Square Enix’s Octopath Traveler brought traditional JRPG mechanics back into the spotlight with a clever twist, mixing nostalgic 16-bit aesthetics with modern depth. The game’s turn-based combat might look straightforward at first, but there’s a tactical layer underneath that rewards planning, experimentation, and smart team composition. Whether you’re picking up the original, the sequel, or jumping in for the first time on Game Pass, understanding how the Boost and Break system works will make the difference between breezing through encounters and getting wrecked by mid-tier bosses. This guide breaks down the core gameplay mechanics, character systems, and combat strategies that define the Octopath experience.

What Makes Octopath Traveler’s Gameplay Unique?

Octopath Traveler doesn’t reinvent turn-based combat, but it refines it. The game takes classic JRPG structure, parties, turn order, elemental weaknesses, and layers on systems that force players to think several moves ahead. Unlike many modern RPGs that lean into action or real-time mechanics, Octopath commits fully to methodical, strategic battles where every turn counts.

The game’s standout feature is how it weaves together character-driven narratives with interconnected gameplay systems. Each of the eight protagonists brings unique abilities both in and out of combat, and the way these abilities interact with the world creates a gameplay loop that feels fresh even 30 hours in. You’re not just grinding levels, you’re planning party rotations, exploiting enemy weaknesses, and managing resources across multiple story arcs.

What sets Octopath apart from other turn-based JRPGs is the deliberate pacing. Battles aren’t meant to be mashed through. The Boost and Break system (more on that below) creates a rhythm where you’re constantly weighing immediate damage against future payoff, building toward those satisfying moments when you shatter an enemy’s defenses and unload a five-turn BP burst.

The HD-2D Visual Style and Its Impact on Gameplay

The HD-2D engine isn’t just eye candy, it actually affects how you engage with the game world. By combining pixel art characters with polygonal environments and dramatic lighting, Square Enix created a visual language that makes exploration feel tangible. Paths hidden in shadow become easier to spot when light catches them at certain angles. Treasure chests tucked behind pillars pop visually in ways pure 2D sprites couldn’t achieve.

This visual approach also helps with combat readability. Enemy models are large and detailed enough that you can parse their animations quickly, which matters when you’re trying to predict attack patterns or identify which units are about to act. The UI stays clean, with buff icons and turn order clearly displayed, so you’re never hunting for information mid-fight.

The aesthetic choices reinforce the game’s old-school sensibilities while modernizing presentation. It’s a style that respects the player’s intelligence, no hand-holding tutorials that drag on for hours, no constant UI pop-ups breaking immersion. The game trusts you to learn by doing, and the visual design supports that philosophy.

Understanding the Eight Protagonist Structure

Octopath Traveler gives players eight distinct protagonists, each with their own storyline, starting location, and combat role. You choose one at the beginning, your “main” character who can’t be removed from the active party, and recruit the others as you explore the continent of Orsterra. This structure creates an unusual narrative format where you’re juggling eight separate story arcs that only loosely connect until the postgame.

From a gameplay perspective, this setup encourages experimentation. Since you’ll eventually recruit all eight travelers, the game nudges you to rotate party members based on the challenges ahead. Stuck on a boss weak to ice and daggers? Swap in Ophilia and Therion. Need to break through a dungeon with heavy physical shields? H’aanit and Olberic become essential.

The eight-protagonist design also prevents the “optimal party” problem that plagues many JRPGs. While certain combinations are objectively stronger (we’ll cover those later), the game’s chapter structure and level recommendations naturally push you to level multiple characters, making most team compositions viable for the majority of content.

How Character Selection Affects Your Playthrough

Your starting character choice has more impact than you might expect. Since that character is locked into your active party for the entire game, their combat role and Path Action will be available from the jump. Starting with Cyrus (the scholar) means you’ll have strong AoE elemental coverage early, making random encounters faster. Choosing Tressa (the merchant) gives you access to better purchase options and the ability to buy items from NPCs that other characters can’t acquire.

Each character’s Chapter 1 also serves as your introduction to the game’s systems, and the difficulty varies. Primrose’s opening chapter is relatively forgiving, while H’aanit’s throws you into tougher fights with limited healing. If you’re new to the game, starting with Cyrus, Primrose, or Ophilia provides a smoother learning curve.

