Video Game / Bravely Second

"The courage to try again."

Bravely Second: End Layer is the Eastern RPG sequel to Bravely Default, developed by Silicon Studio and published by Square Enix for Nintendo 3DS.

Three years after the events of Bravely Default, the High Fantasy world of Luxendarc is at last moving towards peace with a treaty signing between the formerly warring factions of the Crystal Orthodoxy and Duchy of Eternia. Unfortunately, this fragile peace is soon destroyed by the newly established Glanz Empire, when its leader, Kaiser Oblivion, kidnaps the Crystal Orthodoxy's Pope, former Warrior of Light Agnès Oblige, and declares war on the rest of the world.

And so it falls to Yew Geneolgia, head of Agnès' personal guard and fanboy of the original Warriors of Light, to rescue Agnès and put an end to Oblivion and his Empire's schemes. Aiding him on this journey are Edea Lee, the leader of the Eternian knights and another of the four Warriors of Light who saved the world two years earlier; Magnolia Arch, a Mysterious Waif hunting for the Eldritch Abomination that destroyed her home; and Tiz Arrior, a third Warrior of Light who fell into a coma soon after the climatic battle of Bravely Default.

The previous game's composer, Revo from Sound Horizon, did not compose Bravely Second's music due to scheduling conflicts. Instead, Ryo from Supercell composed the soundtrack. However, a good number of tracks from the first game do return.

This game is followed by (and not to be confused for) Bravely Default II, which (much like its parent series) is a Non-Linear Sequel set in an entirely new world.

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This game provides examples of:

A-C

• 100% Completion: The journal entries for monsters make it a little more elaborate. To truly achieve this, you must also keep fighting the same monsters more times to extend their entries, achieving "Complete!"
• 24-Hour Armor:
  • Danzaburo never seems to take off his big hat despite taking a bath at a hot spring.
  • Edea's mother complains that Braev refuses to take off his armor despite retiring and becoming a seamster. He remarks that he likes the extra weight it gives him.
  • Heinkel now works for the police as an investigator yet still wears full plate armor.
• Accidental Proposal: Yew accidentally does this with Magnolia, whose customs in the moon dictate that a man giving a woman a flower is asking for her hand in marriage. She didn't accept, but was seriously dwelling on it. Things get... awkward when it is cleared up.
• A.I. Breaker:
  • During the battles with Janne in the Fire Temple and the Skyhold, he uses the Stampede passive ability to counter single-target melee attacks that hit him when he is in aurochs stance. However, the Wall Spellcraft also counts as a counter move, and it takes priority over Stampede, so setting up a Wall on him with a healing or support spell can completely prevent his counterattacks.
  • Wall in general can mess with enemies' A.I. on occasion... even when they're the ones using it. Magic triggered by Wall still counts as casting it, and you have access to Magic Mirror in the third battle with Bella, so if you have that on everyone (or at least your physical attackers), then when she puts up Wall on herself or Cú Chulainn, it actually ends up increasing the damage that they take.
  • Whether it counts as a true A.I. Breaker, an Easy Boss Trick, or merely abusing job skills for fun and profit may be a matter of opinion, but reflection-type Astral Magic makes the fight with Nikolai in the Water Temple almost a complete non-issue. Lightning Mirror on your party reflects all of his magic attacks while also letting your party use healing and support magic, and Magic Mirror on him prevents him from being able to cast healing or support magic on himself. (True, the latter also prevents you from being able to attack him with magic, but that's not much of a problem since his magic defense is sky-high anyway.) It is quite possible for him to kill all of his minions and then himself entirely with reflected magic, particularly if you make him weak to lightning or buff his magic attack.
  • The Superboss can hit very hard with its assortment of abilities, but if the Companion starts the round KOed, she will use Call Comrade to resuscitate it. This counts as healing, of course, so as long as Winter Storm is in effect, the Adventurer is effectively helpless.
• All Part of the Show: Played with. Florem's new pageant tries to consider both inner and outer beauty, and allows both men and women to compete in separate categories. When Edea interrupts the show when the Empire attacks, and Alternis saves her from Geist, they win on the spot.
• All Just a Dream: Aimee and Angelo believe the first time they both were defeated by the group was this and they can't stop having those "dreams" every night.
