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[kuroneko0509]

Developers: Square Enix/Silicon Studio
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo 3DS
Release dates:
EU 26th February 2016
NA 15th April 2016
AUS 27th February 2016

Price:
Standard Edition -> GBP39.99 | EUR44.99 | USD39.99 | AUD59.95
Collector's Edition -> GBP69.99 | EUR79.99 | USD69.99 | AUD??
Download Size: 20,350 blocks (~2.54GB)
(Download the demo from eShop and get 10% discount for digital version, from 26th February until 10th March)

The main character of this game. Earlier in the game, he's assigned as Agnès' bodyguard during the peace treaty signing between Crystal Orthodoxy and Eternia along with Janne and Nikolai. When Agnès is kidnapped by Kaiser Oblivion, he decided to go rescue her, dragging along the other two Crystalguard members as well.

One of the Crystalguard trio assigned as Agnès' bodyguards. Thanks to his top notch fencing skills, he managed to raise up ranks in the Crystalguard even though he came from a poor family.

One of the Crystalguard trio assigned as Agnès' bodyguards. Originally a Crystal Orthodoxy priest prior the events of Bravely Default. After the Eternia's Anticrystalism movement ends, he ends up becoming a respected recruiter for the Crystalguard, with him recruiting Janne due to his potential as an example.

After the event of Bravely Default, she became the Popesguard of the Crystal Orthodoxy and working hard to eliminate the organization's corruption while at the same time improving the relationship with Eternia. Kidnapped by Kaiser Oblivion during the peace treaty signing and somehow become the damsel in distress in this game. If only Tiz is around....

The typical evil masked guy. No one knows why he launches an assault during the treaty signing ceremony. He single-handedly defeats the combined forced of Braev Lee, Anazel D, Yew & Agnès. His main operation base is the floating fortress, the Skyhold.

A Cryst-fairy companion of Kaiser Oblivion, working as his secretary for most of the time. She sometimes displays her cruel side which terrifies even those who are on the same side.

The self-proclaimed Ba'al Buster. A mysterious woman who came from the moon in order to get some revenge on Ba'als after they destroyed her homebase. After a fateful encounter with Yew, she decided to join and help him saving the kidnapped Agnès.

Mrgrgr!

The protagonist of Bravely Default. After the events of the game, he ends up in a state where he's barely alive. Spent most of his time between the events of the two games in a White Mage stasis chamber at the Eternian Central Command, the same device that Viktor use to regularly treats Victoria.

The bread and butter of the game combat system. By managing Brave Points (BP), you can do lots of things during combat.
Brave allows you to do up to 4 actions in the same turn as long as your BP doesn't exceed -4. Most actions consume only 1 BP but some use more than that. When BP is negative, that character cannot do any action and have to wait until its BP back to at least 0.
Default is basically the defence command in the game. By selecting it, the character defence is increased and gain 1 BP, with 3 BP is the maximum amount you can have per character.

Bravely Second mechanics that allows a character to do additional attacks at any time during the battle. When this is activated, the flow of combat is halted, allowing the player to do any type of actions at expense of SP. Any actions during this phase can exceed the damage limit. SP will recovers every 8 hours. There's also some microtransactions where you can pay to instantly restores SP.

A new gameplay feature where you can chain the random encounter battles in order to gain boost multiplier for the EXP/Gold rewards. It kicks in when you manage to defeat all enemies in first turn. Should you pick the "Bring it on!" option, you'll immediately go into next battle, with your party current BP amount is the same. It's basically a high risk, high reward feature since if your party got wiped out, you lost everything. Sometimes, this feature kicks in randomly after a battle, forcing you to continue with another round as you cannot decline it.

As you progress, you'll gain access to many different jobs, known as Asterisk other than your starting Freelancer. Like the previous game, you can freely customize your character jobs once you unlock it. Mix and match the jobs and abilities as you like and you'll be fine in most of the situations. Including Freelancer, there are 30 jobs total, both new to this game and old, returning from Bravely Default.

Throughout the journey, you can use this feature to talk to Agnès. She will assist the party by giving some tips that you may find it useful.

Similar to Norende Village Reconstruction in Bravely Default, you can rebuild the base by restoring various facilities there. The more villagers you have, the faster you can rebuild it. You can increase the number daily by selecting some option when talking to Adventurer or by StreetPassing other players.

Love to keep changing your party setup but find it tedious to keep on re-equiping the abilities and equipments? With this new feature, you can store up to 10 setups where you can quickly switch into it without the need of doing it manually. Everything is saved, from the party arrangement to exact equipments.

