Octopath Traveler Was Developed Because The Developers Weren't Trying To Make A Westernized Game

Deleted member 249 · Jul 12, 2018

You might have noticed that at one point Square Enix tried to make games for the whole world - not just for the Japanese market. We tried to make global games for everyone. On the opposite side, though, with Bravely Default - we really thought it'd just be for Japanese people. But when it was released, Nintendo got in touch and said many players outside of Japan would like to play the game. So what could we do? Together we released a game, even though at first we had no intention of selling it outside of Japan. Finally, it did well! The sales were good outside of Japan.

That's when I realised that we had no need to try and fit to the tendencies of western users. I discovered that, I'm Japanese, and with Octopath Traveler we just wanted to make a game we'd like ourselves, and if we like the game maybe western people would also play this game. When we started development of Octopath, we decided that it'd be a worldwide release. We didn't put in any features for western gamers, though - we just created the game that we wanted to play as Japanese developers.

SOURCE

Fancy that, Square, you can just make the game you want to make, instead of trying to make some kind of diluted Frankensteinish mishmash of a monster, and people will take to it well. I just don't know why it took for Bravely Default to come out for them to (re)remember this all important lesson that they, more than anyone else, imbibed so well back in the 1990s.

Better late than never, though, and I thank Bravely Default greatly for teaching Square this. Octopath looks amazing, and I can't wait to dig into it tonight. By the way, make sure to read that full interview, it's fantastic. Eurogamer does good work.

Amirnol · Jul 12, 2018

I really, really, really hope Octopath sells well.

Deleted member 5491 · Jul 12, 2018

It's just like during the PS3 era when all these japanese devs tried to please a western audience by mocking western games
and now they just do games that play and feel like they used to be from until the PS2 era and they are critically successful and
also do well enough in the west

The perfect Dark · Jul 12, 2018

Amirnol said:
I really, really, really hope Octopath sells well.

Yep, it's the best game of the year so far.

Blade Wolf · Jul 12, 2018

Amirnol said:
I really, really, really hope Octopath sells well.

I hope it at least do well in Japan.

Jaded Alyx · Jul 12, 2018

Amirnol said:
I really, really, really hope Octopath sells well.

It will.

Deleted member 36578 · Jul 12, 2018

Very excited to pick my copy up today!!!!! Media black out is officially over lol

I wish all game developers still had the liberty to create the games they want to create, and not some mishmash of ideas and lootboxes they think the public will latch onto.

Richietto · Jul 12, 2018

I get what they are saying, and I can't wait to play, but what??? Basically they are saying they wanted to make a Japanese game with all the positives and negatives that entails instead of taking what works in the West and making a better game in general. You can have it both ways.

ccieag · Jul 12, 2018

It will do well in Japan. Think it will elsewhere as well - I like distinctly Japanese games when it comes to RPG's. This and DQXI are right up mine, and I think quite a few others, alley so to speak

Braaier · Jul 12, 2018

That's cool. SE can probably afford to take that risk on a lower budgeted game like Octopath. No way would they go that route on a final fantasy game though. Too much money involved not to try to capture a worldwide audience.

I'm glad SE formed this studio to focus on AA games though. Hopefully we'll see more games like this taking risks

BocoDragon · Jul 12, 2018

I love that they got the message that us geeks were screaming about for the previous decade.

The "Japanese developers falling behind in HD development and then scrambling (and failing) to make games that the West would like" was the saddest narrative of the entire last generation of consoles.

Deleted member 249 · Jul 12, 2018

Green Slime King said:
I get what they are saying, and I can't wait to play, but what??? Basically they are saying they wanted to make a Japanese game with all the positives and negatives that entails instead of taking what works in the West and making a better game in general. You can have it both ways.

What they are saying is, instead of diluting their vision to accommodate a misguided ideal of what western audiences like (which, as I am sure you remembered, happen all the time during the PS3 era), they just decided to make what they wanted to make, without worrying about global commercial considerations. Bravely Default's success was important in illustrating the importance of doing that to them.

Deleted member 3010 · Jul 12, 2018

Amirnol said:
I really, really, really hope Octopath sells well.

Yep, same.

