Video Game / Octopath Traveler

Embark on an adventure all your own.^note Left to right: Ophilia, Tressa, Alfyn, Olberic, Primrose, H'aanit, Cyrus, and Therion.

"What does it mean to play a role? In a vast world of adventure...the places you go...the deeds you do...the heroes whose tales you bring to life...every road is yours to take."

— Monologue of the first trailer

Octopath Traveler is a JRPG for the Nintendo Switch, helmed by the producers behind the Bravely Default series and developed by Square Enix and Acquire. The game was initially announced in January 2017 during the Nintendo Switch Presentation. An early playable demo featuring the characters Olberic and Primrose was released on the Switch's eShop on September 13th, 2017. A second "Prologue Demo", featuring the first chapters for each character, was released on June 14th and allowed progress to be carried over to the final game. The final game was released on July 13, 2018. The game was later ported to Windows PCs via Steam on June 7, 2019, followed by Google Stadia on April 28, 2020, and Xbox Game Pass on March 25, 2021.

The first entry in what's referred to as the "HD-2D series", Octopath Traveler is a deliberate throwback to Super NES JRPGs. Its name comes from its graphical Sprite/Polygon Mix, in which 3D environments are textured with 2D sprites. It features Turn-Based Combat, fixed Character Classes, a sprawling plot, and music which takes the technical limitations of older games (looping tracks, limited instrument choices, etc) and uses them as stylistic choices. Like the Bravely Default series, the game combines the Break Meter with the "Boost System", wherein characters receive "boost points" each turn, of which they can store five. These Boost points can then be applied on later turns to strengthen attacks or increase the potency of abilities.

Octopath takes place in a world created and ruled by twelve gods, who originally were thirteen until the wicked Galdera betrayed the others and was sealed away. The game has the player choose one of eight characters, each with their own origins, paths and goals. As you travel the land of Orsterra, you are free to choose where you wish to explore, slowly meeting the other seven characters and learning their stories once they join your party. Each character has their own unique Classes, Noble or Rogue Path Actions (allowing them to influence, manipulate, or glean items or info from NPCs), and Talents (additional skills that can aid in battle or on the field).

• Ophilia Clement, the Cleric: A member of the Order of the Sacred Flame, who goes on a pilgrimage known as the Kindling to reignite the sacred flame at holy sites across the realm, eventually fighting against a sinister Galdera-worshipping cult led by the mysterious Savior who want to sabotage the Kindling. Ophilia's Path Action is Guide, which lets her convince NPCs to follow her. This lets her lead them away from or towards destinations for a variety of purposes, as well as use them as an Assist Character within battle by using her Talent Summon.
• Cyrus Albright, the Scholar: A teacher in an esteemed academy in Atlasdam, who goes on a journey to recover a tome filled with ancient knowledge known as From the Far Reaches of Hell, which vanished from the academy's archives over a decade beforehand. Cyrus's Path Action is Scrutinize, which lets him interrogate NPCs. However, since this is a Rogue Path Action, he runs the risk of damaging the party's reputation in town if he fails. His Talent is Study Foe, which automatically alerts the player to one of an enemy's unknown weaknesses at the start of battle.
• Tressa Colzione, the Merchant: A young woman who crosses paths with a traveling merchant one day, and decides that she also wants to explore the world to become a merchant like her parents and enjoy whatever treasures she may find while doing so. She finds a notebook by an anonymous author and decides to visit all the locations he wrote about in the hopes of finding treasure. Tressa's Path Action is Purchase, which lets her buy items from NPCs. Some of the items you can buy are only found this way, and some can be used to clear quest objectives. Her Talent is Eye for Money, which randomly grants the party a small amount of money whenever Tressa enters a part of the overworld map.
• Olberic Eisenberg, the Warrior: A former knight from the fallen kingdom of Hornburg tortured by self-doubt after failing to stop his companion Erhardt from murdering the king of Hornburg and destroying the kingdom years ago. Olberic's story has him on a journey to track down Erhardt, discover why he betrayed them, and attempt to rediscover his purpose in life. As a Warrior, Olberic places a major focus on physical skills in combat, and he is capable of wielding Swords and Polearms. His Path Action is Challenge, which lets him engage NPCs in combat. He can chase away troublemakers and open up guarded pathways. His Talent, Bolster Defense, lets him protect allies by entering Boost Mode when defending.
• Primrose Azelhart, the Dancer: The daughter of a noble house who was orphaned at a young age and now works as a dancer under the abusive Helgenish. Primrose's goal is to find the the Crow Men, the leaders of the Obsidians who killed her father, in the name of revenge. As a Dancer, Primrose can buff her allies, and she is capable of using both knives and Dark elemental magic. Primrose's Path Action is Allure, the Rogue counterpart to Ophilia's Guide, meaning her reputation will suffer if she fails. She also shares the Summon talent with her.
• Alfyn Greengrass, the Apothecary: A young man who works as a traveling doctor, healing the sick and wounded wherever he can find them, in memory of the man who saved him when he was a boy. Alfyn's Path Action is Inquire, the Noble counterpart to Cyrus's Path Action Scrutinize. This lets him glean information from any NPC he's talking to, giving insight to their backstory as well as various perks, such as discounts at shops or the location of hidden items. In battle, his Talent Concoct lets him mix together potions which have various effects.
• Therion, the Thief: A thief who, after a botched heist, is recruited by a wealthy client to procure a set of rare gemstones that were stolen from the client. Therion's Path Action is Steal, the Rogue counterpart to Tressa's Path Action Purchase. He is able to take items from NPCs for free, but as a Rogue action, there is a chance of failure, which will lower his reputation if he fails. His Talent, Pick Lock, lets him open purple treasure chests in the overworld, which no one else can do.
• H'aanit, the Hunter: A hunter searching for her master, who disappeared while pursuing a rampaging beast called "Redeye". H'aanit's Path Action is Provoke, which is the Rogue counterpart to Olberic's Path Action Challenge. This lets her send monsters into battle against NPCs to achieve the same results as Challenge, though at the risk of her reputation. Her Talent is Capture, which lets her tame weakened monsters in battle for use as assist characters.

A prequel game, Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent, released in Japan on October 28, 2020. A mobile Spin-Off for iOS and Android, it features the same artstyle and Path Actions as the original game, with a new cast of 64 playable characters. See also Triangle Strategy, a Tactics Ogre-inspired Strategy RPG that is the second mainline title in the "HD-2D series" which released in 2022.

A sequel to the game set in a new world, Octopath Traveler II, was released on February 24, 2023, and is available on the Switch, PC via Steam, and PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, marking the first time an "HD-2D" game has seen a multi-platform launch and seen release on PlayStation hardware.

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Tropes associated with Octopath Traveler are:

#-C

• 13 Is Unlucky: According to the creation myth presented at the beginning of Ophilia's Chapter 1, there were originally 13 creator gods. However, the thirteenth god, Galdera, betrayed the others and was sealed away after a battle.
• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Cyrus and Tressa's second and fourth chapters, respectively, feature the sewers in Quarryquest and Grandport as dungeons.
• Absurdly High Level Cap: The maximum is 99, when the final chapters of each character's story are balanced for level 45. In addition, the True Final Boss, which is the game's most difficult fight, is balanced for level 55.
• Achilles' Heel: While Attack Its Weak Point is a core component of the gameplay, several Barrier Change Bosses have one consistent weakness across all their sets.
  • The Lord of the Forest, H'aanit's Chapter 2 boss, is always weak to Fire.
  • Esmeralda, Tressa's Chapter 4 boss, is always weak to Wind.
  • Redeye, H'aanit's Chapter 4 boss, is always weak to Light.
  • Simeon, the Puppet Master, Primrose's Chapter 4 boss, is always weak to Dark. Downplayed because Simeon seals all but one of his weaknesses (Daggers) when the second phase of his fight begins, and his Achilles' Heel isn't unsealed until you Break him several times.
• Actor Allusion: Houko Kuwashima once again voices a young woman hellbent on revenge for her murdered father. Though this time around, she’s much more composed and much less violent towards those not responsible.
• Actually Four Mooks:
  • Inverted Trope; most of the Chapter 1 Flunky Boss humans will have 4-6 lackeys behind them, only to enter battle with two (though admittedly they can summon more if those die first.) When Olberic confronts a half-dozen bandits guarding the entrance of their hideout, he only fights half of them.
  • Played straight for both players and enemies during some story battles, where it looks like a one-on-one battle until the battle screen has the rest of the party show up along with additional enemies.
• Actually, I Am Him: In Tressa's opening chapter, she attempts to take back stolen goods from a band of pirates who claim to owe their Might Makes Right philosophy to a famed pirate by the name of Captain Leon. She is rescued by a mysterious merchant who had sailed into port earlier that day - soon revealed to be none other than Leon himself, having given up his life as a buccaneer to become an honest merchant.
• All There in the Manual: Details regarding ages, backstories, occurrences in the timeline, and other unmentioned things in-game are talked about in the official setting and guide book.
• Ambiguously Bi:
  • Travel banter between the travelers can get flirtatious and even intimate at times, regardless of gender, either intentionally (e.g. Primrose) or not (e.g. Cyrus).
  • It is implied that Yusufa has a crush on Primrose, as she expresses sounds of admiration at her friend's wilful demeanour. She also works at a tavern where she dances for wealthy men, and it is implied that she and her co-workers do more than just dancing for Helgenish and his patrons.
• And Then What?: A speech like this happens between a few of the heroes and their respective Final Boss.
  • When Cyrus confronts his Big Bad, the traitorous scholar Lucia, Cyrus realizes that they plan on hoarding all of the knowledge in the world, using Black Magic to make themselves eternally young. Cyrus then asks the Big Bad what they intend to do with all of that knowledge, to which the Big Bad doesn't really give an answer. Cyrus uses this in a Kirk Summation that lectures the Big Bad on the importance of passing on knowledge to the next generation, then accuses the Big Bad of hoarding knowledge out of an inflated sense of ego and wanting to be the smartest person in the room, not for any sort of specific ambition.
  • Therion's Big Bad, his former thieving partner-turned-backstabber Darius, wants to use the Dragonstones that they stole from House Ravus for the sake of power. But since the Big Bad has a Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, Therion counters that even if they succeed, they'll have no one they can trust, and then what are they going to do?
    • The question proves prophetic after the Big Bad is defeated. Darius is backstabbed by his men — literally, he's stabbed and left to die — and the only thing he can do before he dies is desperately call out for Therion, who has long since abandoned him.
  • Primrose's path sees the villain give her such a question instead of the other way around. Her Big Bad, Primrose's former Love Interest Simeon, points out that if Primrose manages to kill the Crows like she wants to, she'll have nothing left to live for. So what will she do if she gets her revenge? This is enough to make Primrose momentarily falter, requiring a Battle in the Center of the Mind to snap her out of it.
• Anti-Debuff:
  • Apothecaries get "Rehabilitate". It cures existing status effects, and prevents the target from receiving new status effects for a limited time.
  • Starseers get "Celestial Intervention". It removes existing debuffs, and prevents the target from being debuffed for a limited time.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • When characters use a magic attack, the damage inflicted utilizes the weapon in the character's arsenal that gives the highest Elemental Attack bonus. For example, if a character uses magic while equipped with a sword, but their equipped staff gives a bigger bonus, the game will automatically defer to the staff's bonus rather than making the player juggle their weapons.
  • When selling items, all the Shop Fodder is automatically organized at the top for easy selling.
  • The cursor always starts on the last enemy targeted, so you don't need to cycle through them to get to the one you wanted to attack first.
  • When using healing items or the Apothecary's First Aid skill, the cursor automatically points at the party member with the lowest health. Similarly, the Thief's Share SP skill automatically points at the party member with the lowest SP.
  • Linde can randomly unleash either a Sword or Polearm-based attack when summoned by H'aanit. If your target has a confirmed weakness to one of those, Linde will automatically use the weapon type that the target is weak to without fail.
  • Every dungeon map includes many small branches that lead to treasure chests. In most cases the branch toward the end boss is marked with an environment light source like a torch.
  • You are unable to enter the Sunshade Tavern during Primrose’s Chapter 1, despite this the Tavern Keeper will be located outside of the Tavern for that Chapter only so you’ll still be able to switch out party members and restore reputation.
• Anti-Grinding: While Olberic and H'aanit can challenge just about any NPC, the ones with low star counts give only small EXP payouts to keep the player from fighting entire towns indefinitely for quick levels. NPCs in general also give significantly less JP than random encounters.
• Apologetic Attacker: Tressa apologizes when she uses Steal.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: A total of four party members can be on the team at a time, while reserve party members can be swapped in at any town's tavern. Within battle, Ophilia and Primrose's abilities allow for a maximum of six party members, with the additional two being NPCs controlled by the AI. Whoever you picked as your first character is locked into the party until their story is completed, even though this has no impact whatsoever on the storyline or gameplay mechanics.
• Arc Number: Eight.
  • There are eight playable characters, each with their own storyline (hence the title).
    • Each of these characters has one of eight unique basic job classes (and can dual-class). In addition, each one of these jobs plus the four secret ones has eight skills to be learned.
  • The continent the game takes place in is divided into eight geographical regions (Frostlands, Flatlands, Coastlands, etc.) and the playable characters each start their journey in a different one of these regions.
  • Olberic lost his king and his city-state of Hornburg eight years ago.
  • Eight warring clans used to inhabit the Flatlands, before uniting against an opposing army and founding the city-state of Atlasdam.
  • There are eight three-part sidequests to take part in, one for each of Orsterra's regions.
  • Out of the 24 towns in the game, eight of them have unique music^note They are: Flamesgrace, Atlasdam, Cobbleston, Sunshade, Clearbrook, Victors Hollow, Grandport, and Orewell.
    • One town with unique music can be found in all eight geographical regions.
  • The Steam version of the game has 88 achievements.
  • At the end of his story, Cyrus is seen teaching a class of eight students.
  • The song that plays during the credits is eight minutes long.
  • During the second phase of the True Final Boss fight, Lyblac, the Blade of the Fallen, and the Abyssal Maw all have eight different attacks.
• Arc Words: Certain spoken words and phrases carry weight throughout each traveler's individual stories.
  • Ophilia: "Loneliness."
  • Cyrus: "Knowledge is for one and all."
  • Tressa: "What is your most precious treasure?"
  • Olberic: "For what did I wield my sword?"
  • Primrose: "Faith shall be your shield."
  • Alfyn: "I saw someone in a bind, and I helped him out. Simple as that."
  • Therion: "It's believing in people that makes us strong."
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Tressa is terrified of ghosts, thunder and... debts.
• Artificial Brilliance: H'aanit's snow leopard, Linde, has two attacks that are selected at random: an AoE Sword attack, and a single-target Polearm attack. If a foe is discovered to be weak to one of those attacks, Linde will default to the attack her foe is weak to. Furthermore, if multiple enemies on the battlefield are discovered to be weak to Swords, and are not broken, Linde will almost always use her Sword attack to reduce their Shield Points.
• Artificial Stupidity: The enemy AI doesn't register when a party member has Reflective Veil cast on them. As a result, enemies will continue to cast magic on a buffed character even after their own magic blows up in their face. This can be exploited with hilarious results in battles against magic-reliant foes, such as Mattias and Dreisang.
• As You Know:
  • Early on in characters' storylines, they will often reminisce with those close to them in order to provide exposition about their backstories.
  • In Ophilia's Chapter 4, the Arc Villain tells Ophilia about how the gods used the Sacred Flame to seal away Galdera, noting that she should know this as a cleric, before getting to his point- he wants to use the ember to loosen Galdera's bonds and gain power.
• Assist Character: There are multiple versions of this in the game.
  • Characters you draw with Primrose's Allure or Ophilia's Guide skill can be brought into combat with a command. They can attack, use a special skill if they have one, and occasionally defend the protagonists from certain attacks. However, they will exit battle after a few turns. While you can re-summon them multiple times per battle, each can only be summoned a certain number of times in total.
  • H'aanit's Talent allows her to summon any of her captured monsters to deliver a single attack. Aside from her Animal Companion Linde, these creatures can only be summoned a certain number of times before they vanish from her roster.
  • The Merchant class has a skill that allows the character using it to spend money in order to hire mercenaries that will rush in and deliver a single attack. Unlike the other Assist Character types, the only limit to how many times these mercenaries can be called upon is the amount of money you're willing and able to spend.
• Attack Its Weak Point: One of the core aspects of the combat system.
  • Hitting an enemy with its weakness causes it to lose shield points, in addition to dealing extra damage. When an enemy's shield points hit zero, the shield temporarily breaks and they lose a turn, during which an even greater amount of damage can be dealt. Also played with, because a key strategy the game expects you to pick up on by the third set of chapters is when to attack a weak point to maximize your party's ability to beat the boss up... and have time afterwards to buff and heal back up, since after recovering from being broken, bosses will generally get to move multiple times and hit back harder.
  • The entire weapon system is tailored around this mechanic. There are eight classes, four each of Combat and Support, and Combat classes have a Choice of Two Weapons whereas the Support classes only have one. But, because there are only six weapon types, this means that there are two classes that wield any given weapon. As a result, if a Boss is weak to, say, Daggers, you can tailor your party appropriately: Therion the Thief and Primrose the Dancer use Daggers natively, and your other two party members can take Thief and Dancer as their subjob, guaranteeing that all four party members can exploit the Achilles' Heel. Of course, this too gets played with as the game progresses, as bosses start being able to temporarily change their own weaknesses...
• Awesome, but Impractical:
  • The Dancers Bewildering Grace skill allows the Dancer to perform a dance that gives one of many random effects, some of which are so powerful, that they can really seem tempting, such as giving the party HP, SP, BP, giving huge increases to EXP and SP gained, or dealing elemental damage to all enemies. However, it also has a list of negative effects, such as a full party silence debuff, causing items to not be usable, or removing all the casters SP or BP. Unless the player really wants to test their luck and see the potential benefits they can get, using it is an easy way to cripple a party or reduce the resources you have. It only really becomes even vaguely practical if the player is level grinding, and makes sure to account for the issues it can cause.
  • Automated sentries are convenient for when manpower fails, but they can be taxing to repair, and nearly impossible to do mid-fight. Break Orlick's guardian in his boss fight and it will no longer respond to his commands to fight you. "But the guardian can move no more..."
• Background Music Override: The battle against Erhardt during Olberic's third chapter has Olberic's theme playing, continued from the cutscene before it.
• Badass Boast:
  • Every character has one (or more) when fully boosted.
    Ophilia: Prepare yourself! / Here I go!
    Cyrus: Now the true lesson begins! / My focus is unparalleled!
    Tressa: I won't hold back!
    Olberic: My blade is unbending!
    Primrose: Ha! Watch me now!
    Alfyn: Let's get down to work! / Alrighty!
    Therion: Let's do this! / I'm ready! Are you?!
    H'aanit: Holden back nothing! / Comen!
  • When entering a fight, H'aanit has one as well.
    H'aanit: Standest thou against me? Then be hunted!
• Badass Bystander: Nearly every NPC in the game has individual stats for the sake of the effect that Path Actions have on them, with their power ranging from 1★ to 10★.
• Barrier Change Boss: Many later bosses will change their weaknesses every time they recover from Break. Some of them also keep their weaknesses protected, requiring you to either get rid of their flunkies first or Break them using the few weaknesses that are available to reveal more. Special mention goes to Redeye, the final boss of H'aanit's story, who does this every turn (although it always retains a weakness to Light).
• Battle Aura:
  • Entering Boost will cause a colored flame aura to envelop your character. As you use more BP, the aura's color changes and becomes much stronger.
  • Bosses gain a purple aura when they're about to unleash their most dangerous attack.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: All the good gods you fight look human and normal, with the minor exception of Winnehild's extra arms. The fallen god Galdera, on the other hand, is an unholy cross between Big Red Devil, Tin Tyrant, and Eldritch Abomination. Mostly averted with each chapter's Arc Villains, many of whom are rather attractive (the human ones, at least).
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Yusufa stands up for Primrose and distracts Helgenish for her, because Prim was the only dancer there who was kind to her. This ends up being what gets her killed.
  • This is also why Therion continues to assist House Ravus, even after the band on his arm is unlocked.
• Beyond Redemption:
  • In Alfyn's tale, he heals a criminal with an infected wound. However, after they kidnap a young child and use him as a hostage as leverage to escape, Alfyn decides to forget about trying to make the criminal see the light. After the boss battle is over, Alfyn's fighting has re-opened the wound, and he leaves the criminal for dead.
  • Again in Alfyn's tale, he encounters a fellow apothecary named Ogen, who openly states: "Some lives are not worth saving." He holds this belief not only towards the aforementioned criminal (about whom he turns out to be right), but himself as well.^note This is due to his guilt over murdering a former patient who killed his late wife while still a patient under Ogen's care. Alfyn spends the last parts of his tale getting Ogen treated for an illness Ogen has been suffering from but has refused to treat himself for because of his belief towards himself.
• Big Bad: Lyblac, the "Daughter of the Dark God" who is scheming to resurrect Galdera from beyond the Gate of Finis. Said schemes impact the lives of all eight protagonists.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • In his final chapter, when Therion is surrounded by Darius's thieves, Heathcote comes in, kills some of them, and creates an escape route for him.
  • In Tressa's first chapter, as she's surrounded by pirates, Tressa is saved by the benevolent merchant she met prior, who actually turns out to be former Captain Leon Bastralle, whom the pirates quote and idolize.
  • In Olberic's fourth chapter, during the revolution in Riverford, Erhardt appears, holding the mooks back, while Olberic goes to fight Werner.
  • In Cyrus's third chapter, the titular protagonist ends up being trapped by the Headmaster in a sealed off room. At first, it seems like Cyrus will find a way to escape, but he ends up being saved by his student Therese, who heard about the Headmaster's intentions and came to warn Cyrus.
• Bittersweet Ending: Primrose's ending. Primrose finally avenges her father and effectively dismantles the Obsidians, but just as Simeon warned her, killing him and his enforcers did nothing to ease her pain or bring her peace, and now that her revenge is complete, she has no idea what to do with her life anymore. But with the Obsidians severely depowered, a major evil has been wiped from Orsterra, and Lyblac has lost the primary enforcers of her will (and moreso when Lyblac herself bites it later), and Primrose herself also refuses to let her vengeance-inflicted emptiness consume her, she will continue to dance until she finds her own happiness... which may be right next to her in her beloved hometown....
• Black Mage: Scholars get access to spells of three elements, while most other classes only get one. Exaggerated with the Sorcerer, which grants access to spells of all six elements.
• Blow You Away: Merchants have wind magic, as a Pun on "trade winds".
• Bond One-Liner: After Primrose has just stabbed her abusive employer Helgenish, and he spins around before falling to the ground and dying.
  Primrose: ...Quite the dancer yourself, in the end.
• Book Ends:
  • Ophilia begins and ends her story with Lianna atop her favorite hill overlooking their home.
  • Primrose's story begins with her dancing, her dance symbolic of her perseverance. At the end of her story, she determines to keep dancing, but this time with different conviction behind it. In addition, her first and last boss battles are against a disgustingly cruel man who murdered someone close to her and spends the fight reclining in a chair, accompanied by their flunkies. Until Simeon starts trying.
  • Alfyn's first and last chapters has him fight a vicious animal so he can obtain something from it to develop a cure.
• Boring, but Practical: You can simply spend BP to make up to four normal Attacks on a foe. Even if the attacks deal little damage, if the target is weak to the attack, this is surprisingly useful to get a quick stun on an enemy, even a boss.
• Boss Banter: This occurs in two separate Final Boss battles, Ophilia's and Therion's. Ophilia's is voiced, but Therion's is not.
• Boss Bonanza: Instead of the standard "explore dungeon, fight boss at the end" format, Olberic's chapter 2 consist mainly of 4 boss battles back to back. There is no dungeon to explore.
• Boss in Mook Clothing:
  • Of the many NPCs that you can interact with, the ones that make the best allies can also serve as enemies powerful enough to put some of the bosses to shame when challenged with Olberic or H'aanit, who must fight all challenged NPCs alone. Every town and village is host to at least two or three such characters.
  • As chapters are cleared, the Danger Level of some areas will rise and new enemies can appear in them. It is possible that previous areas where the enemies could be managed will suddenly start spawning enemies tougher than previous chapters' bosses after you progress far enough into the game.
• Boss Rush: Shadowy copies of eight notable bosses (Mattias, Yvon, the Venomtooth Tiger, Werner, Simeon, Miguel, Darius, and the White Dragon) must be fought at the Gate of Finis before the True Final Boss.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Defeating the True Final Boss rewards the Spurning Ribbon, which eliminates all random encounters when someone has it equipped. Said True Final Boss is the single toughest fight in the game, so if you've got the Spurning Ribbon, it's safe to say nothing else in the game can threaten you. On the other hand, it also means you no longer need to gain Experience Points, so you can now afford to eliminate random encounters entirely and roam the world without being interrupted.
• Break Meter: The gameplay revolves around a Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors system in which exploiting your foes' weaknesses will cause their Armor Points to deplete. If their Armor Points reach 0, this makes the target Break, which will stun it for one turn and lowers its defenses. After that turn, a recovering enemy will always get to act first.
• But Thou Must!: In Olberic's third chapter, he has to "Challenge" a certain ten-star NPC to a fight. The usual Challenge prompt comes up, but you can only pick "Yes" to accept the challenge, and the game won't progress until you do.
• Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": Alfyn's final boss, the "Ogre Eagle", is a griffon.
• The Cameo: A piece of official artwork has Tiz and his brother Til giving directions to Olberic and Primrose.
• Can't Drop the Hero: Whichever of the eight protagonists you choose to start the game with is locked into your party until you finish their Chapter 4 story segment. After that, you can swap them out if you wish.
• Cap Raiser: Both games have a damage limit of 9999 and allow the Warrior job to unlock a passive skill that when equipped raises the damage limit to 99999.
• Cat Folk: The Cait enemies, feline creatures that walk upright and wear jaunty traveling clothes.
• Central Theme: Each character has a recurring theme throughout their individual stories.
  • Ophilia: The pain and loneliness of loss and how it can taint a person without others to help them.
  • Cyrus: At what point does the gift of knowledge become a danger?
  • Tressa: People being measured, not by their wealth or power, but by their character.
  • Olberic: What motivates people and gives them purpose? What happens when one loses that purpose?
  • Primrose: Humans Are Bastards. Will revenge heal your scars and make you happy?
  • Alfyn: Living life and being the kind of person you can be proud of.
  • Therion: Betrayal is painful and how people who lose the ability to trust are weaker for it.
  • H'aanit: Respecting and celebrating life, stories, and the people we share them with.
• Character Select Forcing: A couple of downplayed examples.
  • While the characters can have their jobs replicated at a given shrine, most of those are in Lv. 17+ areas... except the Dancer job, which is tucked away amidst a throng of Lv. 30-ish monsters. So unless you want to go without the buffs and Dark damage the job brings to the table, you have no choice but to bring Primrose along until you can safely access that shrine.
  • Therion is the only character who can open the locked chests scattered around since this is his personal Talent, and not bestowed by the Thief class. As a result, if you want to get all of those treasures, you either need to keep him constantly in the party or take him back to previously-visited areas.
• Checkpoint Starvation: The Very Definitely Final Dungeon forces you through an eight-man Boss Rush followed by a showdown with the True Final Boss without any opportunity to save. This is particularly jarring since the rest of the game is littered with save points.
• Chekhov's Gun: Early in Alfyn's story, he and Zeph switch medical packs so they'll have a reminder of the other when they part. Zeph hid a note to Alfyn in his, which is vital to lifting Alfyn's spirits in his last chapter.
• Church Militant: The Knights Ardante, a chivalrous organization that serves the Church of the Flame. They have strict rules regarding the conduct of their knights and will strip a Knight for violation of those rules.
• Color-Coded Characters: The Protagonists and their classes all have their own color motif going on.
  • Ophilia and the Cleric class is white.
  • Cyrus and the Scholar class is black.
  • Tressa and the Merchant class is yellow.
  • Olberic and the Warrior class is blue.
  • Primrose is red, but the Dancer class itself does not have a color in an odd exception to the rule. Anyone who multiclasses into a Dancer retains the color of their original class.
  • Alfyn and the Apothecary class is green
  • Therion and the Thief class is purple.
  • H'aanit and the Hunter class is pink.
• Combat and Support: Any character with a Choice of Two Weapons (Tressa the Merchant, Olberic the Warrior, Therion the Thief, H'aanit the Hunter) is Combat; their "Divine Skills," which can only be unlocked at the end of the Skill Tree and require 3 BP to cast, are all offensive attacks. The others (Ophilia the Cleric, Cyrus the Scholar, Primrose the Dancer, Alfyn the Apothecary) are Support, being more focused on healing, attack magic or buffing; their Divine Skills are buffs. That being said, the Subjob system not only allows mixing-and-matching, but to a certain extent encourages it: many Combat-oriented Passive Skills are hidden in the Support classes, and vice versa. (Passives can be equipped regardless of what classes a character is currently wearing.)
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Several attacks by the Optional Boss gods have secondary effects which are nowhere to be seen when the player defeats them and earns their respective jobs. This is most noticable with Balogar and Winnehild, wielding Status Inflicting Attacks which the actual Runelord and Warmaster jobs don't get. Dreisang's Elemental Break also reduces both elemental defense and elemental attack, whereas the eponymous Sorcerer skill reduces only elemental defense.
• Connected All Along: All eight characters' stories involve the cult of Galdera, specifically Lyblac's machinations to unseal Galdera himself. To list them off:
  • Ophilia: Mattias needed the Sacred Flame weakened in order to power the Dark Flame of Galdera. Mattias intended on only doing it a little to gain Galdera's power and not actually free him, but Lyblac wanted otherwise.
  • Cyrus: From The Far Reaches Of Hell contains the actual ritual needed to unseal Galdera.
  • Tressa: The journal Tressa found belonged to Graham Crossford and was stolen by Esmeralda to try to find any clue to his location, or his son Kit.
  • Olberic: Hornburg was destroyed because the Gate of Finis, beyond which lies Galdera, was buried deep below the Castle.
  • Primrose: Her father was killed because he had learned too much of the plan to revive Galdera and needed to be silenced.
  • Alfyn: The apothecary who saved his life was none other than Graham Crossford himself.
  • Therion: The Dragonstones were essentially the "key" to the lock that held Galdera prisoner.
  • H'aanit: Redeye is actually Graham Crossford, transformed into a monstrosity due to Lyblac's first failed attempt to try to free Galdera.
• Contrived Coincidence: Every time Alfyn goes to a new town for one of his chapters, there always just happends to be a medical emergency in progress there requiring his services.
• Credits Montage: The game keeps track of the final blow done to every boss, and once the player beats their chosen protagonist's fourth chapter, replays them all in the background while credits scroll. To get the most montage, the chosen protagonist's fourth chapter must be finished last, but this comes at the cost of the main protagonist being stuck in the party until every main chapters are finished.
• Creepy Jazz Music: Sunshade's musical theme is a slowed down jazz version of the desert town music. It contributes to the town's creepy atmosphere.
• Criminal Doppelgänger: One sidequest available after clearing Tressa and Therion's stories involves a criminal who's impersonating Leon Bastralle to rob people, unaware that the real Leon has already reformed himself.
• Crutch Character:
  • Cyrus. During the early- to mid-game, his spells are the best way to inflict elemental damage and break shields with elemental attacks, helped by his having the highest elemental attack of the eight protagonists. However, the secret Sorcerer job renders him all but redundant, with Analyze and Alephan's Enlightenment being the only skills that still stand out; and even then, by the time you unlock the Sorcerer job, Analyze isn't that helpful as you can just bruteforce your way through most Random Encounters anyway.
  • High-powered NPCs serve as this when you use Ophilia's Guide or Primrose's Allure skills to have them to join your party, as well as the beasts that H'aanit can capture and the mercenaries that Tressa can hire during battle. Early on, they can be some of your heaviest hitters, dealing more damage with a standard attack than any of your actual party members are capable of. While they remain useful later on, they are no longest your strongest option once your party is properly beefed up.
  • H'aanit is a downplayed example. Her Beast Lore skills makes her a really nice early game nuke character, since even monsters with a level score of four will have her dealing damage in the quad digits when boosted while everyone else is struggling to break half of that. However, as other characters start to gain more levels and capturing monsters of higher levels becomes more difficult, her Beast Lore skills will start to fall behind others in terms of damage output. It's downplayed though in that, unlike most examples, her Hunter skills still remain useful into the end- and aftergame.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Church of the Flame, the religion which is seemingly followed by almost everyone in the game. It operates almost exactly like a Catholic church complete with nuns, Bishops, an Archbishop and a "Pontiff," and the cathedrals look just like the interior of a Christian catheral. The religion's patron deities are Aelfric, the Flamebearer and 12 other deities who follow him, one of which betrayed them and turned evil. The only significant differences are that instead of a cross there is a giant blue flame, and the Priests/Sisters aren't prohibited from romantic relationships (Lianna is the Archbishop's daughter, not to mention Ophilia has some party gossip where the girls interrogate her about her preferences in men).
• Cutscene Incompetence: In Ophilia's chapter 4, she gets knocked out and captured by a pair of unarmed village peasants without even putting up a fight. Then when Lianna shows up and unlocks her jail cell door, Ophilia just stands there and lets her leave, even though her main goal at the time was stopping Lianna from participating in an evil scheme.

