As shown in today's Nintendo Direct, the demo for this game is available right now, and the developers want feedback! Pitch in to make this the best game it can be!

Man, this game looks cool. Can't wait to download the demo.

Playing Primrose's story and it has a surprisingly compelling story hook. The combat is really neat too. This game could turn out to be something very special, and I thought I was done with this type of game for the most part.

From the trailer, this whole Path Action thing sounds pretty interesting. Will definitely carve some time out this weekend to check out the demo

I finished Primrose's quest and then went to the other village. I don't think there's anything to actually do beyond picking up the warrior and grinding for no reason, but I did it anyway.

The juggling of enemy weaknesses and your bravely boosts is pretty fun. And I like the idea of having a Dragon Age Origins style start with each character then meeting up later on. I haven't played the warrior side yet, but Primrose's story gets real dark real fast.

Hmm, definitely can't find the demo in the European store.

So I just beat Primrose's quest, and geez, that shit's dark. Was not at all prepared for that. This game definitely went from me writing it off as "mobile trash" to being one of my more anticipated games on the system.

Still don't know how I feel about the art style, though... Especially with the subdued color-palette. I keep feeling like I need to mess around with the gamma/brightness/anything just to make the graphics more clear.

I'd actually call it a SaGa-style start. So far this seems like a stealth SaGa game, but without the level-up-what-you-use mechanic.

It's up now.

Wow, guys, just....wow. I can't remember the last time a demo grabbed me like this, to the point where I had to tear myself away from it in the middle of the night to get some sleep and avoid more spoilers.

I love the battle system! It's like Persona's weakness system except more in-depth, where you actively juggle stun-locking enemies and powering yourself up to deliver the coup de grace. Grinding feels good in this game because you're actively getting better at the mechanics instead of just watching numbers go up.

And the story is way more mature than I gave it credit for. I didn't know how I was going to feel about Primrose's character, especially when they revealed the 'Allure' mechanic in the presentation, but I got hooked on both her and her story. She's probably going to be the first character I try.

And the game manages to look gorgeous despite the pixel art at the heart of it all.

The demo just turned a game that was barely on my radar into a guaranteed purchase. Definitely giving feedback when Nintendo brings out the surveys and super exited to see the full thing.

I like it, because it feels you're playing in a Diorama, also it seems quite mature (in the good way, not the edgy way) despite the voice acting being a bit wonky on some characters (Philip you sound neither English nor like a Boy... the jig is up)

I really hate the way the game looks, but it having some of Bravely Default in its combat and apparently a good story to go along with it is making it seem like this demo will be the first thing I'll play on a Switch... which is hopefully tomorrow.

Played it, looked cool to me.

Man, I can't wait till I get my hands on a Switch in a month so I can try this demo. I don't think we've ever seen a take on 2.5D quite like this before? It's like a mix of pixel art and isometric.

I played it last night, as Primrose. I thought the writing was pretty not-good and it leaned on the creepy harassment in a way that felt like it was just trying to make you hate the Master, rather than using it to develop Primrose's character in a significant way. The allure ability also seemed weird; I'm not comfortable as a player invoking Primrose's ability because it's made very clear that she despises that herself, and it was born out of desperation and being groomed by her creepy slave owner. I'm also not a fan of the look; it seems very difficult to pick out parts of the environment, especially since the colour palette seems so desaturated, and the vignetting makes the edges of the screen (at least in handheld mode) really difficult to make out.

Hopefully the rest of the story turns it around, but for now, I'm gonna give this game a hard pass.

@the_nubster:

I played through once with Primrose and died at the boss. I didn’t fight enough in the dungeon area I think.

I came away with some positive feelings, but I kinda echo your thoughts on it. The Primrose story has some interesting potential, but it feels like a miss overall. The whole thing just made me feel uncomfortable.

I really like the look of the game, but you’re right, the color palette is too bland. It gets so dark and monotone that it’s hard to tell what you’re looking at.

Depending on what the final game turns out to be, I may give it another shot. But I’m pretty sceptical at the moment.

Loved the demo; however, it would be nice to be able to turn off this "dusty" filter, I don't really dig them glittering particles everywhere.

I thought the demo was pretty great overall. The only two things that I did not like very much was the fact that everything looked kinda brownish, a little more color would be nice, and after I died during the Primrose boss, I found no way to skip the cutscene before it, which sucked a little. Other than that, I'm pretty hyped for the final game, shame it's only coming out in 2018.

That being said, I hope they'll find a way to tie the different stories together in a significant way, so that it doesn't feel too fractured. I thought both of them were off to a good start, so there's hoping the others will also be good.

I really like the look of this game, nintendo is doing a pretty good job on trying to get me to buy a nintendo console for the first time in 15 years.

This game wasn't on my radar at all before E3. Aesthetically makes me feel like I'm playing a PS1 Final Fantasy game released on a Dreamcast in the weird early unreal engine xbox era...

