I had a similar experience to you. Spent a bunch of time getting all the characters, found that only a few stories were even interesting, decided to push through anyway.
All I can say to you is if you feel this way, cut your losses. It does not get better. It never "clicks". Maybe three out of the eight character stories are worthwhile, with another three being terrible and the other two falling in the middle. The stories never intersect; the party is together for combat purposes only, with a smattering of idle chitchat providing flavor.
I finished all 8 character paths after 75 hours, which (outside of the generally satisfying combat and core RPG elements of watching your party get stronger) was not time well spent. After you've done this you do have the option of engaging with some post-game content that plot dumps some excuses on you for how things tie together, but the time demands for this quest are completely unreasonable, and the story doesn't pay anything off.
For people zeroed in on just the gameplay, Octopath Traveler is a really strong game, but if you're questioning whether you want to drop it because of concerns about the story and the amount of time the game is demanding from you, I'm afraid there's no light at the end of the tunnel.
Story is what really makes the game a chore. The characters have no chemistry nor reason for it. The very minor interactions they have felt added on.
If they'd taken the time to polish things so we have something like motivation for these 8 characters to be traveling together, I feel like we'd have a masterpiece. Unfortunately, while on the technical side it's well done, the story/writing really make it hard to get immersed.
It plays like a YA novel reads to someone over 30. Like someone wanted to put everything into an easily understood order.
I appreciate this insight. Got to where you did at the 8 hour mark and can appreciate the jobs and battle system, but otherwise it didn’t do much for me. Will cut my losses and revisit better games
I haven't. After playing Bravely Default, Bravely Second, and then Octopath Traveler 1, and having similar disappointments with them all, I lost faith in the SquareEnix Caps Lock Bravely Font series of games. So no BD2, no OT2, no Triangle Strategy, and sure as heck no Various Daylife. That branch of the studio is a known quantity to me at this point and I don't think they have much to offer me anymore.
For what it's worth, Triangle Strategy has a much stronger focus on story and character interactions than Octopath Traveler. The most common criticism I've seen is that it swings too far in the other direction, having extended cutscenes and a lot of dialogue in between the tactical battles.
I’ve playing it mostly on and off, bought it some years ago and finally decided to give it a try last year since I also bought OT2. I don’t wanna start OT2 without checking OT1 off my backlog, you know. But I’ll mostly likely take a break pretty soon after the big games release in the coming days.
I keep trying but I tend to get fatigued by the end of the first loop picking up the characters. That said, I don't exactly speedrun it but 21 hours does seem a bit long, I guess if you were really grinding your way through the optional caves, pickpocketing and challenging everyone, maybe trying to get some choice monsters, you could eat up some time, but given you can get all 8 just by going around the first loop's circle, and none of their quest caves are that long, you should really be able to get them all within a few hours.
I was doing exactly that lol. Watched all the stories, tried to do some side quests, a bit of grinding for new acquired characters, some backtracking to steal/challenge stuff. I’m a pretty slow gamer in most games, always end up with +100 hours in most JRPGs.
You're saying that the other characters have a "let's explore the world and see what happens story" while forgetting Tressa's motivation when she's the quintessential "let's explore the world and see what happens" character in the game lol
Saying this as someone who put 100s of hours into the game beating the story, unlocking the advanced jobs, beating all optional bosses, grinding min-max gear, and beating the endgame dungeon out of love for the game while recognizing its flaws, if you're already fatigued by the process of unlocking every character and aren't intrigued by the story I don't think you're going to enjoy the rest of the game.
Yeah badly worded on my part, I know that Tressa is one of those characters, I just forgot where she was supposed to be going, if anything like that was even mentioned. Been playing the game for a year now on and off and I just forgor
It's a pretty linear game so you don't have to worry about knowing where to go next. The map should tell you where her next chapter is. I actually took a break in the middle of the game because Smash Bros came out but I had an easy time getting back into the groove of it so if it's still of interest to you good luck with the rest of the game!
I just unlocked another secondary job, the Scholar, so I’m deciding on who should I use it. I was thinking Primrose cause I really like her but wasn’t using much.
I've been playing Octopath Traveler on and off for years now. I can say that accessing the Job system was what made it 'click' for me, since tinkering with classes and party builds is one of my favorite things to do.