Once you’ve recruited additional travelers, you can tackle their chapters in any order, but level recommendations matter. The game doesn’t stop you from wandering into a Level 45 zone at Level 15, but enemies hit hard enough that you’ll know you’re in the wrong place. Smart players use the danger level indicators to plan efficient recruitment routes, grabbing travelers whose starting areas cluster around similar level ranges.

Path Actions: Unique Abilities for Each Traveler

Outside of combat, each character has a Path Action, a unique ability used to interact with NPCs and the world. These split into “noble” and “rogue” categories, with two characters sharing functionally similar (but mechanically different) versions of each action type.

Noble Path Actions (always succeed but may have level requirements):

• Guide (Ophilia): Recruit NPCs to follow you and assist in battle
• Allure (Primrose): Same as Guide, but uses Primrose’s level check
• Inquire (Cyrus): Learn hidden information from NPCs
• Scrutinize (Alfyn): Same as Inquire, with different dialogue flavor

Rogue Path Actions (have a success percentage, fail too much and you lose town reputation temporarily):

• Steal (Therion): Lift items directly from NPCs
• Purchase (Tressa): Buy items from NPCs that aren’t shopkeepers
• Challenge (Olberic): Duel NPCs to knock them unconscious
• Provoke (H’aanit): Same as Challenge, using captured monsters

Path Actions are critical for unlocking sidequests, acquiring rare equipment, and accessing shortcuts. Many players underestimate how powerful Steal and Purchase are for getting endgame weapons 20+ hours early. Certain boss fights become trivial when you walk in with gear intended for much later.

The system encourages you to swap party members even when not in combat. Reached a town with a sidequest that requires NPCs to be knocked unconscious? Swap in Olberic or H’aanit. Need to extract information from a high-level townsperson? Cyrus or Alfyn become essential. It’s one of the many ways Octopath keeps all eight characters relevant throughout your playthrough.

Combat Mechanics: The Boost and Break System Explained

Octopath’s combat revolves around two interconnected systems: Break and Boost. Master these, and you’ll breeze through most encounters. Ignore them, and even trash mobs will drain your resources.

Every enemy in the game has a set of weaknesses displayed as shield icons once you’ve discovered them. These weaknesses correspond to weapon types (swords, spears, daggers, axes, bows, staves) and elemental magic (fire, ice, lightning, wind, light, dark). Hit an enemy with an attack they’re weak to, and you chip away at their shield count. Break the shield completely, and the enemy is stunned for one turn, taking significantly increased damage and losing their next action.

This creates a core combat loop: identify weaknesses, break shields, unload damage during the stun window, then rebuild resources while shields regenerate. It’s simple in concept but opens up deeper strategies when combined with the Boost system.

Breaking Enemy Shields for Tactical Advantage

Breaking an enemy isn’t just about dealing extra damage, it’s about controlling the battlefield. A broken enemy skips their turn entirely, which can be the difference between your healer staying alive or getting one-shot by an AoE attack. Learning to prioritize breaks based on enemy threat level is one of the first skills players should develop.

Each enemy has a shield value ranging from 1 to 10+ (for bosses). The number represents how many hits from their weakness types are needed to break them. A basic wolf with 3 shields weak to swords and ice needs three sword strikes or three ice spells, or any combination totaling three, to break.

Multi-hit abilities are incredibly valuable for breaking. Thousand Spears (a Huntermaster skill) can hit up to five times in one action, potentially breaking an enemy solo if you’re exploiting the right weakness. Same goes for abilities like Aeber’s Reckoning, which hits all enemies multiple times when properly set up.

Smart players intentionally delay breaks to align with high-damage phases. If you can break an enemy on turn three and then immediately follow up with a Boosted ultimate from your strongest DPS, you’ll end fights significantly faster. Conversely, breaking too early, before your heavy hitters have BP saved, wastes the vulnerability window.

Using Boost Points to Maximize Damage

Every character generates one Boost Point (BP) per turn, up to a maximum of five stored. You can spend BP to enhance your next action, with effects scaling based on how much you spend:

• +1 BP: Increases attack power or hit count
• +2 BP: Further increases
• +3 BP: Maximum power/hits for that ability

For physical attacks, Boosting increases the number of hits. A normal sword strike becomes two hits with one BP, three hits with two BP, and four hits with three BP (max Boost). For magic, it increases raw damage output. Support abilities get extended effects, Rehabilitate heals more HP when Boosted, status buffs last longer, etc.

