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[EndMerit]

Alternatively: LTTP: Bravely Default - I can do it. I will do it 9 times.


So I reached an ending of Bravely Default. All things considered, what an amazing modern take to a classic Final Fantasy-like RPGs. The game has the most interesting turn-based battle system I've seen in any RPG, and it even takes advantage of pretty much all the hardware-gimmicks of 3DS.
It's a shame that the whole package is hindered by all-over-the-place writing and poor -to say the least- endgame design.


Story:

The game was released 4 years ago and has a sequel, plus the major issue of the game is fairly well-known, so spoilers should be fine by now? Anyway, spoilers in next paragraph.

So I reached an ending. I figured out what was going on with Crystal Orthodoxy and Airy during Chapter 5 (that's 2nd world) and skipped straight to the Finale. I know that there's supposed to be few more time loops and I definitely got the feeling that I figured out what to do too early, because some of the things my party suddenly knew and were told in Finale came out of nowhere (apparently Airy had killed the party several times in other dimensions?), and overall the story's closure wasn't as great as I thought it should be.
After credits rolling and game bringing me back to the moment before destroying the crystal, quick google search confirmed my suspicions that what I beat was "false ending" and that you are expected to do it at some point to reach true ending.
So now I'm back at Chapter 5. I'm someone who doesn't mind grinding a lot and likes long RPGs so I'm still fairly tolerant towards the story's structure, but I can definitely understand where the hate towards this game comes from. If I know enough by the end of Chapter 5 to skip to the ending and still understand what's going on, there's absulutely no need for 8 chapters.
(Oh, I just noticed how the subtitle changes in the title screen. Nice.)

/spoilers

Okay, what about the actual story?

Just talk, you bastards! You could have saved like 40 hours of gameplay by demanding explanations!

The story is a little generic (4 warriors of light awakening 4 crystals being the literal plot of Final Fantasy I) and while it tries to start going into interesting places, endgame fails to deliver. Some side characters and most bosses boil down to their respective character traits, and while some of them make a good use of that (Ringabel, Black Mage, Merchant, Red Mage, Ninja, Diva, Proprietress) some are more on the cringy side (Monk, White Mage, Hunter, Summoner, Salve-Maker...). As is often the case, actual adults of the cast (Braev, Kamiizumi, Lord DeRosso, Sage Yulyana) understand best what is going on and are the most interesting characters.
Speaking of which, I'd argue that the lore is more interesting than the story. Hearing about confrontations and co-operation between DeRosso and Yulyana has pretty much been the high point of the game for me.


Gameplay:

What an awesome battle system! Brave and Default commands by themselves open up lots of ways to predict enemy AI's movements or to go on all-out offensive. Add to that your ability to mix jobs, job commands and abilities freely and suddenly it's only up to your imagination to come up with broken movesets that render you invincible while sweeping encounters in 1 turn (I'm rocking mastered Pirate Job with MP Free in a Pinch-ability with Tiz, with Knuckle Lore as extra kick. Agnes and Ringabel have Spiritmaster Job Command with Stillness unlocked).

Equipment Aptitude is little vague to me. It seems like usually you can just ignore your aptitude numbers if that gear's stats are better. It is a little odd that in specific circumstances your white mage may have better stats wielding bows or daggers than rods and staves, for example. Maybe the game could/should have added bigger punishments to using gear you have no aptitude towards? Either way, right now it feels like the system hasn't been implemented to it's full potential.


3DS Features:

Speaking of full potential, huge shout-out to the developers for taking advantage of pretty much every gimmick 3DS has to offer! 3D works well with the game's artstyle and looks especially nice in towns with their pre-rendered environments. AR cards are... well, they're pretty insignificant, but they're there. Streetpass and sleep mode give a interesting narrative reason for Norende's reconstruction (and even if you don't have friends you can get new villagers daily by updating your game data), which in turn allows you to buy endgame gear from travelling merchant. Not to mention sending and receiving moves to and from your friends can go as far as to trivialise otherwise surprisingly difficult game. And then there's Bravely Second, which is pretty cool gimmick for getting that one extra push in battles, if you ever need it. Apparently there's some other way besides sleep mode for getting those extra turns, but nobody has ever figured it out or even tried to do it any other way, so who knows...


