History YMMV / BRAVELYDEFAULT

** While not directly related to core gameplay, something has to be said about the 'Crystal praying' sequences after beating each of the Crystal bosses. While all you have to do is mash X till everything is dandy, there is a level of tedium to it unlke any other. Unlike most of the game, you cannot skip any cutscenes, including before fighting the Crystal bosses, and when you finally get to button mashing, it takes a LONG time of said button mashing before Airy tells you to stop. It gets worse if you try to [[spoiler: break the crystal starting in Chapter 5, where after Airy tells you to stop, you have to mash the X button even more rapidly for the game to register you trying to do so.]] To make matters even more worse, if you want the true ending, you have to do these sequence 20 times in total!

* SurprisinglyImprovedSequel: In the sense that it's a CreatorDrivenSuccessor to ''The Four Heroes of Light''. ''The Four Heroes of Light'' was an okay, if not particularly ambitious throwback game developed after the team making ''Final Fantasy'' remakes wanted to try making something new. ''Bravely Default'' takes the best parts of said game, tremendously expands the game play with the titular Brave and Default mechanics and job abilities, has a much better plot and presentation, and features an extremely memorably soundtrack. ''BD'' also fixes basically every mechanical problem that game had, especially the targeting issues and making the "multiple actions in a turn" system a lot smoother and more intuitive. It even addresses some of the plot issues many players had, in that the party doesn't split up or bicker fruitlessly for the first part of the game.

* EndingFatigue: This is an ideal example of having too much of a good thing and it being misplaced. [[spoiler:Once you are caught in the GroundhogDayLoop, there is nothing new to do except kill the job masters again, kill the crystal guardians again, and re-awaken the crystals (or not, if you're aiming for the false ending). And you will have to do this ''four'' more times in order to unlock the TrueEnding. Needless to say, the last part of the game gets tedious because of this, and makes an otherwise excellent game begin to overstay its welcome. The ''For The Sequel edition'' is slightly less repetitive by having the job masters gain new abilities and assisting each other in combat, added new scenes between the Jobmasters in the 7th and 8th Chapters, and in their final fights in Eternian Central Command in Chapter 8, everyone gets new abilities or uses different strategies than usual. However, it doesn't help that, while the last two chapters provide some last minute CharacterDevelopment for the Jobmasters in the group fights, all plot threads and character arcs are done by Chapter 6[[labelnote:Explanation]]Ringabel regains his memory and tells the group the truth about Airy, and even between the Jobmasters, Edea finally understands what her master tried to tell her about her parents and GrayAndGrayMorality; literally everything is done and from this point onwards the only remaining plot thread is waiting for Airy to act and confirm the group's suspicions.[[/labelnote]] with literally no plot scenes until the final portion. The [[Awesome/VideoGameBosses boss fights]] are widely praised as highlights of the game, but several chapters of non-stop boss encounters later, it inevitably gets gratuitous, not helped one bit with all bosses being missable after finishing each world, including the extra ones in ''For The Sequel'' outside the final chapter (ironically causing even more weariness in the UpdatedRerelease instead of less), not leaving you ''any'' room to breathe and play the still being great boss encounters.]]

* AnnoyingVideoGameHelper: In addition to Airy stopping to tell the player how to awaken the crystals [[spoiler:even after you've done it 24 times already,]] after the [[spoiler:first world where she actually offers useful advice]] she does nothing afterwards but whine about wanting the party to awaken the crystals for the next [[spoiler:4 worlds]] every time you enter the menu. FridgeBrilliance is in play when you consider [[spoiler: Airy is the BigBad and she wants to reawaken the crystals in each world as fast as possible before the protagonists realise what is actually going on.]]