ThankDougie · Jul 12, 2018

Green Slime King said:
instead of taking what works in the West and making a better game in general. You can have it both ways.

uhhh what? what works in the West is not de facto what makes a better game in general. am I misreading you here?

Deleted member 9584 · Jul 12, 2018

Excited for my copy arriving tomorrow. Everything about the demos spoke to me as a fan of jrpgs. I'm looking forward to it's short story nature about these eight adventurers in this world.

MegaXZero · Jul 12, 2018

I like that they want to play to their own strengths. Octopath looks great and is reviewing great.

Since they mention catering to the Japanese base, what was the Japanese reaction to Bravely Default's timeloops?

Deleted member 15326 · Jul 12, 2018

Smart decision

TheBryanJZX90 · Jul 12, 2018

I think it's a great idea to try to make a game you want to play rather than try to guess what other people want to play. Really that's the only way to make something good.

But, I would also hope that Japanese devs and all devs play a wide range of games from many places and genres such that the "kind of game they want to play" is informed from a variety of sources.

Deleted member 15326 · Jul 12, 2018

MegaXZero said:
I like that they want to play to their own strengths. Octopath looks great and is reviewing great.

Since they mention catering to the Japanese base, what was the Japanese reaction to Bravely Default's timeloops?

The first one is generally held to be a decent game and the second one is a kusoge

Deleted member 5535 · Jul 12, 2018

Phantom Thief said:
SOURCE

Fancy that, Square, you can just make the game you want to make, instead of trying to make some kind of diluted Frankensteinish mishmash of a monster, and people will take to it well. I just don't know why it took for Bravely Default to come out for them to (re)remember this all important lesson that they, more than anyone else, imbibed so well back in the 1990s.

Better late than never, though, and I thank Bravely Default greatly for teaching Square this. Octopath looks amazing, and I can't wait to dig into it tonight. By the way, make sure to read that full interview, it's fantastic. Eurogamer does good work.

Not sure how that comment is relevant considering that Bravely Default came in 2013. But even before that, Square Enix released plenty of games with such mentality for handhelds too.

Either way, they continued to do it as well, be it with Nier, Nier Automata or other projects. And yeah, the interview is great. Can't wait to see what BD11 has for the future in their project.

Braaier said:
That's cool. SE can probably afford to take that risk on a lower budgeted game like Octopath. No way would they go that route on a final fantasy game though. Too much money involved not to try to capture a worldwide audience.

I'm glad SE formed this studio to focus on AA games though. Hopefully we'll see more games like this taking risks

That's not a studio, it's a division. Those are different things, the big one is that a division is part of the same company, not a different company like a studio is.

R_thanatos · Jul 12, 2018

BocoDragon said:
I love that they got the message that us geeks were screaming about for the previous decade.

The "Japanese developers falling behind in HD development and then scrambling (and failing) to make games that the West would like" was the saddest narrative of the entire last generation of consoles.

SO

MUCH

THIS.

I'm still having nightmares of star ocean 4 and last remnant

Maxina · Jul 12, 2018

That's the reason why I like Japanese games, because they are Japanese. If I want to watch a movie, i'll leave it to western developers.

Richietto · Jul 12, 2018

ThankDougie said:
uhhh what? what works in the West is not de facto what makes a better game in general. am I misreading you here?

Like there are innovations and ideas from the west that could elevate traditional JRPG's and vise versa. Its fine that they wanted to make something a Japanese player would want but why stop there when you have the power to make something that a Japanese player might never have known they wanted? Im not saying to add a create a character or Hollywood cutscenes and all that stuff that is more western but you know.

Deleted member 37233 · Jul 12, 2018

What's in a name?
Square Enix isn't new to odd names, but Octopath Traveler might be one of the oddest yet. I asked Takahashi what exactly is behind it. "About that name… Octo as you maybe know means eight, and path is a synonymous way of saying travel. There are eight destinies, eight characters, so Octopath - it's the way of their destiny, and 'Traveler' is because of travelling, of course. When we were asking our localisation team, there were so many ideas, we wanted to express these eight characters' travel - this was just one of the ideas, and we went for it because we needed a name that was easy to remember for Japanese people. You know, Octopath, it sounds to Japanese people like Octopus - and Octopus is an English word which is very well known among Japanese people."

