items. Buildings can also be upgraded, such as upgrading your tavern so you can swap party members on the field, or finding rare Azure Flamestones that grant you the ability to fast-travel to any location on the map or talk to animals. In addition, every recruitable party member has a series of small objectives you can complete to find out more about their history and upgrade their town skills.

The town building is somewhat simplistic but also weirdly addictive. I spent a shocking amount of time trying to plan out the perfect set of roommates to maximize my free items and cool bonuses. The ability to build and craft your own town is a really neat feature. If you're not fond of that, you can auto-fill your housing, which does a good (if not perfect) job of slotting characters into the appropriate buildings.

Octopath Traveler 0 has a lot of recycled material. It's not just recycled from the mobile game, but you'll revisit a lot of places and some encounters from Octopath Traveler 1. The game does a good job of making it feel like you're revisiting the world, and it has enough fresh experiences and encounters to keep things compelling, but I can imagine it potentially bothering someone who was hoping for a brand-new world to explore instead of a return to the original game. I think Octopath 0 is a better way to explore the world than the first Octopath.

There's a minor complaint with the visuals. Octopath Traveler 0 uses the same 2DHD sprites as the other games in the series, and for the most part, it looks quite nice because some more effort has been put into basic animations and environments. However, it is noticeable that some assets seem to be more tailored toward mobile game design, which can be a little jarring. This is negated by the game's top-notch soundtrack. An absolutely absurd number of songs, both new and remixed, drive the action and keep things feeling intense and engaged. The voice acting is more of a mixed bag, with some genuinely great performances and some that feel cheesy. The acting adds some much-needed personality to the adorably simple sprites.

Octopath Traveler 0 might be a rebuild of a gacha game, but it's a fun, engaging and excellent stand-alone JRPG. There's no trace of the microtransactions and monetization, and what remains is a game that captures much of what makes the Octopath franchise so beloved. I expected something half-baked and got what might be my favorite entry in the franchise to date, and it's a title that I'd consider to be a must-play for fans of turn-based RPGs.

Score: 9.0/10