* DisappointingLastLevel: See also EndingFatigue for more details - on top of this, the game's final act ends up becoming ''quite'' tedious, especially if one is going for the true ending because boss's stats scale ''massively'' at the end. Sure, you have a ''lot'' of [[GameBreaker game-shatteringly powerful abilities]] available... except for one problem: You actually don't even ''need'' most of them to reach this point in the game, and you don't even need them to beat the final encounters. Unless you're willing to spend [[MarathonBoss over an hour]] per boss. The FinalBoss takes about an hour even ''with'' Game-breaking abilities and speed-up.
* EndingFatigue: [[spoiler:Once you are caught in the GroundhogDayLoop, there is nothing new to do except kill the job masters again, kill the crystal guardians again, and re-awaken the crystals (or not, if you're aiming for the false ending). And you will have to do this four more times in order to unlock the TrueEnding. Needless to say, the last part of the game gets tedious because of this, and makes an otherwise very good game begin to overstay its welcome, though it's less repetitive by having the job masters gain new abilities and assisting each other in combat. The ''For The Sequel edition'', however, added new scenes between the Jobmasters in the 7th and 8th Chapters, which does mitigate this a bit, and in their final fights in Eternian Central Command in Chapter 8, everyone gets new abilities or uses different strategies than usual. It doesn't help that, while the last two chapters provide some last minute CharacterDevelopment for the Jobmasters, the main story essentially freezes with literally no plot scenes until the final portion.]] This is an ideal example of having too much of a good thing. The boss fights are widely praised as highlights of the game, [[spoiler:but several chapters of non-stop boss encounters later, it just gets gratuitous.]]

** Due to the odd title that conveys no information on what the game is about[[explanation]]The title is an Engrish title that is meant to be read as: Bravely.- (to be) brave/have courage, Default.- (to) defy/disobey, [[ArcWords Have the courage to disobey]][[/explanation]], it's not uncommon to see the game referred to using different but similar names, usually synonyms like Courageously Standard or simply words that start with the same letters like Baker Dozen.

* AnnoyingVideoGameHelper: In addition to Airy stopping to tell the player how to awaken the crystals [[spoiler:even after you've done it 24 times already,]] after the [[spoiler:first world where she actually offers useful advice]] she does nothing afterwards but whine about wanting the party to awaken the crystals for the next [[spoiler:4 worlds]] every time you enter the menu. FridgeBrilliance is in play when you consider [[spoiler: Airy is the BigBad and she wants to reawaken the crystals in each world before the protagonists realise what is actually going on.]]

* SugarWiki/AwesomeArt: Several backdrops (Ancheim, Florem, the warped cliff where you fight Mephilia etc) are gorgeously detailed. Then there's Akihiko Yoshida, who drew the promotional art and main character designs, but that's not all. Different artists helped design different job asterisk characters eg [[Manga/SoulEater Atsushi Ohkubo]] designed Lord [=DeRosso=] and Einheria, helping to convey a unique aesthetic for them. The full list of artists is '''staggering'''.

** Barbarossa has an ''extremely'' simple AI pattern that can be reduced to a non-issue simply by alternating Default and Brave, has a weakness (in this case Lightning) and isn't even a FlunkyBoss. His Shell Split (Defence Down)/Double Damage combo would be threatening...if he targeted them both at the same character, [[ArtificialStupidity which he rarely ever does.]]
** Surprisingly, very late in the game, the Status Ailment Team in [[spoiler:Eternia Central Command]]. Put on Fairy Ward on the first turn and you make them 2/3 less useful. Their AI pattern is always fixed to inflict status ailments no matter if they work or not.
** Gigas Lich, the fourth crystal boss certainly counts as this. Compared to the three before, his only gimmick is buffing his stats slightly every turn, which you can easily take care of with a White Mage's dispel. Half the time he doesn't even attack with his increased stats, preferring to use death or fear spells, and by that point you should have equipment to negate either. Heck, as an undead foe, use Big Pharma on him to ''get paid money to damage him'', or use One More for You on him to decrease his BP, even to the point of making him completely unable to attack you. If you have one, you can even bravely second an elixir to kill him in one move. Story-wise he's in between Braev and Alternis, who have more plot importance overall.
** With the right skill and job combinations, some of the boss defense groups you encounter in Chapter 8 can be pathetically easy to beat due to each group's CripplingOverspecialization. Brave Points Galore, The Iron Wall, and The Powerhouse groups consist of bosses who can only do single target damage, so a use of the Karai skill on a party member with very high defense can tank their hits while your DPS kills off their support. Much of Ailment Hell's threat can easily be neutralized with Fairy Ward. The only group that's NOT a total pushover is Mega Magic, since their skill combinations [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard are just plain unfair]].
* ClicheStorm: Not that this is [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools a bad thing.]] While guilty of this (particularly with some of the villains), the game has a lot of charm and many likable characters. [[spoiler:There's also the fact that the situation's only a cliche storm on the ''face'' of it; in fact, setting things up like this seems to be part of the proper villain's plan, so that you act the way they want you to. The actual situation gets way more complicated later on.]]

