Quartet is a love letter to retro-style turn-based JRPGs. While it wears many of its influences on its sleeve (particularly the Octopath Traveler series and Final Fantasy VI), its strong writing, amazing soundtrack and enjoyable character-switching gameplay made this adventure one to remember, and not just a simple homage to the games that inspired it.

The general premise of Quartet is very reminiscent of Octopath Traveler, in that the player picks one of a selection of playable characters at the start. I found each of the initial protagonists likable and compelling. Nikolai is a soldier and firefighting specialist who turns against his commanders when ordered to commit atrocities. Alexandra is a young woman who finds herself on the run after developing magical powers out of nowhere. Cordelia is a skilled court mage fighting to make a name for herself after being unjustly ousted from her position. And finally, there is Ben, a chef with a mysterious past who wants to use his newfound magical powers to help those around him.

Once a character’s chapter is done, the player then selects another and plays through that until all the chapters have been completed. On one hand, Quartet echoes some of the issues with Octopath Traveler’s storytelling, which is that telling each character’s narrative one after the other in separate tales isn’t the most efficient, and it can be easy to forget details of where characters are or what they’ve done when they vanish from the story for several hours. As a result, the game’s first eight hours or so, which focus on the introductory chapters for each of the protagonists, is a bit of a slow burn, and very linear with little opportunity to explore.

On the other hand, Quartet does what I wish the Octopath Traveler games would have done and actually links everyone up in the game’s second half and has them meaningfully interact. Actually having the game’s varied protagonists bounce off one another fleshes out their personalities a lot. This interconnectivity also makes the plot a lot easier to follow when it involves all of the main characters simultaneously.

I found myself quite engaged with Quartet’s narrative and world. For my complaints about the slow-paced beginning chapters, it at least does a good job of establishing each nation and faction in the setting, and setting up some of the mysteries of how they connect with one another. The cast rises above being stock JRPG templates, especially during the late game, via a series of side quests that further flesh out their character arcs.

That said, there is also a strong emphasis on exploiting enemy weaknesses through one of the three types of physical attack or four types of magical element types. Considering just how many foes there are, it would be nice if there were a way of tracking what each enemy was weak to after you had initially scanned them or exploited a weakness in the past. It would save time and ensure I am not wasting time using spells the enemy will resist over and over, especially when little about the enemy’s appearance or name gives much of a hint to what they’d be weak to.

Quartet also occasionally mixes things up with puzzles or other non-combat challenges. They were rarely especially intense or integral to the experience, but adding in the occasional stealth sequence or logic puzzle did a decent job of adding some variety to the proceedings.