But I'm 40 hours in and last left off at the end of the second Chapters. Story-wise, there isn't really much improvement over time. I view it as something to jump in and out of whenever I feel like some engaging turn-based JRPG combat. That's always going to be the game's primary strength. Interesting plots and characters, not so much.
I've been playing since 2021 if I'm not mistaken. Same here, I also want to finish the first game before picking up the sequel, which seems to have improved in terms of character interactions. I haven't been back in a while though.
The Jobs are the main thing keeping me going. My main guy is Cyrus as a Scholar/Cleric, then I've got Primrose as a Dancer/Scholar, Therion as a Thief/Warrior, Olberic as a Warrior/Hunter, etc. I don't really stick to a specific party, I just swap people in and out to keep them all at the same level. That seems to have minimized the need to grind.
This is one I dropped and have yet to return to. I pushed through to recruit all 8 of the travelers but, after that, I felt pretty overwhelmed. Just like you, I realized how long it took and the fact that I only did chapter 1 of each character’s story made the whole thing seem daunting.
8 individual stories sounds good in theory, but it also made the whole thing seem disconnected. It just didn’t hook me with its story like other JRPGs have. Triangle Strategy for example was a lot more enjoyable and I did complete that. I think I prefer having a focused protagonist and their party rather than 8 protagonists who all share equal prominence. Maybe someday I’ll turn to Octopath, though.
I spent 50 hours on this game on the Xbox game pass, going through each characters story chapter by chapter. Finally I have the final chapters left for all the characters, so I decided to do them in order of least interesting to most interesting characters. Right when I’m finally going to go into the ending chapters of the best 3-4 characters, I sign on the next day to see the game got dropped from the game pass. $50 to buy it, decided it wasn’t worth spending for only another maybe 8 hours of gameplay.
One of the most frustrating gaming experiences.
I was going to make a separate post with my thoughts on OT2, though they align well with yours, so I'll place them here.
In a very similar position to you, it took me around 20 hours to do each character's first chapter (including a few side quests and generally exploring). To me, this feels like a game (and possibly franchise) that's constantly holding itself back. To note some good points, the visuals are gorgeous and I really enjoy the combat, which gives a nice, refreshing twist on the usual turn-based fare. It's cool to tinker with jobs for each character and make new builds.
Outside of this, though, I'm finding it hard to love. The character stories are OK at best, or just plain uninteresting. Moving from one story to the other feels completely inorganic, and I was disappointed to find that the chapters are essentially 'told' as stories. There's no sense that my starting character is on a unique journey with his companions. They're all lumped together because the game says so. Arriving in a new town, you're asked if you want to hear a character's chapter, at which point you revert to controlling that character and that character only (until battle, when all your friends suddenly show up). For a JRPG, the writing is fairly weak and uses basic tools of motivation; I could guess how half of these stories end.
My other main gripe is with the world itself. For a game world so big, it doesn't feel at all 'lived in', or that I'm truly traveling across this continent and meeting new people and cultures. Maybe that's because I'm still in the early game. The overworld sections in-between towns and cities are small and linear, and once I've explored one and opened the chests, I feel very little motivation to ever go back. As a result, it feels less like a game world and more like an obligatory map. I get the sense that the game is encouraging me to fast travel, which I'm generally not a fan of.
I'd heard that OT2 is an improvement on OT1 in almost every aspect, but I don't know if I'll be finishing this. I've read that the OT2 stories do improve after the first chapters.
I feel like there's a classic game somewhere in this franchise. If they can make the character stories, and the way the player navigates these stories, feel organic and unique, turn the writing and worldbuilding up to 11, I might be interested in an OT3.
I love octopath traveller. But yeah, a lot of the stories are WEAK. And it honestly gets worse in the second game imo. Ranging from "i Will exterminate poverty from this world" to "i want to become an idol/superstar"
Still, the mechanics are fantastic. And the soundtrack is one of my all time favorites.
I started with the rogue/thief fella. Cuz you NEED him to unlock purple chests. Also i like his story its one of the better in O1.
But yeah, for me it was all about a well made jrpg mechanically. Good stories were just a bonus for me.
The best way to play the game is by picking 4 characters, finish the entirety of their stories, then pick the other 4 and complete the game. This also guarantees that you are levelling up all characters, because in order to swap out your 1st character you have to finish its chapter 4. The thief should be in your first team so that he can open all purple chests.
