I think I’ve mentioned that I bought a Switch 2. I’m liking it a lot and have been using it pretty much every day. Rather than running out and buying new games I’m trying to play the handful I own from the Switch 1 days. One of those games is Octopath Traveller.

This is an old game but in case you’ve never heard of it, it’s a turn-based JRPG. The hook is that there are 8 playable characters in the game. Each character has their own “main story”. You start by picking one of the 8 and doing their first quest and then the world opens up. Chapter 2 of their quest requires a much higher level character so what most people do (and what I did) is travel around the world and ‘meet’ the other seven characters, after which you can add them to your party. Of the eight, four can be in your party at any one time, and your initial “main” character you picked is locked in. So you have 3 slots to fill.

So I did that, and then set out to do the 2nd chapter of my main character’s story. It culminated in a tough boss fight that took me a few tries to make it past, but I completed it. Chapter 3 once again requires a much higher level character than I have. So I switched to work on Chapter 2 of one of the other characters. This meant that this second character was also locked into the party. So now I have two slots open to swap characters in and out of.

The boss at the end of Chapter 2 of this character is wiping the floor with me even though my levels are high enough that I should be able to take it on. I’m sure it’s a matter of getting the right characters on the team to combat this particular boss and it’s minions. What to do, what to do…

I know what old me would have done: gone to the Internet for a walk-through. As this is an old game I am confident that out there on the web is a guide telling me exactly which characters I should use, and which weapons and gear they should have equipped, to make this boss fight easy-peasy.

Instead of doing that, new me reached for a notebook. I made a list of the weapons and skills that my characters use, and a list of the weaknesses of the boss and his minions. Then I had a think about what the best combo should be. I came up with a plan but now I have to level up the characters I’ve swapped into my party before I have another go. This is going to take some time and if my plan fails I’ll have to loop through this process again.

It’s REALLY tempting to look up the solution but I’m holding strong for now. The analogy I’ve been using to convince myself is that this way of playing is like building a nice chair out of a pile of lumber, whereas looking up the best party online is like building a flatpack chair kit from Ikea. Both are fun, both get you a place to park your backside, but these days I personally am finding the former is more satisfying.

What I would be willing to research online, if I could do it without spoilers, is how some of the game systems work. For example I have a character who has a spell that does Wind Damage which is something I need in this battle. But the damage she does is tiny compared to how expensive the spell is in mana cost. I know that certain spells scale based on certain stats, but I’m not sure what influences what. I COULD, I guess, puzzle that out through lengthy trial and error but, as much as I like Octopath Traveller, I don’t really want to spend 2 years finishing it. So there’s a balancing act there.

Going back to my analogy, learning what attribute impacts which spells is like learning how to use the tools you’re going to use to build the chair.

I probably need to let go of absolutes, too. Right now I want to solve the puzzle of how to beat this boss. On the other hand I also want to experience the story and eventually finish the game. If this boss fight holds me back for days and days I know my patience will erode and I guess at that point I should let go and find a guide. For right now, though, figuring out how to beat this boss feels rewarding. It feels like learning. Sure, very specific learning that I’ll never use again (unless maybe in Octopath Traveller 2) but at my age learning ANYTHING is good for keeping the old brain sharp. And that alone seems worth the effort.