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LTTP: Bravely Default - I'm on chapter 5 now

Trojita

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
I've had both this game and its sequel's collector's edition wrapped up unopened and unplayed since their releases. I took a trip that would give me time to play a handheld game on my time off so I decided to finally make the jump into Bravely.

First off, yeah this is a classic Final Fantasy in all but name.

What really surprised me was how fucking dark the game is, unseemly so with the rest of the presentation.

I didn't expect
Owen to die
. I was surprised when it was implied but unsaid that I was killing the Asterisk holders. The forced labor in Ancheim. The scheme to send people that need water right into an encounter with bandits.

The story in Florem though was super fucked up.
The Eternian Summoner is committing genocide on a sentient race of magical creatures. She's poaching the wings off these fairies corpses to sell to Florem citizens. These wings make people hallucinate and go into a muderous rage. Two sisters end up killing each other of them. The Eternian Hunter is selling a hair dye, made from committing genocide on creatures revered by locals, that also makes people hallucinate. The date rape Red Mage and his date rape scheme.

The enemy Salve Maker
kills an entire city made up of at least 100,000 people with biological weapons
. It's likely the overall body count is even higher than that in the war. The child labor.

I do have some qualms about the narrative though.

There's a question about player's agency in a game regarding its plot.
Of course when you replay a game or watch a movie you know what plot twists or betrayals are going to come. You don't expect to be able to change how the plot is going to go. But when it is SO obvious that something isn't right about the main characters objectives, it sucks to not be able to change their course. You have to keep on going towards what they plan on doing, even when you know they are making a bad decision. I had my suspicions about Airy since she was acting like a crackhead about getting the Wind Crystal awakened. In retrospect a party member asking if Cryst Fairies actually exist was suspicious too. Then the Lord Derosso's speech made me want to point out "Right there, he's describing something right there with you. Are you even fucking listening to him?

The Lord Marshal's backstory is one that would literally be an excellent story for the main character of a rpg. But we are to then accept that he has surrounded himself with sociopaths and sycophants? Barras Lehr seemed to be a homocidal rapist and Holly White appeared to be a homocidal torturer. The Black Mage is a homocidal pyromaniac. Later the Lord Marshal mentions that he meant for Edea to tame and lead the Sky Pirates. How the fuck is that supposed to happen with a bunch of sociopaths? Heinkel seemed to have a screw loose. The sociopathy and lengths the Asterisk wielder's in Florem take are next level depravity. Qada was allowed to mass murder and torture people for who knows how long. Victoria is a unstable psychopathic baby. How the fuck did she make it on the council of six? At this point Victor just seems obsessed with Victoria over everything else. The narrative of the game also falls apart if the Eternian's just explained what they were fucking doing.

So now that leads me to where I am, Chapter 5. I hit the part everyone hates.
I'm now trying to go through the sidequest of rebattling all of the Asterisk wielders before awakening the crystals again. It seemed like they tried to soften the appearances of Barras, Holly, and Heinkel. So far I'm going in the order of how I fought them before. I just finished Ancheim's bosses.
 
Trojita said:
So now that leads me to where I am, Chapter 5. I hit the part everyone hates.
I'm now trying to go through the sidequest of rebattling all of the Asterisk wielders before awakening the crystals again. It seemed like they tried to soften the appearances of Barras, Holly, and Heinkel. So far I'm going in the order of how I fought them before. I just finished Ancheim's bosses.
Click to expand...

Good luck with that. Report back when you hit Chapter 6.
 
I didn't actually finish it, I got up to the section just after the pillar of light and ran out of steam trying to learn a load of vampire abilities. I think it really could have been a great game with better dungeon designs and a bit more enemy variety. Tiz and Agnes are pretty boring characters as well but I liked the other two
 
FluxWaveZ said:
Good luck with that. Report back when you hit Chapter 6.
Click to expand...

Should hopefully go pretty fast. I grinded my characters around Eternia in chapter 4 and lvl'd them all to 99 and all job's max level except for Dark Knight (which I didn't have yet) and the remaining job I have yet to earn.
 
First half: Great

Second half: Fuck

The final boss is really hard too, so don't rush through the bad half if you want to beat the game.

Also,

Finale: Also great. Shame it's behind all of that padding.

This music is amazing. The new Imperial March
 
My recommendation is to skip almost every sidequest in chapter 5 and 6 except for
Conjurer asterisk sidequest in chapter 6
. Then you do every sidequest in chapter 7 and 8, because I think those are pretty awesome.
 