• All There in the Manual: The Bestiary entries fill up with otherwise unmentioned information about enemies and bosses as you progress. It's often justified as Yew and co. finding documents or extorting information which isn't urgently relevant but still useful and adding them to his diary.
• Amazing Technicolor Battle Field:
  • Like the first game, the first game's asterisk bearers have a shiny blue asterisk barrier as the backdrop of their battlefield. The new asterisk bearers have an orange themed barrier in comparison with the addition of bubbles floating up as the battle goes on. Along with a new soundtrack to differentiate them from the first game's asterisk bearers.
  • Ba'al battles take place in wildly different environments than the rest of the game.
  • Even more so with the final boss fights with Providence where the party stands in an outer space-esque backdrop.
• Amnesiac Hero: Minor example. All Three Cavaliers have vague memories of what happened in their latest assignment in Al-Khampis. There isn't quite a good explanation how that even happened. The fact that the demo (which 'details' that assignment) is dubiously canon at best and sheer Continuity Snarl at worst makes it easier to overlook.
• And I Must Scream: The journal entry for Amphisbaena reveals it's the exaggerated mutation of two researchers (twins, even) of ten researchers who protected Tiz during his stasis injected with Gigas Lich cells (the monster that used to protect the Earth Crystal but was felled by Magnolia during the raid) that were developed into baena cells. There were two of them originally, but then they were put together and devoured each other, mutating even further and becoming what you saw. The last part of the entry points out how, even after they have been mutated into monsters, they still retain all their painful memories of having been turned into a monster with two heads... and every single time a head is disembodied, only for the cells to painfully regenerate them quickly.
• Animal-Eared Headband: With the return of the performer job, the girls receive yet again bunny ears, as well as in the Brave Bunny and Bonsoir Bunny outfits for Edea and Magnolia respectively. All party members receive cat ears when equipping the Catmancer asterisk, and a fox-eared headband/hood with the Yōkai one.
• Anime Hair: Two years of stasis without anyone trimming his hair gives Tiz bangs. It's so wild that a child asks his father if everyone in the world has hair like that, only for the father to believe it must be a new fad.
  Magnolia: (in French) It really isn't, you know.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Fan feedback has generally made the gameplay better:
  • You can choose to Brave a single action all the way to 4 in one screen window to avoid opening 4 windows just to choose the same action 3 more times.
  • Party setups can now be saved as Favorites to avoid making the player tailor their party group through many customization options any time they want to test another job setup out.
  • Trigger conditions for Special Moves (Brave, Heal, Items) are now customizable by individual character, as opposed to the triggers being tied to weapon types like in the previous game.
  • Quick Jump options are available to avoid losing time traversing an already-traversed dungeon.
  • If you have to fight a boss without any chance to save beforehand and you lose, instead of being tossed a game over screen, the game will go back to the scene previous and fix your party to full health (though you lose all items and special move charges if you use them), telling that you can either change party compositions and try again or return to your last save to grind some more. Examples are the sidequest in Grapp Keep, Nikolai in Water Temple, and Bella and Cu at early chapter 5.
  • In addition to selling any product available from the shops at Fort-Lune, the Adventurer now runs an unseen cottage that will fully heal the party as an inn.
  • As with Default, different summoning spells are acquired by speaking to anchorites hidden in various dungeons throughout Luxendarc after acquiring the Summoner asterisk. However, the sidequests for returning asterisks give the player a choice between two boss fights and respective asterisks, with the opportunity to claim the other one not coming until after Chapter 4. If you choose to claim the Swordmaster asterisk instead, speaking to an anchorite will reward you with a katana (with the exception of Ameterasu's).
  • The Gluttony status makes any damage received into healing instead, causing KO at full health. However, if someone is inflicted with Gluttony while already at full health, they must take additional damage in order to be KO'd. Being as the main source of the status, Ba'al ii; Redshirt, opens up every battle by attempting to inflict Gluttony on the whole party, this prevents the fight from being Unwinnable.
  • Ancheim is now sensitive to which end the player enters from, preventing the player from constantly maneuvering the entire linear city to reach plot-important locations at the east end.
