What the hell are you talking about, the music is eh? Octopath does things musically that no other RPG has done, specifically using its leitmotifs as segues into battles. Play up to the boss of anyone's chapter, and you'll hear a specific build-up song for your character that continues into the boss fight as it morphs into the boss battle music. There are 3 different regular battle musics as you go out further in the rings of the map, with threads linking them to let you know your current level of danger/badassery. And as far as non-battle music goes, the music of Flamesgrace is something I actually put my controller down and listened to for 15 minutes.
As far as the screen "flash" it looks like the Street Fighter IV inky wipe, something that looked incredibly stylish in SFIV trailers and then wasn't really particularly part of the image when it came out. The inky/paper imagery pairs well with the general aesthetic of Octopath, as the entire thing looks like a pop-up book; you have hyperrealistic water effects juxtaposed with buildings that are built of sprites in a very Paper Mario way. It's kind of genius if the idea is that these characters are sort of "legends" passed down from Hornburg.
There is absolutely nothing budget about the battle system of Octopath either. You get 4 classes with 4 subclasses (out of 12 to choose from) and, due to the subclass system, designing the synergy of your party is almost to the level of Etrian Odyssey IV. Setting up to do 300,000 damage in one attack is incredibly satisfying.
