Bravely Default - Nintendo 3DS

Bravely Default is a game with a weird name, but an extremely familiar taste. Like an old, familiar shirt that you used to love back in the day, but put away because you wore it so much that the seams began coming loose and you didn't want to tear it into tatters. Bravely Default is a new name for a game series that literally everyone knew about, and almost as many loved... Final Fantasy. Intended to be a sequel to the Nintendo DS game, Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, Bravely Default evokes a very familiar imagery with its usage of Firaga and Holy to the plot elements of the world's balance revolving around four magical crystals. Bravely Default is a turn based Japanese RPG. I say this first because, while there are those who greatly enjoy this style of game, there are also a lot of people similarly turned off by such a thing, preferring a more action-packed or organic experience. Those who aren't dissuaded by the game being a turn based RPG should definitely read on, though, because this game has easily one of the most different combat systems when approaching a traditional turn based RPG in years. The game's name, Bravely Default, was actually derived from the nomenclature used in the game's combat system: Default allows a character to guard and reduce received damage, passing their turn without doing an action to stock up an additional BP for their next turn. Brave, on the other hand, lets you use BP to perform attacks, heal spells and various other actions. What is most interesting here is the fact that you can take an advance on future BP up to three times- Since characters begin battle with 0 BP, players can immediately borrow up to 3 future turns at once to do four consecutive attacks per character for a quick win, all at the risk of defaulting on their loan (get it?) and risking defeat if the enemy survives because your characters now has to skip 3 turns in a row. The kind of depth this combat system allows is pretty impressive, even though it sounds fairly basic on the surface. Players can spam attacks during random battles because skipping future turns won't matter if the fight is won on the first- however, when players come across bosses that are also able to Brave and Default, a lot more strategy is needed in order to overcome the foe. Some stronger foes may be extremely difficult to take down if the healer can't go into negative BP ranges to heal up the party before a big attack, while other bosses may do severely damaging attacks for multiple turns, requiring that players make smart use of the Default command to reduce damage, spending their BP on attacking, healing and buffing all in the same turn. Another important segment of the game lies in its job system. Your party of four characters can each use one of 24 different jobs to overcome foes, and those jobs extend from some Final Fantasy favorites, such as Black Mage, White Mage and Thief, but also some more unusual jobs like Merchant, Pirate and even a Vampire class. Some jobs will rely on their abilities to do damage, some focus on healing, some boost stats or have various other effects. Characters are able to level up each of these jobs to learn new abilities, up to 14 in each, and players are able to select support skills from a job they have unlocked, which can lead to a Black Mage still having access to White Mage abilities to round out a moveset. Speaking of, there are a number of conveniences players may notice as they're going through the game: You're able to modify the encounter rate, turning them off altogether or doubling the random battles you come across. Players who want to grind are also able to turn off EXP, money and job point gain if you don't want to make the game too easy. The aesthetic values of Bravely Default are gorgeous and will probably be the first things new players notice: The backgrounds are incredibly well designed, looking like watercolor or oil paintings, and even the character models aren't too shabby. The music is among the best composed soundtracks anyone will find on the 3DS while the voice acting isn't so bad in English, but there's always the option to use the Japanese VA track if you'd prefer. All in all, it's a pretty great game. There is a pretty hefty amount of down time during Chapters 5 and up because the game requires you go back through the temple dungeons again in order to progress the story.... 4 more times, and the story doesn't really change much until reaching the third or so time, so I could imagine this would turn some players off. All in all, I'd recommend this game to just about anyone. It's a very solid turn-based RPG, and if you're among the crowd that likes to dungeon crawl to great music then Bravely Default is most likely the game for you.