I love their reasoning

JCX · Jul 12, 2018

Bravely Default got me back into JRPG after the dark ages that were the PS360 era. Hope this sells well so SE gets the right message.

Gotdatmoney · Jul 12, 2018

R_thanatos said:
SO

MUCH

THIS.

I'm still having nightmares of star ocean 4 and last remnant

The Last Remnant was awesome though

ElBoxy · Jul 12, 2018

brokeastronaut said:
Very excited to pick my copy up today!!!!! Media black out is officially over lol

I wish all game developers still had the liberty to create the games they want to create, and not some mishmash of ideas and lootboxes they think the public will latch onto.

Japan has been down the Gacha well long before loot boxes got popular.

Braaier · Jul 12, 2018

Nemesis162 said:
Not sure how that comment is relevant considering that Bravely Default came in 2013. But even before that, Square Enix released plenty of games with such mentality for handhelds too.

Either way, they continued to do it as well, be it with Nier, Nier Automata or other projects. And yeah, the interview is great. Can't wait to see what BD11 has for the future in their project.

That's not a studio, it's a division. Those are different things, the big one is that a division is part of the same company, not a different company like a studio is.

My bad, same idea applies though.

DocSeuss · Jul 12, 2018

It's funny because JRPGs all come from Ultima and Wizardry

but for real tho, making the game you want to play will always, always, always result in a better game than if you try to make a game for hypothetical consumers because you understand the games you want to play far more than 'what if they like x or y'

Platy · Jul 12, 2018

I am super happy that "games that we wanted to make for ourselves" does not include a sexualized kid

Prof Bathtub · Jul 12, 2018

Lichtsang said:
I love their reasoning

Heh, google usually just translates Octopath (オクトパス) as Octopus anyways.

Dice · Jul 12, 2018

MegaXZero said:
Since they mention catering to the Japanese base, what was the Japanese reaction to Bravely Default's timeloops?

Everyone on the planet should have hated those time loops.

SOLDIER · Jul 12, 2018

Too bad, a Westernized RPG would have probably been worth $60.

TrueSloth · Jul 12, 2018

The demo took a little too long to get to the combat portion, but maybe I"ll give it another shot. I hope the came does well.

Deleted member 36578 · Jul 12, 2018

ElBoxyBrown said:
Japan has been down the Gacha well long before loot boxes got popular.

But do you think those gachas are something the developers enjoyed and thought would be fun additions to their games? Or do you think it was a way to make a buck? I think the last gacha I personally enjoyed was in Shenmue. I actually had fun collecting those little Sega toys :p I'm willing to bet Yu Suzuki had a good time collecting them irl a well which is why they were in the game haha

Raven117 · Jul 12, 2018

Mazzle said:
It's just like during the PS3 era when all these japanese devs tried to please a western audience by mocking western games
and now they just do games that play and feel like they used to be from until the PS2 era and they are critically successful and
also do well enough in the west

That's when I realised that we had no need to try and fit to the tendencies of western users. I discovered that, I'm Japanese, and with Octopath Traveler we just wanted to make a game we'd like ourselves, and if we like the game maybe western people would also play this game. When we started development of Octopath, we decided that it'd be a worldwide release. We didn't put in any features for western gamers, though - we just created the game that we wanted to play as Japanese developers.

Japanese game developers really lost their way last generation by doing exactly this.

Finally, this generation they got a better handle on making quality games that they themselves like. Neir, BotW, Octopath, Yakuza, Souls, all are gaining popularity because they are just games for the Japanese market, but they are of high quality and deliver experiences you can't get anywhere else.

I am truly delighted that Japan finally got their act together and some confidence that some (not all, admittedly) games that they like, the West would like as well.

I hope they continue down this path. And for fuchsakes, Capcom, give us Dragon's Dogma 2... (but thank you for having faith in Monster Hunter)

Bahamut · Jul 12, 2018

SOLDIER said:
Too bad, a Westernized RPG would have probably been worth $60.