The customizable special moves that is linked to the equipped weapons that can be activated when you fulfill its condition. Unlike in Bravely Default where the condition is linked to the weapon type, you can change the condition for each character. Each weapons have 4 different deathblow moves.

This feature allows a linked character to borrow job abilities that your friends have, provided that you already have the said job. For example, Magnolia's Wizard job level is 2 while your friend's character has Wizard at level 7. As long as Magnolia is linked to that friend's character, she can use up to level 7 Wizard abilities.

You can still summon your friends' character in this game to do some action during battle. Like in previous game, it is only one-time use. In order to keep using the same friend's character multiple times, your friend need to keep on resending it again and again.

Once you unlocked moonbase reconstruction, Ba'al nemesis might appear there in order to destroy your base. You can straight away fight it like normal enemy or weaken it first using Buster Ship. Each Ba'al nemesis will have exact duration for SQEX distribution, so make sure to connect to internet and get it. You can also get the nemesis from other players, either via connecting to internet or StreetPass.

Announcement Trailer
E3 2015 Treehouse Gameplay
EU Deluxe Collector's Edition Trailer
Story Trailer
Jobs Trailer
Character Trailers - Yew Geneolgia
Character Trailers - Magnolia Arch
Character Trailers - Edea Lee
Artbook Sneak Peek
Top 5 Things To Do (In Demo)
EU Launch Demo

Game package, boxarts:

Other stuffs:
Bravely Second Original Soundtrack
Bravely Second Design Works (Artbook)
U's Notebook
Great Distance (Bravely Second OP & ED theme)

IS THERE ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE FUCKING TIME LOOPS?!
hrmmm.....

Why is it translated as "catmancer" instead of "nekomancer"
The translator isn't a weeb.

Tiz? Why it isn't Ringabel the one who is playable???
Tiz >> Ringabel :^)

Why isn't Revo doing the musics again?
Schedule conflict. I believe he's quite busy with his Sound Horizon 9th Story during the game development.

Where's the Nemesis delivery schedule?
/checks random website... no idea

Any bonus from playing the demo?

I found this list from GameFAQs:
potion x3 (play the demo)
phoenix down x3 (defeat the Hawkeye)
hi-potion x3 (defeat the boss at wind temple)
remedy x3 (complete moonbase construction)
x-potion x1 (defeat ba'al no5 at any difficulty)
turbo-ether x1 (defeat ba'al no5 at Hard difficulty)
ether x1 (max out all characters job levels)
elixir x1 (complete bestiary)
20 villagers from demo will be transfer to full game,so remember to update data everyday before the full game comes.

Any other gameplay changes?
Lower job max level, up to 3 set of action repeats store-able, encounter rate & difficulty is changeable without going to main menu. There might be few more but I can't remember much about it.

How bad is the microtransactions this time?
It is still the same as previous game, where you pay for SP to be restored immediately. While this might look bad to some people, it isn't that much game breaking imo.

Languages? Audios?
From the demo, it's implied that there'll be English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese & Korean text options. As for audio, it is dual audio like previous game (Japanese & English).

Should I play the first game before playing this?
This is a direct sequel, so if you care about the story, play Bravely Default first.

What's with the OT subtitle?

Import OT
Import OT 'reborn'
EU Demo Thread
EU Review Thread
3DS Friend Code exchange (for abilinks & friend summon):
Google Form
List
Remember, both of you need to add each other manually since there's no notification unlike adding nnid or any other friend system on other consoles

Screenshots

Special thanks to:
AsanoP and team (Silicon Studio etc.) for making this game
Nintendo for bringing this game to west
Samurai_Heart for fonts & banner tips
Perfectly Nintendo & Gematsu for western release info compilations
Phazon for some stuff with the western release term (pending)
Bravely Second JP website for the assets
Final Fantasy Wiki for some of the terms used in western Bravely series
Some font website for the font that used in OT (I forgot which site it is)
Escalario for that 1st two questions

This is my first time doing an OT, and I'm hoping it is ok. I'll be adding more stuff in it when I can get more info (need that new minigame name). Feel free to correct stuff, especially grammars. General thread rules applies, and please use spoiler tags on anything that is deemed as spoiler.

 

[Perfo]

Dispatched today from Amazon, can't wait to get the game tomorrow.

 

[Joyful]

i noticed yew is voiced by the dean venture guy, p funny

 

[JordanKZ]

Release dates:
EU 26th September 2016
NA 23rd April 2016
AUS 27th September 2016

?!