Combat seems slow to get going but as I got party members I thought it had huge potential. However, the writing really isn't doing it for me... I could play this game like a machine for the systems and making the numbers get bigger but the characters (though decently voiced) seem super shallow. I dunno if that's inherent to the story or localisation but I'm not into it. I'm probably going to wait to hear if the later game plays out, I guess it would answer my combat and story questions.

This new demo has been fun for me because I didn't have a switch for the original demo. I wondered why everyone was playing the dancer character and then realized this thread was from the original demo where you didn't have much choice.

What sucks is getting enraptured and having to wait a month before I can play more, but atleast I can take my save. I played the Huntress H'aanit. Her voice seems...fine, but I don't like Ye Olde EnglishE(e). It's put on heavy and switching it to japanese obviously doesn't change reading the olde englishe, but it doesn't really seem like her and her master are speaking super formal japanese either. Maybe they are, I don't speak japanese, but I feel like a lot of it sounds like your regular anime stuff and in context I can understand a little. However putting on japanese audio(which is nice to have) means you can't read the little quips and stuff in battle. Again, I understand a little of what's going on there, but not to any complete degree and there's no subtitles for that. It seems that language choice is not for everyone as the next character I found spoke relatively normal.

The battle system slowly unfolded for me and it became more fun the more I played. I might go back to the game, I'm only halfway done with my 3 hour limit, to finish recruiting the Cleric after finding her but either way I can't really put time in till it launches. I love that the game looks like FF6 but with 3d turned up and a bunch of modern effects layered on top and so far have enjoyed the soundtrack too.

The forbidden fruit tastes sweeter and letting me get a taste and making me wait had me pre-order this same day. Good job Square.

Exactly the same for me, even by JRPG standards, the writing and voice acting is pretty bad. The vignetting (which apparently you can turn off) didn't help suck me in.

I'll probably end up trying it one day, but it's no longer a day one for me.

I liked the demo, I just played as The Warrior. I'm not that much into JRPGs but this one grabs my attention and so far I'm interested enough to pre-order it.

As other here have said, the graphics doesn't feel as the best choice, the developers call them "HD 2D" but I'm starting to get tired of seeing a bunch of games trying to simulate/imitate the 16-bit games era. We have these powerful consoles and amazingly good screens that starts to seem like a waste of hardware not to have very detailed graphics. I'm not a game developer, maybe it's cheaper to make a game this way, I have no idea but I would prefer to have highly detailed graphics with depth even if they're 2D side-scroller games.

I haven't gotten around to playing the newest demo of this all that much yet. I played a few minutes of it as Cyrus.

I do, however, think it looks gorgeous. I've seen some people who don't like the presentation at all and I don't get it. I love the way it looks.

I started playing the demo as H'aanit and stopped pretty quickly because of her Ye Olde Englishe. It's really rather annoying and a baffling localization choice. Final Fantasy XII pulled this faux-Shakespearian thing off much better. It's not going to stop me from getting the game but it also means that I know I won't be starting the game as H'aanit. When I do get the full game, I'll probably just start it as Primrose. I started the first demo as her and I thought her story and character were well-done.

@justin258: I mean, if you get her, you're still going to see it right? lol. I think she plays pretty awesomely and as I said the japanese really doesn't sound super formal, so it's just awkward. It took me an hour or something to get to a new town and find out hey not the entire game speaks like this. Good to know.

I'm bummed because it just seems...wrong, but a female huntress? Sign me up. It was hard even looking at the other characters as if I were going to pick one of them first.

Genuinely enjoying this, old school in all the right ways. My first choice was the cleric but about a minute in I changed my mind and went with my original choice of the scholar which seemed more fun. The boss battle I encountered wasn't very engaging as it was just an attack spam situation with occasional item usage.

Really interested to know how different the games are based on character. Do you end up having to play as all characters or is it like Dragon Age Origins where you do the origin then the game essentially mostly the same once out of the opening segment?

Just finished my 3 hours. I started with H'aanit. Picked up Therion and did his origin thing. I had time to make it to Alfyn's town but not enough time to do his story. Lookin' forward to next month.

So is it that you pick up the others as party members and then do their origin stories?

@superharman: Yes, when you hit them, it's like they "tell you their story" of how they got up to this point. That's you playing their opening story with just them as if you picked them as your main character

That's really cool and answers a big question I had, thanks.

Now to get to the end of the demo and work out if that special edition is worth it...

If you play for three hours, do you no longer have access to the demo or can you start a new save file?

@justin258: You could start over, but only one save file can be imported to the full game.

Is it just me or does this game seem like a reboot of the SaGa series?

By the way if anyone is like me and was really put off by the dark corners when you play you can turn this off. Personally I think it makes the game look much better. The colors are much brighter that way.

I'm almost 2 hours into the 3 available, and unfortunately I gotta say, I'm pretty bored. It looks and sounds great (and the pixel art for the one boss I fought was outstanding) but the combat is lackluster (I wouldn't be surprised if it eventually gets deep, but considering there are eight Chapter 1s to get through, it'll take a long time) and the writing seems pretty 'meh' (Except for H'aanit's ye olde english, which I actively disliked). I'm also concerned with what I've heard about a potential lack of meaningful interaction between the characters.

