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Opinions on Bravely Default?


DisobeyedCargo
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It is an excellent old-school JPRG, especially if one enjoyed playing the classic Final Fantasy titles. Combat is turned based and there are 23 job classes, such as Knight, White Mage, Red Mage, Pirate, and Ninja. Summons are present and are utilized by two classes, and there is a mini-game of maintaining a little village. The music is fantastic, the characters likable (Edea and Ringabel are amazing), and the story enjoyable.

However, if there is one major downside of this title, it is the dreaded "second half" of the game. While Bravely Default is a good game, it's second half is often cited to be its weakest point (until the endgame). While it is possible to "speedrun" through it and focus on the main story, the sidequests are decent enough if you are willing to go through the effort of doing them.

Edit: If I recall correctly, Bravely Default has a Demo that you can try out. It is a separate story entirely but keeps in voice acting and most of the main game's mechanics. I suggest playing the Demo to form your own opinion as some of the progress in the Demo grants bonus stuff to the main game. The bonus is relatively minor, but it is something.

Edited by Sire
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Yeah I recommend the demo. Not only does it help get you used to the battle mechanic but also you get rewards in the full game for completing the demo.. Also there is a way to abuse the demo to get 20 free villagers for the villager game but it's up to you if you want to do it.

As for the full game, I loved it. It's probably one of my favourite games, at least Top 5. However, I will concede the latter half of the game is a slog for no real reason (Though I do feel some people over exaggerate since most of the stuff that makes it a slog is all side content) and the ending for a certain character is stupid and is pretty much there way of saying 'buy the sequel' which IMO is not as good as this one which also ends with a 'buy the sequel'.

Overall, it a really fun game with a lot of good classic RPG stuff, the main quartet are all very fun and colourful as are a lot of the villains and some secondary characters. The gameplay and class system is done superbly, one of my favorites in any RPG I've played and I highly recommend.

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Great game. A little repetitive in the second half, but not really all that bad. Gameplay is great. Note taht there is a button mashing mnigame that you need to do repetedly. YOu need to do even better at it to view the bad ending (which i was unable to do). This game broke my 3ds (unlike the l/r buttions, the face buttons can't be easily replaced).

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I'm playing through it now actually, it's pretty good, music is rivaling xenoblade standards for me, I haven't beaten it yet as I'm still early on in it despite having 100 hours logged, my excuse is I was spending a lot of time maxing out the village side project so that's why. It may be a little hard at points but nothing some grinding won't solve.

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The plot is fairly traditional for a Japanese RPG, but it does put a few spin on things. It has its highs and its lows, so you may like it or you may not.

The gameplay is classic turned based RPG goodness, but the Job system is as said quite strong and flexible. The Brave and Default mechanic spice things up a little.

Visually the game has magnificent hand drawn scenery.

The music is quite good, particularly the battle pieces, which tend rank quite highly overall.

There is a lot of quality of life and customized play features. You can freely change difficulty any time outside of battle. You can increase or fully remove random encounters as you desire. If you want to grind, you can turn on and off JP, EXP, and Pg (money) individually, in case you only want to grind for one thing.

The infamous second half issue can be reduced a bit, but I can't quite say how until you get to the second half. Since it's hard to say without being spoilery.

 

If you enjoy Bravely Default, then you have the sequel Bravely Second. But it spoils the first game right from the opening sequence, so don't touch it until you're completely done with the first. Gameplay-wise it's superior, and the visuals remain good, but the plot, music, and characters are more mixed- in ways both better and worse.

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17 minutes ago, Zera said:

Once you clear Chapter 4, stop playing and watch the ending on YouTube. Then play Bravely Second.
Or, watch the story on YouTube, and then play Bravely Second.

Experiencing it for yourself is so much better, though. The final boss is so worth everything you have to do to get to him.
And then the music that plays during the fight, oh my god. I get eargasms just thinking about it...
But I'll echo the sentiment that Bravely Second is better. Not that that's saying much, since Bravely Default is REALLY fantastic on it's own.

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19 minutes ago, Zera said:

Once you clear Chapter 4, stop playing and watch the ending on YouTube. Then play Bravely Second.
Or, watch the story on YouTube, and then play Bravely Second.

But like why tho? If you skip the optional sub quests during the second half, completing it doesn't even take that long. Also, the final boss, at least IMO, is worth experiencing yourself rather than via youtube.

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2 minutes ago, DragonFlames said:

Experiencing it for yourself is so much better, though. The final boss is so worth everything you have to do to get to him.

I found the final boss nowhere near worth the effort to reach him. Chapters 5-8 were such a slog that by the time I got there, I didn't care anymore. Also, my party was Literally Invincible, so the battle sucked too. Even Guacamelee's "world-destroying demonic final boss" was better, and that was the low point of that game.

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On 26/11/2017 at 9:35 PM, Zera said:

I found the final boss nowhere near worth the effort to reach him. Chapters 5-8 were such a slog that by the time I got there, I didn't care anymore. Also, my party was Literally Invincible, so the battle sucked too. Even Guacamelee's "world-destroying demonic final boss" was better, and that was the low point of that game.

If you are a completionist, or want to max some classes, those chaptesr are quite good. You gain a lot of EXP and JP by refighting the sidequests bosses... and the bosses.
If not well... prepare to get bored.
 

I loved this game, good plot, good gameplay, perfect musics, it's great !
Edea can kindly die in a fire though. :p

Edited by B.Leu
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It's a lovely RPG with an old school feeling in setting and gameplay. Plus it's accessible since you can change the encounter rate and difficulty at any time without penalties (apart from the obvious boss on low level XD). But it has a very...... questionable idea from chapter 5. It's spoiler heavy, but trust me that it's questionable. You may consider watching the ending on youtube once you reach there. 

Another minor complain is that two of the main characters are rather bland, with Agnes being  holier than you who only sees her good, and Tiz being a Gary Stu. But it's a minor complain as I've mentioned previously, because the other two: Edea and Ringabel have enough personality to more than make up for it. The music it's pretty fantastic as well

 

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I ended up loving BD. It has a pretty good story, and really great characters and voice acting. The gameplay is solid and if you like RPGs you will appreciate how it feels like a classic one with major improvements like a toggle for random encounters. The job system is fun and the game uses pretty much every aspect of the 3DS to enhance the gameplay. 

The infamous second half, I didn't find bad at all. Like I said it isn't a problem because you can choose how fast you want to progress through the second half. It's definitely worth playing the whole game yourself, because the final battle just won't be the same if you watch a video of it.

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I loved it and its sequel, and I generally dislike JRPGs. There's a nice variety of classes, and I enjoyed battling the bosses to obtain them, and the 'brave' and 'default' (clever terminology, I know) system made the turn-based combat way more enjoyable for me. The later half, however, is...repetitive.

The story is okay, but then again I don't care about story in games, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

The protagonists are enjoyable imo, and I liked their little conversations they have sometimes.

The game breaks the fourth wall sometimes, discussing things like game mechanics, and it's actually pretty charming. Bravely Second does this even more.

My suggestion? Buy it if you absolutely love JRPGs no matter what, play the demo if you're not so sure.

Edited by Gebby
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