D-G

• Darker and Edgier: When compared to Bravely Default, the producer's other major series. Primrose's route in particular includes murder, prostitution, slavery, and sexual abuse. The game also features much more profanity than its sister series. Some of this is route-dependent; for example, Tressa's story is considerably more light-hearted than some of the others.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Most of the playable characters have them with the notable exception of Tressa, although Primrose, Olberic, and Therion have significantly worse backstories than the rest of the party.
  • Olberic was the bodyguard of a king, only to fail to protect him and his land from his close friend and fellow equal in skill, Erhardt. It doesn't help that he murdered his king in front of him and defeated Olberic. Wandering the lands to find redemption, he also struggles with seeing himself as useful only in the heat of battle.
  • Primrose was born into a wealthy family, only for her father to be murdered in front of her eyes as a child. She was rendered poor and had to turn to prostitution to survive.
  • Yusufa was sold to Helgenish as a child, having to spend her life dealing with both his abuse as well as the bullying of the other girls working for him, all without any friends to support her besides Primrose.
  • Therion has never known any sort of family aside from a sort of brother figure in Darius. He scraped by, taking what he could, and in his banter in Olberic's Chapter 4, he hints that he was beaten up or similarly abused by people older and more powerful than he was. And even his partnership with Darius backfired on him when Darius betrayed him, almost literally stabbing him in the back and tossing him off a cliff simply because he was offered money and power to do so. The party members and Cordelia Ravus are quite possibly the first people to treat him with any sort of kindness or respect in years, if not his whole life.
  • A surprisingly high number of the NPCs have dark pasts as bandits, killers, etc., as revealed with Inquire (and the items they're carrying tend to reflect that, such as poison for a former assassin). Some of them have gotten over it, others not so much.
• Degraded Boss: There are optional dungeons containing optional bosses strewn across the continent. Once you defeat the boss, you can come across them again as random encounters in the dungeon. They also tend to be the strongest monsters H'aanit can capture.
• Demo Bonus: You can carry over your save file from the demo into the full game.
• Den of Iniquity: the Tavern in Sunshade has this air, a stark contrast from the taverns in most other towns.
• Devil in Plain Sight:
  • Cyrus's boss, Yvon, has red eyes, and everyone In-Universe knows he's a jerk. However, nobody suspects him of being truly evil until Cyrus uncovers his culpability in the theft of the tome From the Far Reaches of Hell, at which point Yvon tries to kill both him and his pupil Therese for knowing too much.
  • Lyblac does little to hide her evil personality, what with the red eyes, black dress and creepy monologues. Somehow, the only character In-Universe who foresaw the full depths of her evil before it was too late is Werner of all people.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: The last quest, "At Journey's End." The dark god Galdera is revived thanks to Lyblac's interventions, but the eight party members take him on, defeat him, and send him right back into the darkness from whence he came.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • In Cyrus's Chapter 1, his student Therese—who has a one-sided crush on him—starts an untrue rumor that her teacher has entered into an illicit relationship with Princess Mary out of jealousy at his eagerness to answer Mary's questions in class. It did not occur to Therese that the rumor would be taken seriously enough to get Cyrus placed on sabbatical, and she does not take the news well.
  • Three NPCs are convinced by a Manipulative Bastard that they can bring someone they love Back from the Dead if they ally themselves with them, either presently or in their backstory: Ophilia's adoptive sister Lianna believes The Savior when he tells her that he can resurrect her recently-deceased father if she steals the ember from Ophilia, and both Graham and Kit Crossford believe Lyblac when she tells them that passing through the Gate of Finis will help them bring back their wife and father, respectively. In their grief, it doesn't occur to any of them that they might be being lied to until it's too late.
• Disappointed by the Motive:
  • At the end of Olberic's storyline, Olberic confronts the man responsible for the fall of his homeland Hornburg, who orchestrated the death of Olberic's king, and who has caused countless amounts of misery throughout the various towns that Olberic has visited. The villain reveals his motivation for it all was because Hornburg was home to the Gate of Finis, and he wanted to open it to see what was behind it. Olberic is incredulous that his life was ruined for that reason. Especially once a player goes behind the Gate of Finis to face the True Final Boss, and sees for themselves that it houses the Eldritch Abomination of a dark god known as Galdera. Essentially, opening the gate would have caused The End of the World as We Know It had Werner gotten what he wanted.
    Olberic: You destroyed a proud and prosperous realm... Led countless multitudes to their deaths... All for some... some gate!? You thought that a price worth paying!?
  • In Primrose's third chapter, she infiltrates the hideout of the Right Hand of the Crow in Noblecourt, accompanied by her father's friend Forsythe. There, they find out that the Right-hand Man is Albus, the former captain of the city watch, believed to be a honorable man who died resisting her father's murderers. Forsythe is horrified when Albus gives a Motive Rant that reveals he joined a criminal organization for the sake of more money and power; the horrors inflicted on Primrose and her family never really entered into his mind. To say that Primrose and Forsythe aren't impressed with this would be a major understatement.
    Forsythe: You traitorous bastard! Lord Geoffrey was a thousand times the man you are! You'll sully his name no longer!
    Primrose: The time for talk has ended. This man — if one can even call him a man — should not live a moment longer.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • Therion's item-stealing mechanic and Tressa's item-purchasing mechanic allow them to take or buy items and equipment from nearly every NPC in the game. While the chance of a successful steal rises with Therion's level, even at low levels it's possible to get most of the equipment with a bit of Save Scumming.
  • The Soul Knife can be stolen from multiple characters in Noblecourt, which can be reached with a short risky run from the town that Cyrus is recruited in. It offers an excellent +98 Physical Attack and a monstrous +188 Elemental Attack, far more than most staffs.
  • The player can steal a Golden Axe in the same town where Alfyn is recruited. You will need someone to knock out the person blocking the door to reach him, but as H'aanit, Therion, and Alfyn's starting areas are neighboring towns, you can feasibly get this weapon within the first hours of gameplay and it continues to be one of the best equips for H'aanit and Alfyn up to the late game.
  • H'aanit's monster capturing mechanic can be highly abused if you know where certain easy to capture 'higher tier' monsters are. With enough careful planning, it's possible for her to be doing quad digit damage while everyone else is still doing triple digit damage even when boosted to max.
  • Tressa's parents have a Warrior's Scarf and Dragon's Scarf available to be Purchased by their daughter. While they cost 16,500 leaves each, it's relatively easy to have 33,000 leaves if Tressa isn't chosen as the protagonist. The scarves restore 100 HP and 6 SP every turn, respectively. Early on in the game, these make survival almost trivially easy.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Near the beginning of Primrose's story, her Only Friend Yusufa volunteers to distract their cruel "master", Helgenish, while she leaves the tavern to pursue Rufus, one of the three men who murdered her father when she was a child. However, Yusufa is found out, and Helgenish's idea of an appropriate punishment is to murder her.
  • In Therion's backstory, his partner Darius eventually betrayed and tried to murder him not only because he was offered a powerful position in a criminal gang, but because he couldn't stand Therion having independent ideas and disagreeing with him.
  • Near the end of Tressa's story, Esmeralda tries to murder Tressa for trying to retrieve her notebook that Esmeralda herself stole, even after she admitted that the notebook turned out to be of no use to her.
• The Dog Bites Back: Primrose's entire story arc.
  • Early on in Primrose's story she's driven to kill her abusive "master" Helgenish after being Forced to Watch him kill Yusufa, the only other dancer who treated her with any kindness.
  • After the above deed is done, she goes on to exact revenge against the men who killed her father when she was a child.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Therion infiltrates a guild of thieves by stealing a cape from one of their leaders and using it to fool the guards.
• Drinking Contest: Between the male cast members as part of a party banter. Eventually ends with Cyrus calling a tie between Olberic and Alfyn as they're cut off by the bartender.
• Duel Boss:
  • Any random NPC you challenge as Olberic or H'aanit must be fought with them only.
  • There is also a special plot-example in Olberic's storyline: He automatically Challenges Erhardt when he has the chance to and fights him alone.
• Due to the Dead:
  • In Olberic Chapter 3 after defeating the Lizardman Chief Olberic's Travel Banter with Ophilia has her give a prayer for the creatures they just killed. As she explains it, "Yes. To the townspeople, they are fearsome monsters that threaten their lives… But they are living creatures for all that, and I would that they rest in peace.”
  • The sidequest "A Corpse with No Name" has a River Dweller from Saintsbridge find the body of a man with no identification on him save a distinctive mole on his hand. The Dweller wishes to bury the man but will not without some name to place upon the grave. The player can journey to Victors Hollow, find the Restless Woman, who is wondering where her husband is, and bring her back to the Dweller by Guide or Allure. She will take her husband to bury him. Alternatively, the player can go to Farshore, the nearby mini-dungeon and find a graverobber who has the man's diary. Obtaining it by stealing or purchasing and taking it back to the Dweller will allow him to bury the body near where it was found on the river's side.
  • At the end of Alfyn's fourth chapter, after Ogen tells him that Graham Crossford supposedly died several years ago, Alfyn sets up a monument in his honor at the northwest corner of Orewell.
• Early Game Hell: The first character you choose will have the hardest time starting out, since they start at level 1, most of them have to fight all by themselves, and your inventory and money is limited. While the other party members also start at level 1 when you recruit them, your main character will always be in the party, giving them a strong ally who can easily wipe out the early enemies; you have more characters that can exploit enemy weaknesses; you will likely have enough money to get the best equipment available for them at the time; and your inventory will have more items that can help in battle.
  • All this is writ large with Primrose, who has terrible defense both physically and elementally, and has the toughest Chapter 1 boss.
• Elective Monarchy: As revealed in the Ria sidequest, the king of the Sunlands is elected by an assembly of the tribe chieftains.
• Elemental Powers: "Magic" attacks are referred to as "Elemental" attacks. Most of the jobs are capable of using at least one Elemental attack:
  • Clerics use the element of light, which they can cast on a single enemy or all enemies.
  • Scholars use multi-target fire, ice, and lightning spells.
  • Merchants have the element of wind, single-target or multi-target.
  • Warriors are the odd man out and use only physical attacks.
  • Dancers use single-target and multi-target darkness abilities.
  • Apothecaries have a single-target ice attack.
  • Thieves have a single-target fire attack.
  • Hunters have a single-target lightning attack.
  • Even beyond the eight classes, elements can still show up. Of the four secret classes, a Sorcerer gets access to multi-target attacks of each of the six elements; a Starseer gets one attack that causes Light, Dark, and Wind damage; and a Runelord adds elemental damage to physical attacks, with their Divine skill targeting one enemy with all six elements. The Warmaster is like the Warrior in that the class gets no elemental attacks.
• Encounter Repellant: One of the Scholar skills reduces the number of enemy encounters. Defeating the True Final Boss gives the player an accessory that eliminates them.
• Experience Booster: Some measures can be used to assist with EXP and JP grinding.
  • The Dancer's Bewildering Grace randomly triggers various effects, including an EXP or JP multiplier. At the end of battle, the multipliers obtained are added together and then multiply your EXP and JP.
  • Certain job support skills from Warmaster and Starseer will boost EXP and JP earned by +50% each for the whole party.
  • Very late in the game, the Captain's Badge and Badge of Friendship accessories are available to multiply EXP and JP earned by an additional +50%, and affects the whole party.
  • On top of those, breaking at least one enemy's armor in a fight gives a +10% EXP "Break" bonus, and winning the fight in the first turn gives a +10% JP "Domination" bonus.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • Due to Gameplay and Story Segregation, NPCs with personal connections to one of your characters (e.g. Tressa's parents) don't change their dialogue if said character is actively in the party, and therefore right in front of their eyes.
  • Similarly, the guards in front of Ravus Manor and Orlick's Manse will still talk about how no unauthorised persons are permitted to enter after Therion outsmarts them and gains access to where they're guarding. It's especially hilarious in the case of the former, where the guards continue to say "No letter of introduction, no entry." while the gate to Ravus Manor is wide open.
• Fake Special Attack: The Injured Scout near Wellspring can be Allured/Guided after his quest is completed, though he is still wounded. In battle his special attack is "Too wounded to move..." which, when activated, creates a brilliant blue effect... and nothing happens. He also can only block a pitiful amount of damage before retreating.
• Fictional Currency: The game's currency is called leaves.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief:
  • The travelers fulfill these fundamental roles: Olberic, H'aanit and Alfyn are the Fighters, Cyrus and Ophilia are the Mages, and Therion, Tressa, and Primrose are the Thieves.
  • One conversation between Olberic, Cyrus and Therion has them each discussing their respective fighting styles and how they compliment one another; Olberic can form a bulwark between the party and the enemies giving Cyrus time to cast his spells, and anything left standing will be quickly coup-de-grace'd by Therion.
• Fire, Ice, Lightning: The Thief, Apothecary and Hunter jobs each have a skill that uses one of these elements (Wildfire, Icicle & Thunderbird respectively), while the Scholar is able to use all three. So can the Sorcerer and Runelord.
• Fire/Water Juxtaposition: Well, Fire/Ice Juxtaposition in this case. A lot of Fire-elemental enemies are weak to Ice, and vice-versa.
• The Flame of Life: In the religious Order of the Sacred Flame worships Aelfric and the flame he brought, Prometheus-like, down to the mortal world to save it. The original flame still hasn't gone out, and every few years, a member of the church takes embers from it to rekindle fires at notable churches across the land. The church also teaches white magic, so these pilgrims are more than capable of taking care of themselves- and anyone they happen to meet on their journeys.
• Flunky Boss: Most bosses summon a couple of weaker minions to support them, and in some cases use them as bodyguards to prevent their vulnerabilities from being hit. It's a sign that you're up against a very dangerous boss when they don't summon any minions.
• Foreshadowing: Occurs several times thanks to the story's chapter format.
  • Ophilia's Chapter 1 has a fair amount of foreshadowing for later events.