*Metal Gear Solid Alert Sound*

Deleted member 15326 · Jul 12, 2018

Alcotholic said:
The demo took a little too long to get to the combat portion, but maybe I"ll give it another shot. I hope the came does well.

Depending on who you choose it comes faster. Primrose is definitely not the one to choose if you're looking to fight quickly

Riversands · Jul 12, 2018

I really like the way he thinks. They just need to up their marketing tacticx

MegaXZero · Jul 12, 2018

Labor said:
The first one is generally held to be a decent game and the second one is a kusoge

I can definitely see that. Besides the timeloops, I enjoyed the game immensely.

DealWithIt · Jul 12, 2018

Wish more devs would do this on the mechanic side, but think a lot harder about writing an interesting and/or unique story rather than producing the tropey garbage that so commonly comes out of these kinds of dev efforts.

TelluricTokoro · Jul 12, 2018

I guess they forgot that video games have come this far because of the old Japanese games we look back fondly upon.

We never wanted you to stop making those games, I don't know why y'all thought we did lol

Deleted member 5535 · Jul 12, 2018

brokeastronaut said:
But do you think those gachas are something the developers enjoyed and thought would be fun additions to their games? Or do you think it was a way to make a buck? I think the last gacha I personally enjoyed was in Shenmue. I actually had fun collecting those little Sega toys :p I'm willing to bet Yu Suzuki had a good time collecting them irl a well which is why they were in the game haha

The very concept of Gacha is a thing on Japan. Gachapon exists in every road of the country and every japanese in their life played it. That's why it's named gacha on mobile since it use this concept and many people had prior experience with it.

ElBoxy · Jul 12, 2018

brokeastronaut said:
But do you think those gachas are something the developers enjoyed and thought would be fun additions to their games? Or do you think it was a way to make a buck? I think the last gacha I personally enjoyed was in Shenmue. I actually had fun collecting those little Sega toys :p I'm willing to bet Yu Suzuki had a good time collecting them irl a well which is why they were in the game haha

If it's on mobile it's to make money. On console, it's usually there without paying real money but I don't think they do it cuz it's fun. It's just another mechanic. ARMS has it just to have another way of unlocking stuff.

WarpSpeedMolasses · Jul 12, 2018

Any comparisons to Bravely Default still make me weary and are a massive turn off given its heinous plot/gameplay-twist. But, if its success means SE realized fans around the world like their Japanese games without forced pandering to Western markets, then they took away the right lesson, and that's music to my ears.

Opa-Pa · Jul 12, 2018

Thank god at least they get the message. Pretty much the only games SE puts out that still appeal to me are the ones that are unapologetically japanese in design. Good stuff.

MegaXZero said:
I like that they want to play to their own strengths. Octopath looks great and is reviewing great.

Since they mention catering to the Japanese base, what was the Japanese reaction to Bravely Default's timeloops?

Something like "those sure were some annoying three hours in a 60 hour long game" probably.

SOLDIER said:
Too bad, a Westernized RPG would have probably been worth $60.

Good thing good game design and overall quality matters more than budget and silly trend-chasing in the end.

Dizastah · Jul 12, 2018

SOLDIER said:
Too bad, a Westernized RPG would have probably been worth $60.

Sure....that would guarantee its worth...

SOLDIER · Jul 12, 2018

Bahamut said:
*Metal Gear Solid Alert Sound*

It's one of the absolute stupidest debates posted here and I'll never get tired lampooning it.

1000% H · Jul 12, 2018

Dear Every-Japanese-Dev,

We like your games because they're Japanese. We've already got loads of Western devs making Western games. You do you.

Thanks.

Comfortable · Jul 12, 2018

Dice said:
Everyone on the planet should have hated those time loops.

I liked the time loops. I thought it was a neat idea that actually worked pretty well for me. As someone who liked the battle system, the extra boss fights were all really fun, and the only real parts that actually repeated were easy to breeze through by turning off the random encounters and utilizing the dungeon shortcuts.

But maybe my experience was different because I avoided spoilers and naturally got the bad ending first before going back to get the true ending.

Octopath Traveler Was Developed Because The Developers Weren't Trying To Make A Westernized Game

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