History YMMV / OctopathTravelerII

** Mugen Ku presents himself as a powerful and invincible BloodKnight, but many of his actions imply that deep down, he's a cowardly [[TheParanoiac paranoiac]] who fears being judged by his own standards. He is obsessed with exterminating the Lumina bloodline partly because one of them influenced King Jigo, despite how they never personally did anything to him and the rest aren't even a threat to him politically[[note]]They ''did'' oppose D'Arquest in the past and could hypothetically oppose his descendents again in the present, but none of the modern-day Lumina descendents seem to be aware of this besides Hikari, who only finds out just before the final fight with Mugen and was opposing him anyway[[/note]]. When he attacks Ku's castle town and the nation of Sa, he slaughters most of the population of the former and as many as possible of the latter out of fear of potential rebellious elements, despite how this would also kill off potential sources of labor. Finally, he always has his helmet on because he doesn't want to reveal that the Curse of Ku accelerated his aging, instead of simply believing his strength will speak for itself. All of this indicates that he has deeply internalized the strongman aesthetic of his clan and is terrified of failing to uphold that legacy. Hikari proving to be a great warrior and popular prince without even trying to live up to Ku's ideals probably caused no end of resentment from Mugen; he doesn't have the same self-assurance and inner strength as Hikari and he knows it.

** Mugen Ku presents himself as a powerful and invincible BloodKnight, but many of his actions imply that deep down, he's a cowardly [[TheParanoiac paranoiac]] who fears being judged by his own standards. He is obsessed with exterminating Lumina's bloodline just because one of them influenced King Jigo, despite how they never personally did anything to him and the rest aren't even a threat to him politically. When he attacks Ku's castle town and the nation of Sa, he slaughters most of the population of the former and as many as possible of the latter out of fear of potential rebellious elements, despite how this would also kill off potential sources of labor. Finally, he always has his helmet on because he doesn't want to reveal that the Curse of Ku accelerated his aging, instead of simply believing his strength will speak for itself. All of this indicates that he has deeply internalized the strongman aesthetic of his clan and is terrified of failing to uphold that legacy. Hikari proving to be a great warrior and popular prince without even trying to live up to Ku's ideals probably caused no end of resentment from Mugen; he doesn't have the same self-assurance and inner strength as Hikari and he knows it.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeArt: Naoki Ikushima spared ''no'' expense in crafting something truly excellent with the various art pieces scattered throughout the game. Though also the genius behind previous ''[[SpritePolygonMix HD-2D]]'' games' art like ''VideoGame/BravelyDefaultII'', ''VideoGame/LiveALive'', and ''VideoGame/TriangleStrategy'', Ikushima went above and beyond for ''Octopath Traveler II,'' creating several extra pieces of gorgeous art to really punctuate the high points of the adventure, including animesque newspaper articles for Partitio's chapters 2 and 3, the various Crossed Paths title cards, and the brilliant end card that sees off the epilogue in the most gorgeous way possible. As always, the ''[[SpritePolygonMix HD-2D]]'' style itself continues to impress with meticulously put-together sprites interacting with gorgeous 3D backgrounds, taking everything great about the previous game and elevating it to an artform.

** Mugen Ku presents himself as a powerful and invincible BloodKnight, but many of his actions imply that deep down, he's a cowardly [[TheParanoiac paranoiac]] who fears being judged by his own standards. He is obsessed with exterminating Lumina's bloodline just because one of them influenced King Jigo, despite how they never personally did anything to him and the rest aren't even a threat to him politically. When he attacks Ku's castle town and the nation of Sa, he slaughters most of the population of the former and as many as possible of the latter out of fear of potential rebellious elements, despite how this would also kill off potential sources of labor. Finally, he always has his helmet on because he doesn't want to reveal that the Curse of Ku accelerated his aging, instead of simply believing his strength will speak for itself. All of this indicates that he has deeply internalized the strongman aesthetic of his clan and is terrified of failing to uphold that legacy. Hikari proving to be a great warrior without even trying to live up to Ku's ideals probably caused no end of resentment from Mugen; he doesn't have the same self-assurance and inner strength as Hikari and he knows it.