And that's pretty much my experience. Story unfortunately hinges on people not talking enough to each other, but all-in-all Chapters 1-4 are good, and if you like long RPGs and grinding you can tolerate rest of it, but it is pretty undeniable and unfortunate that latter part of the game wastes your time. Personally though, I don't feel so burned out that I wouldn't buy and play Bravely Second sometime in the future.

 

[jorgejjvr]

Loved the game

Yes, the ending drags on.

But I had about 35 or so hours into the game, and perhaps the last 2-3 was the repetition part, definitely not as a big deal as people make it out to be

I loved the battle system so much, that I didn't even mind that much honestly

Still gotta finish bravely second! So far, it is such as good, if not better.

 

[Qurupeke]

The game certainly drags, but yeah, it's not as bad as people make it sound. Lovely artstyle, fantastic gameplay and fun characters turn this into a very charming game, it's a shame that this particular misstep stigmatized it.

 

[Emu-Fred]

Yea that "Endless Eight" nonsense must have pushed away a lot people from completing the game.

But nonetheless Bravely Default was still a great game

Spoiler

"Airy Lies" blew my mind

I would definitely recommend Bravely Second, it builds and learns from its predecessor.

 

[Mister Zimbu]

I liked that the game required you to learn the battle system by the end and find good synergies for your party (unlike most other JRPGs were you just power your way through it), but I didn't like how by the end it seemed you needed to outright cheese the battle system to beat the game.

The last couple runthroughs seemed to get to the point where you pretty much needed to find a combo that made your party invincible 100% of the fight or the boss would just one-shot your entire party regardless of their gear or levels.

I can imagine it's pretty difficult to get something in between the two, though.

How does Bravely Second compare to the first game?

 

[Opa-Pa]

So if I'm reading it right, you have yet to get the true ending, right? If so, pretty curious that you praise the inclusion of all 3DS features haha, you're in for a surprise.

Honestly my only gripe with that part of the game is that they could have easily made it both more meaningful and optional if the message they tried to send made sense. I mean the point of it is that you're supposed to reject what you're told to do and make your own decision instead (Bravely Default), except... Doing that nets you a bad ending lol. And ironically the only way to get the true one is to blindly follow the obvious baddie until their plan is complete. If they had made it the other way around, it'd be pretty satisfying and the game would probably be remember as very clever, but eh, I powered through it in like 2 hours.

All in all tho, I thought the game was wonderful. Great music, fun job and battle systems, likeable characters for the most part, and decent story. I have yet to play the sequel, mainly because the music seems to be a huge step down and the protagonist seems annoying, but I'll get to it eventually.

 

[Lord Azrael]

People who dropped the game at the first time loop missed the best chapters of the game. Chapters 7 and 8 have the best boss battles in the game. And by that point, cutscene interruptions are minimal so it's just you and the battle system. The story and writing were bad all the way through so no loss on that front, but even then I feel that the post-time loop story introduced more interesting ideas than the first half of the game.

 

[Intel_89]

I liked that the game required you to learn the battle system by the end and find good synergies for your party (unlike most other JRPGs were you just power your way through it), but I didn't like how by the end it seemed you needed to outright cheese the battle system to beat the game.

The last couple runthroughs seemed to get to the point where you pretty much needed to find a combo that made your party invincible 100% of the fight or the boss would just one-shot your entire party regardless of their gear or levels.

I can imagine it's pretty difficult to get something in between the two, though.

How does Bravely Second compare to the first game?

It's a great follow up that gives context to some of the events of the original. There are new jobs that give the combat a new flavour, the soundtrack is inferior to the original but not as bad as some make it to be and the new cast of characters play off each other rather well. I like it better than the original, so far it's my GOTY.

 

[Whizkid7]

I remember not being too bothered by all the repetition because the repeated sidequest battles helped flesh the side characters out all a lot more. It made me end up liking almost all of them (fuck you though, DeRosa, and especially you Qada!) The true boss battle and ending sequence though? Damn, that made it all worth it.

I've been enjoying Second quite a bit since then. Some of the new classes are really fun to play around with, and the sidequests this time have some real meat to them.

 

[Lumination]

Yep, the writing in the second half drops off a cliff. Luckily, the world building, gameplay mechanics, and charm from the intro to the end of the first half were enough to keep me going.

I wish more modern jrpgs would take a lesson or two about customization -- things like encounter rate toggling and the class system.

