Bravely Default

[Ophiucha]

You know it's by Square-Enix because of how dumb the name is.

Bravely Default is the spiritual successor to Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light. It's a classic JRPG, featuring turn-based combat, a job system, and a few battle elements reminiscent of Dragon Quest. It's basically a Final Fantasy game, right down to the story involving a bunch of crystals, but it's very much in the style of the III - V era of the games. And it's pretty dang good. It was actually sold out at two different stores around here, I ended up having to go to Toys R' Us to find a copy.

Also, the soundtrack was done by the guys who did the OP themes for Attack on Titan.

 

[teacup]

Are you trying to tell me that this is a new final fantasy game...like the old ones..?
I MUST HAVE IT. I NEED A 3DS D:

 

[Philip Overby]

Yeah, I saw this a while back and thought: "Is this a Final Fantasy game?" Then I realized it was sort of a spiritual successor to The Four Warriors of Light (which I couldn't get into for some reason). This, however, looks pretty awesome. It's the kind of FF game I think fans have been clamoring for. Even though it's not actually a fantasy game.

And believe me, living in Japan, I see all sorts of awesomely bizarre names for things. (Bikkuri Donkey, for instance. Which roughly means "Surprise Donkey." This is a hamburg restaurant...)

 

[Feo Takahari]

My thoughts so far:

Since when is guarding in combat useful? (Since Runic in FFVI, I suppose.)

This is the first game where I've really liked the Everyman character. Tiz is just so straightforward, and really brave when he has to be.

A party of four black mages can kill ANYTHING. It's kind of ludicrous.

Job points take way too long to earn.

Why are MP-restoring items so freaking expensive? Enough MP to cast ten more healing spells without going back to the inn will run you as much as a mithril sword.

Did I really just spend six hours playing this game? Ack; I've got homework! Just another half hour . . .

 

[Ophiucha]

I think that's part of that 'old school revival' trend in gaming where you say ''hey, remember how old games are really hard and mostly artificially due to a lack of experience on the dev's part with regards to balancing? Let's do that again it's nostalgic~''. I saw a game recently, a point-and-click adventure game riding the coattails of Broken Age, that purposely left in game-breaking problems if you did things in the wrong order. Because it was nostalgic. Mmm...

I like that some of the classes can really utilize guard - way too many games are beatable with nothing but a spam of the default attack and a few well-placed special moves. Nice change of pace, although some classes can easily never use it.

Best feature: being able to adjust the spawn rate. Great if you're in the middle of a dungeon when something in real life calls you away, you can just turn off monsters and run to the save point.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Finally reached chapter 5, and I've got just one thing to say:

My characters are around level 50. The remaining content seems to be intended for level 99. Why would anyone do this?

 

[Philip Overby]

I found the same issue with FF3 on the DS. It was mind-numblingly hard at the end out of nowhere it felt. And my guys were pretty good levels. I guess it's the whole "grindy grindy" way of JRPGs.

 

[Ophiucha]

Gotta love that grind.

I feel like this game kind of demands you always have the best armour possible at all times. The second you fall behind a tier, suddenly every enemy can 2HKO everyone in the party.

 

[teacup]

I like when the games are hard, but I'm not a big fan of having to grind loads to stand a chance :/