The strategic depth comes from managing BP across your entire party. Blowing all your BP on turn one might clear trash mobs fast, but it leaves you vulnerable if a second wave spawns or a boss transitions into a new phase. Conversely, hoarding BP too conservatively means longer fights and more chances for things to go wrong.

A common tactic against bosses: rotate your DPS characters’ BP expenditure. While Character A is rebuilding BP from 0 to 5, Character B unloads their stockpile. By the time B is tapped out, A is ready to go again. This keeps constant pressure on the enemy while maintaining resource efficiency.

Boosting also affects breaking. Since physical Boosts add extra hits, you can shatter shields much faster. A max-Boosted Abide (which raises physical attack) followed by a max-Boosted multi-hit ability can break and delete enemies in the same turn rotation when combined with the Break stun.

Job System and Character Customization

Each traveler starts with a unique primary job class that defines their base stats, equipment access, and default abilities. But once you unlock secondary jobs (which happens after recruiting multiple characters and progressing through specific shrines), customization opens up significantly.

The job system is where Octopath’s tactical complexity really shines. By mixing and matching primary and secondary jobs, you can create hybrid builds that cover multiple roles or hyper-specialize characters into niche powerhouses. The same character can function as a tank, a healer, or a DPS depending on how you allocate their secondary job and equipped skills.

Primary and Secondary Job Classes

There are 12 total jobs in the base game: the eight starting classes tied to each protagonist, plus four advanced jobs hidden in late-game shrines. Primary jobs are locked to their respective characters, but secondary jobs can be swapped freely (outside of combat).

The eight base jobs:

• Cleric (Ophilia): Healing, light magic, defensive support
• Scholar (Cyrus): Elemental magic, AoE damage, enemy analysis
• Merchant (Tressa): Wind magic, BP manipulation, defensive buffs
• Warrior (Olberic): Physical damage, sword/spear focus, tanking
• Dancer (Primrose): Dark magic, buffs, debuffs
• Apothecary (Alfyn): Healing, axe damage, concoct mixtures for unique effects
• Thief (Therion): High speed, dagger/sword attacks, debuffs
• Hunter (H’aanit): Bow/axe damage, beast capture, multi-hit abilities

The four advanced jobs (unlocked via shrine quests):

• Runelord: Elemental rune buffs, transfers weaknesses to enemies
• Starseer: Divine magic, massive BP manipulation, best support in the game
• Sorcerer: Triple-cast magic, absurd elemental damage potential
• Warmaster: Master of all physical weapons, ridiculous damage ceiling

Secondary jobs grant access to that job’s skill tree and equipment options. Equipping Scholar as a secondary on Ophilia means she can now cast fire/ice/lightning spells and equip staves meant for scholars. She won’t gain Scholar’s innate stat bonuses or unique talent (Cyrus’s Study Foe ability), but she gets the active skills.

Job Points (JP) are earned separately for primary and secondary jobs. You’ll spend JP to unlock individual skills within each job tree, and once learned, those skills can be equipped even when you switch to a different secondary job (with limited skill slots). This creates a progression where late-game characters have access to massive toolkits assembled from multiple job trees.

Best Job Combinations for Different Playstyles

The “best” job combos depend heavily on whether you’re optimizing for story content, postgame bosses, or general versatility. That said, certain pairings are objectively stronger for specific roles.

For raw magic DPS:

• Cyrus (Scholar/Sorcerer): The gold standard. Scholar’s naturally high elemental attack combined with Sorcerer’s triple-cast turns Cyrus into a delete button. With max BP, he can cast three boosted spells in one turn, breaking and obliterating most enemies.
• Ophilia (Cleric/Sorcerer): Converts your healer into a hybrid nuke. She can still support when needed but brings serious magic damage when combined with her naturally high elemental defense.

For physical DPS:

• Olberic (Warrior/Warmaster): Once you unlock Warmaster, Olberic becomes the strongest physical attacker in the game. Warmaster grants access to all weapon types, so you can exploit any physical weakness, and abilities like Divine Skill hit for absurd damage.
• H’aanit (Hunter/Warmaster): Similar logic. Her already-high physical attack gets amplified, and Warmaster’s skill set complements her multi-hit abilities perfectly.

