Which character should I start with in Octopath Traveler 2?

Starting a new game always comes with the toughest choices, and even more so in Octopath Traveler 2. You must begin your journey with one of eight characters, each with different classes, talents, and abilities for you to discover. This begs the question: who is the best character to start your journey with?

Best character to start with in Octopath Traveler 2

The first character travels alone in the first part of his journey, picking up the rest of the others who are added to the party one by one. In our opinion is the best character to choose first in Octopath Traveler 2 Agnea Bristarni, The dancer. Below are some reasons:

• Agnea has decent attack and magic stats, so she’s well balanced. Her talent is an AoE attack
• She may not have a cure, but she can use Allure to take a random townswoman with her on her journey. There are NPCs in Leaflands, her hometown, that can heal. You can summon them mid-fight for a pick-me-up.
• Agnea’s nocturnal path action lets her take an item from each person of the right level. It’s good for selling poaching goods and using items in battle. At a higher level, she can take gear with her for free.
• The Leaf Land is in the western region where the warrior Hikari and the apothecary Castti are located. The former can provide great strength early on and the latter can partially meet your healing needs.
• In the western part of the region there is also Partitio, the merchant that you can use to buy the items that you can’t already take with Agnea’s Path action (at a discount). Many of them are worth having early in the game, like Weapons and Olives of Life.
• By the way, Partitio is Agnea’s second class, which means you can add the only class that can generate and pass on BP very early in the game. He’s invaluable in boss fights!

Related: Octopath Traveler 2 Secondary Jobs Guide

If you don’t want to start with Agnea, you can also opt for hikari or Oswald the magician. They are very competent when traveling alone. Osvald lives in the eastern part of the map, so you can collect Temenos the Cleric to make up for his weak defenses.

For more help with Octopath Traveler 2, see Is Octopath Traveler 2 available on Game Pass? and Octopath Traveler Timeline, explained here in the Pro Game Guides.