SQUARE ENIX’s highly acclaimed game, Bravely Default: Where The Fairy Flies, brings you back to the classic Final-Fantasy-esque JRPG with a new combat system, terrific soundtrack, and great art.
The game is graded according to the following rubric, and for every aspect, a rating of 1.0 (lowest) to 5.0 (highest) will be given:
Gameplay — 60% (Includes mechanics, playability, difficulty, and bonuses)
Aesthetics — 20% (Art style, graphics usage, soundtrack)
Story — 20% (How the story was told, and the conciseness of the story)
Gameplay
Bravely Default is every bit your classic “Final Fantasy Styled” RPG, with your four heroes of light, your giant terrifying bosses, and your elemental crystal whatchamacallits. The game follows the blueprints of it’s predecessors, with your usual cutscene-grinding-dungeon-fight monsters-reequip-strategize-fight boss-awaken crystal-repeat cycles. It has it’s broadswords and ice rods. It has it’s potions and ethers. It has it’s curagas and blizzagas. It’s every bit a classic JRPG.
However, the similaritites end there.
Probably the most genius innovation in Bravely Default is the Brave and Default system.
A new mechanic, called “BP” or “Battle Points/Brave Points” was introuced in Bravely Default. Basically, to make an action, you spend 1 BP. At the start of your turn, you gain 1 BP. Brave makes you spend an additional BP to do an additional action on your turn. On the other hand, Default makes you defend for a turn and banks you 1 extra BP. You can only Default to a max of 3 BP by default (hehe). Wisely spending your BP often spells victory. If you spend all your BP, go to a negative count, and your opponents have extra BP on them, then it basically means you’re all sitting ducks for that turn. The Brave and Default system adds a new strategic flair to the game. Using your points wisely could heavily turn the tide of battle.
There is also a new “Bravely Second” mechanic. Upon pressing the START button in any point of the game, it’s your turn. Simple as that. Basically it “stops time” and allows you to take action at any point. However, it spends SP or “Bravely Second Points” (?) and not BP. SPs are gained by having your 3DS on sleep mode. For every 8 hours of sleep, you earn 1 SP. You can also purchase “SP Drinks” for real world money.
Aside from the new battle system, another thing worth of note is the job system.
The job system is reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics, with lots of combinations of jobs and an assortment of useful abilities. Mix and match as you’d like!
Each character gets a Fixed Command (a job command according to his/her job), a Secondary Job Command (you can pick another job’s job command for each of your characters, basiclly means you have a secondary job), and some Support Abilities (passive skills that are learned through levelling jobs).
Just like it’s spiritual ancestor FF games, you learn skills (either active job commands or passive support abilities) through levelling you jobs. The max is level 14. The multitude of possible combinations (of jobs and “secondary” jobs) allows for a wide range of strategies and a lot of freedom for creating a unique party with unique members, each with their own unique skillset.
On the subject of difficulty, Bravely Default is pretty hard. Not the overly-impossible-to-play-hard, but it’s harder than your average RPG. It’s difficulty spikes randomly at some times, and would therefore demand usual constant grinding to reach the recommended levels. It also won’t cater much to players who like to breeze through the game with uber-powerful characters mindlessly bashing away at the boss. In this game, it is not rare to die to a boss, even with an over-leveled team. The game takes brains. It won’t be unusual for you to try out a boss to find out it’s stats, attack paterns, and weaknesses, then voluntarily die just to have an idea how to kill it. You would most usually adjust your jobs, abilities, equipment, strategy, and attack patterns to fit bosses. No one strategy works for all bosses in this game.
The game provides quite a challenge to finish. The sequencing of events in the first four chapters are pretty linear. They follow the story well and the difficulty increases accordingly. However, one major flaw in this game is that chapters 5–8 are very tedious and repetitive. Play the game if you want to know why. It frustrates some players how the final four chapters were made that way, although story-wise, it fits the tale very well.
If you like bonuses, well Bravely Default also has it’s own mini-game.
The mini-game follows the events after the destruction of Norende, the hometown of one of your party members. You are charged with rebuilding the town. You initially only have one villager who can do stuff, but it increases once your streetpass someone else who plays the game. You can rebuild shops and clear out blocked passageways in the mini-game. If a shop can be built in 4 hours, one villager can finish it in 4 hours, two can finish in 2, and so on and so forth. The Adventurer (save point guy) in-game is where you can purchase the items sold in Norende. You can also fight “Nemeses” or optional mini-bosses in Norende when they appear.
With every inch of it a classic JRPG, Bravely Default carries the usual game mechanics, the random encounter dungeons, the item-magic-job-ability-equip “START” menu, the currency, the jobs, and the fun. Unlike other games that fall under the JRPG flag, Bravely Default offers a fresh new mechanic in the Brave and Default System, and a good job system akin to the strategic job systems in Final Fantasy’s Tactics series.