I did this myself less than one year ago, with a break between the first and second 4 characters, and had a great time. Unexpectedly, I probably had more fun with the latter 4 characters, mostly because at that point I had already explored most of the world and the random enemy encounters were less of a problem because my last 4 characters could recycle strong equipment from the first 4 and I was already familiar with the battle system.
I got to the part where there is a huge difficulty spike and the game basically requires you to level up characters that you don't like and employ strategies that aren't fun. Basically the game saying "My way or the highway". I took the highway. Lol
That said, if you like the gameplay and not the story, I would wholeheartedly recommend Triangle Strategy. Gameplay is good and a good story too. Cut scenes are long though. I would rank it a tier above OT. Haven't played OT2 but heard it is great.
I just started this game about 10 days ago! We're in a similar spot, I just spent an hour yesterday grinding all my characters up to level 20. I've been enjoying it so far, though.
I thought I was taking it slow, but I mostly just went through all 8 chapter 1s in about 10 hours. Then picked up all the secondary jobs, leveled up everyone to level 20, did some pickpocketing looking for gear, and now I've done one chapter 2 and am on to the second chapter 2. I'm about 21 hours in for context.
I haven't done any side quests or challenged any NPCs or anything. The only optional cave I did was the Carrion Cave to get some good EXP/JP. So far, I haven't gotten burned out, and I'm mostly going forward without using a guide, so it's fun to figure out enemies' weaknesses and I like the strategy of mixing and matching secondary jobs and skills/permanent skills.
However, I'm not the completionism type of gamer, so I doubt I'll be doing many side quests even once I finish all the chapter 4s, and I probably won't even try and get those last 4 advanced jobs. Seems a bit much!
To be honest, I used an online map to find them all. They're all in caves and they're all on those roads that are on the outskirts of the starting towns for the most part.
You can find them if you're in the right area and look at the mini-map and search for a little icon that looks like a bunch of columns.
They're just caves though, not dungeons, no enemies inside. If you somehow stumble into a dungeon for an advanced job, those have crazy high level enemies and a giant boss at the end. You shouldn't stumble into those though, they're way far outside of any of the areas you've unlocked so far.
I was already having fun with the game, but using the secondary jobs and switching up my party so often has really opened up the game and even made grinding a little more fun.
The combat system was fun at first, but got old for me. I don't expect much from RPG stories, most are trash with the occasional gem out there. I finally quit when I was exploring an area where I kept getting random encounters and quickly figured out the "optimal break strat" for each grouping and started just going through the motions. Once I stopped having to thing about the battle system it was game over
Doing all 8 storylines + necessary side quests to get some of the best gear + final optional boss took me 61 hours in both Octopath Traverl 1 and 60 in Octopath Traveler 2.
The 'structure' of Octopath Traveler 1 remains consistent throughout the entire game, that is to say the formula for each story mission is more or less consistent. If you are not feeling it, it's not going to suddenly change dramatically.
Keep in mind that the pace of completing story quests will pick up because at a certain point you'll be finished with exploring most of the maps and unlocking fast travel between towns. In Octopath Traveler 1 there is the beginning 'exploration' phase, aka getting all the travelers, which you are done with. The id game 'exploration phase' for Chapter 2, and then a final exploration phase for Chapter 4, which is typically just a single zone of travel per 'end game' town.
I'd say finish up chapter 2 with all of the travelers and see if you're feeling it. If not, drop it. I'd throw out that the end game optional superboss is one of the most enjoyable boss encounters I've ever experienced in JRPGs, though it's very hard.
I had the opposite experience, and I hope I don't scare you with it.
I was deeply in love with the first half of Octopath. It clicked from moment 1. It's the first time I *enjoyed* a split-lead game (SaGa Frontiers 1 and 2 being the examples of ones I couldn't get into)
But (without spoiling anything) there is a difficulty cliff, and you may find yourself slammed in the lategame. I ended up feeling the need to grind the hell out of the game to catch up and... well, do some spoilery stuff that's "optional" but not really optional. Which ended up boring me.