    • After Ophilia has a conversation with Mattias and is informed by a fellow cleric that her adoptive father has fallen seriously ill, the screen suspiciously stays focused on Mattias even after Ophilia exits. It's not until the post-game that it's revealed that Archbishop Josef's death was not because of natural causes; Mattias had discreetly poisoned him, as part of his plot to make The Chosen One, Lianna, fall into despair, willingly give herself up to the God of Evil Galdera, and cause the pilgrimage to fail.
    • Lianna's distress regarding her father's sickness foreshadows her becoming a member of the Cult of Galdera after her father's death by the end of Ophilia's Chapter 3, having been (falsely) promised that the Cult can resurrect her father.
    • Near the end of the chapter, Josef tells Ophilia that, while Lianna is a dutiful cleric, he knows that serving the church has been difficult for her and that she has sacrificed much of her true self for the sake of her duties. After Josef dies, Lianna falls into despair, loses her faith in the Sacred Flame and joins the Cult of Galdera to try to resurrect Josef, until Ophilia helps remind her that the memories they made together remain with her.
  • Ophilia's Chapter 3 includes a few conversations with Mattias regarding the nature of faith in the Sacred Flame that hint at his true belief in the accursed flame of the dark god Galdera.
  • Ophilia's Chapter 3 bosses are a duo of cultists who want to steal Aelfric's Lanthorn. Notably, one of them uses Heal Wounds and Luminescence, implying that they used to be a cleric. At the end of the chapter, Ophilia's adoptive sister, Lianna, who is also a cleric, is revealed to be so broken by her father's death that she has willingly defected from the Order of the Sacred Flame and joined the cult, and steals Aelfric's Lanthorn from Ophilia in hopes that the cult can use it to resurrect her father.
  • Ophilia's Chapter 4 includes a callous admission that the Arc Villain had planned to sacrifice his own followers to the dark god Galdera all along, in exchange for receiving power. This is a clue that Mattias had been preparing his plot to foil the pilgrimage in advance, and serves as subtle foreshadowing to the revelation in the post-game that Archbishop Josef's sickness on the eve of the pilgrimage was no coincidence, but the result of discreet poisoning.
  • The end of Cyrus's Chapter 2 involves a conversation between Cyrus and his erstwhile colleague Odette, where she tells him that the previous headmaster died "under mysterious circumstances" the same year that the tome From the Far Reaches of Hell was stolen from the archives. During Cyrus's Chapter 3, he uncovers that his boss, Yvon, is the culprit behind the tome's theft, and a diary in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon reveals that the then-headmaster was assassinated by Yvon, after the latter had decided that he was too smart to remain a mere teacher and was more deserving of the position of headmaster and the privileges that comes with being one, including access to From the Far Reaches of Hell.
  • Olberic's Chapter 1 begins with the former knight having a nightmare of Hornburg's fall, where he and Erhardt clash swords and Erhardt tells him, "I saved one trick — for the day I knew would come!" before defeating Olberic with a secret sword technique. At the end of Olberic's Chapter 2, Gustav tells Olberic that Erhardt had planned to kill the king before he even joined the Knights of Hornburg, having a bitter hatred for the king's perceived Betrayal by Inaction while his home-village and its people burned in flames.
  • The end of Primrose's Chapter 2 involves a conversation between Primrose and former servant Arianna, where Primrose says that she doesn't know what she believes in other than to avenge her father's murder, the only reason she has for living. The screen stays focused on Arianna even after Primrose exits, and she says "Oh, my poor lady". In hindsight, it subtly foreshadows Primrose realizing in her Chapter 4 that avenging her father's murder will not make her feel any happier, which Arianna saw coming.
  • Primrose's Chapter 3 in particular employs a lot of foreshadowing regarding Simeon's true allegiance.
    • He's dressed in black, like the Crow Men.
    • He mentions he's a "Playwright, of sorts" (signifying he's not literally one) and "stages dramas and tragedy", foreshadowing his role as the head of the Crow Men and his sadistic nature that motivates him.
    • Simeon's old job was as a gardener's apprentice, cultivating the flowers; Primrose is named after a flower, and the idea of him cultivating her life further fits his personality.
    • He and Primrose reminisce on her childhood, where Simeon all but states that he was in love with her even as a girl, and Simeon was already a grown man back then. This has hebephiliac implications and is a very good sign that something is wrong.
    • Lastly, Albus, the Right Wing of the Crow, mentions to his lackey that their boss has a huge flair for the dramatic.
  • In Therion's Chapter 1, he notes the Ravus Manor's guards with some amusement, noting that if he didn’t know any better he'd say they're Compensating for Something. Turns out that that 'something' is that they're flat-out broke and got robbed of their one true treasure, and turned up the guard presence to attract thieves rather than to protect something.
  • Therion's statement to Cordelia at the end of his Chapter 2 all but spells out what happened between him and Darius, and Darius's inherent selfishness.
  • Several things about H'aanit's Final Boss fight, such as H'aanit being unable to sense Redeye's feelings like she can with all monsters, a strange skill Redeye occasionally uses that heals one of your characters (admittedly for only 100 HP), a roar that peters out into a pained, human-sounding groan and its strangely human face, hint at the boss's true nature which is only revealed in the postgame.
  • There are also plot threads that are Left Hanging at the end of most, if not all, of the eight stories, that hint at a post-game resolution that involves Graham Crossford, the Gate of Finis, and the dark god Galdera.
• Friendship-Hating Antagonist: Mattias, the Savior and Arc Villain of Ophilia's story, used to believe in friendship until his loved ones died in a fire. Blaming the gods for their inaction, he became the leader of a Galdera-worshipping cult and co-founded the Obsidians, and manipulates Lianna into joining by promising to cure her adoptive father, Archbishop Josef. However, he only sees his followers as disposable tools to be sacrificed, and during his boss fight openly rants to Ophilia that love and friendship are illusory bonds destined to break.
• Forced Level-Grinding: Since there is no Leaked Experience system in the game, you'll probably have to do at least some level grinding in order to keep the party members that you don't use as much strong enough for what you're facing. This is definitely true in the endgame, as the True Final Boss requires you to use all eight of your party members, four for the first phase and the other four for the second.
• Four Lines, All Waiting: Or, more specifically, 8 story lines, with each character's story starting in a different city, spreading out across the map, and each character's story is separate from the others. As for the waiting, the first chapter will start around level 5, but chapter 2 is generally somewhere in the 20s.
• Fun with Acronyms: The names and starting positions (beginning with Ophilia and going clockwise) of the eight main characters are arranged so that their initials spell "OCTOPATH." They're also shown in that order on the title screen, as are their jobs on the job wheel.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Before Tressa enters the pirate's cave, she gives the pirates a barrel of wine that's spiked with a sleeping drug, putting all of them to sleep. Upon entering the cave, any random encounters against the pirates will start with the pirates asleep.
  • It's also played with to heartwarming effect near the ends of some characters' stories. Most notably, halfway into his final chapter Alfyn will use inquire on himself to recall the memory of Graham Crossford preparing the tincture that saved his life; you have to inquire Graham to get the information. And in one of the most heartwarming scenes in the game, at the end of Ophilia's story, you have to use Guide on Lianna to lead her to the spot where she helped first break Ophilia out of her shell fifteen years prior.
  • The gimmick to the fight against Simeon is that he often inflicts the Silence status on your party. This is reminiscent of how he and his accomplices "silenced" Primrose's father for finding out classified information.
  • The possessions townspeople have on hand correspond to the information revealed by Inquire/Scrutinize, often in slightly alarming ways. For instance, there's a woman in Flamesgrace who's obsessed with keeping her mercenary boyfriend from leaving home, and checking her possessions, she has a lot of sleep-inducing items...
  • Several of the game's most evil antagonists (e.g. Helgenish, Gideon, Miguel and Werner) are weak to Light magic.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • As far as gameplay is concerned, the characters are traveling together as a party, dealing with their stories together and helping common folk along the way. Cutscenes, meanwhile, portray them as overcoming these hurdles on their own, often in situations that would make little sense with a full crew of eight people. And then you get to the party banter scenes, where party members act as if they were present during the other's story cutscenes...
  • No matter what a party member's quest is, they'll join up with the others without a word. Especially noticeable in the case of Therion: nearly all the other characters are out to do some good in the world, only to immediately join a criminal on a heist, and Therion will reject other thieves because he works alone and then decide to get help from random passers-by.
  • The side-jobs have no impact on plot or characters. For example Therion will always refer to himself as a thief no matter what his side-job is. There are no interactions between two party member who share jobs (as primary and side-job).
  • Arianna will comment in Primrose's chapter 2 that Stillsnow isn't far from Flamesgrace. In reality, it's just about the furthest away two towns in the same region can get. The frostlands are one of only two regions where you can't go straight from the chapter 1 town to the chapter 2-3 town and then from there to the chapter 4 town. To get from Flamesgrace to Stillsnow, you have to make a massive detour through the forest to the west.
  • Ophilia's chapter 4 involves her in a Town with a Dark Secret. The villagers are all hostile to her, and will actually capture her as part of the story. Despite this, they will also do business with her as she can still use the pub, inn and even the weapons shop.
  • Early in H'aanit's chapter 4, it's mentioned that when Redeye moved into the Grimsand ruins, it caused all the monsters to flee the ruins to the surface. Yet when the Player makes it to the ruin, there will be plenty of random encounters as usual of any dungeon. (Downplayed by many of the remaining monsters being partially petrified - presumably by Redeye's curse - implying they were simply too slow.)
  • With all the sheer amounts of horrible things you can do to townsfolk (see Video Game Cruelty Potential), this barely affects the overall plot, so it will still continue despite that you just beat up an entire village. Sometimes they'll even be considered noble path actions - even if you're beating up pregnant women. It's quite hilarious.
  • Your party can only include up to four of the eight main characters at any given time. But unlike with many other role-playing games, non-cutscene dialogues with NPCs don't change depending on who's in the party. So when you meet NPCs with deep personal connections to one of the characters (such as Tressa's parents), their dialogue remains oddly generic and impersonal even if said character is right there in front of their eyes.
  • During Therion's first two chapters, he has to trick guards in order to pull off a heist. After he succeeds, the guards' dialogue doesn't change, meaning that they'll still say things along the lines of "No unauthorised persons are permitted to enter!" even though your characters can just walk right past them into the place they're "guarding".
  • In Olberic's final chapter, the resistance in Riverford will start a riot in the town square to distract Werner's guards. If you check the town square before entering the secret passage, you'll find that absolutely nobody is rioting whatsoever.
• Gladiator Sub Quest: Olberic's chapter 2 involves a tournament in Victor's Hollow, where he has to enter the tournament and fight a series of boss battles in order to confront someone who knows where one of his former comrades turned traitor might be.
• Gratuitous Latin: The hidden Sorcerer job has a three-hit, AoE ability for every element, all named in Latin. Unfortunately, the English dub pronunciations of the Sorcerer's spells are incorrect due to a mispronunciation of the infinitive. Take Ignis Ardere, which is pronounced by the actors as "ah-dare", when the -re is a syllable of its own, meaning it should be "ah-dare-ay".
• Great Offscreen War: Ophilia was orphaned as a girl as a result of war. Exactly which war is never disclosed.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • You Can't Drop the Hero, IE your starting character, until you complete their Chapter 4 quest. Most people won't find this out until they actually get a fifth party member and attempt to trade out their starter, by which point they've spent five or ten hours on their playthrough. This is not a problem, per se, since every character is ultimately useful, but if you're going to be stuck with someone, there are definitely certain characters it's more practical to be stuck with.
  • How to access the The Very Definitely Final Dungeon. Completing all the characters' stories is intuitive enough; additionally completing two completely unrelated sidequest chains and then going to a starter area the player would otherwise have no reason to go to for a followup quest isn't.
  • Werner's Sword seems like a powerful weapon, sporting 299 Physical Attack, 120 Elemental Attack, and an effect that causes all successful attacks to become critical hits. What it doesn't tell you is the weapon has a secret modifier that lowers its accuracy, making it a bit like the Casey Bat from EarthBound (1994). Overlaps with Dub-Induced Plot Hole, since the original description said "Attacks will miss easily, but attacks that do hit will be crits."
  • Many NPC side quests are vague at best on what needs to be done to solve them with no instructions given aside from decoding the NPC's words, and sometimes needing to locate specific NPCs on the other side of the world map and much later in the game to complete them.
    • For example, there's a sidequest in Stillsnow where a girl mentions her father has a drinking and money problem, and if you talk to him, he asks for money. Nothing indicates what you're supposed to do because all the info you can gather implies you need to give him money. In reality, you need to have Olberic duel him and beat him, spurring him into getting his act together. Nothing hints at this at all, and the only way you would figure this out is by trying out every Path Action on both of them.
    • Another sidequest involves an aspiring actor looking for a partner. There's also a town full of actors, but it's a Red Herring: In fact, the person the aspiring actor needs to meet has nothing to do with show business at all!
  • Similarly, many sidequests have two different methods of completion. Some of them are fairly obvious; others aren't so much. For example, in the above-mentioned sidequest with the girl and her father, you can have her go work in the tavern in Quarryquest. The tavernkeeper does mention that he's looking for a new singer; however, because the girl is reluctant to leave home, you have to specifically Guide/Allure him to her instead of the other way around.
  • Damage taken and damage displayed are not always the same. If you have a character strike twice for, say, 9,999 damage each time, against an enemy that only has 2 HP left, they will only take 2 damage despite the game saying that they took 19,998. While this isn't a problem in most cases — the enemy is now dead, what's the big deal — it becomes frustrating when using scaling abilities like HP Thief: "Attack a single foe twice with a dagger, and steal HP equivalent to half of the damage dealt." Hopefully you weren't counting on getting healed for 9999, because what you're getting is 1.

