—> This article contains spoilers for Octopath Traveler.
“The game is not your typical epic JRPG, ambitious and epic, but is very modest in scope, telling stories that never intertwine to form a big narrative”
When I wrote my review of Octopath Traveler I thought this fragment merited a more in-depth analysis. After all, there is a late-game sidequest that muddles the waters a bit, tying up some loose ends and connecting some of the characters’ stories while offering a post-game boss. So, is there or is there not a bigger narrative in Octopath Traveler?
And the answer is: it’s complicated, but there isn’t a bigger narrative at play here. Kind of. Structurally speaking, at least.
The area of that post-game boss battle is filled with stone tablets that reveal some interesting bits about some of the side characters we met through the course of the game. We learn, for instance, that the man who saved Alfyn is the same person who wrote the journal that captivated Tressa so much, and that he has probably become the very same monster that H’aanit had to hunt during her story. The motivations of some of the antagonists are made clearer and the info provided even connects some of them, stating that they worked together at some point in time. And to make everything grander, the whole thing leads to the resurrection of a dark god that wants to destroy everything – because, well, this is still a JRPG.
Is this Octopath Traveler’s bigger narrative? Is the dark god, Galdera, the game’s true final boss? I would argue that the answer to both of these questions is a resounding “no”.
Why? First and foremost, to say that Galdera is Octopath Traveler’s bigger narrative is to say that it was its main story all along. It means that all the characters’ stories lead to the moment of his resurrection. Naming Galdera the game’s true final boss is to say the fight is the game’s climactic moment. As a climax, everything must lead to it, everything must depend on it. And nothing of that stands true here.
The main problem is that the stories of the eight characters are self-contained. Primrose’s character arc finishes when she defeats Simeon. She couldn’t care less about Galdera and her development as a character doesn’t depend on him at all. The same can be said about every other character in Octopath Traveler. Tressa’s journey doesn’t need an elder god to make sense and so duly finishes without him. Alfyn’s troubles surrounding his profession are morally grounded and so don’t lead to a battle against an elder god. H’aanit would care about Galdera because defeating the god would provide a good story to tell, and Cyrus because the god is the result of forgotten knowledge, but these points are never developed.
This brings us to another major issue: the main characters never truly react to Galdera. It is the side characters that do the speaking, like Galdera’s daughter and the man she is deceiving: not a single one of the eight heroes has anything to say about what is happening.
Yes, one could argue that Galdera is behind the power that created the antagonists that torment some of them, especially Cyrus, H’aanit, and Ophilia – and that is true – but that doesn’t mean that their character arcs depend on him resurrecting and being defeated. That is why they don’t say anything of note during the event: there is nothing to be said. The eight stories have already finished without Galdera. The journeys of each character end without Galdera. And these journeys don’t even lead to Galdera.
The stories never intertwine to form a big narrative because they are not what makes the Elder God be released to wreak havoc on the world. His resurrection is actually a result of doing two separate sidequests and then discovering that they connect with each other when triggering a specific scene in a random spot in one of the many areas in the game. In other words, this supposed “true final boss” is hidden. Galdera is a secret boss, he’s a bonus, not the climactic conclusion of anything that has happened until then. The tablets connect some dots, tie up some loose ends, and he provides a good challenge. That’s it. It’s not because not because with Galdera Octopath Traveler finally gains some epic scope – he’s a god, after all – that what is happening on the screen becomes the main event. The scope of the scene is not narratively relevant.
The fact that Galdera’s existence is constantly mentioned during some of the main character’s stories makes him an excellent dessert, not the main dish. The credits roll before the fight. The main stories end without even triggering it.
And this is why Octopath Traveler doesn’t have a main story: there’s nothing in the structure of the game that hints at Galdera being the cornerstone of the stories being told. On the contrary, the game’s structure paints him as what he really is: a side activity – an important and interesting side activity for sure, but still a secondary one.
December 12, 2024.