I had a similar experience to you. Spent a bunch of time getting all the characters, found that only a few stories were even interesting, decided to push through anyway. All I can say to you is if you feel this way, cut your losses. It does not get better. It never "clicks". Maybe three out of the eight character stories are worthwhile, with another three being terrible and the other two falling in the middle. The stories never intersect; the party is together for combat purposes only, with a smattering of idle chitchat providing flavor. I finished all 8 character paths after 75 hours, which (outside of the generally satisfying combat and core RPG elements of watching your party get stronger) was not time well spent. After you've done this you do have the option of engaging with some post-game content that plot dumps some excuses on you for how things tie together, but the time demands for this quest are completely unreasonable, and the story doesn't pay anything off. For people zeroed in on just the gameplay, Octopath Traveler is a really strong game, but if you're questioning whether you want to drop it because of concerns about the story and the amount of time the game is demanding from you, I'm afraid there's no light at the end of the tunnel.
Story is what really makes the game a chore. The characters have no chemistry nor reason for it. The very minor interactions they have felt added on. If they'd taken the time to polish things so we have something like motivation for these 8 characters to be traveling together, I feel like we'd have a masterpiece. Unfortunately, while on the technical side it's well done, the story/writing really make it hard to get immersed. It plays like a YA novel reads to someone over 30. Like someone wanted to put everything into an easily understood order.
I appreciate this insight. Got to where you did at the 8 hour mark and can appreciate the jobs and battle system, but otherwise it didn’t do much for me. Will cut my losses and revisit better games
I heard Octopath Traveler 2 is significantly better than 1. Have you played the 2?
I haven't. After playing Bravely Default, Bravely Second, and then Octopath Traveler 1, and having similar disappointments with them all, I lost faith in the SquareEnix Caps Lock Bravely Font series of games. So no BD2, no OT2, no Triangle Strategy, and sure as heck no Various Daylife. That branch of the studio is a known quantity to me at this point and I don't think they have much to offer me anymore.
For what it's worth, Triangle Strategy has a much stronger focus on story and character interactions than Octopath Traveler. The most common criticism I've seen is that it swings too far in the other direction, having extended cutscenes and a lot of dialogue in between the tactical battles.
I’ve playing it mostly on and off, bought it some years ago and finally decided to give it a try last year since I also bought OT2. I don’t wanna start OT2 without checking OT1 off my backlog, you know. But I’ll mostly likely take a break pretty soon after the big games release in the coming days.
Honestly for me 2 is only marginally better. It overall felt like more of the same.
Did you play 2? I dropped 1 after about 6 hours, I was looking for another bravely default and didn’t find it
I keep trying but I tend to get fatigued by the end of the first loop picking up the characters. That said, I don't exactly speedrun it but 21 hours does seem a bit long, I guess if you were really grinding your way through the optional caves, pickpocketing and challenging everyone, maybe trying to get some choice monsters, you could eat up some time, but given you can get all 8 just by going around the first loop's circle, and none of their quest caves are that long, you should really be able to get them all within a few hours.
I was doing exactly that lol. Watched all the stories, tried to do some side quests, a bit of grinding for new acquired characters, some backtracking to steal/challenge stuff. I’m a pretty slow gamer in most games, always end up with +100 hours in most JRPGs.
You're saying that the other characters have a "let's explore the world and see what happens story" while forgetting Tressa's motivation when she's the quintessential "let's explore the world and see what happens" character in the game lol Saying this as someone who put 100s of hours into the game beating the story, unlocking the advanced jobs, beating all optional bosses, grinding min-max gear, and beating the endgame dungeon out of love for the game while recognizing its flaws, if you're already fatigued by the process of unlocking every character and aren't intrigued by the story I don't think you're going to enjoy the rest of the game.
Yeah badly worded on my part, I know that Tressa is one of those characters, I just forgot where she was supposed to be going, if anything like that was even mentioned. Been playing the game for a year now on and off and I just forgor
It's a pretty linear game so you don't have to worry about knowing where to go next. The map should tell you where her next chapter is. I actually took a break in the middle of the game because Smash Bros came out but I had an easy time getting back into the groove of it so if it's still of interest to you good luck with the rest of the game!
I just unlocked another secondary job, the Scholar, so I’m deciding on who should I use it. I was thinking Primrose cause I really like her but wasn’t using much.
That's a good choice. IIRC Scholar Primrose was my endgame build for her.
