Bravely Default is an upcoming JRPG for the Nintendo 3DS produced by Square-Enix and developed by Silicon Studio, the makers of 3D Dot Game Heroes.
It will be released in
Europe on
December 6th and in
North America on
February 7th.
A
demo can be downloaded from the (EU) eShop. The neat thing about the demo is that it isn't simply, like, the first 30 minutes of the full version or whatever. It is a completely different adventure, set in a part of the world specifically made for the demo along with a town and three dungeons.
Along with this staggering amount of content, completing various tasks in the demo earns you bonus items in the full version of the game. For example, defeating the tortoise boss in the demo rewards you with a Rod and one Ether in the full version. These bonuses aren't terribly rare or exciting, but they do give you a nice headstart.
The story
You gain control of
Tiz (second from left), a farm boy whose entire village has succumbed from an unnatural chasm. Being the lone survivor, he embarks on a journey to find out why this disaster has happened. He shortly joins up with
Agnes(second from right), a mysterious maiden and her guidance faerie Airy who are also on a journey to prevent further disasters from happening. Eventually you also meet up with
Ringabel (far right), a boy who carries a mysterious book that can predict future events, and
Edea (far left), a soldier who strives to make her father proud of her accomplishments.
Bravely Default, eh? How did they come up with that stupid name?
Ahem, the actual explanation from writer Hayashi Naotaka is as follows: "have courage and renounce the promises and responsibilities that are expected of you".
But! There's a gameplay component as well. What sets Bravely Default apart from other turn-based JRPGs is its combat system.
Along with physical attacks, casting spells, using items etc you have two more options in combat:
Brave lets the character that uses it take an additional turn whereas
Default means you basically save a turn for later and increase your defenses. However, you can't just use these willy-nilly. In addition to only being able to use Brave up to three times per round (for a total of four actions), you also need to watch out for your
BP (Brave Points). Each round, every character gains 1 BP and taking one standard action costs 1 BP, so you'll usually end up at 0 again. Your maximum BP is +-3. If you start your turn at -1 (or less) BP, you
cannot act.
But that's not all! Your enemies are governed by BP as well and they can use Brave and Default just as you can. To emerge victorious from the game's challenging battles, you not only need to exploit your enemies' elemental weaknesses, heal your party members and so on but you also need to figure out when your enemies use Brave and Default and how you can use your own Brave and Default commands to your advantage. Do you go on the defensive when the boss you're facing suddenly gets three actions in a row? Do you go all out when your enemy can't act? Or do you play conservatively and don't use Brave to stay flexible?
THIS IS TOO MUCH NEW STUFF
Don't worry, it's not as complicated as it sounds. There are loads of familiar things for the discerning JRPG veteran to sink his teeth into - for example, a
Job System!
![cYiJYqs.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/cYiJYqs.jpg)
Every classic Final Fantasy player should be familiar with this. You can choose a job for each one of your characters, which governs their stats, what kinds of abilities they learn and what kind of equipment they're most proficient with.
It's a good idea to not just stick to one job for each character - instead, you should mix & match so that your characters will have access to a variety of different abilities.
A White Mage who just heals is kind of boring, right? So why not give him the Singing command from the Performer class so that he can buff his party members, along with the Freelancer's Mislead ability to avoid drawing attention from enemies and the Red Mage's Turn Tables ability, which gives you one additional BP when you evade an attack?
Or give your Valkyrie the Knight's Two-Handed skill for extra damage along with the Swordmaster's Multitask for additional attacks.
The possibilities are virtually endless.
Also, while it's mostly a typical old-school JRPG, it does have some modern conveniences. For example, you can change the encounter rate at any time - you can set it to 200% or even to 0%. You can also manually turn off gold and XP gain - so for those folks who like to do low level runs, this game is perfect.
![HEClqnc.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/HEClqnc.jpg)
As you can hopefully see from the screens and artwork I've posted, the game is absolutely beautiful and the 3D effect works well. The character designs are done by
Akihiko Yoshida of Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story fame.
![j6abw6q.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/j6abw6q.jpg)
One final aspect of the game that I'd like to mention here which has (deservedly) gotten a lot of praise is the game's outstanding soundtrack. It'd be no stretch to call this the best video game soundtrack of 2013. It was composed by
Revo / Sound Horizon who also famously did the two openings of the Attack on Titan anime.
Just listen to some of these kickass tunes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvoPB7YlkcM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ7gdKT_K5g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74pqL3h_fEo
Also, some trailers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bXzIeZ-14w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqG_MP73-vE
Friend Code Listhttps://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqlDS6dYvMyAdFJxcUVsVTFiWXFDUEgtblFUR2RUMHc&usp=sharing#gid=0![2chm2pq.png](http://i.imgur.com/2chm2pq.png)
Throughout the game, the party meets up with a helpful masked informant who feeds them information about the activities of their enemies. When you near the end of the game, you discover that he was merely using you to eliminate all his competition to taking over the world. He removes his mask and reveals himself as someone the main character used to know in school, who often held him down and released flatulence onto his face. It turns out he is too powerful to defeat, and all the party can do is escape. Suddenly the title of the game comes up, and the letters rearrange themselves:
Posts
It really only makes sense that running away isn't 100%. You take that risk when you enter battles. Otherwise, you might as well just disable random encounters.
If you really want to guarantee running away, the Freelancer job has the Flee skill at Level 11.
Steam: TheArcadeBear
Running forfeits exp/jp/pg and any resource that were consumed in the battle. Fair enough, but ask yourself if you valued getting out of that fight enough. Bravely Second, Specials, Braving into a Phoenix -> Potion combo, Friend Summons, Second into a Friend Summon.
