#agnene

no worries! i wish there was someone more qualified to talk about the differences between the english and japanese versions because there are quite a few (some i'm ok with, others.... not so much) but some of them feel like a genuine detriment to play without knowing the original so i want to share them if i can!!

yeah it's...... a little iffy that people would read hikari's compliment as purely romantic because that would imply that gil is giving the same vibe and i read agnea's response as more like shock that someone as serious as hikari would say something like that to her...

i have a very mixed opinion about their crossed paths story unfortunately 😭 i really like the story itself, but i wish agnea had a more significant part in it... compared to the other stories that feel like they brought out the characteristics of each character more, i feel like agnea was mostly reduced to a bystander in hikari and yomi's story... i wish they got to touch on her grief over her mother or something at least o<-<

AHH temehika's dynamic really is so underrated, they have such strong themes of trust and doubt and i'm a bit sad their banters didn't touch on this more... we got a smidgen in hikari's ch.4 where temenos warns him about rai mei's possible loyalties but it's not enough...! not to mention the fact that they're connected to oboro and arcanette, the most major figures in the moonshade order... i don't really like the idea of octopath making certain protagonists more "important" than the others but i find it really hard to deny for these two lmao

agnene is also extremely underrated!! i think agnea's admiration of throne helps show her that she isn't who she thinks she is:

while in throne's stories, she slowly grows to lean on agnea's attempts to make her feel better... it's really sweet and i don't think either of them have this kind of connection with anyone else...!

it's also very cute how agnea invites throne to meet her father as well as to her hometown's raspberry festival... i think their paths post-canon also align very nicely because throne said she wanted to travel somewhere far away, while agnea wants to bring smiles to as many people as possible... it also makes for a very nice "celebrity and bodyguard" dynamic that mirrors dolcinaea and veronica's and it really suits these two imo!!

i also don't like teme/thro as a romantic relationship so i think their interactions as well as hika/agne's fit much better under the assumption of temehika and agnene... we see hikari's admiration of temenos' intelligence in his ch.5 banter where he compares temenos to kazan so i think both he and agnea have a sense of admiration for their older partners while also doing whatever they can to support them... (hikari with his blade, and agnea with her performances) meanwhile temenos and throne also feel undeserving of their partners because they view them as a light they're too afraid to reach out to... it's subtler, but i like temenos' banters with her where he tries to reassure her that she's a good person as well

phew this got REALLY long i'm sorry but yeah while i always tend to go against popular ships, i've been really frustrated at the extent of it in octopath 2... octopath is pretty unique in that all of the protagonists get more or less the same amount of (small) interactions throughout the game but that was changed in 2 with the addition of crossed paths and i'm not sure why hika/agne is the one that stuck because their story does not read to me as romantic at all lmao but i'm glad to find people who share those gripes as well!!