OK, so I finally beat Bravely Default this weekend. I stopped playing a few months ago at the point just before awakening the Earth Crystal for the first time, and just now got back to it.

Gameplay: I really enjoyed the gameplay, historically, with games using a job system I'd pick a few classes I like and stick mainly to them, but with Bravely Default it really rewards you for shifting jobs and trying different combinations. For example, I really didn't think I'd ever use the Pirate class, but it kicks ass, especially when teamed up with Swordmaster (another class I didn't really find interesting at first glance). Comboing Free Lunch with Amp strike was glorious.

Character Design: Aside from a few cringe worthy and stupid class deisigns, the different jobs were cool looking. I was glad when I could afford the plain tunics, then I could wear the default clothes when I wanted Edea or Agnès to be a Ranger.

Overall Design: On the plus side, the game had two of the prettiest towns ever.

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Sadly the later towns didn't match those, and there were so few cities and towns, the world felt pretty small.

Story: Eh, pretty standard. Airy being evil was interesting. I liked Edea's story most of all. Turning against her own people and all. Up until you Awakened the Earth Crystal, there was a lot of cool themes of moral ambiguity, and the fact that the Archduke was doing horrible things for what he thought was the right reason. But really, I think he was doing more harm than good. He could have achieved his goals without wars, and chemically brainwashing a whole culture.


My thoughts about the second half of the game (After the first pillar of light):
First of all, I was spoiled about Airy from the very beginning, and I knew there'd be alternate world hopping, but that was about it. That said, now that I beat it, frankly, I kinda regret picking it back up to finish beyond the first world.

The alternate world idea was cool, but it was so incredibly lazily executed. Just repeatedly going to the same 4 temples over and over with the option of visiting old bosses. A lot of the time I felt like a serial killer going to the optional bosses over and over. It felt more superfluous than most optional side quests. Well, I did enjoy repeatedly killing DeRosa and Qada, but it was pretty pointless to visit other places, except for the Sage's quest.

There is so much more they could have done. Especially considering there were alternate versions of your party running around, and with the exception of Alternis, you never see them (Actually a couple could have had Amnesiac Alternis since he was on the Grandship with you, only without the journal). They could have intertwined the continuing story with the alternate versions of your party, meeting them at times. Possibly the writers could have not given you the grandship immediately, but require you to find the one that crossed over with you and repair it while figuring out what's up with this new universe.

(It also bugged me that all the treasure chests were open... who was opening the treasure chests considering I could fly anywhere immediately, and alternate party couldn't...)

I don't expect anybody to share this particular annoyance, but it got my hopes up only to dash them by following the same formula as before. With the earlier Final Fantasies (especially 3), the theme was the Warriors of Light. There was mention of the requirement of balance between Light and Dark, and in FF3 and 4 Heroes of Light it was Darkness trying to rise up, and the Light side had to step in and bring the balance back. When I was spoiled that Airy was the villain, I was hoping she was being honest about her goal of Light destroying the Darkness. I thought maybe this time it would be the Light side trying to take over and get rid of Darkness, and as the actual Warriors of Darkness, you had to bring the balance back. But no. Airy was wanted to spread Darkness and destruction. Boo.

Play FF Dimensions if you want to see the Warriors of Darkness plot applied well.

I have two main concern with the game:
-The loop thing (which didn't bothered me much)
-The false ending should have been the true ending. I mean, it would've been balsy to reward the player with a true ending in which he has to "bravely default" and destroy the crystal. But still allow to reach the true ending being more difficult to the stuborn one who keeps reviving the crystals.

Other than that, it's a great game which set great fondations for the sequel... which unfortunately, seems to be built on a smaller budget and heavy recycle of assets :/

It sure is a shame when plot points as big as the one featured in this game is spoiled. When I first played BD and experienced the identity of the mastermind (Aery) when seeing the title change to "Aery Lies", I felt chills run up through my spine. It was hinted, of course, but I didn't think it was true.

Hated my time with this game. Gave up around chapter 4 maybe? Wasn't enjoying the story or characters and though there were elements of the gameplay i enjoyed, it was still too much of a slog. Stuff like bosses having too much HP and repetitive patterns made it pretty unbearable in my opinion. Plus people mentioning how the game dips towards the end didn't help.