Yay: Unique and innovative battle system, good job system, classic RPG
Nay: Pacing may be too fast, difficulty spikes, last chapters are tedious
Rating: 4.0/5.0
Aesthetics
Bravely Default’s art team simply did not disappoint. The world of Luxendarc and it’s towns, cities, dungeons, the world map, and the characters were designed really well.
The characters were made in the spirit of old RPGs, with a chibi-esque style which makes them appear younger than their age (The characters are pretty old, Edea is the youngest at 18 years of age). Like it’s Final Fantasy ancestors, the party members are disproportionately larger than the world map’s towns and buildings and such. The monsters and enemies in the game were made quite well too, with the bosses being created in the same fashion.
Each job has it’s own costume, and your party members change their clothes accordingly. They carry these clothes in cutscenes and such, and sometimes they make cutscenes less serious (nothing says serious like a Ranger’s fox mask).
Nevertheless, it adds an extra bit of flavor to have everyone get new clothes (their hair also gets fixed in the process). The game also allows you to grab special “costumes” like the Bravo Bunny and the like.
The game’s locations were made beautifully. It wouldn’t be rare for you to usually stop and apreciate the art before moving on to the next location. Eternian Central Command is a personal favorite of mine. In dungeons, the map usually interacts with you in various ways, and the areas were clearly thought up well. If you crave for game with good art and scenic scenery, then Bravely Default is for you.
The game also has it’s fair share of scenic cutscenes and movies.
The game opens with a short movie introducing all the party members. Agnes (in the Temple of Wind), Ringabel (in Caldisla), Edea (in Eternia), and Tiz (in Norende).
The game’s cutscenes are well placed throughout the game, and the opening and closing scenes tell the game’s start and end greatly. There’s also a secret bonus movie for the ones who finish the game (or you could enter the “Konami Code” to get it).
I know a lot of people who knew Bravely Default’s soundtrack before even knowing the game itself. The soundtrack is terrific, and sits as one of my favorite game soundtracks of all time. “Infiltrating Enemy Territory” is my personal favorite of the OST’s gems. I heavily recommend checking it out. The game’s soundtrack matches the game’s events and the atmosphere of the locations really well. The tension in a dungeon is amplified by “Infiltrating Enemy Territory.” “Fighting To The End” adds the hype in an important boss battle. The jazzy “The Land of Radiant Flowers” accents Florem’s (one of the game’s cities) red and black dominated parisian feel. A game’s soundtrack is essential to complete the overall feel of the game, and Bravely Default surely hits the bullseye in perfect soundtrack.
With great art and a pleasing soundtrack, Bravely Default is a sure winner in the Aesthetics department.
The scenes, locations, towns, characters, and the music that accompany them surely hit the mark and mix in perfectly with the story they tell. There isn’t really much to say with BD’s aesthetics except that it’s completely breathtaking.
Yay: Beautiful art, beautiful soundtrack, nuff said…
Nay: Quirky costumes
Rating: 4.5/5.0
Story
Bravely Default follows the usual Final Fantasy Recipe: Find next crystal-kill boss-awaken crystal-repeat. However, the plot and it’s story is well written and is a good break from the usual cycle. It also has, as to much surprise, a good number of plot twists.
The story involves going around the continents and awakening the crystals, in order to achieve one ultimate goal: bringing an end to darkness (cue in Final Fantasy I).
It revolves around four “Warriors of Light” who have different background stories and hail from different parts of the world. Your four protagonists go on an adventure to save the world of Luxendarc from doom.
However, it isn’t simply that simple. Reviving the crystals often come with a twist in the tale. There’s something going on with a duchy somewhere, a religion is on the brink of destruction, some city somewhere is losing water supply, and a lot of other plot elements. There are more events going on than the reviving of the crystals. What’s good about Bravely Default’s story is that everything in the plot makes sense. And it often involves some genius subplot underneath.
The story was clearly well written, and it was well executed too. All the events in the story fit in and contribute to the greater whole, and there were no plot holes anywhere (correct me if I am wrong). Also, every event in the game was explainable without any arcane time-bending seventh dimension whatevers (unlike Fire Emblem Fates where you magically have kids from the future). As in most RPGs, there is an element of love interwined with your characters. I dare you to play the game to find out.
As I said, there were plot twists in the story, and they were placed just right to have the greatest amount of impact. The tale told in Bravely Default was surely a good one, and the events go up in hype as the game progresses on — a trait of a well made game.
Yay: Great story, no plot holes, every brick counts
Nay: Owes a lot to Final Fantasy
Rating: 4.5/5.0
Conclusion
Final Average Rating: 4.2
Difficulty: Above Average — Hard
Duration: ~60Hrs (This is a long game)
Good for: Players who would like an “Old Style” RPG /Serious gamers who like grinding and strategizing / People who like good game mechanics
Not good for: Casual gamers who play every other day / People who don’t like grinding / People who like fast games
Bravely Default is a new take on an old genre, and it surely won’t disappoint. With an eye-catching aesthetic, a matching soundtrack, a good story, and a new innovative combat system, Bravely Default will surely sit at the table of the best JRPGs made for the Nintendo 3DS.