The story of the game is great, the game is incredibly long (for those of us RPG fans that love an in depth adventure), there are plenty of side quests to keep you interested. There's very little grindiness and the best feature is that you can completely control monster encounters with a setting. Ever get frustrated that you get so many monster encounters in a dungeon that you forget the direction you're moving between battles and accidentally backtrack? Or a dungeon is so long that by the time you get to the big boss, you have nothing left and you either waste all your best items or get pummeled? You can set random battles to -100% (so 0 battles) but you can also set it to +100% so if you really do want to grind you can have battle after battle...preferably right next to a town so you can heal and save and do it some more. The title is also the key mechanic in the game. The battle system is a typical turn based non-tile based RPG system (think the original FF for NES), but with a twist. You can "Brave" or "Default" each round in addition to your abilities. To "Brave" means to do more than one action (up to 4 by default, but there are future skills to change that and effects that limit it). To "Default" means you'll be blocking (lower damage from monsters), you'll skip your turn, but you'll store one of your brave points. So that means you can spend 3 turns blocking, then do 1 turn using 4 abilities, then immediately start blocking again. If you "Brave" without storing moves, you will then be NOT blocking, but be unable to attack until you've burned off that debt. So against small easy battles, you can obviously brave everyone without defaulting first. Each Brave/Default is on a character by character basis so you can develop very good strategies around who does what when while the others are defaulting or braving. The level up system is a typical job system where each job for each character can be leveled independently. You get to use the abilities from one other job you've leveled for a character in addition to their active job (example - you've leveled the white mage -- healer -- job, but your person is a black mage...so they can use white or black mage magic). But you also have support abilities (like + physical defense, or get extra brave points when attacked, etc.) that can be used from your other leveled jobs as well. If you really wanted to max jobs for people, you'd play forever...but it's not so slow to be frustrating and not where once you get a new job you're so far behind it'd be dumb to switch to it. Really a good gem. The story is linear and you really have a fixed set of characters, so if those pieces make an RPG better for you, you'll be disappointed. But the battle system is unique, the boss battles definitely take strategy rather than just attack attack attack while one person heals and the story is interesting and the dialogue is well done. Overall a great RPG.

If you like JRPGs then you will LOVE Bravely Default. They have taken old school Final Fantasy games as a base and then built new and innovative systems on top of it. They've made so many quality-of-life improvements on the JRPG template that I'm not sure I could go back to the old way. All that being said the second half of the game does take a risk, one that I personally think works for this game but could be considered very grindy. Pluses: 1) Job system is the best I've play in a JRPG. There are 24 jobs and each character levels up each job individually. Also each character has access to the skills from their job + one other job. Then on top of that they have access to passive abilities from ANY number of other jobs. The build diversity is incredible. It's the main reason why I was able to sink 85 hours into it. 2)The graphics are gorgeous. All of the settings look like painting, with tons of intricate design. Tons of unique characters and monsters 3)The characters are great. Your entire party is unique and likable if but a little cliche. After spending 85+ hours with them though I still like them. 4)The Brave/Default system is a nice addition to the standard turn-based combat. What makes it probably the most interesting is that the enemies can do it too. it adds a nice layer of strategy and can help speed up those times when you need to grind. Minuses 1) The story. The story isn't bad but it's not as good as the rest of the game and basically falls off the map for a few chapters only to return in the finale. Better pacing was needed 2)Side quests aren't rewarding in the 2nd half of the game. All of the side quests offer a nice challenge when tackled at a level-appropriate time. In the first part of the game the side quests are almost essential. However later in the game the challenge ramps up and the rewards become almost non-existent. 3)This is really minor but there could have been more musical diversity. Thankfully there IS some diversity in the combat music but it doesn't happen often enough.

If you are looking for a great RPG and loved the old turn based Final Fantasy games than you should pick this up. The game has a great story that fallows a group of teens that are trying to save the elemental crystals of the world. The Job system is really great. The game doesn't do the usual class system like other games, Instead you have different job that you get as you go through the game. each job can be leveled up with any character you like. So if you don't like that job with that character you can change the job anytime. Each character has different base stats but the jobs can decreases or increase these stats and give them different abilities. This is great as different players can play the game differently with what jobs that chose to give the characters. The job system is one reason I really enjoyed the game. The difficulty of the game isn't that bad and the encounter rates of enemies spawning can be change. So if you looking to to grind some EX you can change the encounter rate to +100% or you may just want to get to the next town without battling anything so you can put it at -100%. The encounter rate can be change from 100%, +50%, +-0%, -50%, or -100% which is really nice. The battles are really fun as you have an ability called brave where you can defend and wait a turn up to 4 if I recall correctly and than do 4 attacks in one turn. This lets you pull of nice combos and get some nice damage out. You can even attack up to 4 time in one turn with use using brave but than you will have to wait that many turns. So why do I give this 4 stars over 5. The reason is that its a really long time and if you want to know the whole story it can be a little bit repetitive. Other than that its a really great game and anyone who loves turn based RPGs should take a shot at this video game..

