YMMV / Octopath Traveler

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • You get this little gem of faux-cockney dialogue if you allure/guide the Ruffian Lackey in Stonegard and dismiss him:
    "Ack! Me boss's gonna do 'is nut!"
  • All of the stat-boosting items are types of nuts, including the Slippery Nut, Hard Nut, Invigorating Nut and Nourishing Nut.
  • Some thief-type enemies have a defense debuff called "Strip Armor".
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Many of the cast being identified as comedic sociopaths due to their path actions, which let you do some pretty despicable things, from breaking up families, to literally stealing candy from children, to assaulting pregnant women with giant feral bears.
  • Simeon's affection for Primrose could be read as genuine regardless of his depravity, or a long-running act that he keeps to his death as a way to keep Primrose's life a tragedy.
  • Primrose unambiguously kills Rufus and Albus in the name of vengeance, but her battling Simeon can be interpreted in a few ways. Simeon makes several valid points during his Break Them by Talking speech, telling Primrose that not only would her father be not at all happy at his daughter going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against his murderers, but that she was never trying to avenge her father in the first place and was merely trying to fill the void that her father's death left her with. Did Primrose ignore Simeon's words and fight him for revenge? Or did she alter her resolve and fight him for the sake of a happier future for herself and others who had suffered from the Obsidians' villainy?
  • Werner's words at the Gates of Finis about Lyblac can be interpreted in various ways. It could either be viewed as Werner being disgusted by Lyblac's cruelty even with all the blood on his hands. Alternatively, Werner isn't actually repulsed by Lyblac on a moral or ethical level, and it's more "this woman's crazy and I'm going to pay the price if I keep in her company." It can be taken further as Werner could be seen as a tad regretful when he says "perhaps I was mad to serve her so long and bring down a kingdom." Or perhaps it's simply Evil Versus Oblivion since if Lyblac's plan succeeds, there won't be anybody remaining for Werner to rule, which is a main element of his character.
  • When it turns out that the man who killed Ogen's wife ended up having a wife and son of his own, what does it say about the person in question? Is he a Retired Monster who happens to have loved ones, or did he genuinely turn over a new leaf?
  • Inquiring/Scrutinizing Vanessa Hysel in the Undertow Cove after completing Alfyn's story reveals that she decided to leave the criminal life behind her and now sells genuine, high-quality medicine. However, it also says that she still charges high prices for her medicine, and combined with her Never My Fault line if spoken to, makes it ambiguous if she made a genuine Heel–Face Turn or just wants to stay within the boundaries of the law. Her line itself can be interpreted that it's not that she's avoiding blame, but more like she's being paranoid that she's done another wrong thing and fears of being pricked with the same nightmare-inducing drug as the retribution, therefore it just says that Alfyn's drug worked too well on her, she doesn't want to experience another batch of nightmares again and she'd do anything, including leaving her criminal life behind and secluding herself to a distant area, to avoid it.
  • It's unanimously agreed that Darius deserved being betrayed by his subordinates. However, him calling for Therion can be interpreted either him doing it much like Miguel did with Alfyn or as Darius having a last-minute Heel Realization.
  • Similarly, it's unanimously agreed that Galdera and Lyblac are monsters for what they did, but Champions of the Continent reveals that the crime on the top of the list of accusations against Galdera, the death of his mother Orsa, was not his, but rather an accident. And with Galdera's father Finis wanting to ressurect Orsa and being willing to kill some of his children to do so, some people believe that Galdera's "betrayal" was an attempt to get back at his abusive father, only to fail due to Aelfric's interference, and that Galdera underwent Sanity Slippage and Motive Decay while sealed behind the Gate of Finis, as an explanation to why he is the monster he is today.
• Angst? What Angst?: Due to the fact that The Very Definitely Final Dungeon is mechanically a sidequest, none of the characters get to react to the revelations within. In particular, Ophilia doesn't get to react to the knowledge that her adoptive father was murdered by Mattias, and did not die by natural causes as was presumed, Olberic doesn't get to react to the knowledge that Werner lied to Erhardt about what really happened at Grynd—claiming Hornburg razed it when he actually arranged for his own bandits to destroy it as a means to bring down Hornburg—and made him bring down an entire nation thanks to said lies as a means to open the Gate of Finis, while Tressa, Alfyn, and H'aanit don't get to react to the knowledge that Graham Crossford was corrupted into Redeye.
• Award Snub: More than quite a few fans felt that this game should've won Best Music at The Game Awards instead of Red Dead Redemption 2.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Ophilia. On one hand, some players like and relate to her because her kind, loving personality and story revolving around grief makes her a source of many emotional moments. She's also liked for being a Badass Adorable who is willing to fight against cultists for what she believes in. However, others think she is a bland character because she goes through the stages of grief from losing her biological family in her backstory, and because her helping others develop is prioritized over her own growth in confidence. Her detractors tend to point to Alfyn as an example of a Nice Guy who goes through a compelling character arc in the present. It doesn't help that her Chapter 2 is considered to be the weakest chapter in the entire game by a significant portion of the playerbase, due to being mostly Filler with only its Central Theme being relevant to the rest of her route.
  • Therion. One group believes that his cold, snarky personality is insufferable and that being cruelly betrayed and nearly murdered does not excuse his attitude to other characters trying to reach out to him, while another group relates to and sympathises with him for the trauma he suffered from Darius' betrayal, and believes that his snark results in several Funny Moments.
  • Ophilia's adoptive sister, Lianna, became disliked by quite a few players over the course of the former's story. While it's understandable that the death of her father, Archbishop Josef, would cause her so much emotional pain, the fact that she believed Mattias when he told her that he could resurrect Josef, was willing to betray Ophilia and steal Aelfric's Lanthorn from her to use in a dark ritual to the local God of Evil, and even accused Ophilia of being a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who doesn't love Josef as much as she does when Ophilia protested her actions, caused said players to believe that she is too naïve and childish to be sympathetic. However, other players believe that her actions are understandable because she has never gone through the pain of losing a loved one before^note Lianna's mother is never seen, even in flashbacks when she and Ophilia are children. Presumably, her mother died when she was too young to remember her, and point out that she willingly bonded with Ophilia and helped her recover from her parents' deaths when she was adopted, as well as becoming The Atoner after Mattias' defeat.
  • Simeon, who is set up as the Love Interest of Primrose after he's introduced. One camp believes that Simeon is a one-dimensional Card-Carrying Villain whose reveal as the mastermind of Primrose's story is easy to guess, way too hastily set up to be genuinely shocking, and too over-the-top to take seriously. Another camp believes that he's an enjoyably hammy Joker-esque villain who creates a memorable final stage and an interesting scenario. A third group of fans argue that while his role in Primrose's story is interesting and could've made for a compelling scenario, the lack of setup with Simeon wasted his potential (that said, the official guidebook provides more insight into Simeon's backstory).
• Best Boss Ever:
  • Pretty much any boss that screws with the mechanics to make the fight more fun qualify, though virtually all of the characters' final bosses count.
  • Simeon's battle is unique in that it's two fights. The first is a Battle in the Center of the Mind where Simeon tries to get Primrose to give up, questioning her motives, whether it made her happy, and why she came here. The second fight starts as a fairly standard boss, until he messes with the turn counter so you can only see when he gets to go, making it harder to strategize against him. This makes it a lot of fun because your crutch is gone and while Simeon can certainly defend his title as a final story boss, his attacks aren't as strong as the others', which makes his gimmick more fair while still mixing things up and creating a memorable boss. The music for both battles is also excellent.