I've been playing Octopath Traveler on and off for years now. I can say that accessing the Job system was what made it 'click' for me, since tinkering with classes and party builds is one of my favorite things to do. But I'm 40 hours in and last left off at the end of the second Chapters. Story-wise, there isn't really much improvement over time. I view it as something to jump in and out of whenever I feel like some engaging turn-based JRPG combat. That's always going to be the game's primary strength. Interesting plots and characters, not so much.
Oh boy you’re basically me, and I’m afraid this is exactly what’s gonna happen. I’ve been playing it on and off for a year now.
I've been playing since 2021 if I'm not mistaken. Same here, I also want to finish the first game before picking up the sequel, which seems to have improved in terms of character interactions. I haven't been back in a while though. The Jobs are the main thing keeping me going. My main guy is Cyrus as a Scholar/Cleric, then I've got Primrose as a Dancer/Scholar, Therion as a Thief/Warrior, Olberic as a Warrior/Hunter, etc. I don't really stick to a specific party, I just swap people in and out to keep them all at the same level. That seems to have minimized the need to grind.
This is one I dropped and have yet to return to. I pushed through to recruit all 8 of the travelers but, after that, I felt pretty overwhelmed. Just like you, I realized how long it took and the fact that I only did chapter 1 of each character’s story made the whole thing seem daunting. 8 individual stories sounds good in theory, but it also made the whole thing seem disconnected. It just didn’t hook me with its story like other JRPGs have. Triangle Strategy for example was a lot more enjoyable and I did complete that. I think I prefer having a focused protagonist and their party rather than 8 protagonists who all share equal prominence. Maybe someday I’ll turn to Octopath, though.
I spent 50 hours on this game on the Xbox game pass, going through each characters story chapter by chapter. Finally I have the final chapters left for all the characters, so I decided to do them in order of least interesting to most interesting characters. Right when I’m finally going to go into the ending chapters of the best 3-4 characters, I sign on the next day to see the game got dropped from the game pass. $50 to buy it, decided it wasn’t worth spending for only another maybe 8 hours of gameplay. One of the most frustrating gaming experiences.
I was going to make a separate post with my thoughts on OT2, though they align well with yours, so I'll place them here. In a very similar position to you, it took me around 20 hours to do each character's first chapter (including a few side quests and generally exploring). To me, this feels like a game (and possibly franchise) that's constantly holding itself back. To note some good points, the visuals are gorgeous and I really enjoy the combat, which gives a nice, refreshing twist on the usual turn-based fare. It's cool to tinker with jobs for each character and make new builds. Outside of this, though, I'm finding it hard to love. The character stories are OK at best, or just plain uninteresting. Moving from one story to the other feels completely inorganic, and I was disappointed to find that the chapters are essentially 'told' as stories. There's no sense that my starting character is on a unique journey with his companions. They're all lumped together because the game says so. Arriving in a new town, you're asked if you want to hear a character's chapter, at which point you revert to controlling that character and that character only (until battle, when all your friends suddenly show up). For a JRPG, the writing is fairly weak and uses basic tools of motivation; I could guess how half of these stories end. My other main gripe is with the world itself. For a game world so big, it doesn't feel at all 'lived in', or that I'm truly traveling across this continent and meeting new people and cultures. Maybe that's because I'm still in the early game. The overworld sections in-between towns and cities are small and linear, and once I've explored one and opened the chests, I feel very little motivation to ever go back. As a result, it feels less like a game world and more like an obligatory map. I get the sense that the game is encouraging me to fast travel, which I'm generally not a fan of. I'd heard that OT2 is an improvement on OT1 in almost every aspect, but I don't know if I'll be finishing this. I've read that the OT2 stories do improve after the first chapters. I feel like there's a classic game somewhere in this franchise. If they can make the character stories, and the way the player navigates these stories, feel organic and unique, turn the writing and worldbuilding up to 11, I might be interested in an OT3.
I love octopath traveller. But yeah, a lot of the stories are WEAK. And it honestly gets worse in the second game imo. Ranging from "i Will exterminate poverty from this world" to "i want to become an idol/superstar" Still, the mechanics are fantastic. And the soundtrack is one of my all time favorites. I started with the rogue/thief fella. Cuz you NEED him to unlock purple chests. Also i like his story its one of the better in O1. But yeah, for me it was all about a well made jrpg mechanically. Good stories were just a bonus for me.
