Holy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ♥♥♥♥.

As someone who put countless hours into Champions of the Continent, Octopath Traveler 0 is everything I could've wanted out of a PC version of Champions of the Continent and SO much more.

The Octopath Traveler franchise continues its tradition of blowing my socks off with how perfect its entries are. The original CotC's dark, and sometimes gruesome storyline is left practically intact (in a good way), aside from a few additions made by the inclusion of the new protagonist, and it is accessible in the sense that the story bosses aren't as frustratingly difficult as they were in the original CotC, while still allowing for some challenging fights in the game's side content.

Having eight party members at a time, allowing any of them to equip both active skills and passive effects, alongside the tried-and-true Break/Boost system works wonderfully for this game, allowing for strategizing both in and out of battle, letting players swap out travelers in and out of the party to prepare for specific encounters, or letting them focus on making an end-all be-all A-Team that could handle everything the game throws at them. My point is, the game allows the player to be sky's-the-limit creative with their teambuilding.

The OST is once again beautifully crafted by Yasunori Nishiki, who I genuinely hope will be remembered as one of the GOATs of videogame music, peaking once again with every new composition that had you thinking "surely it can't get better than this". His tracks from the original CotC and his new material for this entry are absolutely marvelous, and I'm sure I will have the new tracks on repeat constantly, just as I've had for the CotC ones.

I also really like the townbuilding, it's a nice reprieve from the action and super duper comfy :3

Do I wish this game had difficulty options for those who wish to relive the brutal story boss fights of CotC, specifically in the middle and later half of the game? Yeah.
Do I wish a certain puzzle towards the end of the game had been touched up to account for language differences between Japanese and English? Yeah.
Do I wish Surpassing Power wasn't an equippable passive and instead an unlockable global effect after finishing Master of All (and that, naturally, enemy health was scaled up to account for this)? Yeah.
Do I wish the audio mixing had been given some extra work, as some party members are simply too loud or too quiet at times? Yeah.

Do I still think this game is an absolute masterpiece? Abso-♥♥♥♥♥♥'-lutely.
Hats off to you, Team Asano, you've done it again.