• Broken Base: The English translation's use of a Ye Olde Butchered English dialect for residents of S'warkii, including H'aanit, is one of the most divisive changes from the original Japanese script. Fans either think it's a charming addition that distinguishes S'warkii and its people from the rest of the world, or an unnecessary change that makes playing through H'aanit's story that much more annoying, with little to no middle ground.
• Catharsis Factor: After Helgenish routinely bullies Primrose, orders her to do extra work for a dance he was dissatisfied with even though his customers loved it, and murders Yusufa as punishment for helping Primrose escape his tavern in pursuit of one of the Crow Men, hearing Primrose deliver a venomous "Reason You Suck" Speech before taking Helgenish down and killing him is incredibly satisfying.
• Cheese Strategy: Dreisang and Steorra can be cheesed with a Sealtige's Seduction + Reflective Veil combo (all their attacks are elemental, meaning that this combo can and will reflect their attacks), and Winnehild with Runelord Tressa (all her attacks are physical, so with Transfer Rune, followed by Sidestep, Tressa can nullify all damage).
• Common Knowledge: There is a misconception that Octopath Traveler was developed by the same team that developed Bravely Default, because it takes inspiration from Bravely Default's art style and combat, and can be considered a Spiritual Successor. While both games were published by Square Enix, Bravely Default was developed by Silicon Studio while Octopath Traveler was developed by Acquire^note who are best known for developing Tenchu and Way of the Samurai.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Almost everyone has Tressa as a Runelord and Olberic as a Warmaster due to the sheer overpoweredness of these combinations.
• Complete Monster: See here.
• Demonic Spiders: The elementals in chapters 2-3 are extremely powerful elemental attackers who can decimate anyone in just two or three hits. Being weak only against elemental attacks, having multiple guard points, and having abnormally high physical defense for elemental attackers leaves physical attacks completely out of the question until their guards are broken, and they're often teamed up with other powerful enemies.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: A number of fans interpret Olberic, Primrose and Therion as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Olberic and Primrose both have frequent nightmares of Hornburg's ruin and murder of Geoffrey Azelhart, respectively. While Olberic was accepted into Cobbleston and treated kindly by its people, Primrose crossed the Despair Event Horizon and says several times that murdering the three men who murdered her father is her only reason for living, voluntarily subjecting herself to Helgenish's mistreatment for years for the mere chance at revenge. Therion, meanwhile, has several flashbacks of his partnership with Darius, and has severe trust issues after being cruelly betrayed and nearly murdered by him.
• Difficulty Spike:
  • There is a big spike in the difficulty of the random encounters when you enter the areas around the various Chapter 2s, and another one when you enter the areas around the various Chapter 4s^ExplanationEach region has three cities. The ones closest to the center of the continent have a traveler's Chapter 1 story, the ones midway between the center and the edges have one traveler's Chapter 2 story and another's Chapter 3 story(except Quarrycrest, which has Tressa and Cyrus' Chapter 2, and Wellspring, which has Olberic and Therion's Chapter 3), and the outermost regions have the travelers' Chapter 4 stories. This is especially true with the jump from Chapter 1 to 2, as the former has a recommended level ranging from 1 to 12 based on scaling, whereas the latter starts with a recommended level of 21. These coincide with a change in the normal battle theme music, as well.
  • The True Final Boss battle is exponentially harder than anything else in the entire game, including the above-mentioned Boss Rush that comes right before it and every other Optional Boss battle. You will need several of the strategies listed in the game's Game Breaker page to have a chance.
• Disappointing Last Level: While none of the travelers' Chapter 4 dungeons qualify, The Very Definitely Final Dungeon does. To sum it up, you will have to defeat no less than eight bosses that, while not difficult, are time-consuming, before fighting the True Final Boss, a two-phase battle that requires all your party members. It's very likely that you'll lose a few times, especially if you've been lax in leveling your less frequently-used members, and if you do, you have to start the entire thing all over again, since there are no save points inside. The dungeon has some interesting revelations that tie the stories together, but the ending itself is rather disappointing compared to the individual party members' endings.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Gareth, Therion's third chapter boss and right-hand man of Darius. Despite only appearing once, he has an oddly large amount of fanart, most of which pair him up with his boss. Probably has to do with the fact that he's genuinely loyal to his boss.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
  • Spelling Ophilia's name as "Ophelia" can irk some fans. It doesn't help that the latter is the standard spelling, or that the two variants have the same pronunciation.
  • Calling Tressa "Tessa" is not a good idea, either. Her name is a deliberate pun on "treasure".
• Fan Nickname: While Square Enix is fairly insistent on the "HD-2D series" name, it's far more common for people to refer to HD-2D games as "Octopath"-style or "Octopath Traveler"-style due to Octopath being the first game to debut the visual style and almost immediately becoming iconic for it.
• Fanon:
  • Many fanfics have Therion as the starting traveler, largely because it makes rather little sense for the other travelers to voluntarily help him.
  • Due to concept art hinting at him hiding a large facial scar under his bangs◊, Therion is often portrayed in fanfics (in particular those shipping him with Alfyn) retaining the injury. Some fics will take it a step further and portray him as being blind in his injured eye.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • Almost all the main characters have someone they have Ship Tease with in their story, such as Primrose and Jan Forsythe, or Therion and Cordelia. Any discussion of the game rarely ever has the intended Ship Tease be mentioned, and instead you'll find almost all of the main characters (save Tressa) are shipped between themselves instead (such as Primrose and Ophilia, or Alfyn and Therion).
  • Some fans prefer to ship Zeph, Alfyn's best friend, with Alfyn rather than the postgame sidequest's suggestion of Mercedes, who is also a childhood friend of the boys but moved away when they were young.
• Goddamned Boss:
  • Olberic's Duel Boss with Erhardt isn't an outright difficult fight, since the game accounts for the fact you're fighting a single enemy with Olberic by making sure Erhardt is closer to a beefed up NPC. However, the player isn't given much warning that the fight will be like this, so it can become really hard if the player hasn't accounted for Olberic having to be alone in the fight, and it can become unwinnable due to that. So if the player has invested in Olberic and makes sure he is equipped to tackle it, the fight isn't too hard, but if not, it can lock progression for a bit. Also, if you lose the fight with Erhardt, you'll have to fight the Lizardman Chieftain boss again.
  • H'aanit's Provoke fight against Alaic is almost entirely dependent on how much the player has used H'aanit's Capture mechanic to get monsters. If the player has maintained a decent variety of captured monsters, the fight isn't too bad, but if not, the player will be stuck for a long time with Linde as the only option, and Alaic himself isn't a pushover, so the player might have to spend a while catching new monsters specifically aimed at beating him to progress.
  • Simeon, Primrose's Final Boss, doesn't hit as hard as other bosses. The main difficulty of the fight is the fact that the boss has the extremely annoying habit of constantly using an area attack that causes silence, crippling your party unless you have accessories that protect you from it. Also, he will obscure the turn interface towards the middle of the fight, so you will not know when your characters will act. Overall, it is a boss that is way more annoying than hard.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • When you start your journey, you will run into Kit, who is looking for his father. Through sidequests, you slowly help him search for his father but he doesn't have much luck. By completing Tressa, Alfyn and H'aanit's stories, you will learn that Kit's father is named Graham. In Alfyn's story, he's implied to be long gone, but if you examine the pillar where you fought Redeye in H'aanit's story, you will find a message that confirms that Redeye is Graham — Kit's father. Kit has no chance of finding his father alive.