For support/healing:

• Ophilia (Cleric/Dancer): Buffs and healing in one package. Dancer’s buff skills stack with Cleric’s defensive abilities, creating a support character who can keep the team alive and amplified.
• Alfyn (Apothecary/Merchant): The ultimate sustain build. Merchant’s Rest gives party-wide BP recovery, while Apothecary covers healing and concocts. He can also throw in wind magic coverage for breaking.

For speed and utility:

• Therion (Thief/Dancer or Hunter): Therion’s naturally high speed makes him ideal for applying debuffs before enemies act. Dancer secondary gives him buff capabilities, while Hunter adds bow coverage and multi-hit options.
• Tressa (Merchant/Runelord): Weird but effective. Runelord’s Transfer Rune ability lets you impose elemental weaknesses on enemies, and Tressa’s BP recovery skills keep the party fueled for extended breaking combos.

For players tackling challenging JRPG endgame content, having at least one character with Starseer as a secondary is borderline mandatory. BP Eater (costs 1 BP, grants 2 BP to an ally) breaks the action economy wide open, enabling infinite Boost loops when combined with Merchant’s Rest and Dancer’s Bewildering Grace.

Exploration and World Navigation

Orsterra is divided into eight major regions, each with multiple towns, dungeons, and hidden areas. Unlike open-world RPGs, Octopath uses a more traditional map structure with defined paths and zones, but there’s enough freedom that you can sequence-break if you’re willing to overlevel or get creative with routing.

The game doesn’t hold your hand with quest markers or GPS-style navigation. You’re given general directions in dialogue, and it’s up to you to explore and figure out where to go. This old-school approach feels refreshing in 2026, where most RPGs are afraid to let players get lost for even a minute.

Fast travel unlocks as you discover new locations, which cuts down on backtracking. But early game, you’re hoofing it between towns, and that’s where random encounters and danger levels become relevant.

Danger Levels and Area Progression

Every area in Orsterra has a recommended level range displayed when you enter. These aren’t hard gates, you can technically go anywhere from the start, but the recommended levels are fairly accurate indicators of whether you’ll get destroyed.

A Level 10 party wandering into a Level 40 zone will face enemies that one-shot your characters and have health pools too deep to burn down before you run out of resources. You can push through underleveled if you play perfectly (and many speedrunners do), but for normal playthroughs, respecting danger levels saves a lot of frustration.

The game’s geography naturally funnels you toward appropriately leveled content if you recruit characters in a semi-logical order. Grabbing travelers from starting zones in the 5-15 level range, then moving to 20-30 zones as your party grows, creates a smooth difficulty curve. But the nonlinear structure means you can also power-level one or two characters and rush specific chapters if you want certain abilities or equipment early.

One quirk: enemy encounters don’t scale to your level. If you return to a starting area 40 hours into the game, you’ll be fighting the same Level 5 wolves as before. This makes farming early zones for specific monster drops trivial late-game, but it also means you can’t rely on challenge staying consistent.

Hidden Items and Secret Paths

Octopath loves tucking treasure in obscure corners. Caves hidden behind foliage, paths that branch off just before dungeon exits, chests that require specific Path Actions to reach, exploration rewards thoroughness.

Many of the best items in the game aren’t found in shops or main story chests. They’re scattered in purple chests (which contain powerful equipment) hidden in optional dungeons, behind NPCs you need to Guide away from doorways, or locked behind late-game Path Action level requirements.

Using Cyrus’s Scrutinize or Alfyn’s Inquire on NPCs often reveals hints about hidden locations or treasure. Some NPCs will mention “a cave to the east” or “a path behind the waterfall,” and those vague clues are your only indication that something’s there. No quest markers, no glowing indicators, just your memory and willingness to explore.

Secret dungeons house the advanced job shrines. These aren’t marked on your map until you stumble into them, and they’re guarded by some of the toughest fights in the main story. Finding and clearing them early gives you access to Runelord, Starseer, Sorcerer, and Warmaster, which can trivialize subsequent chapters if you’re willing to grind the JP to unlock their skills.

Advanced Combat Strategies and Tips

Once you’ve got the basics down, breaking shields, managing BP, rotating jobs, there’s a deeper layer of optimization that separates efficient players from those who struggle with late-game content.