** [[spoiler:[[TheHeavy Airy]], fittingly titled "[[BigBad the Evil One]]", is the Piercer of Boundaries and [[TheDragon chief servant]] to the evil god Ouroboros. [[BitchInSheepsClothing Posing as a helpful fairy ally]] to the Warriors of Light in their mission to reactivate Luxendarc's corrupted crystals, Airy is in truth behind the opening of the Great Chasm and the wide swath of destruction it caused throughout Luxendarc, traveling from world to world and [[ManipulativeBitch manipulating the heroes]] into purifying the elemental crystals and thus linking those worlds to Ouroboros. Airy takes sadistic delight in manipulating the heroes like puppets and butchers them after she is done with them, having repeated the process with tens of thousands of worlds over a course of millions of years. Once she's ousted as Ouroboros's servant, Airy, in the false ending, quickly slaughters the party while taunting them about how she's manipulated them. Forced to rest in the Dark Aurora after being cheated of purifying the last crystal, Airy, once confronted by the revived heroes, decides to torture the warriors of light for five thousand years to bide her time, and pretends to have been possessed purely so she can shatter an already despondent Agnes's will further by revealing she is exactly the remorseless demon she appears to be. A deceitful monster under her seemingly innocent, childish exterior, Airy's singular wish was to allow her master access to the Celestial Realm in order to [[OmnicidalManiac destroy all reality]].]]

* DifficultySpike: Around Chapter 3, fights with the Jobmasters get markedly more difficult and require a sound strategy to win (usually developed after some TrialAndErrorGameplay). It makes sense, since SortingAlgorithmOfEvil is in place and the higher-up leaders of Eternia are leaders for a [[AsskickingLeadsToLeadership reason]]

* FranchiseOriginalSin: Several of the problems levelled at the sidequests in ''VideoGame/BravelySecond'' began here. The massive amount of DeathIsCheap and UnexplainedRecovery is present (Holly, Barras and Jackel are revealed to have survived in later loops and [[spoiler: Alternis is shown alive in the credits despite explicitly falling to his death from Grandship]]) and the majority of the quests became irrelevant by the end of the game and many were used as gag material. It's just, with the second game having a considerably more detailed and complex main story, these elements stuck out much more.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Bravely Default was much more popular in the west compared to its rather decent yet still fair popularity in Japan.

** There is a way to continuously add villagers in the demo by talking to an NPC who gives you an extra one once you progress far enough in the demo, quit the game to the title screen and reload your save: since Norende's progress is saved seperately from the main save file, you can get more villagers every time you repeat the progress. This has somewhat limited use though since the demo version's Norende maxes out a lot quicker than the main game's Norende and you can only carry over up to 20 villagers from the demo, which you can get with the main game's Update Data feature in 4-6 days.

** [[spoiler:In the third world, the group learns that their loved ones are all in grieving due to their counterparts in that world all dying. They meet with them and pretends to be their counterparts to help uplift their spirits. Later, as the group prepares to leave the world, Sage Yulyana asks if they want him to erase everyone's memory of meeting them and they tell him not to as they believe it will give them "a spark to keep going." This implies that they've given their counterparts' friends and families closure with their encounter, but from what was seen this can't be the case. It was shown that everyone the group met was hysterical, even suicidal, over the deaths of their counterparts and the group pretending to be them didn't bring closure since they all now think they're alive and expects them to return to them. If anything, allowing everyone to keep their memory of their "return" only for them to disappear again will probably result in them being in even worse shape than if they were allowed to grieve normally.]]

** [[MasterSwordsman Nobutsuna Kamiizumi]] is the leader of the Black Blades and [[AHeroToHisHometown Grand Marshall Braev Lee]]'s most trusted ally. During his time in Eisenberg, he has Praline a la Mode guard a chokepoint to prevent the Shieldbearers from advancing further. Due to his sense of honor, [[EvenEvilHasStandards Kamiizumi abhors Dr. Qada's war crime of using poison gas]], which rendered a large area uninhabitable for years. Praised by both his allies and enemies, he avoids unnecessary violence and kills Dr. Qada after overhearing the extent of his depravity. When backed into a corner, Kamiizumi successfully wards off the Shieldbearers despite being outnumbered, [[BadassPacifist without a single casualty on either side]]. Proving that he can "do more than simply destroy" and "show respect for the enemy", Kamiizumi stands as one of Eternia's most efficient generals and even [[HeelFaceTurn joins the heroes' side]] in the sequel.