  • The party banters between H'aanit and Alfyn, in which they talk about the people they look up to (Z'aanta and the man who saved Alfyn's life), become more somber if you consider that Graham, the man Alfyn looks up to, is Redeye, the beast H'aanit must save Z'aanta from.
  • H'aanit lecturing her master, Z'aanta about his gambling addiction can be quite amusing, but in Marsalim Palace, you can find a prisoner about to be executed (whose sentence is carried out after his quest is finished), who admits he has a severe gambling addiction and wasn't able to overcome it, which ruined his life. H'aanit has a very good reason to be so concerned about her master's wagers!
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • If you completed the "Up to No Good" sidequest by challenging/provoking the mastermind, you can later find the ruffians at the Stonegard tavern and they say they're going to Sunshade. Sunshade is where you can find one of the ruffians' lost sister, meaning they'll have a chance of being reunited even if you didn't bring her to see him during the quest.
  • The conclusion of Alfyn's Chapter 2. Him drugging Vanessa with a nightmare-inducing herb? Might sound terrifying and showcases how pissed he is. But in hindsight, it seems that it's a way for Alfyn to show mercy and a way for Vanessa to redeem herself. He thinks after all she's done, she can still have a shot in a second chance. Because in the next chapter, he realizes that Miguel wastes his chance to get the same redemption attempt.
• Ho Yay:
  • Overall there's a LOT of this between all the travelers, allowing the player to freely interpret their relationships openly.
    • The sexual tension between Olberic and Erhardt is so thick it can be cut with a knife. Olberic never mentions a lover of any sort, despite his age. Nor does Erhardt. All Olberic ever talks about or seems stuck over is Erhardt's betrayal (which he takes VERY personally) and how he couldn't save the king. Their interactions in Chapters 3 and 4 can also heavily be interpreted as romantic.
    • Primrose says that she'd marry Tressa "in a heartbeat" if she was a man.
    • Primrose tells H'aanit that there's "two types of men" in the world; H'aanit says if it's up to her to choose, she wants "neither". In a later party chat, Primrose invites H'aanit to go travel together, stating that it is "to protect her from scoundrels". Primrose later asks herself why she couldn't just say that she would like her company.
    • H'aanit remarks on Ophilia's beauty, while Ophilia responds that she finds H'aanit "more beautiful than any of us". An awkward silence follows, before H'aanit suggests the two of them spend more time together, to which Ophilia says she'd like that.
    • Ophilia seems a bit fixated on Primrose's exposed legs in Primrose's banter with her during Ophilia's Chapter 2, and feels uncomfortable saying anything about it. Primrose notices that Ophilia is "as red as a beet."
    • When Ophilia describes meeting H'aanit as a great blessing, H'aanit blushes.
    • Alfyn reacts to being complimented by Olberic the same way he reacts to being complimented by Ophilia or Primrose.
    • Alfyn and Zeph, to the point a lot of players think they're each other's Implied Love Interest.
    • For all the funny moments in their banters, Cyrus and Therion develop that dynamic towards their respective last chapters, growing to admire and respect each other and their abilities, while Cyrus also rekindles his support of Therion in his last chapter, which the latter appreciates a lot due to his current emotional state. Some of their interactions are also close to playful teasing.
    • Alfyn and Therion's travel banter often ends with them offering to buy drinks for each other. This can easily be read as them asking each other out for dates.
  • Among the NPCs, there's Leon and Baltazar. The two of them were friends and rival pirates in the past, but when Baltazar died during one of their races, Leon experienced a massive change in personality. He decided to become a merchant to honor Baltazar, who wanted to become a merchant before he died, and realized his greatest treasure is Baltazar's ship, which Leon fixed up and repurposed as a merchant ship. That kind of devotion is something you would usually see from someone in love. It doesn't really help that it's easy to misread the cues before it's stated outright and see it as Leon realizing his greatest treasure was Baltazar himself.
    • During Tressa's third chapter, a travel banter between her and Olberic has him comparing Leon and Baltazar's rivalry to his and Erhardt's relationship. Tressa then comments that the expression on his face while he's thinking about this is similar to Leon's expression when talking about Baltazar. This compounds the Ho Yay for both examples at once.
  • Ophilia's adoptive sister Lianna and H'aanit's Knight Ardante ally Eliza also get some interactions in the postgame that suggest they care very much for one another and have for a long time. At the conclusion of their sidequest, Eliza expresses a wish to see Lianna's smile again, and when she does Eliza notes that "I've always loved that smile of yours," to which Lianna replies that she will try to keep doing so for Eliza's sake.
• I Knew It!: When the first two protagonists, Olberic and Primrose, were revealed, some people started speculating that the first letter of each protagonist's name would come together to spell out "Octopath". This theory started gaining widespread traction when Tressa and Alfyn were revealed, and was confirmed after the reveals of H'aanit, Therion, Cyrus, and Ophilia.
• Iron Woobie:
  • Primrose. Her story starts with her father's murder. In order to find his murderers, the Crow Men, she ends up working in Helgenish's tavern, in which she has to deal with the other dancers' jealousy and Helgenish's perverted attention and abuse. When she finally gets a lead on the first Crow Man, her Only Friend Yusufa is killed by Helgenish for helping her right in front of her. Over the course of her quest, Primrose will discover that several people close to her family were involved in the murder, including Simeon, her childhood sweetheart, who betrays her and stabs her at the end of Chapter 3. He then spends the fourth chapter mocking and psychologically tormenting her. At one point, he asks her if getting revenge filled the hole in her heart and if killing his men made her happy. Primrose becomes very upset and yells for him to stop. Not only is it the one time in the game when she loses composure, she admits to a vision of her father that what she missed most was his company, hating how lonely she was. The end of her story isn't much happier, as she realizes Simeon was right, and revenge didn't ease her pain, but all she can do is keep moving forward in the hopes of finding happiness.
  • Ophilia's life hasn't been easy, either. At a very young age, she lost both parents, but managed to recover when the bishop took her in and she befriended her adoptive sister. Years later, her father falls ill, and Ophilia chooses to take on the Kindling in her sister's stead, so her sister can stay by their father's side. In Chapter 3, Lianna tells Ophilia of their father's passing, then drugs Ophilia with a sleeping draught and steals the Ember in a desperate attempt to revive their father. While greatly shaken by what has happened, Ophilia is determined to press on, retrieve the Ember and save Lianna.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: The Starter Villain of Primrose's story, Helgenish, is subject to this. The Crow Men are higher-ups in the Obsidians who murdered Primrose's father when she was a child, traumatizing her and spurring her into her path of vengeance against them. However, each Crow Man has a certain charismatic charm to them despite being awful people. Helgenish, on the other hand, not only has no redeeming factors but is not even entertaining to watch. Instead, he is a materialistic abuser who simultaneously obsesses over Primrose and treats her like his personal sex object instead of a woman. Many players literally felt nauseous watching him. Then, in the closing moments of Primrose's Chapter 1, Helgenish becomes a murderer himself, making him the chapter boss.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Derryl from Ophilia's Chapter 2. While he can be a jerk to his friend Emil, losing his mother and the one memento he has of her is unsurprisingly hard on him. Ophilia, an orphan herself, sympathizes with him even as she gently calls him out on how he's treating his friend.
