Octopath is basically everything I wanted out of the Bravely series. It has beautiful environments, good music, and a great battle system. Bravely unfortunately had that but bundled it with some of the absolute most aggravating story and writing I've ever had the displeasure of witnessing. There was something supremely off-putting about the story in the first two Bravely games that I can't really put into words.
If they actually do a Bravely Third I'd want them to nuke everything about the world and characters and start anew.
For me it's kinda the opposite. I prefer what BD not second(I liked second enough but honestly in my eyes it's very mediocre in its retreads) did story wise a lot compared to octopath. Story wise octopath is very vanilla in a way and honestly not all that ambitious. It is mostly stuff I've seen before it's very competent though.
Bravely Default felt very fresh with it's telling fairy tales in a way that doesn't coat up the fucked uppedness of fairy tales with its asterisk holders as well the way the main story went meta was very unique and memorable to me(and I totally get the complaints how that strikes out gameplay wise but honestly it's pretty comparable in its reptitiousness to octopath just a different brand.).
If we're talking general characters though I'd give it to octopath. Bravely Default creates very simplistic characters that aren't really meant to me much more than your average fairy tale character(characters like red riding hood aren't exactly character studies). So it's fine in my eyes for what it is but yeah Octopath does a lot more in the way of fleshing out characters, contrasting them to mirror stories and exploring interesting quandaries.
I was waiting for Octopath to be more cute to be honest but it isn't that type of game. In the end I'll remember it for being the best turn based combat in forever + having a very good soundtrack. (although I probably still give it to revo comparatively)
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