Advanced combat in Octopath isn’t about memorizing complex rotations like in an MMO. It’s about recognizing patterns, planning your burst windows, and adapting when RNG doesn’t go your way. Fights become puzzles: How do I break this enemy before they wipe my party? How do I set up a kill before the boss’s enrage phase? How do I sustain through a war of attrition with limited SP?

Party Composition for Optimal Performance

A balanced party needs coverage across three dimensions: damage types (physical and elemental), weapon/element variety (to break different shields), and roles (DPS, healing, buffing/debuffing).

A common four-character setup for general content:

• 1 primary healer (Ophilia or Alfyn)
• 1 elemental DPS (Cyrus or Primrose)
• 1 physical DPS (Olberic, H’aanit, or Therion)
• 1 flex support/utility (Tressa for buffs and BP manipulation, or a second DPS if you’re confident in your resource management)

This gives you healing, breaking power across most enemy types, and enough damage to end fights before resources run dry. But rigid adherence to this structure isn’t necessary, Octopath’s lenient enough that most compositions work if you play smart.

For boss fights, pre-planning based on known weaknesses is key. If you’re about to fight a boss weak to ice, daggers, and bows, bring characters who can exploit those. Cyrus (ice magic), Therion (daggers), and H’aanit (bows) would form a strong core, with Ophilia rounding out for healing.

Late-game and postgame bosses often have phase transitions that change their weaknesses or behavior. Having a party with broad coverage, at least six of the eight weapon/element types, prevents you from getting hardwalled when a boss suddenly becomes immune to your primary damage source.

Boss Battle Tactics and Preparation

Bosses in Octopath hit hard and have deep health pools. Going in unprepared, low on healing items, wrong party composition, no buffs, is asking for a wipe.

Pre-fight preparation checklist:

• Stock up on Healing Grapes and Inspiriting Plums (HP and SP restoratives). You can buy these in most towns, and they’re lifesavers when your healer runs out of SP mid-fight.
• Equip accessories that boost damage or provide resistance to the boss’s primary element. Many fights become significantly easier with the right defensive gear.
• Make sure your party is evenly leveled. A Level 30 Cyrus paired with Level 15 characters means three dead weight slots that’ll get one-shot.

During the fight, tempo control is everything. Bosses often follow predictable patterns:

1. Early phase: Moderate damage, testing your breaking ability
2. Mid phase: Increased aggression, may summon adds
3. Final phase: Enrage or desperation moves that hit the whole party

Knowing when these transitions happen lets you plan your BP expenditure. You don’t want to burn all your resources in phase one, only to hit phase three with an empty tank and no way to burst through before the boss wipes you.

Many tough boss encounters shared in detailed game guides emphasize the importance of Saving Boost Points for break windows. Rather than spreading BP out evenly, coordinate your team so that 2-3 characters break the boss simultaneously, then immediately follow with max-Boosted attacks from your heaviest hitters. This “break-and-burst” cycle can cut fight duration in half.

Alfyn’s Concoct ability deserves special mention. By mixing items, he can create effects that aren’t available through normal abilities, full party heals, massive buffs, even instant breaks on enemies. Learning the recipes (the game doesn’t tell you: you have to experiment or look them up) turns Alfyn from a decent support into one of the most broken characters in the game.

Status effects are underutilized by most players. Blindness (reduces enemy accuracy) and Sleep (skips enemy turns) can trivialize certain fights. If a boss relies on physical attacks, having Primrose debuff their physical attack while Ophilia buffs your physical defense creates a massive damage reduction swing that keeps your party alive without constant healing.

Progression Systems: Leveling, Equipment, and Skills

Progression in Octopath is straightforward but grind-heavy if you want to max everything. Experience points are earned through combat, with bonus EXP for fighting enemies near or above your level. There’s no quest EXP, every bit of progression comes from battles.

Leveling is fairly linear. Each character has a level cap of 99, though you’ll finish the main story around Level 50-60 for most of your roster. Postgame superbosses require a full team at or near cap, along with optimized gear and jobs, which means dedicated grinding sessions if you want to tackle them.

JP (Job Points) are earned alongside EXP and are spent to unlock skills within job trees. Early game, JP flows slowly, and you’ll need to make deliberate choices about which skills to unlock first. Late-game, JP gain ramps up, and you’ll eventually master multiple jobs per character.