Brawly Likes to Brawl said:

Play FF Dimensions if you want to see the Warriors of Darkness plot applied well.

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Truly underrated Final Fantasy game right there.

Story's decent, but it perfected Final Fantasy V's job system.

Arctick said:

Hated my time with this game. Gave up around chapter 4 maybe? Wasn't enjoying the story or characters and though there were elements of the gameplay i enjoyed, it was still too much of a slog. Stuff like bosses having too much HP and repetitive patterns made it pretty unbearable in my opinion. Plus people mentioning how the game dips towards the end didn't help.

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If the bosses you fought had too much HP, you weren't using the BD system right.

Brawly Likes to Brawl said:

Play FF Dimensions if you want to see the Warriors of Darkness plot applied well.

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Waah? What is FF Dimensions?? Off to scour the internet!
Edit: Ah, an android game. Wow the font is horrible. But I might have to try it. Thanks! Thread totally worth it now.

I think I still would have gotten burnt out if they had thrown more variation into the alternate worlds, but it seems like the bare minimum to make it work.

Arkeband said:

I think I still would have gotten burnt out if they had thrown more variation into the alternate worlds, but it seems like the bare minimum to make it work.

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I think if they should have lowered the world count to maybe 3, with the third just going to the temples, after maybe seeing the aftermath where their alternates died... So they could do the Sage's quest knowing their alternates were dead in that world.

Buuut I think if they'd done something cool with the alternate worlds, I wouldn't have gotten burned out. There was just no real payoff. At least an engaging shift in the story would have kept my interest better.

I've more than once complained about the composition of the overworld (one town per continent/crystal sucks, all continents are small and easily explored, all of the rewards for exploring are straightforward because it's an asterisk and stuff is barely hidden, I could go on) but i never thought about town design. Now that I think about it, Ancheim does stand out because quasi-2D thing. Everything is a pretty straightforward overhead view with limited space to explore (well ancheim is small as it is but still)

The game's music and battle system are amazing. Art is some sick stuff and I like it. The plot is...dangerously serviceable, it otherwise decent but the grind of the latter half and limited reveal of anything significant (besides learning more about some of the asterisk holders) makes an okay plot feel more tedious than it should. It's mostly nonsense though inoffensive, but the slog just wears you down until you get to chapter 8. The game is just too linear too, I hated that feeling after a while of how predictable exploration felt, and in RPG's I really like exploring but being stuck doing the same stuff repeatedly hurt that.

Honestly I'm expecting more of the same from Bravely Second, which is going to be rough to deal with

If the game didn't have the pacing issues in the last four chapters it would be among the best JRPGs ever.

The battle system, job system, art, music... it's all top notch stuff.

As is, it can settle for being the best JRPG so far this gen among a relatively weak field.

TheSpoiler said:

If the bosses you fought had too much HP, you weren't using the BD system right.

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Nah, I did, game was just unbalanced. Even when you use the system to its fullest potential, boss fights still go for 15-25 mins which is waaaaay too long for a handheld rpg

Arctick said:

Nah, I did, game was just unbalanced. Even when you use the system to its fullest potential, boss fights still go for 15-25 mins which is waaaaay too long for a handheld rpg

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Did you adjust the speed at all?
The game is definitely unbalanced, but not in the enemy's favor.
You can easily break the game and even the toughest enemies (the Norende ones) take no time.

Busaiku said:

Did you adjust the speed at all?
The game is definitely unbalanced, but not in the enemy's favor.
You can easily break the game and even the toughest enemies (the Norende ones) take no time.

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Yeah I never felt the fights were in then enemy's favour or that they were too tough, they were just too tedious and long. Not on the back foot in fights but an annoying sense of a lack of progress. I get the appeal and I honestly think its one of the better handheld rpg's in recent years, but its just not for me. And that's cool

I actually didn't mind the loop stuff too much, if only because each time the bosses were different, said different things, had different little stories and motivations, etc. It really helped you get to know the characters a lot better than you would have otherwise, though there are certainly better ways of doing this. A branching storyline, for example, would have accomplished the same thing and offered replayability.

Some of the later match-ups were really tough though. The one with Qada, Ominas, Mephilia, and Yulyuna was brutal .

Overall, I really enjoyed the game and am looking forward to Bravely Second.