Octopath Traveler Beat:

That's all eight paths.  I curbstomped the remaining bosses with my new advanced class powers.  There are still some random meaningless side quests left to do, which I'm sure would make me even stronger, but what's the point?  There are no more dungeons or bosses left to fight.

The music was decent, mostly forgettable.  I think I'll have to go over it with a comb and recruit the very best songs to my music hall of fame at some point, but it isn't some fantastic score like Xenoblade.

The gameplay was excellent.  Turn based combat rules.  That was really the point of this game.

I loved the vast world and the intersecting plot lines.  It felt like the world was alive because so much was going on -- church vs. heretics, commerce vs. pirates and landlords, scholars vs. mad scientists, knights vs. mercenaries, apothecaries vs. charlatans -- over and over it showed the right and the wrong way to go about doing something.  Making money, spreading the faith, learning stuff, fighting, healing, whatever.  So many fun lessons showing why you're the heroes and they're the villains.  There are, what, 30 cities in the world as a whole?  And as many dungeons?  That's huge.

Leveling and getting new jobs and equipment was super fun, until I had reached such strength that fights were boring.  They let me level too much.  >.<.

My big objection is the simple and obvious one -- the graphics are awful.  Almost painful to look at.  Fuzzy.  I can deal with the non-full-voice issue.  Voices aren't necessary for a good story, books don't have them.  Dragon Quest XI doesn't have them.  But a modern game should have modern graphics.  Octopath looks worse than SNES Final Fantasy/Chrono Trigger.

Also, in the modern age of World of Warcraft, it would never give you a quest with no hints, no directions, nothing that could tell you how to fulfill it.  In Octopath they simply tell you to do something and, each time, you have to talk to everyone in the world in the hopes of finding the next clue.  Sometimes the quests have multiple parts so you have to talk to everyone in the world five times.  This is a world with 30 cities!  There is a helpful guide so long as you're doing the main quest telling you where to go next, but they should have done the same for the side quests.  I don't care if it makes the quests too easy, no one wants to waste that much time doing some stupid side mission.  I shouldn't have to consult the internet for what to do next every five minutes to get things done.  Xenoblade Chronicles 2 had the exact same problem, but at least it had some of the best graphics and character designs I've seen.  And full voice. . . and incredible music. . .

Overall Octopath is a better game than, say, Tetris, so I will be adding it to my gaming hall of fame.  But it isn't as good as either Xenoblade, so it's pretty far down the priority list.

Next up is Bravely Default II.  If it's as good as Octopath it will have been a worthwhile purchase, but I'm hoping it's even better.