Each job has a set of active skills, passive skills, and a job-specific stat boost (unlocked by spending enough JP in that tree). Passive skills are particularly important because they remain active even when you switch jobs. Abilities like Surpassing Power (breaks the 9,999 damage cap), Saving Grace (increases max HP), and SP Saver (reduces skill costs) are staples of every endgame build.

Equipment progression is mostly linear, better towns sell better gear, and dungeon chests contain upgrades appropriate for that zone’s level. But the real endgame gear comes from purple chests, boss drops, and stealing from specific NPCs.

Therion’s Steal is borderline game-breaking. Many NPCs carry weapons and armor that won’t appear in shops for another 20 hours of gameplay. If you’re willing to savescum the RNG (stealing has a percentage chance based on Therion’s level), you can equip your party with endgame gear shockingly early.

Similarly, Tressa’s Purchase lets you buy items from NPCs that aren’t merchants. Some of these are consumables you can’t get anywhere else, while others are high-tier equipment. Combining Steal and Purchase across multiple towns can give you a significant power spike that trivializes upcoming chapters.

Weapons in Octopath often have secondary effects beyond raw stats, some inflict status ailments, others boost specific stats or grant bonus actions. Late-game builds often prioritize these effects over pure attack power, especially for support characters who aren’t your primary damage dealers.

Common Gameplay Mistakes to Avoid

Even experienced JRPG players stumble into certain pitfalls when first tackling Octopath. Here are the most frequent mistakes and how to avoid them:

Ignoring secondary jobs. Some players try to push through the game using only primary jobs, which severely limits your tactical options. Unlock secondary jobs as soon as possible (usually after recruiting 3-4 travelers) and start experimenting. The power spike is massive.

Neglecting Path Actions outside of required story beats. Path Actions aren’t just flavor, they’re core to progression. Stealing, purchasing, and guiding NPCs unlocks gear, sidequests, and shortcuts that make your playthrough significantly smoother. Check every NPC in every town, at least once.

Poor BP management early on. New players either hoard BP unnecessarily or blow it all on turn one. The sweet spot is using Boosts strategically, spending 2-3 BP to end a fight one turn faster is worth it if it saves your healer from taking a hit.

Underleveling secondary characters. Because your starting character is always in the party, it’s easy to let the other seven fall behind. When you finally need to rotate someone in for a specific chapter, they’re 10 levels under-leveled and get destroyed. Make a habit of rotating party members every few chapters, or dedicate grinding sessions to catch everyone up.

Skipping Inquire/Scrutinize information. These Path Actions reveal enemy weaknesses, quest hints, and lore. Cyrus’s Study Foe talent does this automatically in combat, but for NPCs and exploration, you need to actively use Inquire/Scrutinize. Missing this information makes fights harder and quests more confusing.

Not preparing for boss fights. Running into a boss with no healing items, half your party at 30% SP, and no idea what the boss is weak to is a recipe for disaster. Always save before boss doors, stock up in town, and make sure your party composition makes sense.

Selling rare items too early. Some items are needed for sidequests or late-game crafting. If an item description says “rare” or “unusual,” hold onto it. Money is rarely tight in Octopath if you’re using Tressa’s Collect ability and looting properly.

Ignoring the Apothecary’s Concoct ability. Alfyn seems underwhelming at first glance, but Concoct is one of the most versatile abilities in the game. Learning the recipes unlocks emergency heals, party-wide buffs, and niche utility that can save runs. Experimentation is key, don’t sleep on it.

Conclusion

Octopath Traveler’s gameplay rewards patience, planning, and experimentation. The Boost and Break system creates a combat loop that stays engaging across 60+ hours, and the job system offers enough customization to keep party building interesting without overwhelming you with options. Whether you’re min-maxing for postgame superbosses or just vibing through eight character stories, the core mechanics hold up.

The game’s biggest strength is how it respects player agency. You’re never locked into one path, one party, or one strategy. Mess up your job assignments? Respec freely. Hit a wall on a boss? Rotate in different characters or farm a few levels. The flexibility means there’s rarely one “correct” answer, just different approaches with varying efficiency.

For anyone jumping in fresh, focus on mastering breaking and BP management first. Everything else, jobs, Path Actions, advanced tactics, builds on that foundation. And don’t be afraid to experiment. Some of the most satisfying moments in Octopath come from discovering a combo or strategy the game never explicitly taught you.