• Anti-Villain: While Norzen played this straight at first, like its predecessor, players find that the supposedly villainous group turned out to be this. Kaiser Oblivion, aka Denys Geneolgia, wanted to kidnap Agnès and a time artifact to turn back time so the corruption of Eternia's Crystal Orthodoxy never happened, and many of his allies and followers (except for Angelo and Aimee) were victims before Braev reformed Eternia's Orthodoxy seventeen years before Bravely Second. Though some of the asterisk bearer's Anti-Villain side were more prevalent by chapter 5. Bella and Cu Chulainn, for example.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit:
  • Despite how just about every side quest involves two Asterisk holders believing so strongly in their own side that they'll come to blows for opposing them, they'll only ever fight AGAINST you. The one you agree with is perfectly fine with standing there and watching the fight while the one you disagree with will usually have their own mooks joining in.
  • Subverted in the fight against Yōko. Ringabel does help you fight her, but he's not a controllable party member.
• Arc Words: "By what strange trick of fate do your paths cross anew?" They become much more meaningful when you realize the narrator is Deneb, who has been watching over the party over the span of both games.
  • "Bravely second, the courage to try again."
  • "Coup de gravy" is said by just about every major character at least once.
• Armor-Piercing Question: When Agnès asks Magnolia if she's returning to the moon, she and Yew spend the rest of the story depressed about her having to leave.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Chapter 3, Old Sagitta: "Doctor Altair, famous for his numerous scientific contributions—including the buster ship project, the spatiotemporal compass, and the superconductive rice cooker..."
• Art Evolution: Unlike the previous game, where most of the characters had a chibi-esque design, this game gives all of the characters more realistic proportions, something that was previously reserved for the Jobmasters. This also applies to returning characters such as Agnès. Case in point, this◊ is Agnès in Bravely Default and this◊ is Agnès in Bravely Second. Regardless, the asterisk holders all maintain their towering proportions, except for Bella and Minette.
• The Artifact: The Templar and Dark Knight jobs still have S-Rank proficiency in with heavy armor and helmets, respectively, with an A-Rank in the other. However, not only do those two classes no longer provide the abilities that allow other classes said proficiency, they have been combined into a single ability provided by the Guardian job.
• Artificial Stupidity:
  • Aimee and Angelo's battle in the second loop will involve them making the party weak to fire, and using fire element on their physical attacks. However, if the party casts Fire Mirror to reflect it back at them... and they won’t bother changing to a different element. (In fairness, Angelo only has the one element at his disposal; Aimee has no such excuse.)
  • Barras can again Invigorate himself to death.
• Artistic License – Economics: The "Salvaging The Economy" side story involves deciding the current taxation laws on Grandship. Apparently, the government program to take care of orphaned children is so outrageously bloated and incompetently handled that the taxes needed to fund it require a feast at the Drunken Pig to cost millions. If the player supports abolishing this program (with no other apparent changes to economic policy), the economy reverts to normal almost instantaneously; if the player supports keeping it in place, the citizens are able to keep up by making an even more nonsensical amount of money through exports.
• Atrocious Alias:
  • After Yew assembles the main party for the rest of the story, he dubs them all "Agnès' Avengers", much to their dismay. It later becomes upgraded to the longer "Agnès' Ba'al Busting Avengers", further dismaying them until they sadly become used to it.
  • The absolutely embarrassing name "Rubadub" for the Cool Airship. There were more, worse embarrassing names after that one that they settled for the first one.
• Auto-Revive: If, during a battle, a party member that would have a line of dialogue in a cutscene is dead, they will be revived with 1 HP.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The skillset of the final job, the Yōkai, is composed largely of this, along with Cool, but Inefficient and a couple outright Useless Useful Spells. To break it down:
  • The -ja level elemental magic spells, Firaja, Blizzaja, Thundaja, and Aeroja, are good and powerful.. but they cost 99 MP each, so you can't just use them willy-nilly unless you have a party setup that allows for easy MP restoration or casting spells for free.
  • Consume Life and Acid Breath are pretty good, but they do cost 2 BP each and aren't too useful against bosses. There is also Three Blades, which has the same cost, is even less useful against bosses, and generally tends to be outclassed by both Consume Life and Acid Breath (not least because while it can instantly halve a foe's HP, the chance of it doing so is only 50%).