  • Ogen from the latter half of Alfyn's story. He comes off as a cynical jerk who's unapologetic about letting patients die if he doesn't think they're worth saving, but there's a reason he thinks that — a patient he treated ended up murdering his wife. It later turns out that after killing the man in revenge, despite the fact that the person in question had a family, Ogen was so consumed by guilt that he refused to treat the illness he contracted through apothecary work, thereby condemning himself to a slow death until Alfyn saved him.
  • Therion. He's rude, snarky and abrasive, and pretty much allergic to trust, but in his third chapter, it is revealed to the player exactly why he is like this: Darius, the only person he could bring himself to let in, betrayed him to the Cianno family, punting him off a cliff and leaving him for dead.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Out of the travelers, Therion tends to be shipped around the most. He's been shipped with Ophilia, Primrose, Tressa, Alfyn, Cyrus, Cordelia...
  • Primrose is no slouch either, since she's been shipped with pretty much every other traveler. It helps that Primrose loves teasing the other travelers. And that she's a prostitute.
  • Ophilia comes as a close third; she's been shipped with Primrose, H'aanit, Therion and Alfyn.
• Love to Hate:
  • Miguel Twinspears, the antagonist of Alfyn's Chapter 3, only appears in one chapter, but is such a despicable individual, not to mention a challenging foe, that he ends up being one of the more memorable antagonists of the game, even overshadowing the Ogre Eagle, a non-sapient monster that's the Final Boss of Alfyn's storyline.
  • All three of the Crow Men are considered enjoyable. While Helgenish proves to be disgusting and unlikeable, the trio by contrast are well-liked for how manipulative they are.
• Magnificent Bastard: Therion is a calm, snarky and secretly caring thief and one of the eight playable travelers, touted as the enemy of all wealthy people and houses. Stealing for his own gain and profit, Therion hears of a challenge to steal the Dragonstone from the well-guarded House Ravus, and infiltrates it with ease. Upon reaching the treasure, he is met with Heathcote, who, after a battle, reveals that he has branded him with a Fool's Bangle, and forces him to help him and the lady of the house, Cordelia Ravus, retrieve the remaining Dragonstones, thanks to his commendable thieving talents. Deploying his skills at pickpocketing, acting, stealth and combat, Therion successfully snatches the Dragonstones, managing to steal the last two back after Darius makes off with them, and once he returns, he is freed. Here, it is revealed that Heathcote unlocked the Bangle as early as the second chapter, and Therion was aware of this the entire time, having kept it on and continuing the mission out of implicit loyalty and trust in his employer.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Alfyn's chapter 3 boss, Miguel, is regarded as completely unstoppable by the fanbase due to his That One Boss status and being able to fight the entire party to a standstill while recovering from mortal wounds. Jokes abound that if he were in his prime, nothing could stop him, not even the True Final Boss.
  • Among the playable characters, Tressa receives this treatment the most, especially after becoming a Runelord. There's also the fact she has to deal with everyone else's trauma, yet she stays cheerful through the whole ordeal, hinting at an iron will.
  • Olberic also receives this treatment, both in-universe and out, especially after becoming a Warmaster.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • The various "nut" items have had players in a hoot. Adding to the hilarity, Majestic Marmots have an attack called "These Nuts," referencing the similarly titled meme.
  • MAX boosting calls. Especially "MY BLADE IS UNBENDING!" and "MY FOCUS IS UNPARALLELED!"
  • Pokémon Trainer H'aanit.^note H'aanit's Talent "Capture" allows her to capture monsters to then use their capacities in battle, but you have to damage them first. Naturally, the Pokémon jokes wrote themselves. What's more, H'aanit (as a hunter) can learn Mercy Strike, which works exactly the same as the Pokémon move False Swipe
  • Return of the "Mrgrgr!".^note An Ascended Meme coming from Bravely Default. Tressa's Chapter 2 has rival merchant Ali set up shop next to her and steal her customers, prompting her to utter Edea's famous "Mrgrgr!".
  • "Psychopath Traveler", referring to the Alternative Character Interpretation (of the cast being sociopaths) how most players just could not resist the sheer amounts of Video Game Cruelty Potential.
  • Runelord Tressa^Explanation Giving Tressa the Runelord Subjob and then farming 2000 Job Points to unlock Transfer Rune makes her ridiculously overpowered, with some joking she's practically invincible.
    • 1 HP Olberic doing Winnehild's Battle Cry ^ExplanationSimilarly, farming Warmaster Olberic makes him overpowered; and with the Passive Skills Fortitude (which increases his damage output the less HP he has) and Surpassing Power (which increases the damage cap), he can one-shot everyone, even the True Final Boss (as shown by many players)
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • If Helgenish didn't already cross it with his enslavement of women to work in his tavern, he definitively crosses it when he fatally stabs Yusufa after having her tortured and then heartlessly makes fun of her last words to Primrose.
  • The Crow Men in general are on the wrong side of the line to begin with, but Albus, the least rotten of the trio, firmly crossed it in his degeneration of the security of Noblecourt after the downfall of Geoffrey Azelhart, using his expertise and authority in the city guard to ruthlessly snuff out any opponents to his regime and threatening the rest into line, including his former second-in-command Revello Forsythe. All for money.
  • Vanessa Hysel in chapter 2 of Alfyn's story is later revealed to have crossed it with her very first onscreen action, feeding Flynn medicine that she knew would eventually kill her without the glow worm moss cure she had no intention of providing for any price her mother was capable of paying.
  • Miguel Twinspears crosses it in Alfyn's Chapter 3 with repaying his kindness by kidnapping an innocent child and nearly murdering him, all while cruelly mocking Alfyn's willingness to help others.
  • Gideon, the antagonist of Cyrus' Chapter 2, crossed it by kidnapping ten people to use in his blood crystal research, which resulted in most of his captives dying.
  • Lucia, the main antagonist of Cyrus' route, crossed it when she deliberately gave her own ally Yvon an imperfect blood-crystal so that she could take the knowledge he acquired from the tome From the Far Reaches of Hell for herself, knowing that he would eventually die from his own body mutating. The kicker? Not only had Lucia planned Yvon's downfall all along, but her ultimate goal is to use a perfect blood-crystal on herself, become immortal, and learn all the knowledge in the world to keep to herself so that she can feel superior to everybody else.
  • Yvon himself seemingly crossed it when he orchestrated the plot to kill Cyrus for finding out too much about From the Far Reaches of Hell, by having Lucia lure him into a trap. However, lore in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon reveals that he actually crossed it years before the plot even began, when he murdered the then-headmaster of the Royal Academy of Atlasdam to usurp the position and gain access to From the Far Reaches of Hell, believing himself to be more deserving of the position and its privileges.
  • Mattias, the main antagonist of Ophilia's route, appeared to have crossed it when he tricked Lianna into stealing the ember to initiate a dark ritual in the vain hope of bringing her father Archbishop Josef Back from the Dead, as he knows the ritual will claim the lives of several of his followers in exchange for power from a God of Evil. However, lore in The Very Definitely Final Dungeon reveals that he had already crossed it before that by discreetly poisoning Josef for that very purpose.
  • Darius, the main antagonist of Therion's route, crossed it in backstory, by betraying him to the Ciannos and kicking him off a cliff, leaving him for dead. The kicker? His motivation for doing so is money.
  • Werner, the main antagonist of Olberic’s route, has well and truly crossed it. Take your pick:
    • Burning Erhardt’s home-village Grynd to the ground as part of his Engineered Heroics gambit to gain approval within Hornburg by sending bandits to destroy villages on the borders before sending mercenaries to beat back his own men, before Hornburg’s knights could arrive.