H-L

• Health/Damage Asymmetry: Strongly present, resulting in Damage Sponge Bosses being the norm. When at the game's suggested levels, a fully-boosted weapon attack will do, maybe, 1% of a boss's total HP.
• He Knows Too Much:
  • The Crow Men killed Primrose's father because he was looking into things he shouldn't have.
  • Gideon tries to kill Cyrus for discovering his laboratory under Quarrycrest where he conducts Blood Magic experiments on innocent townspeople.
  • Yvon threatens this upon Therese and Cyrus for butting into his affairs.
• Hellgate: The Gate of Finis where Galdera was sealed away by the twelve gods. Where the other side is located is ambiguous, and described in story only as beyond the borders of the world. Several hints though such as Galdera's power over life and death, the shades of deceased bosses, the ghosts of Kit's parents showing up, and the title of the local Tome of Eldritch Lore indicate it's the afterlife of Orsterra.
• To Hell and Back: The Eight Travelers, once each of their stories is complete, have the option to take on the ultimate side quest to save Kit from Lyblac's machinations where she has taken him to Galdera's domain as a sacrifice to unleash her father, the dark god Galdera.
• Healer Signs On Early: You are given the option to start the game with Ophilia, a Cleric with healing spells that target multiple people, or Alfyn, an Apothecary who brews curative potions and whose healing spell is a single-target.
• Herd-Hitting Attack: There's no shortage of these. Useful for breaking multiple foes at once.
  • Warriors get access to Level Slash, a Sword skill which hits all enemies on the field.
  • Apothecaries have Last Stand, an Axe skill which hits everything, and hits harder inversely proportional to how much life the user has left.
  • Hunters get Arrowstorm, a Bow skill that rains arrows upon every enemy multiple times. The damage per hit is weak, but it's ideal if you want to break every enemy at once, since breaking is based on the number of hits, not the damage inflicted.
  • Merchants, Clerics, and Dancers get a wide-reaching spell of their element. Every Scholar spell also hits all enemies, as well as every elemental Sorcerer spell.
  • Warmasters also have several skills that attack all enemies with a specific weapon type, culminating in the Divine Skill which attacks all enemies with all weapon types.
  • Sealticge's Seduction, the Dancer's Divine Skill, causes every non-weapon single-target skill for the recipient to become this.
• Hidden Depths: NPCs aren't simply faceless characters in Octopath; by using Cyrus's "Scrutinize" or Alfyn's "Inquire" Path Actions on NPCs, you can receive information about every individual you come across, such as the woman on the farm who cares more for a test of strength than the hearts of men, or the old woman who is actually a career criminal who ended up settling down in a sleepy town by chance, perhaps to live out the rest of her days in quiet.
• How We Got Here: Each party member besides your chosen hero is encountered in the middle of their first chapter. Recruiting them will give you the option to go through the beginning of their story until you reach the point where they're about to enter an area with Random Encounters, which is when your party first meets them.
• "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: During Ophilia's Chapter 4 climax, her sister Lianna has been overtaken by the grief of losing her father and the false-hope of being able to bring him back by corrupting the Sacred Flame. Mattias tells Ophilia that the only ways to stop the dark ritual Lianna is performing, which is draining the life force of the cult members and opening a pathway to Galdera, is either killing Lianna or making her give up on her desire. Ophilia is able to break through to her sister by reminding her of a talk from years prior when their father discusses with them that death isn't an evil and not to grieve him when his death finally comes. This is enough to make Lianna give up on her desire and it changes the Flame back to its normal hue.
• Improbable Infant Survival: Child NPCs are plentiful in the world, but while many casualties do occur throughout the various stories, no children are shown to die. Additionally, Olberic and H'aanit's Challenge/Provoke cannot target small children, for obvious reasons.
• Inevitable Tournament: The Tourney of Victors' Hollow. Fighting in it is part of Olberic's second chapter in order to gain information about Erhardt and his location.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Chests litter all manner of locations, waiting to be opened.
  • Brown chests offer normal items.
  • Red chests usually yield weapons, equipment or money.
  • Purple chests are unique in that Therion must be in the party to open these, and always contain a rare item.
• Infinity -1 Sword: The "Forbidden" gear, which can be acquired from NPCs in the towns where characters' second and third chapters take place, but carry penalties such as the chance of buffing an enemy's strength in addition to their massive strength. The Forbidden Bow is the only one whose penalty of increased enemy encounter rates is actually a benefit, making it Cursed with Awesome.
• Infinity +1 Sword:
  • The "Battle-Tested" gear, some of which is found at the end of the hardest dungeons, while others can be purchased/stolen from notable NPCs from certain characters' stories after they're completed. The exception is the Battle-Tested Axe, which is powerful, but there's actually three axes stronger than it. The true ultimate axe is the Memorial Axe, which is obtained by playing matchmaker for two characters after completing Alfyn's chapter 4.
  • Doing postgame sidequests give you weapons that boost the damage of certain elements. These weapons are not as strong as the Battle-Tested weapons physically, but they are the strongest magically^exceptionexcept for the staff, as Battle-Tested Staff has the highest E.Atk among all weapons, making them better fit for magical characters. Axes swap the weapons in each category, as the Battle-Tested Axe is the "elemental booster" axe with high magic power. Meanwhile the sidequest weapon, Memorial Axe, is the strongest physically.
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence: Many dungeons are temporarily inaccessible to the player until they advance the storyline forward. These areas are restricted by simple signposts that the characters are somehow unable to walk around.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • A mild one. Finding the enemy weaknesses can be a bit of a chore, but then the game always follows a pattern on how to display them. Weaknesses always display weapon type weakness first in order of their appearance in the equipment screen followed by elemental weakness in order of their appearance in the Scholar and Sorcerer skills. It goes as Sword → Polearm → Dagger → Axe → Bow → Staff → Fire → Ice → Lightning → Wind → Light → Dark. The order of placement is important as it gives a hint on the preceding and succeeding weaknesses. So if, for example, an enemy weakness shows Axe and still has one more unknown weakness on its left, you have an easier time guessing what weakness the enemy could have.
  • A larger one: if you find yourself wandering the world after completing all eight stories, wondering if there will be any follow-up on the loose threads introduced at the end of each story, and you happen to find yourself in Bolderfall completing a sidequest involving a strange woman, you'll probably realize that question is answered with a resounding yes when the "sidequest complete" text shows up and congratulates you for completing Part I of the tale "Daughter of the Dark God."
  • Once you've unlocked all eight jobs and can freely let your party switch classes, it's difficult to not notice the gap in the wheel of jobs, implying the existence of secret jobs that will fill it up.
  • Unless you use Analyze, there is no way to get an exact reading on an opponent's HP — especially since, unlike in Final Fantasy games, an enemy who has been Analyzed does not continuously show their HP totals for the rest of the battle. However, there are a couple ways to get more generalized information. The first is the enemy's name, printed under their weakness readout: it turns yellow when they hit 50% HP and red when they hit 25%. The other is Therion's and Tressa's Video Game Stealing abilities: their (un-Boosted) probability of success is equal to about how much HP the opponent has lost. Unlike Analyze, these checks can be performed without spending a turn.
• Intrepid Merchant: Tressa. Unlike the other characters who journey for a deep personal goal, Tressa simply travels for the sake of exploring and trading with others. Her Path Action "Purchase" allows her to buy items from nearly any NPC in the game.
• Invulnerable Civilians: Downplayed. Townsfolk can be challenged by Olberic and H'aanit to fights, though these are typically just sparring matches that leave the civilian dazed until the player exits the map.
• I Surrender, Suckers:
  • Helgenish attempts to trick Primrose into thinking he surrendered after the boss fight. It's subverted because she sees this coming and cuts him down.
  • In Alfyn's story, this is also subverted. Vanessa attempts to sneak away after her defeat, but Alfyn notices and uses a sleeping potion on her before she flees.
  • Also in Alfyn's story, Miguel pleads for mercy in the middle of his boss fight... but even as he says it, he gains the purple Battle Aura that indicates a boss charging up their ultimate attack, so it's an obvious lie.
• Jigsaw Puzzle Plot: Characters' stories and the overarching plot come together pieces at a time, with many revelations being saved for The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
• Job System: Each character has their own job and is able to take on a subjob, gaining that subjob's skills and weapon options. However, taking a subjob does not unlock that Path Action, so you'll still be switching party members like crazy. Additionally, all eight subjobs, as well as four secret ones, must be unlocked by visiting various hidden locations. And finally, each subjob can only be assigned to one party member at a time, so you can't go into battle with four sub-Clerics and spam Light magic all day.
• Joke Item: You can steal or buy Candy from children, which are HP healers. While the concept is humorous, the actual item predictably heals a minuscule 30 HP, meanwhile the Healing Grape (the most basic healing item), heals 500 HP. Tree Nuts are the SP equivalent and restore a whopping 8 SP, compared to the standard Inspiriting Plum which restores 40 SP.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Helgenish was already an asshole for his horrendous treatment of his dancers, treating them like Sex Slaves. However, he eventually murders Yusufa for helping Primrose escape his tavern. This is when Primrose decides that Helgenish is too dangerous to be allowed to live.
• Karma Meter: Downplayed, with there essentially being four different Path Actions with Rogue-type and Noble-type variants. Rogue Path Actions have a chance of failure, which will cause your reputation to suffer, further reducing the odds of success in that area until you pay to have your reputation restored. By contrast, their Noble counterparts don't have a chance of failure, but do require either currency or for the character to be at a sufficiently high level.
• Kirk Summation: Happens before (and sometimes during) multiple Final Bosses, usually to sum up the Central Theme of each protagonist's storyline.
  • Ophilia's battle with Mattias has her declaring the power of the familial love between her and Lianna and how it can help them through loss, unlike Mattias's approach.
  • Cyrus has a marvelous speech during his confrontation with Lucia that sums up his reason for being a teacher, the need for knowledge to be passed on, and the importance of handling deadly knowledge with the right care so that it may be used for good.
  • Olberic calls out Werner on how pathetic a man he is, standing Lonely at the Top with no purpose or drive like that which Olberic himself has discovered.
  • In the last leg of Therion's fight against Darius, Therion suspects the reason Darius refuses to trust people is Darius himself is afraid people will betray him. Judging by how Darius reacts, Therion might be right on the money.
• Knight of Cerebus:
  • Mystery Man and Shady Figure, two followers of a dark Cult that worships the local God of Evil, and the villains of Ophilia's third chapter. Despite their rather silly-sounding titles, Mystery Man and Shady Figure are when Ophilia's story takes a much darker turn. In spite of her adoptive father falling seriously ill, Ophilia's pilgrimage begins on a hopeful note as she travels Orsterra in her sister Lianna's place so that the latter can remain at their father's side, renewing the light of the Sacred Flame to the land and its people, and helping others in need such as the three children in Saintsbridge. Then, in Ophilia's third chapter, she reads a threatening letter sent by these two Cultists to the bishop of Goldshore, Donovan, telling him that they have kidnapped his young daughter, Lysa, and won't return her unless he claims the Ember from the Flamebearer (Ophilia) and gives it to them. They were planning to murder Donovan and his daughter whether he gave them the Ember or not, and after Ophilia defeats them in battle to save Lysa, Lianna arrives in Goldshore to inform her that their father has died... and then Lianna betrays Ophilia and takes the Ember from her in a desperate (and futile) hope that their father can be brought Back from the Dead, having been visited by the Savior with said (false) promise and allying herself with him.
  • Gideon, the villain of Cyrus's second chapter. Cyrus's first chapter is relatively light-hearted and humorous, and its antagonist is just a thief trying to pay his gambling debts who eventually Heel-Face Turns. Gideon, on the other hand, is a sociopathic scientist who kills several innocents so that he can extract their blood to use in dark magic, and begins the transition to more serious threats for Cyrus to overcome.
  • Ogen, an experienced but cynical apothecary who appears in Alfyn's third and fourth chapters. Alfyn's story starts off fairly light-hearted, with him travelling to treat the sick and suffering. Then he encounters Ogen, who refuses to treat a wounded man called Miguel because he believes that "some lives are not worth saving", which clashes with Alfyn's belief that it is a healer's duty to treat whomever they can. Alfyn's story really takes a darker turn when Ogen's perspective is proven right; Miguel is a thief and a murderer, and after Alfyn treats him in Ogen's stead out of the kindness of his heart (and a naïve belief that he will Heel–Face Turn), wastes no time betraying Alfyn's trust, kidnapping a little boy to hold for ransom and then wounding him in anger at his crying, forcing Alfyn to kill Miguel to save the boy's life. The entire incident continues to haunt Alfyn for much of his fourth chapter, and raises serious questions of whether "some lives are not worth saving".
• Last Chance Hit Point: One of the Merchant's skills grants this ability. If the Merchant takes otherwise-fatal damage and isn't in Near Death status at the time, they'll survive with one HP.
• Last Request: In Marsalim, you can meet a prisoner on death row named Kevin. His side quest is to learn what became of his old love Lara after he got locked up. Turns out Lara has moved on and started a family elsewhere, with Kevin simply happy to know she's happy and acknowledging it was his own fault for putting himself in his situation. The reward for the quest is a meager 300g and a Revitalizing Jam.
• Law of Cartographical Elegance: The game takes place in the land of Orsterra◊, a large landmass bordered by seas and uncharted lands. In order to prevent you from trying to leave the mapped areas, you are forced to walk along the paths crossing the countryside.
• Leitmotif: Each traveler has a personal melody, and a signature pre-boss battle song that uses elements of that melody. The game's towns share a few as well, and the theme from the title screen shows up in other songs throughout the game.
• Lethal Joke Character: Some of the NPCs you can Allure/Guide are very clearly not the battle-ready type and have silly attacks like "Rag Toss" and "Dump Flour." However, while these kinds of attacks inflict pitiful damage, they also have a chance to poison and blind the enemy respectively, which may give them some merit.
• Level Scaling: As you complete chapters in each character's story, the enemies everywhere will get stronger. Each area also has a maximum level where the enemies stop getting any more powerful.
• Level-Up Fill-Up: Leveling up fully restores the character's HP and SP.
• Light/Darkness Juxtaposition: A lot of Dark-elemental enemies are weak to Light, and vice-versa.
• Lighter and Softer: Tressa's route, compared to most of the others.
• Lightning/Wind Juxtaposition: A lot of Lightning-elemental enemies are weak to Wind, and vice-versa. Furthermore, a post-game banter reveals that Tressa is afraid of thunder, which is an example of Gameplay and Story Integration because her primary job, Merchant, uses Wind spells.
• Limit Break: Each job has a Divine Skill that can only be learned after learning all of the job's other skills. They have a high SP cost, need 5,000 Job Points to learn, and require a character to be at maximum Boost Level to use (i.e. using 3 Boost Points in one turn). In exchange, the effects of these abilities are very strong.
  • Aelfric's Auspices allows the target to perform any skill besides Divine Skills twice for three turns. The repeated skill will also obey any boosts initially applied.
  • Alephan's Enlightenment causes any spells cast by the target that normally hits all enemies to only hit one enemy in exchange for more damage for three turns.
  • Bifelgan's Bounty unleashes a Non-Elemental magic attack on a single enemy that grants money equal to the damage dealt. Note that this is capped by how much health the target has left. If the attack deals 5,000hp damage but the target has only 50hp left, then one only receives 50 leaves.
  • Brand's Thunder unleashes a tremendously powerful sword attack on a single foe.
  • Sealticge's Seduction causes all skills besides Divine Skills used by the recipient that normally target one enemy to target all enemies instead for three turns. Despite not being mentioned in the description, this also applies to abilities that target party members as long as they are not skills which are only self-targeting, such as Warrior's Abide or Merchant's Sidestep.
  • Dohter's Charity causes all items used by the target to affect all allies for three turns. Despite not being mentioned in the description, this also applies to Alfyn's single-target concoctions.
  • Aeber's Reckoning attacks all foes with a dagger, dealing damage based on the user's speed.
  • Draefendi's Rage unleashes a powerful bow attack on all foes.
  • Steorra's Prophecy unleashes an elemental attack on all foes that deals damage proportional to the party's current BP.
  • Balogar's Blade deals damage from all six elements to a single foe.
  • Winnehild's Battle Cry uses all six weapons to attack all foes six times.
  • Dreisang's Spell causes elemental attacks used by the target to be critical hits for three turns.
• Low Fantasy: Initially. While magic and monsters both exist in the game's world, they have little bearing on the story. Moreover, each character's specific quest tends to be very personal (e.g., revenge or solving the mystery behind a missing object) rather than epic in scale. However, this trope is subverted towards the end of the game, as it takes a sharp turn towards Heroic Fantasy upon revealing that much of the game's events were masterminded in part by an evil cultist attempting to bring about the resurrection of the Dark God Galdera, and the final battle of the game takes place in a portal to the netherworld while the party do battle with the Dark God himself.
• Loyalty Mission: To recruit other party members, you have to complete the first chapter of their story before they join your party, as starting their story will prevent everyone else's story from continuing until their first chapter is finished.