It's decent. More for older kids though.

Bravely Default is that type of game that reminds us of why we love Turn based RPGs so much. It does everything right, to the robust battle system, to the colorful cast of characters, to it's gorgeous world in 3D. This is a game that fans have been long awaiting ever since it's announcement in 2012, and the waiting period for it's upcoming sequal is a large gaping void. Bravely Default stars Tiz Arror, a young farmer who lives in the village Norende in a small kingdom. One day, a large dark-infused sinkhole completely destroys Norende, kills Tiz's younger brother and family, and strands the poor guy to the nearby city. When he awakens, he attempts to go back to his now-destroyed village and meets Agnes Oblige, a priestess known as the "Vestal of the Wind". Agnes reveals that the sinkhole was caused by dark forces inhabiting the world's crystals, and so, Tiz joins Agnes in her journey to awaken the 4 crystals and set everything right. Along the way, they are joined by the amnesiac Ringabel and Edea Lee, a former Sky Knight and daughter to the Grand Marshal (Whom is one of the antagonists of the game). I would like to say that the story could end there, but the thing is that Bravely Default has two different "Phases" to it: Everything BEFORE Chapter 4 and everything AFTER chapter 4. I say Chapter 4 because after that point the story takes a gigantic nosedive into Science Fiction territory. Ill elaborate on this later. BD's combat strikes a familar chord with old Final Fantasy titles. And make no mistake, this IS a Final Fantasy, just with a different name. Everything that made Final Fantasy great is here, and the game makes no attempt to disguise it. Battles will take the majority of your time and it is a classic turn based affair with a major caveat: Brave Points. Battles revolve around these points, as using any action will consume one. You automatically gain BP once per turn, but this is where it gets interesting. You have two more options in battle: Brave or Default. By Braving, you can sacrifice your BP to take an extra turn. By Defaulting, you can sacrifice your turn to gain extra BP. Put two and two together, and the battle system is all about how to manage BP, as well as HP and SP (The game's "mana"). This gets even more interesting as your enemies can use this system too, so battles will quickly escalate into a mindgame against the computer. There is also a few more systems to mention as well. The first is Norende. After the initial tutorial level, Tiz will gain permission to rebuild Norende. You do this by allocating workers to fix the various shops that used to populate the village. When you put a worker to a shop, an allocated amount of time will appear. This is Real World hours, so when it says it will take 99 hours to fulfill an objective, it really will take more than 4 days. You can put additional workers to the same shop to lower that amount of time. However, you gain workers by using the game's online features, or get lucky and use SpotPass to gain extra people. You can gain one person per day if you have a working internet to your 3DS. This is the game's major weakness in my opinion, as the shops can take forever to unlock, and later levels all have that 99 hour period. I wouldn't complain that much, but the problem is that this games version of Limit Breaks, called Special Attacks, is unlocked through this system. And in battle those attacks can mean everything. The second notable system is the Class System. Similar to Final Fantasy V, your 4 characters will get access to a total of 24 different classes throughout the game. You are also able to select a Sub Class, allowing one unit to use skills in two separate class pools. These classes range from the obligatory Knight, Thief, White Mage, Black Mage, Monk, and Red Mage (obvious FF staples) to a few more unique classes like the Spell Fencer, The Dark Knight, The Performer and The Spiritmaster. The classes is where the games battles really come into fray, as the varying abilities can change up how the entire battle unfolds. The performer for example uses skills to buff up their allies, with their final skill able to give everyone +1 BP. You also have access to Passive abilities as well, and they can range from stat boosts to in battle effects. Lastly, there is Bravely Second. Other than being the name of the game's sequal, it's a...unique system in the game. During any point in battle, you can press the START button and time will literally freeze, allowing your character to act