When comparing Octopath Traveler vs Titan Quest, the Slant community recommends Titan Quest for most people. In the question“What are the best RPGs for the Nintendo Switch?” Titan Quest is ranked 1st while Octopath Traveler is ranked 14th. The most important reason people chose Titan Quest is:
Titan Quest is over 10 years old now, and it is still widely played. It even saw a remastered "Anniversary Edition" in August of 2016, drawing in more players, old and new.
Specs
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Pros
Pro The job system lets you tailor everyone's playstyles however you want
While everyone begins as their own set job, such as warrior, dancer, and so on, you can further customize everyone to your liking. As you progress through the story, you eventually get the option to assign secondary jobs to everyone, meaning they get the benefits of both their main job and the second one you give them. You can give your warrior access to healing magic, for example, to shore up his weaknesses, or double-down and assign him a more combat-oriented secondary job. You can't give more than two characters the same second job, though, so you have to be selective in how you choose to customize everyone.
Pro You can play through the eight separate character stories at your own pace
As Octopath Traveler is more of an intimate, character-based story, you have the freedom to experience each tale however you want. The stories themselves are mostly well-written with a wonderfully mature tone, with a seriousness that isn't overdone, and a nice sense of brevity that lets you fill in certain blanks with your imagination.
You can start with one character and play through his or her origin story, and as you explore the world map to travel to new locations, you run into other characters' stories that you can complete in any order you prefer. The first character you choose is your "main" character, whose story you see through to completion throughout the game. This freedom of choice makes the game perfect for picking up and playing on the go or in short bursts.
Pro Engaging classic turn-based combat with plenty of strategy involved
The battles are a great throwback to older JRPGs with enough of a contemporary twist. You have the familiar setup of a party of four characters standing in a line opposite the enemies, all of whom have their own weaknesses for you to figure out. Your party takes turn attacking the enemy to find their specific weaknesses, whether it's to sword attacks, certain elemental spells, and so on.
Once you find it, pummeling their weakness depletes their armor, and then you land your strongest hits to combo for massive damage. But their weaknesses can change as the battle goes on, so you have to strategize with how to maximize your damage before that change happens. The system is pretty engaging in the way it keeps you on your toes for every fight.
Pro Gorgeous old school visuals with a modern touch
Octopath Traveler is a beautiful game that updates the nostalgic JRPG formula, especially with the graphics. The characters are all expressive 16-bit sprite models in 2D, calling back to games from the SNES era, while the backgrounds are in 3D with an incredible amount of detail. Walking through snowy mountains, across beaches, or through deserts, parts of the backgrounds glitter in the sunlight in captivating ways. It's a unique style that appeals to longtime JRPG fans while keeping things modern enough for the current console generation.
Pro Holds up incredibly well
Titan Quest is over 10 years old now, and it is still widely played. It even saw a remastered "Anniversary Edition" in August of 2016, drawing in more players, old and new.
Pro You can choose the speed you want to play at
Titan Quest is unique among ARPGs in that you get to choose the game speed. You can be a leisurely player and take things slowly, or you can go hard and play the game on very fast settings. The fact that you get to choose adds another level of enjoyment to the game.
Pro Replayability through different classes
There are a plethora of classes that open up upon leveling to the second level, once one is chosen the others will be gone for that game session. This means that a different playthrough will be needed to explore what all the different classes offer, making for quite a lot of playtime.
Pro Lots of loot to find
There is quite a lot of loot in the game to be found, which drives the player to continue playing, just to find that better weapon or piece of armor. The loot is also color coded when dropped, making it easy to discern what is worth picking up or leaving behind.
Pro Tons of customization
There are 30 different classes of characters to choose from within the game with 150 character skills that they can learn. This way users can customize their character to their liking and playstyle.
Cons
Con The origin stories are repetitive
All of the eight origin stories, the initial chapters, virtually play the same. You get introduced to the character and their world, they work through their struggle, and then there's a boss at the end. This samey structure can make back-to-back playthroughs of origin stories feel like a slog, since there isn't much variety aside from the individual characters themselves. It may help to space out the origin stories to keep things from feeling repetitive.
Con The eight character stories never really come together
While the individual stories are all great in their own ways, the characters don't ever join together as a cohesive group of allies. You can pick and choose who you want to bring along for combat, and who to explore with, but they hardly acknowledge each others' existence. The most they do is speak a few words to certain characters here and there, but there's nothing substantive to help everyone feel like a group that's working together. It makes the story feel hollow with too much wasted potential.
Con Combat feels a little static
Con Save anywhere does not save character placement
This means that there will be some retreading of areas once a save is loaded as the character will not be in the same place as where they were left off. This will waste time and can be frustrating having to do this every time you load the game.
Con Disappointing loot at later levels
Even when the player has reached a high level, they will often find loot meant for low level characters. This can be frustrating when trying to find better gear and just adds a lot of clutter to ones inventory as the majority of items found won't be that useful.