HD-2D Might Be Old News, But Octopath 0’s City Building Has Me Buzzing

Given that I love RPGs, I’m sure it’s no surprise that I’m very excited for Octopath Traveler 0. What might shock you, however, is that it’s not the return to Osterra, or the excellent turn-based combat, or even the prospect of another new HD-2D game that has me jazzed, nope (I still love all of these things, though, be nice!). The thing I’m most looking forward to? I get to build my own town.

What is it about city building that I love? Is it the allure of making my own space? Is it a power fantasy, where I can make my town however I want, a way of expressing my creativity in a whole new way? Or is it simply that I grew up with Grand Designs (a British TV show about people with money who build their own houses) on in the background?

Yet, doing it in real life is a complete pipe dream. Building a town — let alone a single house — in this economy? Nuh-uh. Thank god for video games.

While city building is its own genre (hello, SimCity), it’s the cosiness it fosters when part of an RPG that has always enraptured me. Need a break from the Dunan Unification War? Go recruit some pals and improve your base in Suikoden II. Tired of getting rid of the monsters in Alefgard? Good thing Dragon Quest Builders is a font of creativity.

The first game that comes to mind where this unusual amalgamation is involved is one of the earliest and one of the most unique: ActRaiser. Here, though, you’re not doing any of the building yourself – simply facilitating it. Well, I suppose God shouldn’t meddle in everyday affairs, right?

But there’s a charm to flying around each map as your little angel, fighting off monsters as the humans build paths, settlements, and expand. Sometimes you’ll get advice from the townsfolk or have problems to solve — like famine — but for the most part, you need to defeat monsters and destroy forests and obstacles and guide the people towards sealing the magic seal.

One thing city building does is invite power dynamics. In ActRaiser, you’re the absolute: ‘The Master’ (the English name, but in Japanese it’s ‘God’, so not subtle). But in something like Xenoblade Chronicles, where you’re rebuilding Colony 6, it serves more as a hub, a place where, if you put the time in, you can get a lot out of it.

You don’t have any actual power or agency there besides putting money and materials in, but you can encourage others to move there. Colony 6 becomes a community project, something that can only happen with Shulk and Juju leading the way; its growth and expansion are a great mirror to the way Shulk and his friends develop during the course of the game.

Back to the SNES and Breath of Fire II has a surprisingly robust, if simple, town-building aspect. Here, your town — later called TownShip (yes, the pun is deliberate) — starts off as one ruined building and, as Ryu hires the help of a carpenter, it grows from a small pile of rubble to a cosy little town with a laboratory which allows Ryu’s friends to fuse with Shamans to give them special powers.

I had no idea this quest existed until I watched my partner revisit the game earlier this year and, to my surprise, you even have to recruit villagers to move into the individual houses. And every single potential villager has their own function. The catch is that there’s only enough room for six people to move in, so you have to think wisely. Do you want to recruit someone who will sell rare weapons, or would you rather have poison protection for the next 30-odd fights?

It’s rare that a game makes its villagers feel like they have a purpose outside of being NPCs that you talk to, which makes TownShip feel particularly special to me. Imagine if I accidentally asked a man to move to my town and then your money disappears? I’d be pretty annoyed about that. And yes, that can happen – recruiting one potential villager causes all of your money to be stolen. You can get it back, luckily. And yes, it is annoying, but these kinds of events give these seemingly random characters a function, and a bit of personality.

Another game where every resident in your town — or in this case, sky island — has a purpose is Skies of Arcadia. When Vyse eventually becomes the captain of his own ship and starts building up a crew of men and women (and a dog), he realises he needs a base. So, he reclaims the island that he crash-landed on earlier in the game: Crescent Isle. The more crew members you recruit, the more stuff you have access to at your new home.

An item shop, ship parts, and even a kitchen – all of these things provide unique or powerful items that’ll help Vyse on his quest to gather the Moon Crystals. And while I could just flap around the skies trying to find the best healing items or weapons, well, I also have access to everything in one place. And I can decorate the island however I like – I’ll always take the Cupil fountain.

But most of these games are about building up the community and letting them thrive, not the actual building of a town or city. That’s where I look to Level-5. Now that’s a developer that loves letting us build cities. It all started back with the studio’s first game, Dark Cloud (yes, the “Zelda Killer”), where rebuilding towns and making the residents happy was front and centre. That, and its sequel, are PlayStation exclusives, though they set the template Level-5 RPGs.

Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom is one of those, but instead of multiple little towns, you’re building your very own kingdom. Evermore starts off as a series of empty plots of land, but get some money, expand your coffers, and start investing, and you’ll soon have a fantasy metropolis that thrives on serving the king and his needs. Kingdom building is pretty on-rails – it’s both required for the story and gated by story requirements, and you can’t just build willy-nilly.

Every plot has a purpose, and you have to choose when to invest in those. Shops and a town square are easy early requirements, but eventually you’ll need resources like lumber, metal, and even ingredients. And you need people who are good at those things. There’s no point putting Floyd the cook in the Barracks when you have a Cookshop, after all.

Even though Ni no Kuni II is a little more strict with your creativity, I still got a real sense of joy watching Evermore expand and fill up. I love recruiting characters, so giving them tasks to actually do, which in turn rewards you with better items to buy or resources, is even more fulfilling. And then choosing what to invest research in to make that facility, and those staff, even better. Again, as King Evan of Evermore, I am the one with the power, but at least I’m making people happy.

But Level-5 has gone in the complete opposite direction in terms of creativity more recently with Fantasy Life i. Now I’m not really building a city so much as populating an island… but I can build an art gallery, multiple homes, furnishings, island decorations, rivers, and terraform? It’s like playing a miniature version of Animal Crossing: New Horizons but with a massive RPG tacked on to it.

Outside of simply decorating and building for fun, customising your island doesn’t really serve much of a purpose. But it’s so easy and seamless that I just had to do it. Admittedly, it’s a bit of a mess right now, but I’m in post-game mode, so, y’know, resource gathering and all that. But it’s become a point of pride for me. Why shouldn’t all of my Buddies, who I’ve rescued throughout the course of the game, have a nice place to live?

Fantasy Life i gradually introduces new building mechanics, so while placing houses down might feel restrictive at first — I don’t know how many times I complained about the river — you can change things later down the line. I’ve gone from moving my favourite Buddies in to rotating them, completing crafting and delivery requests for them so they level up and improve their crafting, gathering, or combat techniques. I already have dreams to turn the island into some kind of cosy, forest-y nook with a little fountain and a town square.

But, like Crescent Island, like Evermore, and like Township, this island can act as a base for you as long as you level up your shop (situated inside the Guild Office) by completing deliveries and requests. Right now, I can get pretty much all the end-game resources from Marco, with only the rare and extremely rare items off-limits.

What encourages me to keep coming back to these cities, these locations that I’ve spent time building up, is that they eventually feel like a home away from home. Like a digital paradise. I’ve spent hundreds of hours in New Horizons perfecting the layout of my island, changing my mind, and redoing everything multiple times, because I want to create something that’s nice and comfortable for me, and somewhere that I think the digital inhabitants will like. It’s the same in all of these games – I’ll pore over every detail, every request, every need for my villagers, accommodating them while also trying to sneak in a little bit of my own flair.

I don’t know what Octopath Traveler 0’s town building will entail other than beautiful HD-2D houses and a new ‘Architect’ job, but I hope it puts community and creativity at the heart of it. I need another digital home away from home I can create and rejuvenate, and a pixel art one sounds perfect.

Do you like building cities in video games? Have a favourite? Let us know in the comments.