Octopath Traveler

My family got a Switch for Christmas two years ago. It's been monopolized primarily by my kids and my husband, but I recently picked up Octopath Traveler to play on it. I loved Bravely Default, and Octopath Traveler seems to be cut from the same mold--I'm a big fan of old-style RPG games. I never transitioned well to the 3-D environments, so I appreciate games like these that are throwbacks to older graphical styles. I had high expectations for Octopath Traveler, and this post is going to be my opinion on the game, at least as far as I've played.

I have played through each character's first chapter. I have been struggling through the second chapters and side quests. I'm not sure if the combat system just didn't click--I mean, I understand the break system with the weapon/elemental weaknesses, but there also seems to be bias toward certain characters in certain parts of the game. For example, I played through Tressa's second chapter. Clearly Tressa is required, but my impression was that the other three character slots could be filled with whoever I wanted (true) and it would be decently effective (false). In this example, you cannot complete this chapter without Ophilia. I am getting the idea I will be wanting Ophilia in most of my parties in this game. That frustrates me because I don't particularly like playing with that character. 

I've also found some of the side quests frustrating because the recommended level does not seem to match the actual difficulty of the quest. Or maybe this goes back to not understanding how the characters work together, and I need to be playing with a different group. I think I've gotten decent equipment for my party, but maybe not. I feel like I'm missing something with it, and it shouldn't be this frustrating. 

I'm going to put it down for a little bit, but I do plan on eventually trying to finish it. Another potential problem is that I do tend to play the game around 3 a.m., which is probably not the best time to do anything that requires any amount of coherence. =P Maybe I'll have better luck when I have a little more time to play the game.