Bravely Default is a great game, period. The game is a fantastic entry into the RPG landscape and is worthy of all of the praise and accolades it has already received. I happily throw mine in the rings as well. If you enjoy RPGs you will absolutely love this game.
You might not be surprised that Square Enix, the folks behind the wildly successful Final Fantasy series, are behind Bravely Default. This game takes the traditional formula, adds in a little bit of a town building sim aspect, throws in a helping of help from friends and strangers via StreetPass and comes up with a great game.
The game’s battle system is the first bit that takes the traditional and gives it a twist to make it much deeper and gives you a chance at more strategy. In addition to the regular battle commands you also have two new options with the “Brave” and “Default” system. Selecting Default will let you skip your turn and save it for later. You will save up one BP which you can then spend later in the battle to take two or more consecutive turns. Or you could choose the Brave option and spend extra BP now. It’s kind of like going into debt. You can get up to four moves in a row in one round, but that will put your BP in the negative and you will skip a few turns.
This strategy can pay off if you’re near the end of a battle and you want to get it done or if you’re getting low on life and want to have your black mage do a couple rounds of healing magic. This also allows you to have one person use raise followed by cure so that you don’t end up wasting either.
Another innovative feature is the SP system, or sleep points. You can hold up to three SP which can be spent in mid battle to make a move at any time. About to get hit with a devastating blow during a boss battle and realize that you aren’t going to make it? Spend a sleep point and jump in with a quick healing spell or protection spell. Maybe use it to add an extra attack. The SP system is pretty cool, but it’s not unlimited and doesn’t come easily so don’t waste it.
There is a high price for SP, and I’m not talking about in game currency. It’s easy enough to earn the points on your own, but you’ll have to not play the game to do so. Let me explain. You will earn 1 SP for every eight hours you leave your 3DS in sleep mode. So when you’re not playing the game, close it and keep it in your pocket to recharge. You can also purchase SP drinks with real money if you don’t want to wait.
Another new addition to battles is the summon friend feature. People you find via street pass can help you out during battles. When you tag someone you equip them to one of your characters. When in a tough spot in battle you can then summon them to make a move instead of yourself. If you’re having a hard time and they are more powerful then you are this can really help out.
You can only use them once so do so sparingly again. If you happen across the same person more than once though they will be updated and you can use them again each time they update.
And StreetPass can be used for more than just battle help.
There is a mini game which can be accessed at any time where you try to rebuild the village of Norende, which was recently consumed by The Great Chasm. Manage the reconstruction by collecting villagers via StreetPass and assigning villagers to specific projects. The more villagers you find, the faster the town will be rebuilt and the more rewards you will get.
When you are in towns and out in dungeons you will come across a traveler, who lets you save your game. He can also sell you items, but the variety of items he has limited. But the more of the items shops you rebuild in Norende the more items you can buy from this traveler, which becomes especially handy in dungeons.
There is so much more to discover, including building customized special attacks and more!
One thing that I was a little surprised about but was thrilled to discover is that all of the cutscenes with dialogue are available in full audio, in both English and Japanese. So you can listen to the game in Japanese with English subtitles if you choose to. Another great feature is the ability to go into your menus and rewatch any of the story (and sidestory) scenes over again.
There is also a full, and continuesly updating, encyclopedia and bestiary of items, characters, monsters and places in the game. Each time more of the story is revealled and you learn more about a place you’ll see a blinking ‘new’ icon alerting you to the update. The amount of depth, detail and work put in to this game is staggering.
Another thing that is great about this game is the fact that it was truly designed for both new and seasoned gamers. The map displays destination markers for main and side missions, which is a great help in figuring out where to go next. And if you don’t want the help you can turn that off. You can also set the difficulty and encounter rate. So if you’ve reached the “impossible boss battle” you can lower the difficulty for the battle to get passed it. No longer will your game be over because you just can’t beat the boss. If you want to grind and have more frequency battles you can crank it up. If you’re getting low on life and want to run back to town and visit an inn, you can lower it for an easy trek.
Speaking of settings to make things easier, the final things I am going to say about the battle system is this. You can speed up, slow down and pause battles. That’s right if you need to take a quick break for whatever reason you can simply press left on the d-pad to pause the battle. And if you want to get through the battles as quickly as possible (i.e. when grinding) you can press right to speed them up. This also skips the entire summon animation, which can be lenghty.
Similar to Final Fantasy Tactics you can customize your characters in different job classes, which have different attributes. A warrior will have a higher attack but doesn’t know any magic. A black mage will be powerful at magic but have a really low attack. When you raise their job level you will then enable yourself to equip a sub ability and give a strong attacker access to a variety of magic and other skills.
Great game all around.
If you aren’t quite sure about the game you can download a demo in the Nintendo 3DS eShop to give the game a try. I highly reccomend it. And if you enjoy the game when you purchase the full game all of that gameplay and progress will seamlessly transfer to the full game.
Overall Bravely Default is a fantastic addition to any RPG lovers collection and a must have for the role playing game fan. If you love the Final Fantasy series and other Square Enix titles, this game is definitely for you.