** Claude is rather divisive as the ArcVillain of [[spoiler:Throné]]'s story. [[spoiler:His detractors argue that TheReveal that he is [[TheAgeless immortal]] and has fathered the entire Blacksnakes isn't [[{{Foreshadowing}} foreshadowed]] enough and the suddenness of it potentially makes it feel [[{{Narm}} silly]] in its melodrama rather than horrifying, he is [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter introduced way too late to have the impact he could have had]], and is an AntiClimaxBoss with only 68,000 HP and no second phase[[note]]For comparison, Lucia, the ArcVillain with the lowest HP in the first game, had 84,084 HP, and she began the battle with ''30 shields''. While Claude can summon Phantom Pirro, Mother and Father while hiding himself (and if you add up the total HP of Claude and all three Phantom Snakes, you get 132,000 HP), they can be skipped if the party deals enough damage to him[[/note]]. However, some people think he is foreshadowed enough, and appreciate the [[NightmareFuel horror]] aspect he brings to an already-dark story.]]

* AngstWhatAngst: For some, it's a little jarring that, beyond to reacting to individual cases, the game never acknowledges the ''very'' consistent pattern of Hikari's friends betraying him, and to the end he advocates for ThePowerOfFriendship. While some of this can be chalked up to his forgiving nature, it's easy to find fans who [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation interpret it as the result of him being emotionally repressed and/or having normalized poor treatment from others]].

* AwardSnub: Many were upset that the game did not receive a single nomination in ''The Game Awards'', mainly for the "Best RPG", “Best Art Direction”, and "Best Score and Music" categories, with several game journalists citing the controversial nature of some nominations (''VideoGame/LiesOfP'' for being more of an adventure game, and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXVI'' having more in common with ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' than an RPG), contributing said snub being considered a mistake on the show's end. It didn't help that while it was included in the Players' Voice bracket, it didn't make it past the first round.

** The "Bottled Nightmares" item can be used on an enemy for a decently-high percentage chance to inflict four different status ailments. The four ailments in question are Blindness, Confusion, Sleep, and Poison, the last two are most important, as a sleeping opponent won't wake when taking poison damage and can't retaliate. Thus spamming Bottled Nightmares on enemies will slowly whittle down their HP until they are easily defeated. They cost 3,000 Leaves at the Black Market, which may price out early-game players, but Leaves come easily later on. This, however, allows the player to farm [[InfinityMinusOneSword Battle-Tested weapons]] from the right [=NPCs=].

** For added nuttiness, make Partitio an Arcanist and take a Cleric in with him. Using Aelfric's Blessing combined with Seal of Diffusion in a specific order can lead to Parti getting a permanent Seal of Diffusion and Aelfric's Blessing. Why is this so broken? Because now Parti can infinitely use Sidestep on the entire party from his Merchant kit, meaning all physical attacks will fail on them without fail - as long as you keep up the buff, the party is going to NoSell all physical attacks. You'll still have to watch for magic attacks, but don't worry - Partitio can use Rest to heal up the entire party's HP ''and'' SP for free too, and if you bring a Dancer, using it's Divine Blessing to make all buffs party wide can allow him to cast a reflect magic barrier on everyone. Congratulations - you just nerfed every boss in the game (saving the TrueFinalBoss and {{Superboss}}, who can cleanse buffs.)

** Osvald’s Breast. [[labelnote:Explanation]] MANY times throughout his story, Osvald will mention the “fire in his breast”. [[/labelnote]]

** Osvald’s Breast. [[labelnote:Explanation]] MANY times throughout his story, Osvald will mention the “fire in his breast”.

** Hikari's Curse of Ku has been cited as one of the weakest elements of his story, as beyond being the excuse for his Latent Talent, it barely factors into his story despite being in every chapter of it. His SuperpoweredEvilSide tries to get him to kill who ever he was fighting, but in every case he resists, and the resolution of the plot point is a sudden boss fight near the very end of his final chapter. The one time it is shown where Hikari almost loses control is in a flashback during Chapter Four, but said flashback is more focused on the backstory for Rai Mei than Hikari. Some have pointed out that you could remove it and little would be changed by it.