I played through the intro last night, whilst the soundtrack has a completely different, and possibly worse tone, I am enjoying it quite a lot. So far, I'm a little worried that two of the characters

Spoiler

(Yew and Tiz)

are slightly too similar, but we'll see how it goes.

 

[Sammy Samusu]

Release dates:
EU 26th September 2016
NA 23rd April 2016
AUS 27th September 2016

???

 

[kuroneko0509]

?!

I played through the intro last night, whilst the soundtrack has a completely different, and possibly worse, tone, I am enjoying it quite a lot. So far, I'm a little worried that two of the characters

Spoiler

Yew and Tiz

are slightly too similar, but we'll see how it goes.

Release dates:
EU 26th September 2016
NA 23rd April 2016
AUS 27th September 2016

???

woops... my bad. can't believe I made that stupid mistake

edit: also, is there any Australian here can tell me if deluxe collectors edition is sold there? tried checking at ebgames website and it doesn't listed there

 

[Piscus]

See you in two months.

Spoiler

Blast.

 

[aravuus]

What does

up to 3 set of action repeats store-able

mean? Just automated stuff, like when battle starts, always first use buff X, then buff Y, then normal attack? How many entries can one set have? Could I do like "buff Z, attack x 10, buff Z etc"?

e: actually I think I'll just download the demo when I get home lol, I'll see then

 

[Little Old Man]

Copy is arriving soon. Not sure how much time I will get to devote to this in the next couple of weeks! Plus I want to get through more of the demo!

Fantastic OP, I haven't played BD, so the catch up on mechanics and background was very useful!

Is a wiki read up on the plot of BD necessary?

 

[Wingus]

Have the limited edition pre-ordered from GAME and on its way

I'll be straight onto this after I've finished my playthrough of Fire Emblem: Conquest.

 

[Baka Zeitgeist]

Took this out of the review thread and moved it here...

My Deluxe CE arrived today:

 

[Arizato]

Got my Europe CE one day early! It's gotta be one of the best Collector's Edition's I've ever received!

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

I've had this since last year and never noticed those surnames lmao

Think I'll jump back on now that the new hype train is here.

 

[darkmark1987]

Is the demo needed to understand the game?

 

[L~A]

Is the demo needed to understand the game?

Not really. It's cool to play through it (especially if you want to get used to the gameplay, or get the bonuses), but I wouldn't say it's needed.

 

[kuroneko0509]

What does

mean? Just automated stuff, like when battle starts, always first use buff X, then buff Y, then normal attack? How many entries can one set have? Could I do like "buff Z, attack x 10, buff Z etc"?

e: actually I think I'll just download the demo when I get home lol, I'll see then

Basically you can save your previous turn actions in any of the 3 slots. So, when you use auto battle, you can pick either previous turn actions or any of the 3 saved actions. If your saved actions contain multiple commands due to brave, it will replicate it as long as you have enough BP

 

[HawthorneKitty]

Still not a fan of the 3 Musketeer dudes since reveal.

 

[kuroneko0509]

Copy is arriving soon. Not sure how much time I will get to devote to this in the next couple of weeks! Plus I want to get through more of the demo!

Fantastic OP, I haven't played BD, so the catch up on mechanics and background was very useful!

Is a wiki read up on the plot of BD necessary?

Quite useful if you don't want to play that game since this is a direct sequel to it

 

[Elaugaufein]

Actually the Job Max Level is higher not lower. It starts out at 10 (same as BD) and the

Spoiler

Kitsune

class gives you an ability which lets you unlock Job Level 11. Some skills have been moved around or eliminated too (e.g Helm Mastery is folded into Armor Mastery and moved to one of the new Classes).

 

[Robin64]

Worth playing through the demo? Is it a prologue or just part of the full game? Are there bonuses?

 

[kuroneko0509]

Actually the Job Max Level is higher not lower. It starts out at 10 (same as BD) and the

Spoiler

Kitsune

class gives you an ability which lets you unlock Job Level 11. Some skills have been moved around or eliminated too (e.g Helm Mastery is folded into Armor Mastery and moved to one of the new Classes).

max job level in BD is 14, not 10

Worth playing through the demo? Is it a prologue or just part of the full game? Are there bonuses?

The demo is neither prologue (even though Nintendo market it as a prologue) nor part of full game. There's some item bonus & villager bonus.

 

[Andyliini]

As mentioned in the EU review thread, I, too, got my Collector's Edition a few days early. The box as a thing of beauty, marvelous work from NoE and SE.

Too bad I'll be playing Project X Zone for a while before I'll get to play this.

 

[Elaugaufein]

Worth playing through the demo? Is it a prologue or just part of the full game? Are there bonuses?