M-Q

• Madness Mantra: What Cyrus discovers on the mural in the Ruins of Eld that serves as a warning against releasing Galdera.
  DEATHDOOMDESTRUCTIONDEATHDOOMDESTRUCTIONDEATHDOOMDESTRUCTIONDEATHDOOMDESTRUCTION
• Magically Inept Fighter: Warriors don't have access to any sort of elemental spell. Neither does the Warmaster.
• Magic Knight: Some jobs that specialize in physical combat still have elemental skills, such as the Thief's Wildfire technique. The hidden Runelord job exemplifies this, able to infuse any element into their strikes. You can also invoke this by giving physical-oriented characters magic-based subjobs and vice-versa.
• Magikarp Power:
  • The Apothecary job (not Concoct) is generally considered the weakest of the initial eight jobs, mainly because all its skills are single-target ones—Last Stand notwithstanding—including First Aid and Vivify, single-target versions of the Cleric skills Heal Wounds/More and Revive, albeit restoring more HP (which does make the Apothecary job consistently good for solo runs). However, the Apothecary job becomes significantly more useful late-game, once you've unlocked Sealticge's Seduction, which turns the target's single-target skills into multi-target ones for three turns, Dohter's Charity, which makes consumable items affect the entire party for three turns, and can farm items that can fully restore HP, SP and BP with a Thief.
  • The Cleric skill Reflective Veil, which reflects enemy magic attacks back at the caster, is all but useless early-game, because most enemies and bosses are physical attackers, and the 22 SP cost is discouraging anyways despite its native user, Ophilia, having the highest SP stat of the protagonists. However, the skill becomes more and more useful as the game progresses, your party levels up and their SP increases, and more magic-reliant enemies like the Elementals, as well as bosses like Mystery Man & Shady Figure, appear before you. Even more so if you unlock Sealticge's Seduction, which lets a Cleric empower the entire party at once, making bosses that spam magic — including several hidden bosses — complete cakewalks.
• Marathon Level: Zigzagged. The dungeon only actually consists of two rooms, but The Very Definitely Final Dungeon the Gate of Finis makes you fight through a lengthy eight-Boss Rush of leveled-up old enemies before pitting you against a monstrously-long True Final Boss, without allowing you to exit or save once you enter the gate.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The title itself: Octo means eight. Eight travelers. Eight paths. Also, the Fun with Acronyms example above.
  • In the South Orewell Pass, there is a "mysterious knight" whose name is later revealed to be Cervantes. This man is a self-appointed knight and notes that he is in need of a good squire to serve him. Author Miguel de Cervantes wrote one of the most famous stories about a self-appointed knight looking for a squire to help him and fight some windmills.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: The secret Runelord job has an unusual playstyle. Its skills consist almost entirely of imbuing weapons with elemental runes. Attacking with the weapon afterwards will result in a followup elemental attack. The followups are also unusual as their damage is based on the E.Atk of the current weapon, instead of deferring to the weapon with the highest E.Atk like other elemental skills.
• Merchant City: Grandport is loaded with merchants to buy/steal from, and is the final stop in Tressa's questline.
• Metal Slime: The rarely appearing Cait monsters are worth a vast amount of experience, money, and job points. That said they each have high physical and magical defense stats and evasions rates, which makes striking enough damage to kill or break them in one round hard, and they have high speed rates so they will typically go first and their first action is almost always to run off.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: This is essentially the hook for the entire game. Eight characters set out on individual quests with individual goals, only to find that their nemeses are all Unwitting Pawns for The Dragon who has been using them to forward the Big Bad's ends... without any of the main characters, and for that matter without some of the Pawns, knowing the Big Bad even exists. In fact, the game is structured in such a way that players might not catch it; they can stop playing the game without ever actually filling the hole in the center of the doughnut that is this game.
• Money Multiplier: The Merchant class has some abilities to make more money.
  • Tressa's Talent "Eye for Money" lets you obtain an amount of money whenever you travel to an area with her in the party.
  • The Merchant Support Skill "Grow on Trees" increases the amount of money you get from winning battles.
  • Merchant has the "Collect" skill which takes money from an enemy during battle. When this is combined with the Thieves' "Snatch" skill, the resulting collected money is doubled.
  • Merchant's Divine Skill "Bifelgan's Bounty" deals heavy non-elemental damage to an enemy, then gives you money equal to the damage dealt. If the total damage surpasses their current HP, then he money gained is equal only to their current HP.
• Mood Whiplash: In the context of the eight starting chapters, Primrose's stands out. While there is conflict in each Chapter 1 to justify a boss battle, for the most part they're treated fairly lighthearted with the antagonists being beaten, but not killed, and several pulling a Heel–Face Turn immediately afterward, such as in Olberic and Tressa's intros. Primrose, though, starts her storyline with a chapter which includes heavily implied rape, enslavement, torture, and murder.
• Multi-Melee Master: If a job (or combination of jobs) lets a character equip more than one type of weapon, they can switch between them in battle to target different vulnerabilities. This is exemplified with the hidden Warmaster job, which gives access to every weapon type at once.
• Multiple Endings: Not for the whole game itself, but most sidequests have two different resolutions to them. For instance, there's a Dogged Nice Guy in Rippletide who's attempting to woo a woman who keeps shooting him down. You can either lose a Challenge/Provoke duel to him to have him prove he's actually the kind of strong man she's attracted to or Guide/Allure his mother over to him so she can berate him for being so pathetic in front of the entire town. The rewards are always the same, so it's entirely up to what you believe is the best solution.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The first demo had saving done through a capped traveler.
  • BP is a resource again, though this time it stands for Boost Points. It still allows you to make multiple physical attacks in one turn but is otherwise used to boost the strength and effectiveness of your skills.
  • Olberic Eisenberg shares his name with Eisenberg, a volcanic country featured in the Bravely Default series.
  • After a frustrating event, Tressa grumbles "Mrgrgr", Edea's catchphrase from the Bravely Default series.
  • You want the cool new secret jobs? You'll have to beat a boss first, who gives you a preview of the job's abilities by using them on you, just like the Asterisk holders in Bravely Default.
• Nonchalant Dodge: The Merchant ability "Sidestep" gaurantees any physical attack on the character will not hit. It can be stacked up to nine times allowing for multi-hit attacks to miss each time.
• Non-Lethal K.O.: Even if Olberic or H'aanit fall in battle against an NPC they challenged with their Path Action, it won't count as a Game Over; they'll just reappear on the map with 1 HP. This also applies to any NPC you defeat in such a challenge, who afterwards is found on the ground with stars spinning above their heads.
• Non-Malicious Monster: 3 of them serve as bosses. This trope is generally a survival flag for said boss.
• Nonstandard Character Design: When characters talk, they do so via small and simple overworld sprites. However, if they then fight, the Player Characters keep those sprites, while the NPCs become bosses with extravagantly-detailed sprites that take up a third of the screen. This is a throwback to some of the older Final Fantasy and SaGa games. Subverted when Olberic and H'aanit challenge non-boss NPCs, as they retain their overworld sprites in battle.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Downplayed with Helgenish. He was already an abusive, thoroughly unpleasant Jerkass to begin with, but as Primrose eventually finds out, Helgenish has no problem committing murder for the sake of intimidating his dancers into submission.
• Nothing Is Scarier: Wispermill, the last town in Ophilia's story. It has a creepy atmosphere, heightened because none of the people will talk to you. They have no items to buy or steal, and they can't be Guided, Allured, Challenged, or Provoked. You can Scrutinize or Inquire, but the only information you'll get is that the townsfolk are "very pious"; anything more than that is described as beyond your party's ability to figure out.
• Now, Where Was I Going Again?: The game does everything in its power to avert this and ensure you will never, ever get lost or stuck. Not only does it include a journal detailing every current and past quest, but it also marks the location of every main chapter on the map, along with the recommended levels to play said chapters, and you can fast travel to any town you have previously visited, so even wandering into a high-level area without a recent manual save isn't a problem.
• NPC Roadblock: Several hidden items and treasure chests are guarded by NPCs standing in front of doors, who have to be challenged or provoked and defeated.
• Obliviously Evil: Helgenish seems to honestly believe that he's a kind and generous man in spite of his treating the dancers in his employment like sex objects instead of people. In his mind, there's nothing wrong with his belittling and physical aggression towards them; they should be unconditionally grateful to him for giving them a place to work and let him do whatever he likes to them. Helgenish's obliviousness to the unnecessary cruelty of his actions does not make him any less despicable — if anything, it makes him worse, because his obliviousness comes from narcissism.
• Obvious Rule Patch: Enemies will always go first in a round after coming out of Break (consecutively performing all of their actions if they can move multiple times) — even if they're under the effects of Leghold Trap, which makes enemies go last. This is so that the party can't indefinitely stun-lock a boss with the ability, which is cheap to cast and available almost immediately.
• Oh, My Gods!: "Gods" is used in place of "god" in swears, giving us words like "godsdamned".
• Ominous Latin Chanting: The two final boss themes make damn well sure you know you're fighting a demonic fallen god.
• Only Six Faces: The more detailed character art (as seen for each character's story) and the end of each characters' tales show that most of the female characters have nearly identical facial design, with their hair being the main point of difference. H'aanit and Ophilia share almost identical faces, as does Ophilia with Lianna (seen in Ophilia's end screen) and with Cordelia Ravus (seen in Therion's ending screen).
• One Degree of Separation: Completing the protagonists' stories unlocks a few sidequests that reveal that a lot of the NPCs from the 8 stories are related to one another or the PCs in many ways. Some connections are revealed near the end of stories, too.
  • Lianna, Ophilia's adoptive sister, is friends with Eliza Woodward, a lady of the Knights Ardante who helps H'aanit hunt Redeye.
  • Noa from Tressa's tale, and Cordelia from Therion's, are friends and penpals.
  • Odette, Cyrus's colleague, is a pupil of Geoffrey Azelhart, Primrose's dad. She's also a friend of Revello, from Primrose's path.
  • Graham Crossford ties Ogen and Alfyn together, is the author of Tressa's book, and Kit's father as well as having traveled on Leon Bastralle's ship. He's also the monster Redeye from H'aanit's tale.
  • Barham, from Therion's chapter 2, does business with Mikk and Makk from Tressa's chapter 1.
  • Captain Bale, from Olberic's tale, is friends with Bishop Donovan, from Ophilia's.
  • Susanna, from H'aanit's tale, is the author of the book that Cyrus quotes at the end of his story.
• Open Secret: The existence of the Obsidian Parlor brothel near Stillsnow. Everybody in the area knows about it, but because it caters to wealthy patrons and powerful clergy from the nearby Flamesgrace, they turn a blind eye so they can profit off of the business it brings to their town.
• Opening the Sandbox: After completing the first chapter of your chosen hero, you are free to explore the game's entire world, limited only by your ability to fight enemies.
• Optional Boss:
  • There are a few of them in many of the optional caves strewn throughout the land. Notable ones include the ice golem Jötunn in the low-level Hoarfrost Grotto, the Snake Charmer and Giant Python in the mid-level Quicksand Caves, the Devourer of Men in the high-level Forest of No Return, and the direwolf Mánagarmr in the high-level Forest of Purgation. The last two are notably much harder than any of the eight traveler's Final Boss.
  • And, technically speaking, the True Final Boss is one as well, if you consider the game content after completing all eight stories to be optional postgame content rather than part of the main storyline.
• Optional Character Scene: Starting from the second chapter of a character's story, the player can activate "party banter", in which the focus character converses with one of the current party members after an important event. After completing at least one story, you can start to activate banter in taverns that take place between three or even four party members.
• Optional Party Member:
  • By the strictest definition, anyone. While you can recruit the eight playable characters when you first encounter them, nothing forces you to do so. On the PC version, there's even an achievement for going through a character's story with just that character and no one else.
  • The initial eight characters are the only ones that can be in the main party. However, after completing a character's story, the most prominent people from their adventure can be encountered as NPCs across the world, now capable of being Guided/Allured.
• Out of Focus: The Leoniel Consortium, an organization of merchants—including Mattias—that assist with the Kindling. The Leoniel Consortium is only mentioned twice in the entire game, during Ophilia's first and third chapter. Mattias, on the other hand, turns out to be more important to the plot than he initially seems, as he's a traitor plotting to ruin the Kindling so that he can gain power from the local God of Evil.
• Partially Civilized Animal: Various tribes of hostile beast people appear in random encounters throughout Orsterra: Lizardmen in the Frostlands and Sunlands, Froggen in the Flatlands and Riverlands, Birdians in the Coastlands and Cliftlands, Ratkin in the Highlands and Woodlands, and Caits rarely and randomly in any place. While they wear clothing, wield fairly sophisticated metallic weapons, and have hierarchical societies, they seem incapable of meaningfully communicating with humans.
• Patchwork Map: The continent of Orsterra is divided into eight regions, each representing a geographical climate. Starting from the north and going clockwise, we have the snowy Frostlands, the grassy plain Flatlands, the seaside Coastlands, the mountainous Highlands, the desert Sunlands, the lush Riverlands, the canyon-filled Cliftlands, and the jungle Woodlands.
• Perfect Poison: In Chapter 3 of Ophilia's story, one of the cultists drinks poison after being defeated in battle. He instantly and wordlessly falls dead.
• Permanently Missable Content: There are some items that can be missed, but they generally are not required for achievements.
• Plot-Driving Secret:
  • Olberic's path centers around finding Erhardt and discovering why he betrayed his kingdom.
  • Cyrus's path centers around solving the mystery of the ancient tome missing from the academy's archives.
• Point Build System: Skills are handled this way with the Job Points system. You earn Job Points in combat the same way as experience points, which can be spent to purchase Skills. This gives you freedom in what order you wish to acquire your skills. Also note that regardless of what skill you plan on learning, the JP requirement is the same and only goes up as you learn more skills; so if you're planning on learning either Lightning Bolt (a single hit lightning area attack) or Lightning Blast (a double hit lightning area attack) as a third Scholar skill, it will cost 30 JP.
• Point of No Return: The Big Bad is polite enough to warn you that once you cross the threshold into The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, you're in it to win it.
• Poison and Cure Gambit: When Alfyn visits Goldshore in Chapter 2 of his story, he finds that the townsfolk are suffering from a life-threatening sickness, and that fellow apothecary Vanessa Hysel is curing them. Turns out that her "cure" made their ailment worse, and that she's selling the real medicine for 100,000 leaves a phial. Alfyn catches on to Vanessa's scheme, tracks her down to the Caves of Azure, and defeats her and her bribed mercenaries in combat.
• Poison Mushroom: There are several battle-only items that hurt your party members, such as giving them a negative status effect. Why you would want to use these is anyone's guess, but you can.
• Post-End Game Content: After beating a character's story, their quest does not end there as the game picks right back up where it left off, allowing you to keep exploring. From there, you can complete other characters' stories, seek out the various side quests and collect the Battle-Tested weapons that are only available after certain stories are beaten. And of course, there's always The Very Definitely Final Dungeon to take on.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: Most evident with Olberic, who is already a famed knight known to slay lesser warriors in droves with ease in his early years, and has spent years since his kingdom's fall as a sellsword. In game, he begins play scarcely more effective in battle than the young merchant girl more interested in bartering and trading or the apothecary who's spent most of his time in his adulthood as his town's doctor. Warrior is one of the better "base" kits for creating really big hits with a good sword, so he'll likely get a power spike early, but there's also nothing stopping his teammates from ending up as good or better than he is.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Many of the quotes the individual party members use upon activating maximum Focus definitely qualify if it precedes a damage-focused attack upon the enemy as it promises a hefty blow that will typically massarce lesser enemies.
  Cyrus: "Now the true lesson begins!"
  Therion: "I'm ready! Are you?!"
  Alfyn: "Let's get down to work!"
  Olberic: "My blade is UNBENDING!"
• Precision F-Strike: None of these are particularly bad, but they take place in a sprite-based RPG on a Nintendo console, immediately reminding (sufficiently aged) players of how the family-friendly company demanded a pre-marital kiss be Bowdlerised. This, if anything, heightens the intensity of the following:
  • While the word itself is not actually used, it doesn't take much to guess what Primrose meant when she tells Helgenish to "go pleasure yourself".
  • Helgenish calls Primrose a whore before their battle. Twice.
  • When Primrose visits Stillsnow, Arianna also calls herself one, since she canonically engages in The Oldest Profession.
• Prestige Class: There are four secret jobs that can be obtained by completing Brutal Bonus Levels and defeating their corresponding bosses. They are the Starseer, Sorcerer, Runelord and the Warmaster.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Helgenish is Type B. He is in his older years, and is utterly immature, selfish and entitled, believing that the entire world should revolve around him and throwing temper tantrums the moment things don't go his way, much like how a toddler thinks and behaves.
• Purple Is the New Black: Darkness icons, spell effects, and elemental enemies are all purple.
• Quieter Than Silence: The Ruins of Hornburg.