** Due to the odd title that conveys no information on what the game is about, it's not uncommon to see the game referred to using different but similar names, usually synonyms like Courageously Standard or simply words that start with the same letters like Baker Dozen.

** The Bravo Bikini. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The outfit Yulyana initially constructs for Agnès' for the Flower Festival. It is ''extremely'' {{Stripperific}}.[[/labelnote]]

* MoralEventHorizon: Holly Whyte plans to torture Agnes to near death and then use her healing magic to repeat the process once she catches her.

** Depending on how many friends you have, the [[spoiler:horror of the worlds being destroyed at the end of the game]] might end up being a bit undercut depending on [[spoiler:''whose'' world dies. "Oh no! Not ''Friend-bot's'' world! Anyone but Friend-Bot!"]] Though it can make a certain set of four quotes while using Bravely Second with Tiz [[NarmCharm flip straight back from hilarious to awesome]] if you use them in succession to kill [[spoiler:Ouroboros]]:

* NarmCharm: Some of the voice acting is either stilted, over-the-top, or otherwise badly directed, but it actually ''adds'' to the SNES/[=PS1=] throwback nature of the game.
* OlderThanTheyThink: Some critics bashed the "Auto battle" feature of the game and said it was "casualizing" it or making the game "play itself". Auto-battle has actually been a staple ''of'' these types of games for decades.

* TheScrappy: Among all the Asterisk holders, very few people actually like [[SatelliteCharacter Victor]] and [[AxCrazy Victoria]], as in spite of their FreudianExcuse, they end up UnintentionallyUnsympathetic. In fact, many people who played the game ''cheered'' at [[spoiler:their deaths]]. Tellingly, they are among the few Asterisk holders who don't reappear in ''Second''.

* SignatureSong: This game is known for its music, among other things, but the most well-known and iconic of the bunch are "That Person's Name Is", "Serpent Eating The Ground", and the heroes' [[ThemeMusicPowerUp special move themes]], particularly "Love's Vagrant".

* SurprisinglyImprovedSequel: In the sense that it's a CreatorDrivenSuccessor to ''The Four Heroes of Light''. ''BD'' fixes basically every mechanical problem that game had, especially the targeting issues and making the "multiple actions in a turn" system a lot smoother and more intuitive. It even addresses some of the plot issues many players had, in that the party doesn't split up or bicker fruitlessly for the first part of the game.

** The Black Blades in Chapter 8. Kikyo WILL go first, Barbarossa WILL debuff and then use Amped Strike, and Qada WILL use Dark Breath as much as possible. And they constantly brave while doing so. No big deal, right? Just default or Stillness and then attack when they don't have the BP... except ALSO part of the team is Praline. Who WILL constantly use My Hero to give her entire party 2 BP so they can brave every single turn. But it puts her BP in the negatives, right? [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard Nope. Her version doesn't cost her BP, so she still profits.]] You're going to have to focus on her first so she doesn't enable constant Brave spamming, which means you'll have to put off taking care of the much more damaging Barbarossa 'til later. Oh, you want to use group attacks? Again, Qada has Dark Breath. It's generally advised to not even so much as touch him because the last thing you want is another enemy that deals massive damage. Oh, you want to put up status buffs with special attacks and just keep the chain going so your increased stats make it easier to survive the onslaught? Good luck. The large amount of actions the boss takes EVERY turn takes so long, even when the animation speed is increased to the maximum, that your special chain will run out after one or two turns. Good luck building up your special moves in such a short time. But the boss gets easier once you start taking them out, right? With fewer targets? Wrong. This boss has 5 enemies. Where's the fifth? If you take someone out, Swordmaster Kamiizumi comes in to take their place. You better HOPE it was the performer you took out first. Also, the BP buffs she gives doesn't make the enemies stop braving. They WILL still brave. They'll go into the negatives, but you still have to deal with a devastating onslaught every other turn.

** The Earth Crystal isn't difficult, but the numerous staircases that lead nowhere, plus a extremely confusing set up on the map, means you'll be spending several minutes lost because you have no clue where the right stairs are.