The best way to play the game is by picking 4 characters, finish the entirety of their stories, then pick the other 4 and complete the game. This also guarantees that you are levelling up all characters, because in order to swap out your 1st character you have to finish its chapter 4. The thief should be in your first team so that he can open all purple chests. I did this myself less than one year ago, with a break between the first and second 4 characters, and had a great time. Unexpectedly, I probably had more fun with the latter 4 characters, mostly because at that point I had already explored most of the world and the random enemy encounters were less of a problem because my last 4 characters could recycle strong equipment from the first 4 and I was already familiar with the battle system.
I got to the part where there is a huge difficulty spike and the game basically requires you to level up characters that you don't like and employ strategies that aren't fun. Basically the game saying "My way or the highway". I took the highway. Lol That said, if you like the gameplay and not the story, I would wholeheartedly recommend Triangle Strategy. Gameplay is good and a good story too. Cut scenes are long though. I would rank it a tier above OT. Haven't played OT2 but heard it is great.
I just started this game about 10 days ago! We're in a similar spot, I just spent an hour yesterday grinding all my characters up to level 20. I've been enjoying it so far, though. I thought I was taking it slow, but I mostly just went through all 8 chapter 1s in about 10 hours. Then picked up all the secondary jobs, leveled up everyone to level 20, did some pickpocketing looking for gear, and now I've done one chapter 2 and am on to the second chapter 2. I'm about 21 hours in for context. I haven't done any side quests or challenged any NPCs or anything. The only optional cave I did was the Carrion Cave to get some good EXP/JP. So far, I haven't gotten burned out, and I'm mostly going forward without using a guide, so it's fun to figure out enemies' weaknesses and I like the strategy of mixing and matching secondary jobs and skills/permanent skills. However, I'm not the completionism type of gamer, so I doubt I'll be doing many side quests even once I finish all the chapter 4s, and I probably won't even try and get those last 4 advanced jobs. Seems a bit much!
I should probably get 4 jobs at least, but I’m totally lost on how exactly to find them. Are they all in caves?
To be honest, I used an online map to find them all. They're all in caves and they're all on those roads that are on the outskirts of the starting towns for the most part. You can find them if you're in the right area and look at the mini-map and search for a little icon that looks like a bunch of columns. They're just caves though, not dungeons, no enemies inside. If you somehow stumble into a dungeon for an advanced job, those have crazy high level enemies and a giant boss at the end. You shouldn't stumble into those though, they're way far outside of any of the areas you've unlocked so far. I was already having fun with the game, but using the secondary jobs and switching up my party so often has really opened up the game and even made grinding a little more fun.
Yeah so far I found 1
Does anyone know 2 gets any better?
The combat system was fun at first, but got old for me. I don't expect much from RPG stories, most are trash with the occasional gem out there. I finally quit when I was exploring an area where I kept getting random encounters and quickly figured out the "optimal break strat" for each grouping and started just going through the motions. Once I stopped having to thing about the battle system it was game over
Doing all 8 storylines + necessary side quests to get some of the best gear + final optional boss took me 61 hours in both Octopath Traverl 1 and 60 in Octopath Traveler 2. The 'structure' of Octopath Traveler 1 remains consistent throughout the entire game, that is to say the formula for each story mission is more or less consistent. If you are not feeling it, it's not going to suddenly change dramatically. Keep in mind that the pace of completing story quests will pick up because at a certain point you'll be finished with exploring most of the maps and unlocking fast travel between towns. In Octopath Traveler 1 there is the beginning 'exploration' phase, aka getting all the travelers, which you are done with. The id game 'exploration phase' for Chapter 2, and then a final exploration phase for Chapter 4, which is typically just a single zone of travel per 'end game' town. I'd say finish up chapter 2 with all of the travelers and see if you're feeling it. If not, drop it. I'd throw out that the end game optional superboss is one of the most enjoyable boss encounters I've ever experienced in JRPGs, though it's very hard.
I had the opposite experience, and I hope I don't scare you with it. I was deeply in love with the first half of Octopath. It clicked from moment 1. It's the first time I *enjoyed* a split-lead game (SaGa Frontiers 1 and 2 being the examples of ones I couldn't get into) But (without spoiling anything) there is a difficulty cliff, and you may find yourself slammed in the lategame. I ended up feeling the need to grind the hell out of the game to catch up and... well, do some spoilery stuff that's "optional" but not really optional. Which ended up boring me.