  • Envy is useful, acting as a full-party Dispel along with debuffing both attack and defense stats, but again, it costs 99 MP to use. Sloth has the same cost and, instead of inflicting stat debuffs, inflicts all elemental weaknesses instead...but how often do you need enemies to be weak to more than one element at a time? The Patissier can already inflict elemental weaknesses, and for a lot cheaper. Finally, Pride keeps the same cost and dispel effect but instead buffs the user's attack and defense stats by 25% each...which is frankly underwhelming for this far into the game and that much MP.
  • Avarice absorbs 1 BP from every foe, but since it costs 3 BP to use, it's not repeatable unless you're up against at least four enemies, and of course it doesn't work on bosses.
  • Lust inflicts Charm status on all foes with a 50% trigger chance for each. Obviously, it doesn't work on bosses, and the same effect can be had with a Patissier fitted with the Items for All passive. At least this one only costs 20 MP.
  • Gluttony and Wrath are moves that are really only useful in very specific situations. The former causes all party members to absorb all damage but get K.O.ed if they absorb enough that it would put their HP beyond maximum (which, unless you're using Dark Knights or Phoenix Flight, basically amounts to "great, now I'm taking damage that I can't heal off"), while the latter inflicts Berserk (with a 75% chance) on all enemies. And yes, they do still get the 50% P. Atk. bonus from it.
  • Finally, the only active ability unrelated to the "sin beasts", Disguise, allows you to essentially transform into a copy of another party member and use their job skills. It can be quite useful (for instance, if you have a Fencer in the party, you can activate Bloody Wolf before going to town with -ja spells or what have you), but it costs 1 BP to transform and 1 to transform back, and you can't transform and use the new job skills on the same turn (nor transform back and use your normal job skills on the same turn).
• Background Music Override: The boss fights with most returning asterisk bearers have "That Person's Name Is..." playing as in Default. Praline and Barbarossa, whose conflict quest revolves around a song known as The Grand Ship, are accompanied by renditions of the song in cutscenes throughout the quest (the original opera for Barbarossa, a J-Pop remix for Praline), which also serve as their battle music.
• Back from the Dead: In Default, a majority of the first world's asterisk holders were presumed dead but are still living in Second. The reason why is because some of them mention how their lives where saved by "the man in green". That description is only meant to be taken as a hint once you see the Adventurer traveling back in time through a green portal that converts his red getup to a green color. To hide the identity better, none of them thought the man was actually a girl.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Chapter 4 ends with the Kaiser using the compass to spirit himself and Agnes into the past and Anne using the power of the Holy Pillar to make the Moon disappear—causing Luxendarc to be stuck in frozen time. The only solution is to have the courage to try again during a certain battle in the beginning of the game.
• Badass Boast:
  • Every asterisk holder in the game says a line to introduce themselves as the holders of the asterisks they possess.
  • Played for Laughs in the case of Bella and Kikyo. Bella never got to introduce herself formally until the second time around... when Yew and Edea had already taken the asterisk from her, which she grudgingly points out in her second battle when she looks at Yew. Meanwhile, Kikyo is still too shy to speak much out of disguise and Whitson is taking that into account when he disguises as her, so an annoyed Edea does it for her.
• Bag of Spilling:
  • Yew doesn't have any levels or equipment he may have acquired during the prologue demo.
  • Edea and Tiz don't retain any of their levels, equipment or Asterisks from the previous game. Tiz has the excuse of lying dormant for years, but Edea is still a healthy military girl so her levels should be largely intact.
  • Strangely, this is averted with Agnès, who uses Thundaga during the Hopeless Boss Fight with the Kaiser.
  • The New Game Plus option subverts this, functioning slightly differently than it did in Bravely Default. The real New Game+ option does maintain all your selected carryovers, but removes Yew's Job and equipment (if chosen). You can re-equip his gear after he wakes up in Gathelatio, and his Job can be changed back after Janne and Nikolai leave the party; Edea, Magnolia, and Tiz will be equipped as you left them when they rejoin the party later on. For the fakeout New Game+ that leads to Chapter 5, Yew will keep his Job and equipment for the initial fight with Kaiser Oblivion, but if you let the battle end as it did before (The Bad Guy Wins) and continue back into Chapter 1, he'll be reset as with the real one.
• Bait-and-Switch: Judging the positioning, it all looks like Lotus's son will die protecting his father at the hands of Geist, until Edea swoops in and kills Geist in the nick of time.