 

[Fandangox]

The chapter 5-8 thing was annoying, and while I get what they were trying to do with the execution was pretty bad.

That said, I didn't mind cause the best goddamnned boss battles in the game were found in those chapters. This game was really good in making some bosses feel like challenging puzzles you gotta make workaround strategies for, kind of like fusing demons for a specific boss in SMT games.

 

[DarkConfidant]

From what I've heard, Chapters 5-8 are what are stopping me from buying this.

 

[Marow]

I don't mind what the game set out to do - in fact, I absolutely love the idea. I haven't experienced anything remotely similar and, for me, it takes guts to implement it.

That said, it kinda falls flat for me.

Spoiler

Gameplay aside, the characters just don't react to anything and eventually start repeating themselves all the time. Makes no sense narratively!

 

[royox]

The game was released 4 years ago

WHERE IS ALL THAT TIME GOING???????


OP, you don't know what true FEAR is till you get to Ch8 battles.

 

[Jebral]

This is my all time favorites jrpg gameplay wise. As stated earlier, the customization available is fantastic. The job system that as almost identical to FFV / Tactics is fantastic. The story seems like awful throwaway cutsie blathering to me, but the story isn't why I showed up. I never managed to finish this, and it's been a while since I've played. Is the sequel good enough to warrant a purchase if I've forgotten most of the first? Like gameplay improvements, etc?

 

[Lorcain]

The long ending is definitely a grind, but man, those boss battles are good (and tough). The final 2 bosses forced me to dig deep on party job composition and synergistic skill use to get past them.

I was frustrated with chapters 5-8 at the time, but in hindsight, the battle system is so good that it shouldn't keep people from trying it. BD is responsible for one of my favorite jrpg female characters, Edea. And she's even funnier in Bravely Second.

 

[Lilo_D]

The long ending is definitely a grind, but man, those boss battles are good (and tough). The final 2 bosses forced me to dig deep on party job composition and synergistic skill use to get past them.

I was frustrated with chapters 5-8 at the time, but in hindsight, the battle system is so good that it shouldn't keep people from trying it. BD is responsible for one of my favorite jrpg female characters, Edea. And she's even funnier in Bravely Second.

mugrgr

 

[To Far Away Times]

It could have been an all time classic if not for the later chapters.

The game would have been plenty long too up to that point.

That being said it is still probably the best JRPG of this generation so far. The battle system, art style, and music are really, really good.

 

[Aters]

This is why you don't get a visual novel writer to write your RPG story. Some ideas only work in VNs.

 

[Arkeband]

I blew through the groundhog day chapters in like 45 minutes by skipping all of the altered optional battles. Worth it.

I still think they could have pulled off the later chapters gimmick with fewer loops. Consider that they arbitrarily chose the number 6, they could have easily picked "4" and everyone would have still gotten the idea.

I still enjoyed BD1 more than BD2, despite BD2 getting weirder and more meta with the plot. I didn't like the new characters. And I think BD3, if it ever happens, is straight up jumping the shark.

 

[Bladenic]

I still haven't finished the game. I believe I was in chapter 7 and the bosses mopped the floor with me. Can I realistically just ignore them and continue? Kinda just wanna beat it, don't care to fight the dudes grouped together. Don't feel like grinding or anything like that.

 

[royox]

I still haven't finished the game. I believe I was in chapter 7 and the bosses mopped the floor with me. Can I realistically just ignore them and continue? Kinda just wanna beat it, don't care to fight the dudes grouped together. Don't feel like grinding or anything like that.

You can skip by beating the 4 crystal bosses on each chapter.

But regarding the merged boss battles. It's not about grinding but about knowing a good strategy to beat them. Ch9 battles are a MUST for anybody loving turn and job based JRPG.

 

[EndMerit]

Already got to Chapter 6. To the game's credit, it seems to me like repeating worlds is remarkably faster. Then again, the first thing I did after starting Chapter 5 was flying to Eternia and grinding my party to level 90, so my perception of game's intended speed and difficulty is little twisted right now.
Lots of people hyping up chapters 7 and 8 in this thread though, so hopefully everything will balance back soon.

I wish more modern jrpgs would take a lesson or two about customization -- things like encounter rate toggling and the class system.

Oh yeah, I didn't even mention difficulty customization in the first post! I'm really liking that you can just amp your encounter rate to +100% when you want to do some farming and power-leveling. In contrast, I'm REALLY liking that I can choose to run straight to the bosses during sidequests without worrying about random encounters.

