Samantha Ballard

Hi all, thanks for all the love on my recent cover of Alicia and if you're new here, welcome!
I am working on a harp & vocal version of Alicia but it's going to take me a little while. In the meantime I live stream every Friday at 11 am CT and I take requests. I hope I'll see you there some time! :)

1 month ago | [YT] | 59

Samantha Ballard

Took me a while, but I've finally got some Expedition 33 coming your way this Friday.

1 month ago | [YT] | 77

Samantha Ballard

After 4 months and 130 hours, I have finally rolled credits on Octopath Traveler 0! 🙃 That means I can finally share my review of this game! I have a lot of opinions so buckle up, lol. (No spoilers below, at least imo!)

TL;DR I give this a game a 6.5/10 which I enjoyed a lot.

The Good: Game mechanics are EXTREMELY fun
The Mid: Story and writing was average to bad in my opinion, but still mostly entertaining with some good moments.

The Bad: Too dang long, y'all. Too dang long.

Let's get into it!

First, the mechanics:

The 8-character two-row battle system adds an additional level of strategy that I really enjoyed, and the level of customization of skills and units made it a lot of fun to try out different party compositions. Yes, there are no secondary jobs in this game, but IMO the second row of characters kind of takes the place of the secondary jobs.

I found the balance to be a bit too easy in the first act of the game because there are three story arcs at the same level, but found it to be more appropriately balanced as the game went on.

I also LOVED the town rebuilding quests, and it was exciting to unlock new building abilities and other QoL upgrades as you improved the town. The addition of the coliseum and the live commentator during those battles was also super fun :D

Next... the story.

So. I have a lot of opinions about the story and writing.

Someone in my chat described it as being like a telenovela, and I think if you can approach it this way, it makes the most sense.
It goes heavy on the melodrama, and tends to approach the story with an attitude of "What would be the edgiest thing possible/How can we make the villains as evil as possible?" rather than starting from the motivations of the characters and then really thinking about what those characters would do in response to those motivations, lol.

I tend to prefer more grounded stories with good character writing, so I didn't *love* that. There were a lot of moments where I felt like people were doing things that really didn't make a lot of sense and it felt like there were a lot of plot holes because of that, but at a certain point I had to just laugh at these extremely dramatic or cheesy moments, so I at least still had fun for the most part. Shoutouts to Rosso for "The real wealth was the friends we made along the way."

There were some nice moments though - I thought the Wishvale storyline, while a bit generic, was nice. And I also thought that the payoff for Sazantos' storyline was good, even if I was questioning it at some points along the way, lmao.

That said, there were a lot of weak writing moments like letting the enemy just walk/teleport away without trying to stop them, and especially in the finale WAY too much sitting around in a circle having committee meetings.

Paired with the fact that the finale was 8!!! chapters long, the writing really started to grate on me at the end. I really feel that the story is where this game really shows that it's an adaptation of a mobile gacha game. The length of this story would make a lot more sense if it was something released in waves over several months. As a standalone narrative, it was extended way past what it needed to be. I really think the finale should have edited down, because most of it wasn't necessary. I guess they didn't want to re-record voice lines, but I feel like there would have been enough budget for that, lol.

Lastly, let's talk about music!

There wasn't as much new music as I hoped there would be, but what there was I really enjoyed. I don't plan to cover any more of it as things stand, but particularly the Wishvale music and the special dungeon themes were really catchy.

To wrap this up, I gave this a 6.5 because while Octopath 0 has its strengths, I can't overlook its weaknesses.

BUT, I still really enjoyed it - I wouldn't have bothered playing for 130 hours if I didn't!

All I can really say is that I don't think this game isn't for everyone.

If you've played Octopath 1 and 2 and loved them and want more, you'll probably love this one.
If you liked the mechanics in OT1 and 2 but didn't love the split storylines, you might like this one more.
If you love mechanics but don't care about story and usually skip it, you might love OT0.
If story is the most important thing to you, and you like grounded stories and realistic characters... you might want to skip this one, lol.

If you've never played an Octopath Traveler game and just want to try it out, Play Octopath 2. It's the best one.

All in all, I consider this a fun Octopath Traveler spinoff game, especially considering that I'm pretty sure the OT0 team is a different team than the teams responsible for OT1 and 2, and I hope that we get an Octopath Traveler 3 before too long!

2 months ago | [YT] | 105

Samantha Ballard

Chronicles of the Guardians of Light from Octopath Traveler 0 is now available to stream!
Search it on your platform of choice or use the link: lnkfi.re/sb_Chronicles

2 months ago | [YT] | 31

Samantha Ballard

-35C and sunny, time to take my harp to the concert hall for the Stardew Valley concert. At least there’s no windchill! The wind can he still, indeed.

4 months ago | [YT] | 116

Samantha Ballard

If you’re going to Stardew Valley: Symphony of Seasons in Winnipeg this weekend, you’ll see me there! 😄

4 months ago | [YT] | 70

Samantha Ballard

Happy new year! I'm starting off the year by redecorating my office, so I thought it would be fun to pretend to be a an interior-design-youtuber for a day, haha. Come have a chat about the past year, the new year, and take a look at the beginning of my office makeover. (Video is public on Patreon! You can find the link on my channel page of yore on mobile and it won’t let you click the link)
www.patreon.com/posts/office-makeover-147647422

P.S. See you at stream on Friday!

4 months ago | [YT] | 66

Samantha Ballard

Hey everyone! Thanks for another amazing year 🙏 I'm going to be taking the next two Fridays off from streaming, but I'll be back January 9.
Until then, if you're in the mood for some Christmas harp, I have an album called On Christmas Night from 2016 (!!) that you can find on Spotify and all the places.
(I look like such a baby on this album cover!! lol!)

5 months ago | [YT] | 113

Samantha Ballard

Going live on twitch.tv/ongakuoverdrive for their annual charity livestream! Stream starts at 6 PM ET and I’m on just before 8 PM ET. See you then!

5 months ago | [YT] | 29

Samantha Ballard

I can’t tell you how gratifying it is, after so many years of doing this, so see that number over one million for the second year in a row. But truly none of it would be possible with you, choosing to listen to my music.
Thank you so much, especially on an album release year. And an extra shoutout to the 101 of you who had me as your top artist ❤️❤️

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5 months ago | [YT] | 95