    • Taking advantage of Erhardt’s bitter hatred for King Alfred’s inability to save the people of his village to convince the soon-to-be knight to help him commit regicide and bring the entire kingdom of Hornburg to ruin. All to gain the power beyond the Gate of Finis.
    • If overthrowing the rightful ruler of Riverford using lies and deceit to install himself as the new lord doesn’t count, then leading a tyrannical regime that burns citizens at the stake for the most trivial of reasons, until hardly anyone in Riverford dared question his rule, definitely does.
  • Attempting to trick Graham to open the Gate of Finis and release Galdera? Turning him into Redeye, a mindless beast, for trying to go back on you? Masterminding every other Moral Event Horizon-crossing in the game? Successfully tricking Graham's son Kit into opening the Gate of Finis? For the true mastermind, Lyblac, the question isn't when she crossed the Moral Event Horizon, but rather how many times does she plan on doing so.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • The subtle glass breaking whenever an enemy, well, breaks.
  • The fully-boosted Badass Boast each character gives will likely be heard every time you're about to open a can of whoop-ass on a boss, and are delivered with such confidence that you're likely going to feel as powerful as the hero saying it — especially if you're about to bust out a Divine Skill.
  • The meow when you encounter a Cait.
  • Tressa's "Thank you!" when she steals money from an enemy, often snagging more from that one enemy than the rest of the encounter would give you.
• Narm: Alfyn's second boss suddenly reveals they test their harmful "cures" on kittens right before you fight them, making a fairly grounded villain scamming desperate townspeople with sick children out of all their money suddenly cartoonishly evil in a way that feels too comedic for what is a generally serious game.
• Never Live It Down: Therese occasionally gets this for being the cause of Cyrus' suspension (even if Cyrus intended to leave anyway) by spreading the rumor of Cyrus and the princess having an affair. Though Therese immediately regrets what she did and Cyrus easily forgives her, she still gets characterized as a girl who thoughtlessly (if not maliciously) almost ruined a man's life and reputation.
• Padding: Ophilia's Chapter 2 has often been criticised for being mostly Filler, complete with a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere boss fight. While the chapter does further develop Ophilia's beliefs and ideals, in terms of plot it has little to no relevance to the rest of her story. The exception is Bishop Bartolo's words about how the flame within Aelfric's Ember reflects the heart of its Flamebearer, which becomes a Chekhov's Gun in Ophilia's Chapter 4.
• Ron the Death Eater: Some of Lianna's haters engage in this, emphasizing their negative qualities and downplaying if not ignoring their positive ones. She did agree to go along with Mattias' evil plan in the hopes of resurrecting her father, but due to grief clouding her judgment, and once she comes to her senses, she becomes The Atoner. Additionally, while Lianna was willing to drug Ophilia to steal the ember, she also broke her out of the cell, not wanting Ophilia to come to harm. Lastly, while she may have viewed Ophilia as less than a full member of the family, she was still the one who first reached out to Ophilia when Ophilia's grief caused her to be closed off from her adoptive family, and she insists that Ophilia is family to her.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • H'aanit's talent involves capturing and using beasts. While they give H'aanit access to different kinds of powerful attacks and abilities that are worth the effort, higher-leveled beasts are often difficult to capture. This isn't a problem in and of itself, but all monsters have a limited number of uses before returning to the wild. As such, if the player wishes to use a specific beast again, they have to find and recapture the beast again. Linde is the only creature H'aanit can use permanently, for obvious reasons, but she ranks as a 4-star monster and quickly falls off in terms of dealing damage. This combined with the fact that provoked battles force H'aanit to only use captured beasts means that many players may come to treat their band of monsters as Awesome, but Impractical.
  • Linde herself has two abilities when summoned - Pounce (a single target Spear attack) and Sweep (a Sword attack which strikes all targets) - but there is no means to choose which one you want to use. The AI tends to prioritize hitting a weakness, even if this isn't the most advantageous in a given situation. For example, if one enemy has a spear weakness and the others all have a Sword weakness, Linde may use Pounce on the one Spear-weak enemy while it would have been more advantageous to Sweep the others, lowering their shield or outright Breaking them.
  • Therion's talent can be a headache for those who didn't start with him. He's the only one who can open purple chests, which carry rare loot. They're also present in every single dungeon post-Chapter 1, with several more scattered around towns and the overworld. Players either have to skip them and their wealth of money and items, do some backtracking, or keep Therion in their party permanently.
  • Whichever character you pick as your protagonist cannot be removed from the party until you complete their fourth chapter. While this actually solves the above problem — just start as Therion — it provides headaches to completionists who like to keep their whole party at roughly equal levels.
  • The four characters who aren't in your active party are explicitly left behind at the nearest town. As such, there's no Leaked Experience, resulting in Forced Level-Grinding to get those other four back up to snuff. Because of this, many players tend to use only their four best/favorite members... but this inevitably catches up with them at the endgame, where you'll need to have all eight characters leveled up for best results.
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon has a load of them:
    • The inability to save between boss fights during the Boss Rush. At this point, you can competently take down the eight bosses thrown at you despite their beefed-up health. The problem arises afterwards: the True Final Boss is far and away the toughest boss in the game; even the hidden superbosses pale in comparison. But most annoyingly, should you lose against the final boss, you're booted back to the beginning of the Boss Rush. You can't even go outside to save between fights, since it's the Point of No Return. This is enough to make some players Rage Quit, because while the final boss is fun and challenging, having to spend roughly an hour between each attempt can be a deal breaker.
    • You need two parties for the True Final Boss of four each; all eight of your characters take the field at the same time. This is an especially rude awakening for people who stuck to their favorite characters for most of the game, trading in second-string characters only when their Chapters require them to. Additionally, the two-party situation precludes using your favorite party setup, since if you do, your other group will almost inevitably be sub-optimal.
• Signature Scene: Primrose's Chapter 1, and especially Yusufa's murder at the hands of Helgenish and subsequent confrontation with him, has become the game's most iconic moment. It helps that the game's first demo included this chapter (as well as Olberic's Chapter 1).
• Slow-Paced Beginning: Each of the eight travelers has a relatively slow-paced Chapter 1, featuring several scenes of exposition and a brief tutorial for their Path Action, before you get to their relatively easy first dungeon. The fact that this happens eight times makes the first quarter of the game drag a little.
• Special Effect Failure: The lantern lighting in dungeons is strangely executed. No matter which direction you’re facing, there will always be a huge shadow being cast northward due to your body being between the lantern and that direction... no matter where your sprite shows the lantern to actually be. Even when you walk in that direction and the lantern is completely unobstructed by your body, the light acts as if it's coming from the south.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • Producer Masashi Takahashi considers the game to be a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy VI in terms of game mechanics, in the same way that Bravely Default built upon Final Fantasy V.
  • As far as art style, setting, and combat system goes, Octopath might as well be considered a spiritual successor to the Bravely Default series. (This is a little contentious for some, though, as while the producers at Square-Enix worked on both games, the development studios are different - Silicon Studios for BD vs. Acquire for Octopath.)
  • The Legend of Legacy shares the same concept of choosing one of many characters and watching their story unfold within the same setting, while also recruiting any other characters that weren't chosen from the start. The vague connections between each character's story also hearkens back to Square's own game Live A Live.
