Octopath Traveler 2 - Osvald Chapter 5

Osvald's conclusion has arrived as the golden thumbnail may reveal. He confronts Harvey in search of the one True Magic and to reclaim his daughter. Narratively, this one falls a bit in the middle of the pack for me as it has a very open ending and seems to serve more as setting up the final boss than providing much closure to his tale. It is not nearly as one dimensional as Ochette's, which seems to consistently hold last place.

The problems I have here is that Osvald fails to achieve anything beyond the One True Magic. He is unable to reclaim his family, is unable to clear his name (remember that he is not a fugitive since he is believed dead), and while he holds the magic he sought, he doesn't do anything. It is implied that he wishes to continue researching the magic (whether he believes the violet stuff is up for debate), but it kind of defeats the family angle of his revenge motivation. It would have been interesting if we could have gotten tragic story about the costs of obsession where he could only use the magic after literally losing everything, but we get this wishy-washy half ending.

Sadly, compared to the original game, I'd say both Scholar stories are lackluster. Cyrus was probably the weakest of the bunch despite having an interesting hook of being falsely accused of a crime he did not commit (deja vu?) and going out to clear his name. Osvald fails to live up to the second half of this premise, instead just dropping out when he has the magic. Sadly, with the bar so low, this is still somewhat in the middle of the pack...