Octopath Traveler 2 beginners guide: 16 things to know before starting

Octopath Traveler 2The beautiful, retro-styled JRPG ‘, is now available for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4/5, and Windows PC. This game includes many of the same elements as the original title but introduces some new quality-of-life features and systems that are not easily understood by even seasoned players.

Below, I list out 16 (yes, that’s eight times two on purpose) tips to help you navigate the gigantic world in Octopath Traveler 2. There’s a lot to do in the game, so let’s get started.

Your initial character selection is final until they are defeated in your story

Choose carefully when choosing your character. Keep them with your group until they are finished. Picking the “wrong” character won’t put you at a big disadvantage, as you can collect the remaining seven characters pretty quickly and easily.

Since you’ll be forced to keep your first-pick around for a while, you should make sure to make an educated decision on who to pick.

Attention to enemy colors

Unless you use a Scholar’s “Analyze” ability, you can’t see how much HP an enemy has, but you can estimate it by reading the color of the enemy’s name. The name of your enemy will appear at the bottom of your UI when you choose who to attack. If the name is white, it’s still very healthy. If the name is yellow, it’s about halfway to death. If the name is red, it’ll die soon.

Graphic by Julia Lee/Polygon. Source images: Square Enix| Source images: Square Enix

One enemy at a.

This tip is a bit situational, but since broken enemies — enemies with no shield up — take more damage, it’s better to focus on one enemy at a time, breaking their shields and then unleashing tons of damage. Although I found it difficult to defeat bosses, when they summoned additional enemies I felt more successful. However, this was because I could focus only on one boss at a while.

These skills are especially useful against smaller fry if you can burst multiple enemies with your abilities.

Break bosses while they’re charged up

Do you know what happens when an enemy charges you in a JRPG? You defend your next turn and avoid massive damage. It is possible to get a lot of damage from the enemy. canDo that in Octopath Traveler 2You can either cancel their attack or break their shield.

You can do the math by looking at the sequence of turn at the top. You should break the boss in half before it turns next. Otherwise, it is best to heal up and defend.

Attention to danger levels

It may sound obvious but certain levels are required for specific tasks. While you can likely cheese through a boss if you’re a bit underleveled, you should try to have your entire party at that level. If you’re taking a lower-level character through a boss fight just to leech some EXP, be careful — if that character ends the fight with 0 HP, they won’t gain any EXP anyway.

Prioritize equipment over character levels

Even if your Hikari is at level 50, he won’t deal much damage if he doesn’t have appropriate gear. The stats associated with weapons are more important than those gained through leveling in this game, so ensure that you have the right gear before you take on any bosses.

Make the most of your potential abilities

A new feature is latent abilities. Octopath Traveler 2. They’re special skills that you need to fill a gauge to use. You can think of them as the Limit Breaks in Final Fantasy.

Some latent abilities should be used immediately, like Agnea’s (the dancer). Agnea’s latent ability lets you turn single-target attacks or buffs into multi-target ones. You should use this to distribute buffs among your party members to do lots of damage against multiple enemies. On the flip side, Temenos’ (the priest) ability allows you to break a shield regardless of if your attack hits a weakness, so you should save that for when the enemy has a shield up.

The order in which your weaknesses are listed is important.

If enemies have weaknesses, the bar is in static order. You can therefore use known weaknesses as a guide to find the other weaknesses. It is ordered as follows: Staff, Spears, Daggers, Axes, Bows, Spears, Spears, Arrows, Sticks, Spears, Daggers, Axes, Bows, Fire, Ice and Lightning. Holy, Dark.

Source images: Square Enix| Source images: Square Enix

For example, if you know the enemy is weak to Spear and Fire and there’s an unknown weakness between those two, you know that it’s either Dagger, Axe, Bow, or Staff. If you notice that they’re weak to Spear and have an unknown weakness to the left, then it’s also definitely weak against Sword.

You can use day and night to your benefit

Your party members can use different abilities to NPCs depending upon the day. Some members also have party buffs that only activate during certain times.

For example, Throné (the thief) buffs up the party at the start of battle when it’s nighttime. That said, if you’re running with Throné in your party, you can swap to nighttime before you take on a boss to give yourself a little extra help.

The trade-off is that stronger monsters come out at night, so you’ll definitely need the boost when running around in the wilds.

Running draws more foes

If you’re looking to avoid enemies, don’t run. You can attract enemies to the grind by sprinting. It attracts even more people to run around maps and fight with you. Combining this tip with the one above will create an excellent combination for level grinding: Run around at night.

Osvald the scholar also has an equippable skill that reduces encounter rates. Make sure you toggle this on or off as needed to attract and avoid enemies.

Get all you can from NPCs

Using Throné’s Steal or Agnea’s Entreat abilities, you can take items from townspeople. Both skills rely on your level in comparison to the respective townsperson’s. Agnea can’t take items if the person is higher level than her, and Throné’s chance to steal is lower if the person is too many levels above her.

NPCs have useful equipment and healing items. You should still take advantage of them. Look out for any items marked with a star-shaped icon. These items are used in side quests and it’s nice to have those items on-hand right away when starting a side quest.

To power up with BP, read the tooltips

As a rule of thumb, don’t expect BP-charged Skills To score more hits. Powering up your normal attacks when BP allows you to multi-hit, but this isn’t the case with every skill. For example, most magic spells will hit harder when charged up, but they don’t hit multiple times.

However, some skills, like the hunter’s Precise Shot will fire off extra shots when charged up, which is extremely useful when facing a boss with a chunky shield. If you are using BP, the tooltips will show you how many hits a particular move can take so ensure you carefully read them.

Square Enix via Polygon

Do the math when you’re facing hard bosses

In, yes. Octopath Traveler 2Math can often help you. If you’re facing a boss and you have turns for three characters before the boss has three, don’t give up hope. If you carefully analyze your abilities and make use of the boosts, it is possible to overcome that giant shield and save your party. Take advantage of skills that slow the enemy or bump up your characters’ turns as well to help you get an edge.

Don’t forget about buffs and debuffs

If you were the type to never use “moves that don’t do damage” in Pokémon, you need to grow out of that, especially in Octopath Traveler 2. I know that in the above tip, I said that you might be able to break that big shield when things look rough, but the keyword there is “might.” If you can’t, you want to be prepared. Debuff the enemy with attack-reducing moves and beef up your party’s defense just in case. This way, you won’t even have to worry if that boss hits your party 12 times in a row, as they’ll all be standing by the end of the attack flurry.

Instead of focusing on all eight characters, focus your attention on just three to four.

The game is a bit harder (and significantly slower) if you’re actively trying to juggle leveling eight characters at once. If you’re able to unlock them all, then only focus on one or two at a given time. Next, you will be able to swap your lower-leveled characters with higher-level characters.

Gearing up eight characters at once is also expensive, so limiting your focus will help give your wallet — and your poor merchant — a breather.

Magic doesn’t miss its target

If you’re blinded or fighting an enemy that’s hard to hit (like the rare monsters, Cait and Octopuff), rely on magic to get you through. You can use magic spells to do damage even though your elemental attack may be low. To do some damage, elemental soulstones can be used in an emergency.