Near the end of August, in a dimly lit room in Cologne, Square Enix invited me to try out a small hour preview of Octopath Traveller 0 during Gamescom 2025 shortly after its Nintendo Direct reveal, and I went into the showcase optimistic about the game with no idea what I'd be playing through.
To its credit, when I started out, it felt like something for the hardcore JRPG fan, so much so that I was utterly overwhelmed with everything I could do during my small teaser. The content available for you, from the RPG fights to the town building, feels completely stacked with content, for better or worse.
There are 30 characters available with a massive party size of 8, allowing you to pick and choose between a whole army of characters, all with their unique skills. It might feel overwhelming for some, but to me, it felt like the right amount for the hardcore gamer.
The party works as follows: you have four characters leading and fighting, and four in the back line that step in when an ally gets knocked out and needs reviving. It gives you the chance to revive an ally that fell without feeling like you lost an attack slot, and really adds some cool tactical elements into the game with how you line up your party as a whole.
Also, for fans of the original Octopath Traveler, some areas might be familiar to you. I won't go into details of where and what, but I will say there are a few key areas and moments that will rekindle memories for sure.
When it comes to fighting, the health of enemies isn't shown at any point. Instead, you need to keep an eye on the enemy's name as it changes colour from white to orange and then red, which gives you an idea of how close you are to beating it.
The game is also challenging if you don't prepare the right items. I found myself going through a host of different cures, potions, etc, during the primary boss fight, and I was only amply prepared because the preview build gave us a near infinite supply where dying was near-impossible, so I'm curious what the difficulty would be like in the base game without this pre-preparation.
Again, this comes back to the idea of being overwhelmed, as it adds more things to keep track of over time. Do you have all the items? Do you need to have items for specific status effects? Will these work on your team? Does your team have all the equipment it needs to survive the main path? Do I need to level up some characters over others, etc, etc? It might feel too much for new players and alienate a casual audience by design.
But away from fighting and travelling around the world, you will likely spend most of your time in-game creating your very own town, which is overloaded with different options, both cosmetic and practical.
Building a town is pretty simple. You clear out areas and place down buildings by finding the relevant resources when out on quests. So you could need some items that require you to fight a monster or go to other towns to get what you need. By finding new companions, you can also discover new buildings, such as stores, which provide a permanent weapon or item shop in your town. This allows you to keep coming back to restock items.
Character relationships also feel key to the story, with numerous characters engaging in conversations with each other that—at least while playing—felt unique. I'd need to play more of the game, though, to see just how far this mechanic goes, or if it's minimal at best.
In all, it was a blast to get a grip of the game, but it left me with more questions than answers, which I hope I'll discover as we get closer to its December release.
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The post Hands-On: Octopath Traveller 0 feels overwhelming, but in a good way appeared first on Destructoid.