** While Hikari shows no opinion on the octopuff monster within the game itself, a few pieces of official art have him specifically interacting with one. As a result, it's common to see fanworks depicting him as having an affinity with them.

** Wind element is the most limited element in the game, with Dancer having the only wind attack in the game outside of Agnea's unique to her AOE wind attack. The only other means of getting wind damage is from items, certain monsters Ochette can capture, or the Conjurer giving a elemental wind buff to melee attacks. This limited application of one element that is not exactly uncommon to see used has been pointed out by some as being extremely frustrating by many players, especially because the first game had more ways to use said element.

* ScrappyMechanic: As with the previous game, the lack of LeakedExperience can trip up those who didn't think to/don't want to regularly swap out travelers to grind their levels, and the fact that you CantDropTheHero means your starting traveler will likely end up massively overleveled, forcing the player to artificially set handicaps if they don't want to simply steamroll the chapters they saved for last.

** Hikari's Curse of Ku has been cited as one of the weakest elements of his story, as beyond being the excuse for his Latent Talent, it barely factors into his story despite being in every chapter of it. His SuperpoweredEvilSide tries to get him to kill who ever he was fighting, but in every case he resists, and the resolution of the plot point is a sudden boss fight near the very end of his final chapter. The one time it is shown where Hikari almost looses control is in a flashback during Chapter Four, but said flashback is more focused on the backstory for Rai Mei than Hikari. Some have pointed out that you could remove it and little would be changed by it.

** The youtube channel FireyJoker, known for its annual New Years chronicaling of the gaming industry’s biggest fails of the year labeled TGA as a dishonorable mention specifically for snubbing Octopath 2.

** Cubaryi doesn't bother to hide her true nature, unlike Kaldena who at least attempted to act somewhat professional. She does this in response to Temenos not sharing his investigation with the Sacred Guard, making it seem like [[IKnowYouKnowIKnow she knows]] Temenos is on to the Sacred Guard and that there's no point in trying to hide it. Her antagonistic attitude comes off as her subtly bragging to Temenos that she and Kaldena will get away with their crimes, and that [[ImpliedDeathThreat they'll kill him]] for investigating further.

** For added nuttiness, make Partitio an Arcanist and take a Cleric in with him. Using Aelfric's Blessing combined with Seal of Diffusion in a specific order can lead to Parti getting a permanent Seal of Diffusion and Aelfric's Blessing. Why is this so broken? Because now Parti can infinitely use Sidestep on the entire party from his Merchant kit, meaning all physical attacks will fail on them without fail - as long as you keep up the buff, the party is going to NoSell all physical attacks. You'll still have to watch for magic attacks, but don't worry - Partitio can use Rest to heal up the entire party's HP ''and'' SP for free too. Congratulations - you just nerfed every boss in the game (saving the TrueFinalBoss and {{Superboss}}, who can cleanse buffs.)

** Much like the first game, people often make jokes about the cast being a bunch of [[ComedicSociopathy comedic sociopaths]] due to their ability to harm, steal, mug, incapacitate, and entice all manner of NPCs.

** Claude is rather divisive as the ArcVillain of [[spoiler:Throné]]'s story. [[spoiler:His detractors argue that TheReveal that he is [[TheAgeless immortal]] and has fathered the entire Blacksnakes isn't [[{{Foreshadowing}} foreshadowed]] enough and the suddenness of it potentially makes it feel [[{{Narm}} silly]] in its melodrama rather than horrifying, he is [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter introduced way too late to have the impact he could have had]], and is an AntiClimaxBoss with only 68,000 HP and no second phase[[note]]For comparison, Lucia, the ArcVillain with the lowest HP in the first game, had 84,000 HP, and she began the battle with ''30 shields''. While Claude can summon Phantom Pirro, Mother and Father while hiding himself (and if you add up the total HP of Claude and all three Phantom Snakes, you get 132,000 HP), they can be skipped if the party deals enough damage to him[[/note]]. However, some people think he is foreshadowed enough, and appreciate the [[NightmareFuel horror]] aspect he brings to an already-dark story.]]