• Bait-and-Switch Boss: This happens twice in the Skyhold during Chapter 4.
  • First, Agnès' Avengers make for the isolated room where Her Holiness is being held. Having already seen Agnès provoking the crystals, the player might expect a Heel–Face Turn reveal and consequent boss fight... but it turns out the room is empty, save for Revenant Grace. Cue asterisk fight.
  • Once the above is sorted out, the group marches on Kaiser Oblivion's throne room. By the time they get past Janne, the Skyhold has reached the Holy Pillar; Agnès' Avengers only get there in time to watch as he bathes the Spacetime Compass in the First Light and departs. Once he's gone, Anne gets rid of the Moon... and drops a Wham Line on the player. Cue fairy fight.
• Balance Buff: The Bravely Second mechanic gets a subtle one compared to the previous game — SP now builds constantly over time, whether you put your 3DS in Sleep Mode or not.
• Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Magnolia is beauty (a sweet and flirty Genki Girl), Agnes is brains (Supporting Leader, Reasonable Authority Figure and Mission Control), Edea is brawn (a highly trained sword fighter and knight).
• Big Damn Heroes: Many, many cases:
  • Edea, when Yew is attacked by Bella.
    • Bonus points for the game playing her special move theme from the previous game during this scene.
  • Magnolia, when she rescues Tiz from his stasis chamber while the Glanz Empire has seized control of the room.
  • Edea, once more, when she saves Lotus's son Procyon from being killed by Geist.
  • The party upon starting New Game+ and intervening with the opening battle.
  • In the final side quest, Ringabel, who continues doing it during the fight against the Yōkai asterisk holder with a whole slew of Special Attacks. Note that he is the only person in the whole game who becomes a true Guest-Star Party Member.
  • Spectacularly done in the final boss, where Yew and every new asterisk holder literally shatter the fourth wall to help the player regain control from Providence itself to fight back.
• Big Eater:
  • Edea's monstrously big appetite returns with a vengeance.
  • Yōko herself is unable to stop gorging herself on food, especially croissants. Not even after revealing her true form does she stop this quirky side of hers. Her final note to the party is literally a cutscene titled, "So Long, And Thanks For All The Croissants".
• The Big Guy: Nikolai is easily the largest playable character of the cast.
• Big "NO!": Yew screams out one when Denys uses the compass to send him and Diamante to the far reaches of time.
• Book Ends: Caldisla. It’s the first city visited in Default, which is followed up by a trip to the Norende chasm. In Second, it’s the last city visited... again followed up by a trip to the chasm. It’s even referred to as the "Land of Endings", in contrast to its title "Land of Beginnings" in Default.
• Bonus Dungeon: 3 of them, actually, though only available after finishing the game.
• Boring, but Practical: The Bishop job. It's essentially a White Mage with no offensive capabilities (i.e., no access to "Holy" or "Aero" spells), but its spells are cheap and restore HP based on percentages, meaning it works well with non-magic jobs.
  • As with the previous game, using a Swordsmaster in combination with someone to redirect aggro (Pirate and Patissier both have abilities to do so) is very effective. The Swordsmaster Level 11 ability, Eye for an Eye counters whenever an enemy attacks an ally. Considering the ability is only unlockable at the end game, and the remaining bosses all have attacks which hit the entire party, there's very little reason to have a Swordsmaster use any other ability, once unlocked.
• Boss Bonanza: The Moonless World at the end of Chapter 4 could be said to count. Whenever you're walking on the overworld, your opponent will be a randomly selected Ba'al, at what would be max power for server-issued Ba'al at Fort-Lune.^*Well, for garden-variety Ba'al, anyways; Fort-Lune Ba'al have the possibility of possessing gold-bordored portraits or being "Neo" varieties, both of which are stronger than the norm. This is because Fort-Lune no longer exists to weaken the Ba'al before Agnès' Avengers deal with them. It's a nightmare to even reach the point where fighting enemies in the overworld at this point becomes an option, but it can be much more reliable than Fort-Lune's StreetPass/SpotPass communications if you're trying to fill out the bestiary.