  • Finally, the overall structure of the game, with the choosing of a protagonist, the freedom to go in your own direction, and even the arrangement of the battle screen, harkens back heavily to the SaGa series, particularly the Romancing SaGa games. It's to the point that a number of fans jokingly say that the game's other title is Romancing SaGa 4.
• Squick: Primrose's relationship with Simeon, even before the revelation that he's a manipulative sociopath who killed her father. They're clearly depicted as being in love, and having been in love since they knew each other 10 years ago, and their reunion is treated as a wholesome and heartwarming moment of peace in Primrose's otherwise grim tale. The problem is that when they first fell in love 10 years ago... Primrose was thirteen, and Simeon, given that he still uses his adult sprite in those flashbacks while she uses her child one, was significantly older. This is a major red flag to Simeon's true personality. It potentially gets even more uncomfortable when you get to The Very Definitely Final Dungeon and learn that Simeon is much older than he looks, making him a 100-plus-year-old-man forming a relationship with a teenage girl.
• Strawman Has a Point: When Mattias has his third Boss Banter with Ophilia, he tells her that Lianna's desire to resurrect her father is more important to her than her and Ophilia's sisterhood, and that Lianna had never considered Ophilia family. Ophilia counters that Lianna once helped her recover from the pain of her parents' deaths with her kindness and love. However, some players—particularly those who think Lianna is Unintentionally Unsympathetic—believe that Mattias makes the stronger argument, even if Ophilia and Lianna are close friends; not only was Lianna willing to drug her adopted sister with a sleeping draught so that she could steal Aelfric's Lanthorn to use in a ritual to the local God of Evil for the mere chance to resurrect her father—which turned out to be a false hope—but after Mattias admits that the ritual's true purpose is to sacrifice his followers to said dark god in exchange for power to Take Over the World, Lianna admits that she still can't think of anything other than her desire to see her father again, leaving it uncertain if she would have aided Mattias if he had already told her that the ritual requires sacrifices. Japanese culture's views on orphans like Ophilia doesn't help, either.
• Superlative Dubbing: Many people have praised the English dubbing of the game for its casting choices, as well as the actors in question putting enough character into their lines to avoid anything coming off as stilted. Since there isn't a ton of voice acting, it makes the scenes where there is more voiced lines stand out really heavily.
• That One Achievement:
  • "Fleetfoot" requires you to finish one traveler's entire tale in eight hours. There's a possible loophole for that in that you can choose not to recruit the last traveler until you have three very high-level companions and have all the relevant locations available for fast travel, but that still involves completing four chapters in eight hours, doing the rest of the game without that traveler, and doing that traveler's Chapter 4 while they're underleveled.
  • "Lone Traveler" requires completing one traveler's story alone. Unsurprisingly, it has the fifth lowest completion rate of all achievements- after the 100% Completion achievement and the achievements for getting every item, finding every enemy's weakness and collecting every treasure chest.
  • "Strategist" requires finding every enemy's weakness. This can be quite a pain for Caits, which run away very quickly.
• That One Attack:
  • The dragon at the end of H'aanit's Chapter 3 can use Swept Away, removing any one party member from the field for several turns. If it's your main healer, you're in serious trouble. Later on in the fight, the boss' ultimate move lets it do this to two party members.
  • The Devourer of Men can use Spirit Away, removing any one party member from the field until the Devourer is broken. It can use this move multiple times to remove multiple party members.
  • When its HP gets low enough, the Ogre Eagle will unleash a poison upon the whole party than cannot be cured and will gradually lower the party's max HP. This directly neutralizes "Saving Grace," a support skill that is listed on the Game Breaker page.
  • Ophilia's final boss, The Savior, can unleash Infernal Flame, a dark flame that disables the party's area magic until being broken, which is especially problematic for healers. Given that it cannot be cured by an apothecary, AND that he also summons two minions who prevent him from being broken when he does this, thus forcing you to kill them before you can break him, the attack has the potential of turning a pretty average boss fight into a borderline That One Boss. Hope you brought an apothecary and plenty of Essences of Grape and Purifying Dust.
  • Any AoE attack that has a chance to inflict Unconsciousness is this. Unconsciousness functions like Sleep, except the status doesn't wear off if your character is attacked. If your entire party is Unconscious, it's all but Game Over. Examples include Mattias' Black Thunder, Darius' Hellfire^note Strangely, Lucia has the same attack, but it can't inflict Unconsciousness, and Redeye's Bestial Roar^note In fact, the last one is a bigger threat than Evil Eye, Redeye's Petrification skill, if only because Redeye can use the former from the start while the latter begins to be used after Redeye is down to 50% of its max HP. Better come prepared with a Conscious Stone!
• That One Boss:
  • Tressa, Chapter 2: Omar, the hired lackey of corrupt city official Morlock. He starts the fight with two lackeys who can each hit the entire party for 500 damage with their Vacuum Slice attack. Add the boss's Sideswipe into the mix, and you have an enemy party that can easily wipe your entire party in one turn, even at the recommended level of 22, unless you can take out one of the lackeys very quickly. There's a reason Morlock pays him so well...
  • Therion, Chapter 2: Orlick, keeper of the Ruby Dragonstone. He starts off the match with the assistance of two mooks that both cover up his weaknesses, stopping the player from breaking the boss at the start of the match. These two Elite Mooks have enough firepower behind them to be threatening, and enough HP to not go down quickly. The boss also has a respectable damage output himself, and can boost the firepower of both himself and his minions whenever needed, which can get quite overwhelming. Later on in the fight, he summons another minion that has enough HP and firepower to qualify as a miniboss on its own; it has over 12,000 HP, at a point where you might hit 600 damage with a fully-buffed character using 4 BP.
  • Ophilia, Chapter 2: Hróðvitnir, a monstrous wolf. This boss is going to make sure that the Kindling will not be a fun journey, let alone an easy one. The instant the fight starts, it gives itself a buff that lets it act twice per round, and it makes full use of attack buffs, attack and defense debuffs, and party attacks to maximize its durability and endurance. Ophilia is required for this fight, and while her healing spells will serve you well, she has Physical Defense equivalent to soggy toilet paper at best^note She has great Elemental Defense, so naturally Hróðvitnir is a physical attacker to render this upside pretty much null and void during this fight, meaning she stands to die pretty often, along with some of your other squishies. As the fight wears on, things go From Bad to Worse as it introduces, in order, the ability to increase its maximum guard points (acting twice per turn means it doesn't have to sacrifice an attack to do this), a party-wide debuff to disable your boosting, and the ability to act thrice per round. Have fun with that!
  • Cyrus, Chapter 2: Gideon, the Mad Scientist of dark magic. His weaknesses are covered as long as his undead minions are alive. Said minions hit hard, as does the boss himself, with Executioner being an almost guaranteed One-Hit Kill move. He's also fond of using debuffs and Terror on your party to make life difficult for you.
  • H'aanit, Chapter 2: The Lord of the Forest, the stag-like guardian of the forest. If you allow the fight to linger, it has an attack that not only reduces your HP to One and a self heal, but also changes the boss' weaknesses to one of three alternate sets. And if you let the fight drag on for too long, it will summon a third set of backups which will stun and silence lock you.