R-S

• Random Effect Spell: The "Bewildering Grace" dance you can use as a Dancer, and the kinds of effects you can get from it, can be pretty extreme. It can screw you in spectacular ways, like bringing your entire party's HP to One, preventing item use for the remainder of battle, or healing your opponents fully. But on the other hand, it can heal/buff your party, summon a monster that kills your enemies instantly, or, most importantly, multiply the amount of experience or job points you win at the end of the battle. The rarest of these multipliers is 100x, and if you're lucky enough to get this when facing a Cait enemy, your party is set for the remainder of the game.
• Random Number God: Percentage-based success rates are present in determining Rogue abilities success as well as certain battle skills like Collect and Steal. Even when the numbers look favorable, it's up to Lady Luck if that 90% Steal nabs that Forbidden Blade or ruins your town reputation.
• Retraux: The environments are rendered in 3D, while characters are rendered as 2D sprites meant to invoke the art-style of SNES-era Square RPGs. The developers refer to this style as "HD-2D".
• Rewatch Bonus: Playing through Therion's story after beating everyone's once might result in a feeling of deja vu during his flashbacks. The town that he recalls running around in with Darius during the cutscenes "Partners in Crime" and "Friends, Brothers, Partners" is Riverford, the final town visited in Olberic's story. Specifically, they run into the eastern half of town while getting away from the guards, and are also seen running directly away from Werner's manse after robbing it.
• Riddle for the Ages:
  • Helgenish works for Rufus of the Obsidians, one of the three assassins responsible for the murder of Primrose's father, and is later revealed to have no problem committing murder himself; but it's left ambiguous if he is an official member of the Obsidians or is merely allied with them.
  • At the end of Therion's route, the Arc Villain tells him that the Dragonstones will "grant me an even greater power than I have now". It's later revealed that the Dragonstones' true purpose is to unlock the Gate of Finis, wherein lies an Eldritch Abomination God of Evil that was banished there. It's implied that the Arc Villain of Therion's route had already figured this out and was planning to make a deal with said God of Evil to gain immense power, but it's never fully confirmed if this is indeed the case.
• Sacred Flames: The Church of the Sacred Flame is a continent-wide religion revering the fire casted down by Aelfric the Flamebringer, leader of the twelve gods that vanquished the evil god Galdera. Every twenty years, a member of the church becomes the Flamebearer who takes part in the pilgrimage by bringing the fire from Flamesgrace and perform the Kindling ceremony to reignite the flames in two other locations. This is where Ophilia's story begins when she volunteers to take the pilgrimage in her adopted sister's place when her adopted father grows ill. This is nearly inverted when Mattias, the antagonist of Ophilia's story, uses Lianna to corrupt the Flame to Galdera's Flame in order to obtain his power.
• Sad Battle Music: The first fight with Simeon in Primrose's Chapter 4 is tragic and solemn, unlike every other battle theme. Fittingly, it's called "Determination", reflecting Primrose's determination to get her revenge on the man who ruined her life.
• Saintly Church: The Order of the Sacred Flame is unambiguously a force for good in the world.
• Save Scumming: As an homage to classic RPGs, the Rogue abilities and their percentage-based success rates can be overcome if the player is willing to invest enough time and resets until they succeed.
• Scenery Porn: Unreal Engine 4 allows the game to be set in absolutely breathtaking 3D environments while using 16-bit spritework at the same time.
• Self-Damaging Attack Backfire: Primrose (and anyone with the Dancer job) can use Bewildering Grace, which may have a beneficial effect like dealing damage... or a negative effect like damaging your party. If you're lucky, it'll just be Scratch Damage. If you're unlucky, it'll leave everyone in the party with zero MP and BP and only one HP.
• Shop Fodder: A variety of trinkets and miscellaneous items can be found and stolen from NPCs that are only good for selling for money. These junk items range from a "Silver-Filled Pouch" sold for 8,000g to a "Dirty Ball of Cloth" sold for 2g. When the character goes to a shop to sell them, these items will be organized first in the list over the healing items, which are first when accessing inventory in other situations.
• Shout-Out: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise.
• Siamese Twin Songs: A case where both sides of this trope can be swapped out. Each traveler has a short song (around 20-30 seconds each) that plays on repeat during the cutscene that comes right before one of their boss fights. This song leads into a short stinger (also unique to each traveler), which then passes seamlessly into one of the three boss themes. Interestingly, the stingers can also lead into the song They Who Govern Reason, the theme for four of the game's optional boss fights, which don't have any cutscenes leading up to them, so that particular transition can't be heard in-game.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: The eight stories all fall on different parts of the scale. Most of the stories have a mixture of both, but some are more idealistic or cynical than others.
  • Ophilia's story is mostly idealistic, with Ophilia herself being one of, if not the sweetest character in the entire setting; but her story also deals with some very mature themes, particularly the loss of loved ones, and culminates in her having to stop her adoptive sister Lianna from unwittingly bringing about The End of the World as We Know It in her futile attempt to bring her biological/Ophilia's adoptive father Back from the Dead.
  • Cyrus's story deals with an ideology clash between those who pursue knowledge to empower the world and those who pursue knowledge to empower themselves. His is generally an idealistic one, though the consequences of empowering yourself at the expense of others are shown to be very serious.
  • Tressa's story is unanimously idealistic and is the most light-hearted of all eight of them. While pretty much all the other protagonists are travelling for deep personal reasons, Tressa is travelling to form new experiences and for the fun of it.
  • Olberic's story leans towards the cynical end of the scale, being a tale of loss of purpose after Olberic failed to save his king and kingdom from a betrayal by his friend Erhardt, who himself had lost his home as a young boy and held a deep hatred towards the king for a perceived Betrayal by Inaction. Olberic's story also has one of the most evil characters in the entire game in the form of its Arc Villain, Werner, who orchestrated Erhardt's betrayal of the king and presently leads a tyrannical regime where innocent people are burned at the stake for the most trivial of reasons. However, his story also has an idealistic side, as he eventually finds his purpose in life (to protect the weak), is able to dilute his desire to avenge his fallen king and kingdom with his sense of honour, and culminates in him and Erhardt making amends and coming together to bring down Werner.
  • Primrose's story is unanimously cynical and is bar none the darkest of all eight of them, with themes of murder, revenge, slavery, and sexual abuse. Primrose is decidedly an Anti-Heroine on a quest for vengeful bloodshed against three assassins who murdered her father in front of her eyes when she was a young girl, and shows signs of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Naturally, such a story has one of the cruellest Arc Villains in the game in the form of Simeon, who had actively cultivated a Childhood Friend Romance with Primrose for the sake of psychologically torturing her at a later time for his own amusement. In the end, Primrose's quest for revenge doesn't make her feel any happier.
  • Alfyn's story is idealistic overall, with Alfyn himself being one of the kindest characters in the entire setting, travelling to treat the sick and suffering. However, like Ophilia's story, Alfyn's story deals with some very mature themes later on, most notably the consequences of being too idealistic. Miguel, one of the most twisted characters in the entire game, willingly betrays Alfyn's trust after the latter saves his life and then stabs an innocent child, forcing Alfyn to kill Miguel to save the child's life and causing a major crisis of faith.
  • Therion's story leans heavily on the cynical end for the majority of it, with Therion himself being a distrustful loner after being cruelly betrayed and nearly murdered by said traitor in his adolescent years. However, his ends on a more idealistic note as Therion undergoes Character Development and becomes more accepting of the concept of trust, while remaining wary of the risks.
  • H'aanit's story is rather difficult to determine as to where it falls on the idealism vs. cynicism scale. H'aanit being the dignified, level-headed woman that she is, her story doesn't particularly lean towards either idealism or cynicism. Still, her story seems to be more idealistic than cynical as shown by H'aanit's determination to find her master Z'aanta and then save him from Redeye's petrification magic.
• Spared, but Not Forgiven: Olberic set out to kill Erhardt, trying to avenge his kingdom. In the end, despite besting him in combat and telling him he has no forgiveness in his heart, he chooses not to kill Erhardt. The situation seems to evolve into straight-up Forgiveness over time, however.
• Sprite/Polygon Mix: As previously stated, the environments are 3D while the characters are sprites.
• Stat Overflow: The ultimate support skill of the Cleric, Saving Grace, allows the user to be healed beyond their maximum HP, but it can't be used on a character again until their HP goes back below maximum again.
• Status Buff:
  • Warriors have access to the Abide and Stout Wall skills, which increase their physical attack and physical defense respectively. They can also use Incite to taunt enemies to focus on them.
  • Dancers have abilities that increase one character's physical attack, elemental attack, physical defense, and speed.
  • Clerics have Sheltering Veil, which raises one character's elemental defense, and Reflective Veil, which reflects one magic spell per level of Boost.
  • Hunters have Take Aim, which increases the whole party's accuracy and critical hit rate.
  • Practically all of the Starseer's skills buff party members in various esoteric ways, from increasing all defensive stats to allowing someone to gain 2 BP per turn instead of 1 or creating a shield that reflects physical attacks.
• Status Effects:
  • Sleep prevents the afflicted from doing anything for several turns, but they'll wake up immediately if they're hit by an attack.
  • Blind greatly lowers the accuracy of the afflicted character's physical attacks.
  • Silence prevents the character from using any of their job's skills.
  • Poison damages the victim after they perform an action.
  • Confusion causes the target to make a standard attack against a random enemy, ally, or itself each round.
  • Unconsciousness prevents the victim from doing anything. Unlike sleep, getting hit won't snap them out of it.
  • Terror prevents the character from using or gaining BP.
  • Petrification, however, is unique to one boss in the game as a story element and also the True Final Boss, and part of H'aanit's plotline is finding the extremely rare remedy. The game makes it clear that it is not a standard ability known in the world.
• Stripperiffic: Any character who equips the Dancer class wears a two-piece outfit, including the men, with some exposing more than others (like Primrose and H'aanit). The advanced Warmaster class also features some of the male characters going topless with a vest or baring their midriff, while the female protagonists tend to bare their midriff.
• Suddenly Voiced: An odd example. While the protagonists are perfectly chatty during the main story and party banters, they never speak a word during sidequests. The one exception is the sidequest "Star of the Stage", where Olberic or H'aanit do have spoken dialogue depending on which one you use to complete the quest.
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: While the music flows near constantly, during the sidequest "Star of the Stage" in H'aanit's version, she will summon Linde on stage. The accompaniment will come to a dead stop as the audience realizes she summoned an actual monster before the audience panics and flees.
• Sultry Belly Dancer: The primary dancer, Primrose, wears a revealing harem outfit.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: If you see a save pedestal near the end of a dungeon, it means you're about to have a boss battle. The first chapters also have a merchant next to them.