It's a prologue. There are bonuses but apart from the initial start on Street Passing Villagers , its just consumable items (the hardest one, completing the bestiary , which takes several hours by itself is just an Elixir). It's canonicity is also at best dubious, so I wouldn't worry to much about it being referenced in the game either.

 

[NoKisum]

Is there any type of link/transfer system from the first game to the second? Or is this a fresh start?

 

[Elaugaufein]

max job level in BD is 14, not 10



The demo is neither prologue (even though Nintendo market it as a prologue) nor part of full game. There's some item bonus & villager bonus.

Is it ? It's been way to long since I played BD then. That explains why I couldn't make the missing/transferred ability numbers work out though.

 

[patapuf]

Worth playing through the demo? Is it a prologue or just part of the full game? Are there bonuses?

It's pretty similar in structure to the demo they did for the original.

It has some fun quests but it's mostly grindy stuff.

 

[mrmickfran]

OT title mentions dem thighs.

OT banner does not contain dem thighs

 

[OVDRobo]

What does

mean? Just automated stuff, like when battle starts, always first use buff X, then buff Y, then normal attack? How many entries can one set have? Could I do like "buff Z, attack x 10, buff Z etc"?

e: actually I think I'll just download the demo when I get home lol, I'll see then

That's exactly what it means. There's 3 store-able auto-battle sets this time, so if you don't want to just attack-attack-attack-attack every single battle you enter, you can switch your auto-battle set to the most appropriate to a scenario.

I haven't delved that deeply into the system, but I believe you can only store 1 turn worth of repeatable actions per set, so as per my above example, if you brave to the maximum amount upon entering a battle, then cast cure-attack-attack-cast fire, that would be one set.

It's basically so you can have a pool of auto-battle options instead of overwriting the one singular one you had in the original (if memory serves). There's also a repeat option, that just replays what you did in the last turn of the last battle you fought, so if you're like me and brave-brave-brave-attack-attack-attack-attack most turns in smaller battles, that at least won't take up one of the sets.

 

[Acidote]

Apparently the game arrived home one day early. Can't wait to get there and give it a try.

 

[SpaceBridge]

Just a little jealous over here in Canada. Looking forward to reading impressions.

 

[kuroneko0509]

Just a little jealous over here in Canada. Looking forward to reading impressions.

it's only less than 2 months! go play fire emblem fates
btw what's the official price in Canada?

 

[DealWithIt]

Bravely default's writing (and I'm going to say this as uncontroversially has possible) was unbelievably atrocious. What are the chances it's improved in any meaningful way?

 

[MatrixMan.EXE]

I got my copy yesterday, but I'm knee deep in Digimon Cyber Sleuth and SFV D:

Will have to try and fit this one in somehow. Loved the first one, but somehow this release crept up on me!

 

[Nbz]

If I never played the first game, can I jump into this without having to worry about story continuity too much? Would a read of the wiki page do?

 

[VRMN]

Bravely default's writing (and I'm going to say this as uncontroversially has possible) was unbelievably atrocious. What are the chances it's improved in any meaningful way?

I've seen no indications that the writing has improved. Honestly, I wasn't incredibly disappointed by the story in BD, in part because impressions from Europe on it were negative before it came to the US.

That said, I felt the battle system completely redeemed it and want Second on that basis alone.

 

[aravuus]

Basically you can save your previous turn actions in any of the 3 slots. So, when you use auto battle, you can pick either previous turn actions or any of the 3 saved actions. If your saved actions contain multiple commands due to brave, it will replicate it as long as you have enough BP

That's exactly what it means. There's 3 store-able auto-battle sets this time, so if you don't want to just attack-attack-attack-attack every single battle you enter, you can switch your auto-battle set to the most appropriate to a scenario.

I haven't delved that deeply into the system, but I believe you can only store 1 turn worth of repeatable actions per set, so as per my above example, if you brave to the maximum amount upon entering a battle, then cast cure-attack-attack-cast fire, that would be one set.

It's basically so you can have a pool of auto-battle options instead of overwriting the one singular one you had in the original (if memory serves). There's also a repeat option, that just replays what you did in the last turn of the last battle you fought, so if you're like me and brave-brave-brave-attack-attack-attack-attack most turns in smaller battles, that at least won't take up one of the sets.

Ah alright, thank you! Sounds like taking care of trash mobs and/or grinding will be even easier than what it was in BD - and grinding in that game was very easy.

Excited to give the demo a try in a minute!

 

[Exentryk]

Nice OT, kuroneko!

I have been really busy, and haven't even gotten around to playing the demo. I'll definitely get this, but may not start playing it until a couple of weeks later.