even during their opponents turn. Second also allows you to breach the 9999 limit, allowing you to inflict massive damage. I managed to clock in 970,654 points of damage against the final boss. However, Second uses "Sleep Points" which is gained for every 8 HOURS that the 3DS is in Sleep Mode. Or you can go online and buy a drink that automatically gives you 3 SP. Yes, there are microtransactions, yet this system isn't that bad. Most bosses are easy enough to not force you to use this if you plan right, and the only time I really needed to use it is during the final boss. As for the story, it's a typical affair for FF titles. Yet one thing that must be mentioned is chapters 5-8. From Chapter 4 onward, the 4 characters get stuck in a seemingly endless time loop ala Groundhog's Day. This is where the game makes a giant nosedive, guarding each one of the crystals are 4 select bosses. This means that you have to fight the same 4 bosses a total of 5 TIMES. 4 of which IN A ROW. And each time the bosses get harder. I wouldn't mind a timeloop, but having to fight the same four bosses 5 times is a pain in the ass. Luckily, the game tries to put in subtle differences between each jump, and the mystery around the timeloop is ultimatly solved nearing the game's ending. As for the characters, it's one of the best parts. Especially the english dub. Good god, the dub. The dub in this game is one of the best English Dubs I have heard in a while, considering that Japanese Games like these don't normally get great dubs. Notable voices include Ringabel, The Grand Marshal, Lord DeRosso and Alternis the Black Knight. Tiz and Edea also have great voices, and it's fun seeing the characters play off each other. Unfortunatly, the dub falters when it comes to Agnes. Agnes has a natrually high voice, but for some odd reason, whenever she is sad, angry, pissed off, thrilled, and/or terrified, her voice jumps two octaves. This makes some of her lines UNBEARABLE as it sounds like shes screaming. You also have access to the original Japanese Dub, as well as Dubs in Spanish, Danish, French and a few others. Bravely Default is one of those few games that really need to be played. It is THE Final Fantasy title we have been waiting for since X. If you are looking for a great JRPG to put in about 105 hours (which is the amount of time I played this thing), then you should owe it to yourself to pick this game up.

I remember reading in an issue of Game Informer that the game would base the combat off of Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, and I was excited because I briefly watched one of my friends play that game, and I tried seeing what it was like on an emulator. When I found out there was a demo on the 3DS, I downloaded it and looked here for the game on what was apparently the day before its release. Now that I've played it and my party is around level 25, I can say that I am really enjoying the story and gameplay. The new classes they added are very interesting, and I like that I can use a set of abilities from another class, as it adds more stylized strategy to the battles and makes my versions of Tiz, Agnes, Ringabel, and Edea unique to the way I like to play. Though the story takes from previous games in that it involves the rejuvinating of the four crystals, I enjoy it because it reminds me of my happy exploration of the DS remake for Final Fantasy III. I like the voice-acting and that I get to choose whether it plays automatically because it allows me to sit back and watch the story as though it were an anime or a movie. (Or even just a normal cutscene.) That I can easily switch between that and normal press-A-to-continue options is very nice for when I'm pausing to look at something else, and the skip ability is convenient for when I have died, though occasionally I have used it to pause mid-sentence and have ended up having to reload the game because I accidentally skipped the scene. In a more recent issue of Game Informer that I read, it said that certain aspects of traveling between locations were pointless, and to this I agree, but I've dealt with much worse in other games and barely noticed it as I played this one. It also said that the gameplay gets even more interesting half-way through, so I'm looking forward to it. Though I often get distracted by other things and tend not to finish games, I have a feeling I will make it to the end of this one, because I've had trouble putting it down. It's like a good book, but it is also a game, and I am in control of how awesome the battles are.