T-Y

• Taking the Bullet:
  • Guided/Allured NPCs Ophilia and Primrose can bring into battle will occasionally absorb damage from a physical attack directed at them. Depending on how strong the NPC is, they can only absorb a limited amount before being forced to retreat.
  • Olberic's special ability is to automatically tank the physical hits directed at his allies when he boosts and defends.
• Tempting Fate:
  • When Leon Bastralle arrives to save Tressa from Mikk and Makk's subordinates when they gang up on her, Mikk tells his subordinates, "What difference does one more make? Get 'em!" Leon promptly knocks out two subordinates and brings the third to his knees.
  • During Olberic's dream of Hornburg just before it fell, he is fighting a group of soldiers all by himself. One soldier tells Olberic, "Look about you—we have the numbers!" It doesn't take long before reinforcements arrive to assist Olberic, outnumbering the opposing group of soldiers.
  • When Therion pursues a trio of bandits at the Black Market, one of them says, "We should be safe here. Ain't nobody stupid enough to chase us this far." Therion promptly asks them, "What's the hurry?"
• Terms of Endangerment: Helgenish often refers to Primrose and his other dancers as "kittens".
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
  • If you boost to attack multiple times, even if the first attack technically depletes the enemy's HP to zero, your character will still use all of their attacks before allowing the enemy to die.
  • The Divine skills of Warmaster and Runelord has them consecutively unleash every single weapon type and magic element, respectively, against the enemy.
• This Is Unforgivable!:
  • During her confrontation with the Ghisarma, H'aanit states the killing other animals and people for no reason other than taking out its anger is this trope. H'aanit follows it up with declaring the Ghisarma must be killed.
  • In Chapter 3, this is Ophilia's reaction to learning that someone kidnapped the bishop's daughter and threatened to kill her unless he turns over the ember of the Sacred Flame.
  Ophilia: A father's love for his daughter... is a thing beyond measure. To manipulate that for evil... is a sin the gods will not overlook.
• Title Drop:
  • In-universe entirely, but this bit of Pre Ass Kicking One Liner from a boss:
    Dark Reacher: You will taste the power I summoned from the far reaches of hell!^note From the Far Reaches of Hell is a tome that drives Cyrus's story; the villain in question invokes power from researching this particular tome.
  • Cyrus himself name-drops it after defeating his final boss and choosing not to destroy the book:
    Cyrus: That one day, shoud we be threatened by forces from the far reaches of hell, our descendants will possess the knowledge needed to protect this realm.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: The appropriately named From the Far Reaches of Hell in Cyrus's story. Ostensibly a book about necromancy, it is in truth about the fallen god Galdera's power over life and death, and contains dreadful secrets such how to obtain great power and immortality at the cost of other people's lives using Blood Magic. The book's mere existence poses a great threat because of the knowledge it contains, and Cyrus has to decide whether or not to destroy the book and its knowledge forever to keep it away from those who would abuse it.
• Too Awesome to Use:
  • The third tier of elemental soulstones can dish out absolutely obscene amounts of damage, so you'll definently want to save them for either the toughest boss fights, or Chubby Caits. Thankfully, these can be farmed by Thieves from high-level elemental spirits for that element's respective soulstone.
  • Revitalizing Jam fully restores a character's HP, SP, and BP. These items are extremely rare, so it's important to save them for the final dungeon. They can be farmed by Thieves from regular Revenants, but they are likewise extremely rare and the best place to farm from them^note Grimsand Road is locked behind H'aanit's Chapter 4.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Primrose Chapter 1: Helgenish's decision to murder Yusufa in front of Primrose and then mock her dying words is almost as idiotic as it is vile. Primrose had just exited the Sunshade Catacombs—a dungeon with Random Encounters—alive, indicating that she has combat capabilities. Primrose and Yusufa reaffirming their friendship should have given Helgenish further evidence that mocking Yusufa after her death would be a bad idea, but he thinks it's a good idea and is rewarded with a fight to the death.
  • Ophilia Chapter 2: Emil chases after a "dog" holding the brooch that belonged to his friend's deceased mother, into a dark forest filled with Random Encounters, with said friend soon going after him. They are both unarmed little boys all by themselves. Fortunately, Ophilia arrives in time to save them from the wolf, Hroðvitnir.
  • Alfyn Chapter 3: Miguel, the boss of this chapter invokes this on Alfyn in a Badass Boast, warning him that, while he twists the truth as he sees fit, he wasn't lying about being a former mercenary. Averted when Alfyn defeats him in battle and proves that he is Stronger Than He Looks. This ends up making the villain an example in and of himself, since his inability to wait until his wounds had healed costs him his life.
  • Primrose Chapter 3: Albus, the Right Hand of the Crow, who decides that mocking Primrose's deceased father in front of her is a good idea. It goes every bit as well as you can imagine.
  • In general, the player can potentially invoke this on any enemy/boss that uses magic attacks by using the Cleric skill Reflective Veil to reflect their magic attacks back at them, which is quite hilarious. It is very possible for, say, the sociopathic criminal mastermind at the end of Primrose's story to reduce his own HP to 0 by his own reflected magic attack.
• Tournament Arc: The second chapter of Olberic's story has him participate in a tournament so he can talk to an associate of Erhardt to find his whereabouts.
• Town with a Dark Secret:
  • Sunshade: A city in the Sunlands known as the "city of a thousand pleasures", is home to a famous tavern run by a secretly abusive man who goes so far as to treat the dancers working for him like Sex Slaves.
  • Stillsnow: A small mountain village just north of Flamesgrace, where the Order of the Sacred Flame was founded, is home to a brothel run by assassins and is frequented by at least one corrupted member of the Order of the Sacred Flame.
  • Northreach: The northernmost city in the game is being run by a gang of thieves who have either killed or corrupted the guards to their side.
  • Noblecourt: A Flatlands city which was once a place of high ideals and moral men and is a base for one of the leaders of the Obsidians. They have corrupted the guards and crime is rampant now.
  • Wispermill: Despite looking like an ordinary farming town at first glance, its inhabitants are under the thrall of an evil cult and are hostile to members of the Order of the Sacred Flame.
• Trauma Inn: You can rest at inns to restore your party's HP and SP. During the first chapter of each character's story, you can rest at the inn for free. The cost is twice the sum of the active party members' levels, but each town has an NPC who can cut that in half if Scrutinized or Inquired.
• Treants: The actual Raging Treant enemies, as well as Peek-a-boos, both resemble humanoid trees.
• Turns Red: Enemies are more likely to use their strongest attacks when their health is low, indicated by their name literally turning red. Bosses develop new tactics and become increasingly dangerous the lower their health gets. Downplayed with Balogar, the guardian of the Runelord class. After losing 50% of his HP, his attacks targets now the entire party but he unlocks also all his weaknesses.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Gate of Finis, which as the player learns during the endgame is where the fallen god Galdera is sealed.
• Unexplained Recovery: Therion surviving the fall from the cliffs after the betrayal of his former friend, Darius, was not explained in-game. However, based on the concept art, Therion has a grappling hook with him, which possibly could have been used to catch himself.
• Unnervingly Heartwarming: Primrose's reunion with Simeon in her third chapter after many years. Their reminiscence on her childhood is a sweet moment... until you realize that Simeon was already a grown man expressing signs of having feelings for a young girl. Implicitly, this is a very good sign that something is wrong. Sure enough, Simeon turns out to be the main antagonist of Primrose's route.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • Excluding any quest-relevant NPCs and children, you can freely beat the crap out of any NPC you come across with Olberic or H'aanit's Path Actions. You can even go as far as beating up a pregnant woman.
  • Therion can steal from most NPCs as well; you can have him take a memento from a widow or candy from children. In the case of the widow's memento, it's one of the few items that Tressa can't Purchase and must be stolen. It's also the only way to get said item, so if you're a completionist you're forced to steal it.
  • In Victor's Hollow, there is an Orphanage Matron standing in front of her orphanage, blocking the door. There's nothing stopping you from beating the daylights out of her to gain access to the orphanage. Inside are two children (who you can steal from, things including a glass marble, and a stuffed toy) there's also a chest in there. The contents of the chest? A bag of coins. Let that sink in for a moment.
  • In Sunshade, there is a woman who is guarding a door. She came to the town to find her mother, but the woman tragically died before they could reunite. Inside is the the dress her mother left her. It is possible to Challenge/Provoke her and take it too.
  • You can also send a bunch of wild animals or animated skeletons to smash people, or recruit random villagers to have them attack enemies for you.
  • As an added bonus, with a few exceptions, this doesn't actually hinder things — it makes for a particularly hilarious form of Gameplay and Story Segregation.
• Video Game Stealing: Thief-class fighters can steal items within battle. They can gain access to a special skill which always doubles what is taken.
  • Therion's Path Action also allows him to pickpocket people in the field based on a percentage chance. If he fails, they'll yell at him.
• Villain Ball: Twice in Primrose's story, overlapping with Too Dumb to Live.
  • At the end of her Chapter 1, Helgenish decides that it's a good idea to fatally stab her Only Friend in front of her and make fun of her last words after her death... except Primrose had got through a dungeon infested with Random Encounters, indicating that she knows how to fight. Suffice to say that things do not go well for Helgenish.
  • Later, in her Chapter 3, she finds out that the former guard-captain of her hometown turned traitor and helped murder her father when she was a girl. After being exposed by his second-in-command Revello Forsythe (who remains loyal), said former guard-captain decides that it's a good idea to troll Primrose by insulting her deceased father right in front of her. Did we mention that he had recently received word that Primrose has already killed one of his accomplices? What could possibly go wrong!?
• Villainous Breakdown: Nearly every single main villain will fall into this, screaming in fury at being stopped by the hero. Some do so during their fight, which is a sign that they are about to Turn Red.
  • Helgenish has one when Primrose unleashes her fury on him for murdering Yusufa, revealing that she has always hated him and only began working for him in the first place because of his connections to the Crow Men.
• Visual Initiative Queue: A horizontal bar at the top of the screen indicates action order, for characters and opponents alike.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: Some of the Chapter 1 bosses are more difficult than others, if their opposing protagonist is the one you start with, requiring said protagonist to fight them alone.
  • Helgenish, Primrose's Chapter 1 boss. He has over 1,000 HP and can take out Primrose within only a few hits, and despite being weak to Daggers, he resists Dark, and killing him just with normal attacks is all but impossible. It doesn't help that Primrose is a Fragile Speedster not built for defense. You have to take advantage of Primrose's path action Allure in order to defeat him, or gather party members before starting Primrose's Chapter 1.
  • The Guardian of the First Flame, Ophilia's Chapter 1 boss. It has almost 2,000 HP, and when weakened enough will start summoning Dark Wisps that, if not defeated in time, will self-destruct and deal a large amount of damage to Ophilia. While it's weak to Staves, the Guardian resists Light, so Luminescence isn't going to be much help. This encourages you to take advantage of Ophilia's path action Guide in order to defeat it^note In particular, an NPC in the Flamesgrace tavern with the skill "Summon Winds" can break 3 of the Guardian's shields (it's weak to Wind) with a single use, or gather party members before starting Ophilia's Chapter 1.
  • Mikk and Makk, Tressa's Chapter 1 bosses. They're a Dual Boss with almost 1,700 HP between the two of them, and if you choose Tressa as your starting protagonist, you'll have to fight them two-on-one. Sure, they're both weak to Wind skills (which Tressa has), but they share no other weaknesses between them. When one of them reaches 50% HP, they'll use a skill that allows the other to intercept single-target physical attacks and skills. Tradewinds and Trade Tempest are certainly helpful, but like the two above, it's recommended to gather party members before starting Tressa's Chapter 1. Cyrus in particular helps make the fight against them more manageable.
  • Typically, transitioning from one set of chapters to the next (i.e., finishing all the first chapters and then moving on to the second chapters, and so on) tends to coincide with a difficulty spike and ups the ante of the bosses appropriately. Due to the freeform nature of the game, the Level Scaling, and how you can do any chapter in any order, the Wake-Up Call Boss will likely be different for everyone, but the most commonly ones cited appear to be Hróðvitnir, the boss of Ophilia's Chapter 2, and Miguel, the boss of Alfyn's Chapter 3. Perhaps not coincidentally, these are the earliest bosses who are able to make themselves move more often in one turn.
  • Chapter 2 also introduces bosses with minions who can shield the boss, preventing the boss from being broken as long as one is alive, such as Orlick from Therion's Chapter 2.
• Weapon of X-Slaying: The weapon Snakesbane appears as a key item in a side story. True to its name, it has an enchantment upon it that allows the sword to easily cleave any snake in two - but the weapon itself is so old and rusty that it's useless against anything else.
• Wham Episode: Chapter 3 of each character's storyline almost invariably throws a major twist at the character in question, often prompting them to rethink their convictions or question the actions that brought them there. Some notable examples:
  • Ophilia's Path: Ophilia's adoptive sister Lianna steals the sacred embers from her after having been tricked into thinking doing so could help revive their recently-deceased father.
  • Olberic's Path: Olberic finally tracks down Erhardt, the man who killed his former liege, only to discover that he has reformed and become a town's guardian, partly to atone for aiding in the fall of Hornburg. When the two of them duel, Olberic spares his life and sets off to find the one who really masterminded Hornburg's destruction: Werner.
  • Primrose's Path: Primrose reunites with Simeon, a friendly face from her past, only for it to be revealed that he was the leader of the men who murdered her father. Simeon stabs Primrose and leaves her for dead.
  • Alfyn's Path: Alfyn encounters a fellow apothecary named Ogen, only for the two of them to clash since the latter only believes in treating patients he deems worthy of living. Alfyn rejects this philosophy and saves a man Ogen had refused to help, only for the patient to kidnap a local child and go right back to his villainous ways. Alfyn is deeply troubled by the consequences of what he did, and grapples with them during his fourth and final chapter.
  • Therion's Path: The last two Dragonstones end up in the hands of Darius, Therion's former partner who later betrayed him.
  • H'aanit's Path is an exception; her Wham Episode happens in her Chapter 2. H'aanit finds Z'aanta in the Spectrewood near Stonegard... turned to stone by Redeye's magic. By contrast, her Chapter 3 is more hopeful as she acquires the means to defeat Redeye and undo Z'aanta's petrification.
• When All You Have Is a Hammer…: In each character's individual chapters, a problem inevitably arises that always comes down to using their special talent to overcome it. The one exception is Primrose's final chapter, which does not require that she Allure anyone.
• Where It All Began: The entrance to The Very Definitely Final Dungeon is located at the ruins of Hornburg, Olberic's Doomed Hometown.
• White Mage: Clerics specialize in spells that heal and protect, although they also have access to Light-elemental spells.
• Wind Is Green: Wind icons, spell effects, and elemental enemies are all green.
• Windmill Scenery: The town of Wispermill, a small farming village famous for its windmills. There's even a sidequest where you help the villagers with their windmill problems.
• Word Salad Title:
  • It's one of those that sounds weird on its own, but makes sense when explained: it features eight ("octo") different stories ("paths") and main characters ("travelers").
  • Following the title shenanigans from the team behind Bravely Default, the eight characters' initials — Ophilia, Cyrus, Tressa, Olberic, Primrose, Alfyn, Therion, H'aanit — spell "OCTOPATH". The game presents them in this order on certain menu screens to make this connection easier to grasp. The sequel uses the same convention.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: While injured soldiers and elderly grandmas are fair game, path actions that involve bringing NPCs into battle such as Challenge and Allure are not able to target children or young teens.
• Ye Olde Butchered English: In the English translation, everyone from H'aanit's village speaks like this. (It doesn't reflect anything in the Japanese version, where they speak normally.) On the one hand, the game gets a few things correct, like using Middle English -en infinitives. On the other hand, it still falls prey to the classic mistakes, like "he wouldst"^note "wouldst" is only for "thou", otherwise it's still "would" and mixing formal and informal pronouns, like in "Hast thou ever knownst your master."^note which also adds an extraneous -st onto "known"
• You Killed My Father: Primrose is motivated by revenge against the men who killed her father when she was a child.
• You Meddling Kids:
  • Cyrus's Chapter 1 boss, Russell, shouts the following at Cyrus after accidentally exposing himself as the culprit behind the theft of the tome The Church of the Sacred Flame: A Complete Historie.
    Russell: It was the perfect plan! If not for your bloody meddling, I could have had it all!
  • Ophilia's Chapter 4 includes a rare funny moment in said chapter after Ophilia manages to convince Lianna not to go through with the ritual to weaken Galdera's seal under the belief that doing so would resurrect their recently-deceased father. The Arc Villain of her story, Mattias, has a Villainous Breakdown where he hilariously shouts this at Ophilia.
    Mattias: You would insist on meddling until the very last. It all would have succeeded if only Lianna had been the one to perform the Kindling.

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