I got into a nasty jam just about 30mins ago. Pack of three silver wolves. Since I just entered that chapter, I had no idea what they had, and they all surpassed me in speed. Edea gets critted and KO'd in one hit. Knight Tiz gets paralysed. Ringabel gets knocked down to 32HP and burns his BP not killing a single wolf because I stupidly did not ensure he always had enough MP for a Double Damage. I'm boned at this point since I cannot act before the wolves, so they have three hits, they can kill Ringabel and Agnes with impunity since Tiz cannot cover while he's paralysed. And I have no intel, so I don't know how much HP they have nor do I know their weakness. The only way out of that situation normally is to pray they don't hit Agnes over three hits, which is pretty unlikely. Bravely Second -> Esuna on Tiz to break out of Paralysis. Now Ringabel is somewhat safe but more importantly, I get Tiz back, swap Tiz's equipment to shields. Brave x3 because this is an all in gambit, Raise on Edea, Cura x2 on the party, Bomb Arm. Tiz Full Guards Agnes. Oh look, Fire is a weakness. Next round, with Edea back, I can use her to unleash hell, Tiz guards her, Special nuke a wolf, Fira Sword -> Double Damage x2 with Tiz loading Friend Summons as backup.
Did I need to go overboard with pulling out Bravely Seconds and Friend Summons? Probably not, I was right outside a town, just saved so I wouldn't lose anything but I don't like getting Game Overs and I'm not using those resources otherwise. Giving up and defaulting to throwing all your eggs into the Run basket when you want to save and cannot afford to lose the fight is just a bad decision. Not when you have 4 actions plus Bravely Second up your sleeve.
you almost always have an out
Yes. I think they can even get it from you if they don't beat it, they'll just get another copy of it the next day? It works pretty much the same as with streetpass and I've gotten a bunch of low level Mammons from my sister.
Yeah I feel like the game is well enough balanced the way they do running away. If you're worried enough that you want a 100% success rate on running, have someone with a Freelancer sub job...and you should probably have one of those anyway to examine new enemies! Put some speed enhancing equipment on them and they're your clutch runners.
Law and Order ≠ Justice
ACNH Island Isla Cero: DA-3082-2045-4142
Captain of the SES Comptroller of the State
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Eh, I prefer Edea's.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
They're all good. And if Bravely Default was an American TV show, Edea's theme would be the theme song of the show.
Destiny Profile : http://www.bungie.net/en/Profile/254/7028016
Party setup:
Agnes - Spiritmaster/W Mage (holy one, angelic blessing) to setup defences and heal.
Tiz - Swordmaster/Ninja - meant to be setting up a counter lock but think I need to make him a Templar or Knight with Counter instead for the extra pdef.
Ringabel - Dark Knight/Spellsword - dps
Edea - Templar/Performer - not 100% sure how to use her, was thinking to just push BPs into Agnes for more sustain. Might make her Ninja/Performer to setup Tiz's counters instead.
Destiny Profile : http://www.bungie.net/en/Profile/254/7028016
Yes.
Every time I've used the run command, the only option is for "All allies". So everyone attempts to run, instead of just the person who triggered the run command.
I probably missed something really obvious, but is there a way to have just some of the characters run while the others remain to fight?
I'm saying Tiz chooses run, Agnes chooses run, Ringabel casts fire and Edea casts cure. Some run and some fight.
Maybe Ringabel goes first and casts fire, it doesn't kill the enemies, Tiz goes second and attempts to run but fails, Edea cures the party, and then Agnes goes last and attempts to run again and this time it works. Everyone runs and the battle is over.
One of my favorite things is that you can Brave and then try to run 4 times. I only did it once, so I could be remembering incorrectly, but I think it gave Tiz 4 chances to run.
I hope in the inevitable sequel there's a Cowboy or Gunslinger class.
That's how it works, yeah. DESPERATION FLEEING
DS Friend code: 3840-6605-3406
DEFAULT
Flying Fairy
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
Also regarding sword special attacks, maybe it's me but it's taking way more than the listed amount of braves to get it to trigger. Does it count all 3 if you just brave and attack 4 times?
Are you sure you're actually getting to use all 3 braves? If you full Brave on everyone, sometimes the first or second person will annihilate the enemies before the others get to move. I don't think it will trigger if the bad guys died before your "sword guy" even got a turn.
Twitch: akThera
Steam: Thera
Yeah I've got Tiz as a knight so figured it was because I was missing braves with his lack of speed, but he's getting all the attacks in.
Maybe I'm just perceiving it as taking too long.
I'm only at the first city and all my stuff is 11.
But Ringabel doesn't that fantastic "I am so cool right now" pose when he does his special that make the music that much better.
I switch it back to regular when I want to watch the summon animations.
Didn't the original Japanese release not have the fast-forward, and have an even slower normal speed?
DS Friend code: 3840-6605-3406
Steam: TimIsOnSteam
Battle.net: TimIsOnBnet#1745
Switch: SW-7012-4788-7410
PSN: TimIsOnTheNet
I know a couple classes were nerfed pretty hard from really broken combos. I think Pirate was one of them?
Need to work on some jobs.
Outside town works, but there's a pretty drastic jump in job xp from fights come the next chapter (which is a fair bit off for you probably, but).
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/643004-bravely-default-flying-fairy/68019396
There' s a cleaner / better translated version of it somewhere on the interwebs, can't find it at the moment.