Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent is a free-to-play gacha RPG from Square Enix.

 The game initially launched in Japan back in 2020, more than likely to capitalize on the success of Octopath Traveler across consoles and PC. You see, the original Octopath Traveler is something of a throwback to better days, offering a slick HD-2D art style paired with classic turn-based combat. The game was a hit, and so Square created a mobile gacha game that's soon coming West.

Seeing that Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent is available for pre-registration, having just entered into closed beta, I figured I'd go hands-on with this beta to report my findings, all while offering an hour-long gameplay video so you can see precisely how the beta plays for yourself.

The gameplay video above (recorded at 1080p/30fps) offers a detailed look at the first hour of Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent's closed beta. Basically, I play through the first chapter. Since this is a gacha game, the first hour exists as an overly-long tutorial, and boy, oh boy, does Square throw a ton of text boxes your way to explain the game's mechanics.

Much like the OG Octopath on consoles, the turn-based battles in Champions of the Continent utilize a break system, where enemies contain weaknesses to specific weapons and magic. Taking advantage of these weaknesses by breaking the enemy will see them stunned, opening an opportunity to unleash your powerful attacks. Seeing that you can save up how many attacks you have on hand (again, similar to the original Octopath), balancing breaks with the number of moves you can save is still the key to success.

As you can see in the video, the HD-2D graphics the original Octopath is known for are only mimicked in Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent, as characters are simply 2D sprites. Backgrounds remain 3D with pixel art on top, but characters don't look nearly as good as they do in the mainline game since they don't quite mesh as well with the 3D world. Thankfully much of the original music makes a return, and it's a killer soundtrack, a high point for sure.

While it's still a little too early to talk about performance, since I'm testing a closed beta release that clearly isn't ready for the masses, I can say most things perform fine. The game held to a stable 30fps while testing, and there wasn't much lag or stutter to be seen.

Now comes the bad news. Like all gacha games, Champions of the Continent contains many of the awful systems the genre is known for. Sure, Square dressed the game up with lengthy story sections (and the writing isn't half bad), but the first grind wall is revealed relatively early, and even though the in-game shop isn't live yet, multiple currencies exist, which will be the most accessible avenue to unlocking new characters, which means the game is designed to be pay-to-win.

So yes, what you see in my gameplay video above may not be fully representative of Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent once it's released in the West later this year, as it's still a work in progress. Still, what's available so far isn't all that exciting. There may be a few story beats worth experiencing, but the grindy gameplay is anything but appealing, especially once you hit a grind wall, as you can't escape these roadblocks with skill. Ultimately, this is a problem with many free-to-play games, so it's hardly surprising, though it sure sucks to see a competent franchise dragged through the mud so that Square can make a quick buck. Still, if you'd like to take a look for yourself, you can pre-register through the Play Store widget below to receive an alert whenever Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent is released.

( Details and picture courtesy from Source, the content is auto-generated from RSS feed.)

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