I am thirty-three years old. I've been playing video games since I was five. I've tried almost every Final Fantasy game and abandoned all of them after a few days. However, Bravely Default is quickly becoming one of my favorite games. I've never been able to get into Japanese RPGs. I love D&D and Pathfinder, but Final Fantasy - possibly the quintessential JRPG - always bored me. I got sick of random encounters, some of the dialogue scenes were too long for my tastes, battles got repetitive after a while. Bravely Default (an awkward name if you ask me... I blame it on a loss of translation) by Square Enix is similar to Final Fantasy in mechanics and art style, but there are differences that transcend plot alone. The new battle system which this title is named after allows you to get past frustrating enemies that heal themselves frequently. If you use the "default" move, you can defend yourself and collect "brave points" which you can spend to unleash a few moves in one turn. If you have a group of four and most of them have initiative (D&D term... sorry) higher than the enemy, they'll pummel the enemy and hopefully knock its HP down way faster than it can heal. That's just one way the new system is helpful. The things that make this game better for me than Final Fantasy (FOR ME... that's an opinion) is the option to adjust the frequency and difficulty of encounters in-game, and the ability to change characters' job/profession/class whenever you want without suffering too much loss to stats. *Encounter Frequency and Difficulty* Within the character view screen, there's a "tactics" selection. Under that is "config", and then "difficulty". From there, you'll find "encounter rate" which will present a slider that can be set to +100%, +50%, +-0%, -50%, -100%. The highest setting will throw you into encounters every few seconds, while the lowest will let you wander around freely (but it'll warn you that you'll have a tough time leveling up). This is great for me. For instance, when I'm trying to find a hidden chest and I'm getting really annoyed with the random encounters interrupting my search, I can simply turn them off, find the chest, and then them turn all the way up and set the difficulty to "easy" so they happen every few steps but don't completely destroy my characters. This way, I can sort of make up for the potential loss of XP. Once I get tired of battling every few seconds (and feeling like I'm cheating) I can set the frequency and difficulty back to a normal levels and continue the game as intended. Basically, you can adjust the frequency to suit your needs at any moment. Random encounters are important for leveling your characters, but they can get irritating at times. *Jobs* Rather than have set classes, Bravely Default offers jobs which you acquire as the game progresses. Characters have slight variations in base stats, but the jobs you choose increase and decrease relevant stats, while the weapons and equipment they hold helps with their abilities. This way, you can play a characters as a monk for a few weeks and change it to a mage or knight if you want without worrying too much about them not performing efficiently. Like I said, there are slight variations, but they're not so extreme that jobs can't be changed. Agnes has higher base mana points (MP) than Tiz (these names will have meaning when you play the game). At first I set Agnes as the mage and Tiz as the monk based on that stat alone. I wanted Agnes to be the monk (despite her in-game personality, I like strong female leads and it made sense to me for Tiz to want to heal her and keep her alive... but that's just me). I played a few encounters and then switched their jobs and equipment. Agnes performed just fine as a monk and Tiz has kept everyone alive and well thus far. Additionally, you can set each character with a secondary job ability and have a knight who can heal in a pinch, or a ninja who can use fire spells. Here's a short summary of relevant stats between Tiz and Agnes to illustrate my point: As a monk: Agnes - 68 MP, 14 Strength, 8 Intelligence, 11 Mind Tiz - 58 MP, 16 Strength, 7 Intelligence, 10 Mind As a white mage: Agnes - 126 MP, 7 Strength, 16 Intelligence, 18 Mind Tiz - 110 MP, 9 Strength, 14 Intelligence, 17 Mind (There are more stats, like dexterity, agility and others, but these seem to be the most relevant for their jobs. I assume - for example - dexterity and agility will be higher for a ninja.) The only significant difference, as you can see, is between mana points. The other stats differ by one or two points, which isn't enough for me to lock either character into a job. Sure, ten MP seems like a lot, but I've only run out of mana once in the beginning. With my love for RPGs like D&D, Pathfinder, Pokemon (card and video game), and even Magic the Gathering, I wanted to like Final Fantasy. I tried so many times over the last 25+ years, but I just couldn't get into them. Bravely Default is the JRPG I've been craving. It's everything Final Fantasy was/is and more. The annoyances that made Final Fantasy feel tedious and uninspiring for me have been rectified. *Mini Game* I've played this game for about a week and I only know of one mini game. I don't want to tell you what it is because it would be a major spoiler. It functions similarly to all of those farming and city building games in that you can set tasks that are completed in the background over time. Try the demo, but don't rely on that alone. It'll give you a few jobs to switch between, you can try out the new battle system and the difficulty settings, but it sort of throws you into difficult situations. Overall, Bravely Default is receiving a lot of hype and it is totally deserved... even if the name isn't too inspiring.