I don't mind what the game set out to do - in fact, I absolutely love the idea. I haven't experienced anything remotely similar and, for me, it takes guts to implement it.

That said, it kinda falls flat for me.

Spoiler

Gameplay aside, the characters just don't react to anything and eventually start repeating themselves all the time. Makes no sense narratively!

I'm with you there. When it comes to videogames as a form of media, I'm really intersted with the concept of sequels and New Game+-modes. Personally, I think that fighting Red in Pokemon Gold/Silver is pretty much the coolest thing videogames have ever done.

What I'm trying to say is, Chapters 5-8 are essentially New Game+, with your party already having experienced what's to come, and acting accordingly... to a degree. The game doesn't do (or hasn't done so far, for me) anything interesting with the concept, and also does it too many times, but the concept itself is super interesting to me.

WHERE IS ALL THAT TIME GOING???????

Okay to be fair, the game wasn't localized until late 2013 for EU and early 2014 for US.

 

[EndMerit]

Just finished the game for good, so against my better judgement I'll allow myself one thread bumb.

Lots of people in this thread hyped up Chapters 7 and 8, and sure enough I really did enjoy their remixed and combined bossfights (Chapter 8's final boss-rush was sweet). That's why it's even greater shame that those chapters have narratively no reason to exist. In fact, if Chapter 6 was the last chapter before finale, I imagine there would be way fewer people complaining about endgame wasting your time. 3 worlds would have been (and was) a great sweet spot for driving the narrative of parallel worlds home to the player, while also giving them enough time and story to figure out on their own that you shouldn't trust Airy and that you can -and should- break the crystals. Instead we got 2 extra chapters with game's general tone doing a complete 180. Shame, because those chapters were good but unfitting and kind of unwelcome.

That's all the negativity I have to say, because that ending though!

So if I'm reading it right, you have yet to get the true ending, right? If so, pretty curious that you praise the inclusion of all 3DS features haha, you're in for a surprise.

Boy was I ever!

(Incoming spoilers once again)
I already praised all the 3DS features the game uses (streetpass, sleep mode, sending and receiving moves etc.), and for the final showdown the game decided to double down and pull few more hardware gimmicks AND make them part of the narrative!

So the ultimate behind-the-scenes bad guy, Ouroboros, had Airy linking thousands of parallel worlds together to gain enough energy to break through to realm of gods, Celestial Realm. When you begin the final battle against him, he's powerful enough to effortlessly destroy parallel worlds to power himself up and beat you down. But then, when your party is losing all hope, you start getting support and encouragement from other you:s from other players' game worlds. Out of hundreds of thousands of people who played Bravely Default, you've encountered few via streetpass and internet connection, and now those worlds are cheering you on!

And as a one final escalation up to 11, when all that has happened and you're few attacks away from beating Ouroboros, your 3DS's camera activates and suddenly you see yourself inside this tear in space while Ouroboros talks about wanting to reach that realm of gods. You already had your suspicions, but that's your absolute confirmation that the "Celestial Realm" is your world.
Ouroboros is millions of years old interdimensional deity capable of easily destroying worlds and to him you are a God.



...And soon enough, when the game is over and even credits are about to end, that same power of God, power of the player, leaves Tiz behind, and he understands and accepts it. The moment when Tiz sat down on the graveyard and the red spark left his body... I understood exactly what was going on, and took my own hands off my 3DS.


And then you unlock that amazing Bravely Second 3D teaser movie!
Remember when I said I don't feel so burned out that I wouldn't buy Bravely Second eventually? Scratch that half-assed sentiment, now I'm super hyped to buy it even sooner!

What an awesome ending to overall pretty great game.

 

[ZeroX03]

Don't rush to play Bravely Second OP. You'd risk burn out AND there's certain things about the game that'll probably hit better if you've put some time between the titles. I'm glad for the two year break between them. Can't quite get into it without spoilers. Also the preview movie of Second isn't exactly misleading but it feels tonally different to the final product.

Considering how much you love meta elements, you're gonna adore Second btw.

From what I've heard, Chapters 5-8 are what are stopping me from buying this.

They're like two hours long combined. People drastically exaggerate how long they are because they're doing optional content.

 

[Adam Prime]

OP you inspired me to give Bravely Second a try...