To me, I loved it. I can see the backlash for the second part but I honestly felt none of it. To me, it wasn't a second half but rather a bonus end content for secrets and such. It reminds me of some of the older RPGs where you go the extra mile, conquering boring but slightly tougher dungeons and maybe a boss or two to get the secret ending scene or whatever. I was strong enough that I pretty much cruised through most of it and I actually found the changes interesting rather than boring. It was a short little extra for me.
 
I thought the second half was really cool, seeing all the same bosses and different sides of their personalities and all.
A lot of the fights reminded me of some post-game challenged
 
First game that I bailed on when I was so close to the end. Will probably get round to finishing it but the repetition killed any momentum I had.
 
I loved the back half of this game haha, I literally did everything every time. I thought it was a really cool experiment with the narrative. Between *that* and the book, I love the ways they explored the characters and the history of the world and really delivered it in a way that would be difficult in another medium. I know alot of folks weren't into it but I love the first game for it.
 
Trojita said:
You have to keep on going towards what they plan on doing, even when you know they are making a bad decision.
Click to expand...

You actually don't. However, for some reason, refusing to go along is considered the "Normal Ending" and not the true ending, for which you have to pretend to be completely Agnes and just do what you're told. Urgh.
 
The title screen has been staring you in the face since minute 1, daring you to spoil yourself by reading what it actually says.

I loved Bravely Default, despite the story's hard left turn into a ravine towards the end. Probably gonna give it a go again at some point this year.
 
SolVanderlyn said:
First half: Great

Second half: Fuck

The final boss is really hard too, so don't rush through the bad half if you want to beat the game.

Also,

Finale: Also great. Shame it's behind all of that padding.

This music is amazing. The new Imperial March
Click to expand...

I skipped all of the bad half's alternate fights and was still properly leveled because they make it incredibly easy to power level around that point with the last asterisk. You don't need 99 but you can hit it really quickly.
 
Still in Chapter 5. Finished up the Florem sidequest boss fights. I'm currently in the middle of doing all of the Heisenburg ones.

It was good to see that the
Red Mage's bluff that the Lord Marshal knew about his date rape scheme was proven to be false based on the notes you collect written by the Red Mage. I'm guessing Einheria's sisters are being influenced by the items coming off the creatures they are killing (would explain why both seem batshit insane) or the Red Mage using his cologne to force them to start committing the creature genocide. Einheria mentions that they started getting worse when they started complying with the orders to kill the creatures.
 
KMRiku said:
My recommendation is to skip almost every sidequest in chapter 5 and 6 except for
Conjurer asterisk sidequest in chapter 6
. Then you do every sidequest in chapter 7 and 8, because I think those are pretty awesome.
Click to expand...

I was going to post exactly this. Chapter 5 and 6 aren't worth the effort (except for the spoiler); there's really no story.

Chapter 7 and 8, on the other hand, have probably the best JRPGS boss battles I've ever played. It's these chapters where Bravely Default's battle system truly shines as the masterpiece it is.
 
If you like this stuff, Bravely Second checks back in with all these Asterisk holders again and they're the best part of that title.
 
Wagram said:
I really hope more people pick up Bravely Second. It took almost everything in the original and made it better.
Click to expand...

Shame the OST wasn't up to par with the original, but I liked what I've played of Second. Still need to finish it at some point.
 
Trojita said:
I was surprised when it was implied but unsaid that I was killing the Asterisk holders.
Click to expand...

I don't think that's true. For one thing, most of them are back in the sequel which takes place a couple of years after the events of the first game. (entire game spoilers)
It is implied however that those who did not make it to the sequel died during the events of the first game. That would be Qada (killed by Kamiizumi after he vowed to conquer the world), Victoria (her being unstable and losing the last fight probably led to her death), Victor (same as Victoria since he was more or less living for her sake), Lord DeRosso and Sage Yulyana (I think DeRosso sacrifices himself during the final boss fight, Yulyana dies off-stage prior to the events of the second game). There's also Khint but I don't know what happened to that guy. Maybe he gave up being a mercenary to take care of his daughter.

Trojita said:
Of course when you replay a game or watch a movie you know what plot twists or betrayals are going to come. You don't expect to be able to change how the plot is going to go. But when it is SO obvious that something isn't right about the main characters objectives, it sucks to not be able to change their course. You have to keep on going towards what they plan on doing, even when you know they are making a bad decision. I had my suspicions about Airy since she was acting like a crackhead about getting the Wind Crystal awakened. In retrospect a party member asking if Cryst Fairies actually exist was suspicious too. Then the Lord Derosso's speech made me want to point out "Right there, he's describing something right there with you. Are you even fucking listening to him?
Click to expand...