  • Alfyn, Chapter 3: Miguel, the killer and kidnapper that Alfyn saved. Two attacks a round, a two-hit physical debuff, a hit-all attack and the power of a runaway minivan is bad enough. But every time he recovers from a break, he shuffles his vulnerabilities, meaning you have to sniff them out all over again. Still not convinced? Halfway through, he Turns Red and sets up for five attacks in a given round every time he recovers from break status, on top of shuffling his vulnerabilities. And when you include the possibilities already known, the odds of you walking away from that one go down drastically unless you break him again. Hope your burst damage and status-shifting game is up to snuff, 'cause if it's not, you're gonna need a miracle. Don't even think of trying to take him on at the recommended level of 32; most players would recommend that you be at level 40 at minimum.
  • Tressa, Chapter 3: The Venomtooth Tiger, a vicious monster that guards the Eldrite. The boss hits hard and can poison your party members. Later on in the fight, it uses a skill called Peerless Poison, which causes the poison to drain your SP and BP, in addition to your HP. If you're having trouble keeping up with the healing or dispelling poisons, it will quickly overwhelm you.
  • Therion, Chapter 3: Gareth, the right hand of Darius. He is able to drain your SP, can disable your items, has a hard-hitting attack that targets your entire party (healing his HP to boot) and gradually increases the amount of moves he has in one turn up to four times. Hope you brought your Leghold Trap.
  • Ophilia, Chapter 3: the Mystery Man and the Shady Figure, two kidnappers who work for the Savior. This is a Dual Boss fight between two entities that lack a shared weakness; breaking both of them in one action is tricky to organize. Also, their elemental weaknesses get locked out after the first turn so long as both are alive, further narrowing the opportunity. They'll be constantly be barraging the group with whole-party elemental attacks, buff each other, and one will cast a 800 point heal to both of them (at a point in the game where you're likely only powerful enough to just barely hit quad digit damage) if they're able to act during their turn should their health fall low enough. If one dies before the other, they'll either start barraging the party with buffed two-hit spells or spam heavy damage on your debuffed party. Might want to start praying to Sealticge on this one unless you want to grind like crazy.
  • Cyrus, Chapter 4: Lucia, a scholar who seeks immortality at any cost. The boss begins with a whopping 30 break points, although this is reduced to 15 after the first break and 8 after the second. The boss hits hard with a variety of strong physical and elemental attacks, which can potentially one-shot Cyrus if he's underleveled. After the boss's first break, it gains access to an attack that can damage your SP, which can be rather problematic, since it switches to elemental weaknesses after its first break (although it has a mix of physical and elemental weaknesses after the second break).
  • Olberic, Chapter 4: Werner, the mastermind behind Olberic's suffering. He loves to debuff the party's physical defense and then use a devastating area attack that will probably kill your squishiest party members, such as Ophilia, Primrose or Cyrus. He can also inflict Terror with said attack, crippling your fighters unless you have protection or an apothecary to remove it. What is more, he can kill instantly those affected by said ailment, so you will spend half the fight reviving your slaughtered characters. You'd better give your frailest characters the Cleric's Saving Grace skill if you want them to survive anything.
  • Alfyn, Chapter 4: The Ogre Eagle, a beast whose feathers can cure a deadly disease. It has the highest HP of all the Chapter 4 bosses unless you total Simeon's two boss phases and can not only hit hard, but its normal attacks can cause a random status ailment or debuff. It has Double Talon which can hit the entire party twice, and Swept Away which can temporarily remove an ally from the battlefield for three turns. If the rest of the party dies while the ally is swept away, it's a Game Over. But worst of all is when it reaches half health; it will unleash Toxic Rainbow which reduces the maximum HP of all party members by eight percent each turn. Saving Grace and Rehabilitate will not prevent it from happening since it's a field effect.
  • H'aanit, Chapter 4: Redeye, the quarry of H'aanit's master. Even if you know what's waiting for you, it will blast you with a myriad of nasty status effects, with a party-wide blind (which it inflicts with a hard hitting physical attack) being the least of the concerns. It also will toss a party-wide concussion, sometimes lasting multiple turns, and if that happens to the whole party, it's up to luck on whether or not it will use weaker, single attacks (IE: you survive), or its stronger, party hitting attacks (IE: total party kill). Even then, that's before it Turns Red, gains another turn, and starts using its petrification attack, which means that if it kills the character that's petrified (and it will target only a petrified character to do just that), they're removed from the battle entirely. Take Alfyn, take a good tank, take a good thief, and pray.
  • Sidequest "Scourge of the Seas" boss, the Leviathan. If you see the dungeon's level (Level 35), you'd think that this is an easy boss where you don't need over-grinding to beat. Wrong. The Leviathan comes with a whole-party physical attack that hurts greatly (and a variant that decreases your defense) which can take out your squishy party members in a few strikes, a 3-5 times random single attack, a single hit attack which will inflict Unconscious, and it gets 3 acts per turn. It's also flanked with two different sea urchins with different weakness, covering its own weak points. It also gets enraged from time-to-time while the sea urchins cover its weakness. Even after you have made your preparations with a potent, constant healer immune to Unconscious, an Apothecary-Dancer combo that injects Rehabilitate to everyone, AND a thief that can reduce its ATK value, it's still going to be a serious sludge against this creature.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Lyblac. Despite The Reveal that she's the villain that ties together everyone's stories, she's unceremoniously offed and absorbed into Galdera for the final fight, reduced to one of his Cognizant Limbs in the second phase. Some feel she should've been the final boss, if not her own boss fight. Others wish she'd gotten more development than an info dump final dungeon.
  • Esmeralda. One of the common complaints about Tressa's fourth chapter is how underdeveloped the final boss of her story is. Though Esmeralda is revealed in other parts of the story to be a member of the Obsidians and implied to have wanted Tressa's diary to track down Graham Crossford, little of this is actually touched on in Tressa's story. Furthermore, the fact she decides to kill Tressa for trying to get the journal back despite admitting it was useless comes across as her existing for the sake of a boss fight and little else.
  • Werner. Despite being praised for being an effective contrast to Olberic, raising the stakes of his story and being one of the most difficult Chapter 4 bosses, he has also been criticised for his existence being revealed near the end of Olberic's Chapter 3 with minimal foreshadowing^note It is mentioned a few times that Erhardt used to be a member of a group of mercenaries before becoming a knight of Hornburg, with Olberic's Chapter 3 revealing that the leader of that same group was indeed Werner, leaving him feeling thrown in for the sake of a final chapter and boss. Some fans believe that Olberic's story peaks at Chapter 3 because of this, as his emotional reunion and eventual reconciliation with Erhardt is widely agreed to be one of the best moments in the game. Some fans also believe that Werner should have been swapped chapter-wise to be the second-to-last boss instead.
  • Simeon. Though a Base-Breaking Character to begin with, even fans who like Simeon's role in the plot feel there could've been more done with him. In particular, the fact he's introduced in the same chapter he betrays Primrose and reveals himself to be the mastermind of her route is considered wasteful, with some feeling he should've been introduced earlier—either in-person or during one of Primrose's childhood flashbacks—or his relationship with Primrose more developed before The Reveal.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • One of the more common complaints towards the game is the lack of interaction between the travelers outside of small amounts of banter between story intervals, and some brief events in taverns outside of chapters. The characters' stories don't change no matter who you have recruited/in your party at the moment, nor do they really talk outside of party banter. Not even during The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, when you learn how everything comes together, do the travelers talk about and piece together what correlated information they've learnt during their final chapters/the dungeon itself. This is extremely odd since it's not even limited by the technology of the modern day, as games like Trials of Mana and Live A Live did something similar with its story, having the party members interact with one another.