 

[Elaugaufein]

I wonder how that Australian release date is going to work. They don't usually push us back behind Europe for the sake of a day, so usually it'd be up by now (since its after Midnight on the 26th in NSW), so are we just going to get it with Europes midnight release (~11 hours from now) or is it going to be a Europe midday release (since it's publisher is Squenix rather than Nintendo, so ~23 hours from now).

Hmm actually that last thing works out pretty much perfectly. If they did a European Midday release it'd happen at pretty much exactly Midnight on the 27th for the Time zone they do releases on here, so that seems disturbingly possible.

 

[Exentryk]

I wonder how that Australian release date is going to work. They don't usually push us back behind Europe for the sake of a day, so usually it'd be up by now (since its after Midnight on the 26th in NSW), so are we just going to get it with Europes midnight release (~11 hours from now) or is it going to be a Europe midday release (since it's publisher is Squenix rather than Nintendo, so ~23 hours from now).

Hmm actually that last thing works out pretty much perfectly. If they did a European Midday release it'd happen at pretty much exactly Midnight on the 27th for the Time zone they do releases on here, so that seems disturbingly possible.

EBGames has 27th as the release day (Sat).

 

[Elaugaufein]

EBGames has 27th as the release day (Sat).

Yeah, I know. Was just trying to figure out how they'd do Eshop. As I said usually we're the same day of Europe and it'd be out now (for a Nintendo release or ~12 hours from now for 3rd Party). Pushing us back a day is weird. I'll have to see if it turns out to be a Midnight European release (in which case ???) or if my guess about it being classed as 3rd Party and this Midday is right (which would make it ~24 hours from now and pretty much exactly right to do a release for both regions) or if they're going to make us wait to Midday Saturday Sydney time.

Its sort of annoying to me because I'm going to have make special arrangements to get it in the last case and I'd like to know if I should factor that into my travel schedule.

 

[MLH]

I've been playing the demo. All the little changes make for a welcome addition, you can now register favourite party setups (equipment, class + abilities) for quick switching, you can quickly level up by chaining battles upon defeating a group of enemies in one turn. Everything feels finely tuned up to make for an overall better experience, I don't think I can find anything to criticise regarding the mechanics.

So far my favourite part of the demo has been reading through the bestiary, it's full of conversations with each of the characters saying something about the monster, makes for fun reading and really helps me connect with the characters, it's good stuff.

 

[aravuus]

Does Nintendo ever do midnight releases for eshop games? Would love to give the game a quick try before work tomorrow morning

 

[Vitacat]

Is there a BS:EL demo available in NA? I searched on eshop but didn't see one.

 

[Elaugaufein]

I've been playing the demo. All the little changes make for a welcome addition, you can now register favourite party setups (equipment, class + abilities) for quick switching, you can quickly level up by chaining battles upon defeating a group of enemies in one turn. Everything feels finely tuned up to make for an overall better experience, I don't think I can find anything to criticise regarding the mechanics.

So far my favourite part of the demo has been reading through the bestiary, it's full of conversations with each of the characters saying something about the monster, makes for fun reading and really helps me connect with the characters, it's good stuff.

Unlocking the full bestiary entries is as boring a all get out though, you need (1 + 4 + 6 + 8 + 10 = 21 kills) to get a full bestiary entry, apart from the rare common enemies who come in groups of 3+ and really long dungeons, you'll be vastly overlevelled for even the *next* area by the time you complete a bestiary, especially if you use Chain Battles to do it even vaguely efficiently (after turning off all the encounters and grabbing all the neat treasure from the dungeon of course). That number needs at least halving.

I spent something like 4 or 5 hours of my Demo play time just working on that alone (and that was on Easy mode where chaining is quiet viable).

 

[Soul Beat]

I wonder if it's too late to reserve the LE. Guess I'll check later today.

 

[Escalario]

And here I am, with the game just few cm from me and the demo barely started :| Too many games this month for 3DS. Never thought I would say that.

 

[chaosblade]

Based on Awakening vs BD, I'm going to say Europe wins this round. Fates might end up better than BS though, we'll see.

Looking forward to this, still a couple months away though. I don't really care if the story and characters aren't fixed, the only thing I'd really want to see improved are the dungeons. Shame about the soundtrack apparently being a lot worse.

 

[Steiner_Zi]

I've not played the original, will I be able to follow the story? I'm thinking of watching a summary video on YouTube.

 

[jon bones]

first time a subtitle got me to click a thread, gg op

 

[ohlawd]

nice OT and title

can't wait for April