Oh but you are able to change their course.
Try something unusual the next time you have to awaken a crystal.

Trojita said:
The Lord Marshal's backstory is one that would literally be an excellent story for the main character of a rpg. But we are to then accept that he has surrounded himself with sociopaths and sycophants? Barras Lehr seemed to be a homocidal rapist and Holly White appeared to be a homocidal torturer. The Black Mage is a homocidal pyromaniac. Later the Lord Marshal mentions that he meant for Edea to tame and lead the Sky Pirates. How the fuck is that supposed to happen with a bunch of sociopaths? Heinkel seemed to have a screw loose. The sociopathy and lengths the Asterisk wielder's in Florem take are next level depravity. Qada was allowed to mass murder and torture people for who knows how long. Victoria is a unstable psychopathic baby. How the fuck did she make it on the council of six? At this point Victor just seems obsessed with Victoria over everything else. The narrative of the game also falls apart if the Eternian's just explained what they were fucking doing.
Click to expand...

The characters initially seem evil but (Chapter 7-8 spoilers)
the more parallel worlds you get into, the more you understand who is good and who is actual scum. You find out most of the driving motives of these characters and in some of the worlds they are even kind to you. People like De Rosa, Qada and Profiteur though, they are legitimate pieces of shit in every world they're in.
 
Hmm it just seemed weird how most of the time after you beat the Asterisk Wielders the first time they disappear like they are gone completely (sometimes with a dying speech). Only a couple seemed to get away like
Praline
.
 
Wagram said:
I really hope more people pick up Bravely Second. It took almost everything in the original and made it better.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't go that far. Bravely Default is one of my favorite games in recent memory. I see Second as one step down from Default, still excellent but not quite as good as the first one.
 
Bravely Default, why would you do that to me? I'm still pissed(you know why), so much so that I didn't even bother finishing the game, or picking up the second.
 
Bravely Default is such an excellent game and does so many things right, even with the second half: the battle system, the characters, letting you speed up / slow down encounters and grinding, the soundtrack - so many things it does really well. Glad to see you're enjoying it, and do make sure to stick around to the end of Chapter 8.

Also, (and again), the soundtrack is amazing. Between the pause menu theme and the overworld theme they're so soothing and comforting to listen to even when not playing the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSG1s0XyUxY&list=PLJk2mw2kvnXXQyhaISM3QRlhq7xJqTEez&index=2
 
Chapters 7/8 have best fights in the game so it saddens me when people bash the second half

though then again I wouldn't really call it a second half since chapters 5-8 are super short compared to 1-4.
 
End of Chapter 6:
I'm starting to question if the main characters have learning developmental problems.
 
About the title. The day after you guys mentioned it I went and looked at the game's title screen again. I had an extreme lack of sleep and couldn't make out what you guys were talking about. The next day I was walking into work and thought of it again and immediately realized what you guys were talking about.

I'm at the boss rush. Still trying to find a team combination I like. I tried another person's party class combo, but got slaughtered in one of the later fights.

I also did the "false ending". Didn't realize you could
keep hitting X after the crystal was primed
. Earlier I thought maybe not overpowering the crystal to begin with would have triggered something.

Yo WTF at Airy. Fucking disgusting when she transformed.
 
Funnily enough it wasn't the game structure that made this game difficult for me to finish, it was finally running into a problem I seem to have with a lot of JRPG combat systems. Boss fights reached a point where I would have to come up with some kind of several turn cycle of attacks and heals to keep the entire party alive after massive AoE attacks, and then it reached a point where I would need to do ten or more of those cycles, without deviation, to win a boss fight, and the "challenge", as it was, was hoping some RNG somewhere didn't fuck up one of the cycles and make me start over. It made the game a real slog at parts.

Am I misunderstanding something fundamental about these sorts of fights?
 
The Technomancer said:
Funnily enough it wasn't the game structure that made this game difficult for me to finish, it was finally running into a problem I seem to have with a lot of JRPG combat systems. Boss fights reached a point where I would have to come up with some kind of several turn cycle of attacks and heals to keep the entire party alive after massive AoE attacks, and then it reached a point where I would need to do ten or more of those cycles, without deviation, to win a boss fight, and the "challenge", as it was, was hoping some RNG somewhere didn't fuck up one of the cycles and make me start over. It made the game a real slog at parts.

Am I misunderstanding something fundamental about these sorts of fights?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it sounds like you need to put Utsusemi on repeat and auto battle those dragons son. That's my Ninja way, dattebayo!
 
