It comes as a great surprise to me that Square Enix has announced the far-off Final Fantasy VII remake will be released episodically. While any story-based game- and Role-playing games, especially- can have its narrative broken into smaller pieces, the pacing and amount of content per portion in Final Fantasy VII is questionable, and not necessarily clean-cut. Unless, I don't know, you break it up by the literal CD swaps from the original PS1 release. While many games have attempted episodic release schedules in the age of digital distribution, there are very few that seem justified in doing so. An episodic game needs to have a structure in which each installment tells a concise narrative, no matter how much cliff-hanging the writers wish to create in order to encourage a player to buy the next installment. What is stranger- to me, at least- is that there are specific franchises that feel primed to adopt an episodic release schedule yet have not done so.

I took a look at the Octopath Traveler demo version recently, and it left quite an impression on me. I'm still not quite sure whether it was positive or negative, however, mostly because the game's intentions are still somewhat elusive. While there are some aspects of the demo that appealed to me a great deal, others feel a bit nebulous, and the game as a whole seems to lack some direction. While the developers have apparently taken some of the concerns of those who evaluated the game to heart, there is still much that has not been said about Octopath Traveler, and while its aesthetic is striking and its homages evident, I hope to address some concerns regarding this new Square Enix RPG.

I have no particular love for Final Fantasy, a statement that would strip my status as an RPG fanatic in the eyes of some. I had very little exposure to the series in my youth, however, and my first Final Fantasy would actually be a spinoff, the first entry in the Crystal Chronicles series. The action-based, cooperation-focused role-playing systems were extremely appealing to me, and its unique races and more straightforward lore were easy to grasp, serving its rustic sensibilities nicely. I would go on to play each title in the Crystal Chronicles series, witnessing the refinements of its cooperative structure and eventual regression into something utterly weird, before vanishing off the map completely. In its place, I would find another coop ARPG to fill the void: a little series known as Monster Hunter. Its focus on precision movement, intense preparation, and dedication to equipment and weapon builds would enthrall me in a different way than Crystal Chronicles, which featured dung...