Octopath Traveler II

This is a game where I truly believe most of the quality must be earned, barring a couple specific characters, all the party members stories begin a tad generic and uninteresting, and it takes a little bit for the battle system to also blossom into beauty. This is an old school SNES Jrpg through and through. A jump forward from Octopath 1, in that this time the characters are actually interesting and share chapters with eachother. By the time every characters ending chapter came along, I was glued to the screen. Especially Agnea, who originally struck me as the least interesting character, yet as I played her final boss, and heard the absolutely stunning song that plays, I finally understood what her story meant. And seriously this game knows how to weave a story for all 8 characters. Every party member feels unique and stands out with well written personalities. Partitio the merchant being a gosh darn cowboy from the wild west trying to be the worlds best capitalist manages to mesh perfectly with Osvald, a disgraced scholar who had his wife and child killed in front of him. This games soundtrack honestly blew me away, i've almost never been impressed by a JRPGs soundtrack other than the obvious standout of the modern Persona trilogy (3-5). The orchestra on this game does fantastic, the fantasy world with a modern world almost ready to form around it is portrayed perfectly with soaring strings. The battle system is just as strong as the first, this time mixing it up by adding Latent Powers, which gives each character a final fantasy limit break of sorts. Adds a perfect mix to the already immaculate concoction of Octopath 1's. Castti best girl.