  • The Travel Banters itself do not take account of what has happened in other stories. For example: Olberic's story has him see through Erhardt being miserable after completing his vengeance, even at the cost of Olberic, though thankfully, he found solace and purpose in protecting the innocents in Wellspring. All's nice, but there's another traveler who is going through Erhardt's phase and also suffer for it at the end of her tale: Primrose. Olberic's travel banter in Primrose's final chapter has nothing to do with giving Primrose advice about what to do after she fulfills her vendetta, based on how he saw Erhardt's experience (or the inversion: agreeing that while Erhardt's dilemma is sympathetic and can be forgiven, the Obsidians and Simeon have crossed the line that they become an exception, Olberic is supportive with Primrose's vengeance). While it could be excused with how the travel banters match with how open-ended the game is (where you can tackle any scenarios in any orders you want, you can finish up Primrose's whole chapters before even doing Olberic's 3rd chapter), an 'alternate banter' based on certain chapter completion requirements would've been nice to explore the travelers further and strengthen their creds as True Companions.
  • Another common complaint is how only two of the game's Final Bosses (Mattias for Ophilia's story and Darius for Therion's) have Boss Banter with their respective protagonists (and only the former's is voice-acted, to boot). While the final bosses for Alfyn and H'aanit are incapable of talking, others like Olberic and Cyrus could have benefited from having theirs speak in battle. Really, only Tressa and Primrose would be justified in not having their speech-capable final bosses talk, Esmeralda being someone that Tressa had only known about just before they fought and Simeon not wanting to draw attention in the theatre they and Primrose are fighting in.
• Trapped by Mountain Lions: Tressa's story is seen by some players as the weakest, because it doesn't feel like it connects to the background and wider story the game presents in the end. All of the other characters have direct ties to the main story, and their stories setup mysteries or reveals that connect them to it in some way. In comparison, Tressa's story is almost completely self-contained and focused on her being a merchant with very little direct ties to the greater story except for two very weak ties that come across as afterthoughts meant to ensure she is connected somehow ^note That being the journal found early on being Graham Crossford's, and her fighting Esmeralda, a member of the Obsidians. Both feel like they were thrown in because without them, she wouldn't have any real reason to be a main character compared to everyone else. While her story isn't seen as badly written, it can come across as having no real reason for Tressa to exist compared to the other characters, with some feeling you can skip through it and not lose anything for it, which can't be said for the other stories. (And while you have the option to not recruit her, you probably won't, because Merchant is one of the most versatile and practical classes in the game.)
• Underused Game Mechanic: Dual Bosses. The vast majority of bosses are either Flunky Bosses, or fight alone. In contrast, only three boss fights in the entire game^note Mikk and Makk, Tressa's Chapter 1 bosses; Mystery Man and Shady Figure, Ophilia's Chapter 3 bosses; and the Snake Charmer and Giant Python, the bosses of the Quicksand Caves are against two bosses together.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: For some, Lianna. While they were in a very vulnerable (and possibly broken) state of mind after her father, Archbishop Josef, falls seriously ill and eventually dies, and later becomes The Atoner, some still view them as a naïve, impulsive idiot for believing that joining a cult that worships Galdera, and incapacitating her adopted sister with a sleeping draught to steal Aelfric's Ember, would result in Josef's resurrection. It doesn't help that Lianna is unable to stop longing for Josef's resurrection even after Mattias reveals that the ritual's true purpose is to sacrifice his followers to Galdera in exchange for power and that the ritual is powered by her desire to bring back the dead, or that Mattias' plan depended on Lianna being naïve enough to believe his false promises; if she had rejected his offer, his entire plan would have been foiled right then and there. Some also believe that Mattias made a valid point when he told Ophilia that Lianna's desire to resurrect her father means much more to her than her sisterhood with Ophilia, and that Ophilia was never truly family to Lianna.
• Values Dissonance: Ophilia's relationship with her adoptive father and sister involves significant cultural differences between Japan and the West about adoption.
  • Ophilia addresses Josef as "Your/His Excellency," the same respect she shows to the other bishops she meets on her journey. This comes across as oddly formal and distant to a Westerner, especially when the story emphasizes both how proud Josef is to have Ophilia as a daughter, and how Lianna instantly grows attached to Ophilia when they first met. In Japan, orphans have a long history of being in a socially-awkward position, and are encouraged to be constantly deferential to their parental figures, even more than is usually considered appropriate in Japan. Traditionally, taking in an orphan was considered a huge act of charity on the part of the adopting family, and adopted orphans are expected to treat their adoptive parents with almost-reverent gratitude. Ophilia's deferential behavior and language choice is thus in line with how an orphan is expected to act toward their adoptive family from a Japanese perspective.
  • Josef and Lianna insist that their kindness toward Ophilia is just what family members do for each other; this is meant to mark them as exceptionally remarkable and loving people in Japan, whereas this would be the expected attitude towards an adopted child in the West, so it comes across as them being Captain Obvious instead.
  • When Ophilia is told by a local resident that Josef frequently praises his two daughters, Ophilia is overjoyed, but also surprised, that Josef would even consider her his daughter. This comes across to a Westerner as Ophilia being incredibly naïve due to not realizing this after spending 15 years- three fourths of her life- living with him and Lianna. In Japan, adopted orphans being seen as outsiders in the family is the norm, so the average first-time Japanese player would be just as surprised as Ophilia is.
  • Japan's views on adoption are reinforced by Lianna's word choice in the beginning of Ophilia's Chapter 1. She refers to Josef, when in conversation with Ophilia, as "My father."^ContextShe does so when mentioning that her father was the one who took on the Kindling years ago, and that she will follow in his footsteps. The original Japanese, however, doesn't explicitly include the "my" part. She repeats this, also in conversation with Ophilia, when anguishing over his illness and the effect it has on her. Each time it emphasizes to Ophilia that, while Lianna acknowledges her as family, there remains some disparity in her mind about her place in their family and Ophilia's place in it. This may be part of the reason why Lianna believes that Ophilia doesn't love Josef as strongly as she does when Ophilia protests her stealing the ember to try to bring Josef back to life. This is also why Ophilia outright calling Josef her father during the finale of her story is a big emotional moment, and helps Lianna snap out of her grief, as it reaffirms that Ophilia truly loves her and her father. This wouldn't seem as big of a deal for a Western player, because it would seem obvious that Ophilia cares for Lianna and Josef.
  • Interestingly enough, the game's synopsis alternates between referring to Lianna and Ophilia's relationship as "friends" and as "sisters." For example, the final entry for Ophilia's story has the title, "Friends Forever," and Cyrus refers to Lianna as Ophilia's "friend" in his Chapter 4 party banter with Ophilia.
  • In conclusion, while a Westerner would still see the three of them as a loving family, Ophilia's overtly formal behavior towards her adoptive family would be seen as a bit odd.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The combination of SNES-style sprites and textures with 3D environments and modern visual effects creates a very striking result.
• Woolseyism:
  • The speech of H'aanit and her people is derived from a combination of Old, Middle, and Early Modern English. This is present solely in the English translation of the game, as all other versions (including the original Japanese VO tracks) have H'aanit and others from her village speak modernly. Most consider it to be a charming way of making her feel unique.
  • In the original Japanese, Lianna seems to be the only person Ophilia refers to without honorific; she even addresses the party with "-san" honorifics. The closeness Ophilia and Lianna have is conveyed in the English version by having them call each other "Anna" and "Phili", but that isn't quite the same.

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