** A popular subject of debate and analysis is [[spoiler:just how much Ori's 'scrivener' personality is a front. Unlike Arcanette, who the game unambiguously paints as a manipulative, vile monster during her scene with [[KillTheCutie Tanzy]], and who only pretends to be sweet and soft-spoken to fly under the Pontiff and Temenos' radar, there's a lot of ambiguity cast on Ori's personality. During her BungledSuicide, she herself realizes just in time how much Partitio meant to her, and could be reasonably distressed and uncharacteristically dour [[IveComeTooFar given the task she intends to complete]]. As this scene compromises her last speaking role and her own journal flips back and forth between her 'excited' and 'cold' sides, it's difficult to tell which Ori is the real Ori--or if the nihilistic Ori ''was'' the real Ori, until Partitio's audacity to buy the steam engine rights for eighty billion leaves [[BecomingTheMask inspired honest hope and cheer in her]].]]

* AwardSnub: Many were upset that the game did not receive a single nomination in ''The Game Awards'', mainly for the "Best RPG", “Best Art Direction”, and "Best Score and Music" categories. Though it later was included in the Players' Voice bracket, it didn't make it past round one, with several game journalists citing the controversial nature of some nominations (''VideoGame/LiesOfP'' for being more of an adventure game, and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXVI'' having more in common with ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' than an RPG). ''Octopath Traveler II''’s snub was considered a mistake on the show's end.

* LowTierLetdown:
** Osvald has a lot less power than Cyrus did due to Cyrus getting the two-hit magic spells (Firestorm, Blizzard, Lightning Blast) natively, making it easy for him to help with (or, indeed, OneHitKill) RandomEncounters. Osvald, on the other hand, has to spend a turn self-buffing with "Advanced Magic" before he can contribute this way, and the utility he gets from his three new spells simply does not make up for the loss in efficiency. While Cyrus usually fell off at the end-game due to the Sorcerer job rendering him less useful, he was still considered good due to the Starseer job giving him the elements he was missing and further utility, while Osvald falls off harder because of the general weakness of the Scholar job.
** Similarly, the long-gone Sorcerer secret job is replaced by the Scholar job's new Divine Skill "Alephan's Wisdom", meaning that, where the Sorcerer could drop ''Lux Congerere'' on the first turn, this game requires an absolute minimum of two turns[[note]]Osvald has "One Step Ahead" and "Boost-Start" among his passives; on his second turn, he casts Wisdom on Temenos; Temenos comes ''after'' Osvald in the turn order[[/note]] to get it out. Also, the Orsterran Sorcerer could cast a three-hit Wind spell, which is straight-up not available to anyone in the Solistian party.
** While the Merchant in both games is pretty busted due to the power of "[[CastFromMoney Hired Help]]" and "[[NonchalantDodge Sidestep]]," Tressa had other abilities that helped her provide value before those two abilities could be abused, famously being broken as a Runelord because of the native abilities of Merchant synergizing with Runelord. Partitio has traded them for abilities of lesser value, and he can't naturally provide "SP Saver," which on Solistia is attached to a secret job. Partitio is a more powerful endgame character, due to his access to the Inventor SwissArmyWeapon class and a more flexible Hired Help roster, but he also starts out a lot weaker, making some players never use him because of the amount of effort needed.

** Much like the first game, people often make jokes about the cast being a bunch of [[ComedicSociopathy comedic sociopaths]].

** This game's Hunter, Ochette, also being a Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Trainer. This time, you even get to choose a starter!

** While the Merchant in both games is pretty busted due to the power of "[[CastFromMoney Hired Help]]" and "[[NonchalantDodge Sidestep]]," Tressa had other abilities that helped her provide value before those two abilities could be abused, famously being broken as a Runeblade because of the native abilities of Merchant synergizing with Runeblade. Partitio has traded them for abilities of lesser value, and he can't naturally provide "SP Saver," which on Solistia is attached to a secret job. Partitio is a more powerful endgame character, due to his access to the Inventor SwissArmyWeapon class and a more flexible Hired Help roster, but he also starts out a lot weaker, making some players never use him because of the amount of effort needed.