Tried both the old and new demo and I thought both were a snooze fest. Also - Maybe it’s because Primrose’s story starts in a forest but the vignetting around the corners of the screen was so dark I could barely make out the scenery. And this is on my 4K TV which I feel is a bit too bright when playing BoTW, Odyssey, etc.

I played an hour of the demo last night, starting with the apothecary character. At first I liked it for the separate starting characters, but once I got to Therion I realized that it doesn't matter who you start with. So with that magic gone I found that it is a pretty by-the-numbers JRPG and I lost interest.

@deckard: You can turn off the vignetting.

@peteycoco: I’m curious what you mean by “it doesn’t matter who you start with”. Interested in what you thought was gonna happen.

I thought it would be sort of like you complete a section and then change to a new character like in suikoden 3 or SaGa Frontiers (at least 2). The fact that they seem to join up with each other seems a tad bizarre to me but I’m curious to see how it plays out.

Wait so depending on who you choose only the intro is different but the rest not? so to see everything you'd have to start 8 different games but only completely play through 1...That seems a bit odd.... I don't mean to complain or anything but it seems like a weird choice to me.

No. I don't think anyone knows for sure if the rest of the game is/isn't different depending who you pick, but you do every single character's opening(and solo) story as a "this is what happened to me before we met" when you pick them up. So you will see every characters intro as if they were the character you started the game with.

There is an option in town bars, since I never finished the opening story of my second character I don't understand it yet, but it listed my character as a menu option looking like I'll be able to switch stories or something when I have more than one? Like after you acquire a new character you can choose to make them leader and work on their continuing quest or something? That's my pure "I play vidya games" educated guess at what it looked like.

Finally played the demo. Holy shit I did not expect to enjoy it as much as I did. I've only played as the Thief so far, and that was cool. The battles were a bit slow, especially afrter you get out of the town, but I'm guessing they'll pick up the pace once you have more ways to attack and party members. The only thing that I don't quite like are the visuals, since every screen of the game feels like somebody made this beautiful 16-bit esque landscape and somebody else just pissed on it. Everything's yellow and dark for some reason. But overall it's a super cool artstyle. I especially enjoyed the super big boss sprites. They look cool, and fighting a Butler who's 10 times your size on the fight screen was pretty funny.

I'm also really, really hoping that we'll finally get a more mature jRPG that doesn't have teen boobs and jokes where the only punchline is "tits". I have really low tolerance for bad anime tropes.

The game's combat in the demo suffers from what I'll call FFXIII Syndrome. Playing as just one character or maybe even two is kind of dull. But when I got my third party member, and was much more flexible in how I dealt with breaks and boosts, it felt much more engaging. I can see it oozing with potential, but the demo definitely does a poor job at showcasing it.

I am also as concerned as most others over how cohesive the story for this game will be. Are the characters actually going to be interacting with each other is a giant question that'll determine if I actually pick this game up or not.

My first demo playthrough had me getting through the Hunter and Apothecary opening chapters, and 90% of the Thief one. One thing that I'm thankful for is that enemies in the game seems to get stronger as you gain more party members, so doing Chapter 1 for everyone actually shouldn't be an easy snooze fest that I was initially fearing. I'll probably play through the demo again as Dancer, Warrior, and Merchant.

@marino: Do you remember how you got from Therion's area to Alfyn's? I'm trying to do the same thing, and have followed the signs through the mountain region, but now I'm at a spot where my only option seems to be some caves that are "Danger Level 20," and the only other place I've been with a "danger level" was level 1. Do I need to go through those caves or is there another path I'm just not seeing?

Edit: Fired it up again and realized the sign that indicated the path to Clearbrook was to the south really meant it, and I only thought it was blocked due to some shadows. Still really loving the game and can't wait for next Friday, but some of the environment/shadow stuff is giving me a hard time, even with the vignetting turned off. Probably won't be as big of a deal when I don't have a timer ticking in my head every minute I'm playing.

@turambar: I've been reading some impressions of people playing it for review and one of them said they are 20 hours in, they have all the characters but they don't seem to interact with each other at all.

@jimmyoct87: Apparently, Nintendo said in an interview that the characters do in fact intertwine. Perhaps it happens pretty far in.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OctopathTraveller/comments/8wocz6/nintendo_treehouse_representative_confirms_story/

But does that just mean "yeah they speak to each other a little here and there?" This kind of news doesn't break the game for me, it's just "aw shucks" level of something I wish was better than how I'm hearing it. I'll see myself friday though.

I honestly never expected them to intertwine, I thought it would be more SaGa Frontier, or I guess in the vein of Odin's Sphere. I was kinda offput initially that you could go around and collect the other characters into one party. Ultimately though it seems like you just play akin to solo stories while still leveling your other characters.