* WhatTheHellCostumingDepartment: Some of the jobs look noticeably weirder than their original counterparts in ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'', most noticeably male Valkyrie's gray bodysuit with eye-blocking helmet and spearheads around their legs and female Valkyrie's spearskirt, male Arcanist's red and black bodysuit with a tail and female Arcanist's skirt-and-bloomers combination also with a tail, Ranger's mascot head-and-tail combination and Time Mage's cumbersome helmet-and-collar combination that makes their face look like [[StealthPun a literal clock face]]. The former and latter are [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] when Einheria accidentally pokes Jackal in the leg with one of her spears, explaining that they exist so that she can do additional damage when she [[GoombaStomp jumps on her enemies]] and a lot of people mock Eloch's choice in headgear which he insists is the height of fashion.
** On top of making the user look like a clock, they also invoke [[Series/DoctorWho Time Lord]] [[http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmevyae46b1ql19sro1_500.jpg fashion]].

* {{Woolseyism}}: A case of when it doesn't quite work as intended. ''Final Fantasy'' veterans may wonder why some of the job names are so different from the usual ''Final Fantasy'' jobs when they are very similar. Actually, the original Japanese names were more straightforward and recognizable -- the Arcanist is the Magus, the Spiritmaster is the Seer, the Templar is the Holy Knight, the Salve-Maker is the Chemist, and the Spell Fencer is the Mystic Knight. Given the Job System is deeply ingrained in series tradition, one wonders why they bothered changing these job names when most others are left intact.

** Mega Ultra Waifu Chicken[[labelnote:Explanation]]Ba'al I; Turtle Dove, one of the Norende {{Bonus Boss}}es is... a weird bird in what looks like a bridal gown, and it uses love-themed attacks.[[/labelnote]]

*** Long story short, every character has their Speed modified by a number ranging from -10 to +10 each turn. First of all, [[GuideDangIt nothing in the game explains this at all]]. Second, this means to ensure a character moves before someone else, their Speed has to be at least 21 points higher than that character. Third, this means that strategies that require people to move in a certain order can be ruined if someone moves out of order by chance. Finally, some of the {{Bonus Boss}}es can have their Speed increased by as much as 20, meaning to move before them, you need to have at least ''31'' more speed than them.

%%* EvilIsSexy: Holly Whyte, Mephilia Venus, and [[spoiler: Airy's final form]] stand out most prominently.

** [[spoiler:[[GreaterScopeVillain Ouroboros]] himself, the [[GodOfEvil God of Destruction]], plots to wreak havoc on the Celestial Realm, and is responsible for every catastrophic event in the game's plot. Unseen until the game's true ending, Ouroboros pulls the strings behind his servant Airy and oversees her link the tens of thousands of worlds that comprise reality in a bid to break the boundaries between them, utterly destroy all of them, and bring chaos to the Celestial Realm to [[InTheirOwnImage recreate reality in his own twisted image]]. Ouroboros [[YouHaveFailedMe devours his pleading servant]] once he finally tires of her, dismissively compares her to cattle, and, in the final battle, [[PlanetEater obliterates world after world]] for the sheer purpose of breaking the heroes' spirits, nothing less than utterly gleeful once they beg him to stop. Ouroboros, motivated solely by boredom and a lust for chaos, strife, hatred, and suffering--things he considers exciting--goes down as the greatest evil in the story.]]

** Unlike most [=JRPGs=], a character's stats aren't determined solely by their job and level. Each character has base stats determined by their level, and multipliers are applied to those stats based on the current Job they have equipped,as one would expect. However, the multipliers the Jobs apply are tied to Job level. This discourages experimentation and makes it hard to determine how strong a class is, because if you want to try a new job out, that character is going to feel like they're made of wet toilet paper until the job levels up a couple of times. This becomes even worse when the amount of job points needed to level up becomes absurd after reaching level 9 [[note]] Going from 9 to 10 takes more Job Points than going ''from 1 to 9'', and it only gets worse from there.[[/note]]. Players who aren't aware of this may be baffled as to why the amount of damage they're doing stopped going up after around 1200, even after spending an hour grinding. It doesn't help either that there is no way of telling what skills each job has unless you've already unlocked them (or looked them up in a guide). Spent a lot of time leveling one particular job on a certain character that turned out to be fairly useless later in the game? What a pity.