Tsuna said:
Chapters 7/8 have best fights in the game so it saddens me when people bash the second half

though then again I wouldn't really call it a second half since chapters 5-8 are super short compared to 1-4.
Click to expand...

This. While it's not unreasonable to criticise the story (Okay, the story in itself isn't bad, the way the story impacts gameplay is iffy), the way it mixes things up towards the end leads to some absolutely brilliant fights - indeed, some of the best turn-based RPG combat gameplay I've seen outside of the Shin Megami Tensei family.
 
I think this is sorta loosely implied by the other responses, but I feel like a lot of the blowback for the second half of the game comes from the compulsion to want to do every single sidequest in an rpg, and that runs contrary to how the game is structured.

I am probably misremembering the exact details, but I felt that the ideal way to do the chapters were:

Chapter 5 -
do a sidequest or two to realize that they're the same except a single line of confused dialogue, then just do all the crystals, which takes around 20 minutes if you turn off encounters.

Chapter 6 -
just do all the crystals, another 20 minutes

Chapter 7 -
FINALLY all the sidequests change into interesting unique story moments

Chapter 8 -
a really cool built in boss rush mode, that really showcases the pretty clever unique encounters you can make using the class system.

I think in particular, the headaches a lot of people encountered could have been prevented if the game gave you more unique dialogue for the sidequests early on. A lot of people are compelled to do all the sidequests available to them no matter what, and there needs to be a concession to give some sort of narrative reward.

I love the second half of game and how the structure works in the context of the story. I think the idea behind chapter five and six is to drop hints that
this endless cycle is going to continue
unless
you realize you can defy Airy and stop blindly doing what you're told in an RPG and start jamming on the 'x' button
.

I thought the second half of the game is an extremely clever deconstruction of traditional rpgs, and it genuinely makes me sad to see so many people get burnt out on it.

I'm glad you're enjoying it, OP!
 
meltingparappa said:
I think in particular, the headaches a lot of people encountered could have been prevented if the game gave you more unique dialogue for the sidequests early on. A lot of people are compelled to do all the sidequests available to them no matter what, and there needs to be a concession to give some sort of narrative reward.
Click to expand...

It could have looped one or two fewer times, or they could have added more unique dialogue - and, this is important - useful rewards. I know this would be hard to implement because they don't want any items to be missable, but considering by that point in the game you already have the tools to power level yourself to 99 quickly, experience and JP is totally useless, and the items they toss you are consumables or weapons and armor you already have and don't need. The player starts to ask themselves not only "why am I doing something I already did", but "is this progress". If there's progress, they'll have a higher threshold for repeat content.

So really, the solution would have been at least one less loop and a reason to do sidequests from a gameplay standpoint and not just for "what if" interesting dialogue.
 
To be honest, I wished they went all-in with it and did it like (Suzimiya Haruhi S2 spoilers)
Endless 8. Basically let the game loop forever until you break a crystal and that's the true ending. The current final boss at Chapter 8 can be a bonus boss instead that scales with the number of loops for people seeking a challenge.

I think this makes it more true to what the game is trying to tell you (Don't follow blindly) and also makes for a better story. And the feedback from people who didn't realise would be hilarious. Imagine if people looped like 20 times before realising the solution.
 
They were able to muster a single character trait between four characters. I won't spoil whether or not it gets run into the ground.
 
Draggyrider said:
I think this makes it more true to what the game is trying to tell you (Don't follow blindly) and also makes for a better story. And the feedback from people who didn't realise would be hilarious.
Click to expand...
It is an interesting decision to make it so that
breaking the cycle only gets you the normal ending, instead of the true one
.

But you see, you must
summon your courage and "bravely" "default" to the true villain's master plan, in order to lure him out and defeat him
! Or that's what I tell myself so that the title make a single lick of sense.
 
I finished the boss rush. Whoosh that was difficult. WTF was that fight against the spell casters and Qada.

I'm not sure if I should try the boss rush again. Is it this time where all the fights are literally back to back?
 
I beat the boss before the last boss last night. Didn't have enough time to finish the game last night, but tonight I will.
 
Trojita said:
I finished the boss rush. Whoosh that was difficult. WTF was that fight against the spell casters and Qada.
Click to expand...

yNCTOUJ.gif


Such a sense of accomplishment. GOOD JOB.
 
Bravely Default is an excellent example of a game that I was playing through, having tons of fun, and then randomly lost ALL interest at one point. I didn't even get to the hellacious end parts that people hate so much. So weird.
 
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