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Not quite, but the same principle. In the bestiary, you may notice that you're missing a few of the first "tier" of Imperial soldiers even as you approach the end of the game. You finally encounter them in the last Imperial area, and it turns out that they're the Empire's strongest forces, being either a Boxed Crook, an elite trying to catch the enemy by surprise, or a Super Prototype.
• Bowdlerise: The Western release has several of these:
  • Aimee's job was both renamed and redesigned from the stereotypical Native American-inspired Tomahawk to the Cowboy-esque Hawkeye in order to avoid negative stereotypes against Native Americans.
  • Revealing outfits for have been altered to be less revealing, and shadows have been added beneath some skirts to prevent panty shots.
  • On a more controversial subject, the "bad" endings to the sidequests were modified to include the "good ending" based on Japanese player feedback. In the Japanese version, the first time a side was chosen on either loop, the player would be treated to a cutscene from the characters regretting the choice. Only by choosing the same side twice on one playthrough would the good ending be seen. Japanese players felt this was cheapening their choices, so the localization extended all cutscenes so the player could see the full ending no matter which side they choose.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • Yew, all alone, somehow senses the player's disapproval at his relief in taking the long way through the woods when the scary bridge used as a shortcut had broken down.
  • This gets more prominent in chapter four and onward.
    • At the end of Chapter 4, as the party is expressing their annoyance at Kaiser Oblivion getting away without them facing him once, Yew stops them, looking thoughtful, then directly addresses the player, knowing one little thing... Wasn't the Hopeless Boss Fight Yew was in at the start of the game against Kaiser Oblivion? Cue the New Game Plus unlock.
  • Before the team enters the End-Game Dungeon, during the button-mashing segment, the clouds will open up, and reveal the portal to the Celestial Realm within the great chasm. Once it clears, instead of a portal effect, it instead uses the 3DS camera. Not only using the same type of fourth wall breaking from the previous game, but further cementing the connections between the player's real world, along with the Celestial Realm.
  • In the final battle, Providence addresses you, the actual player, directly, accusing you of being cruel and manipulative in forcing the party to repeatedly fight and die for you. Yew also addresses you later in the fight, saying that you and he share the same will, and that everyone else supports you.
• But Thou Must!: In-Universe, Edea tries to avoid several of the sidequests during the time loop, but ends up dragged into them again anyways. Averted out-of-universe, as the player is free to avoid the sidequests if they have no desire to go through them again (i.e. having neglected to trigger the Bravely Second the first time they utilized the New Game Plus, thus allowing them to get both asterisks from each).
• Button Mashing: A brief return before the final dungeon as a reference to the prominent mechanic in the first game.
• Cabin Fever: "The Value of a Life" side story.
• Call-Back:
  • Once again, Edea having been born and raised in Eternian Central Command gives her access to several passages that the people in charge of know nothing about. In this case, she uses it to sneak into her bedroom, rather than sneak out of it.
  • In Default, Mephilia's lover Suleiman was searching for Susano-o on her behalf, with Barbarossa completing the mission on his behalf by the fourth world. Here, Mephilia uses Susano-o as her primary offensive summon, should the player choose to fight her in Chapter 5 on.
  • In Default, Olivia had placed a shield around the Water Crystal. Here, her successor Sylvie does the same. It was also a minor plot point that Agnès could have removed the shield herself and performed the Rite of Awakening, but chose not to. Agnès-manipulated-by-Anne has no such misgivings, and does bypass the shield to drive the crystal wild.
  • Several returning asterisks have references to their holders' actions in Default.
    • Knight Argent Heinkel's team during the Central Command Boss Rush was named "The Iron Wall", and he had (and still has) an annoying tendency to Protect Ally on all his teammates at the same time. The Knight's new level 11 Chivalry command? Iron Wall, which is Full Cover on all teammates at the same time.
    • Ranger Artemia Venus had been reduced to bloodlust by the time Edea fought her in the first and second worlds. Berserk has been transmuted from the Pirate to the Ranger, and the Ranger's level 11 ability is a bonus to berserk status.
    • Summoner Mephilia Venus was studying under Conjurer Yulyana. The Conjurer asterisk being removed, Invocation has been replaced by the Summoner's level 11 ability, which is grouped under Summoning.
    • In the second and third worlds, Praline a la Mode could be seen singing on Grandship. The song she and Barbarossa are now bickering over - and the name of the Performer's level 11 Singing command? The Grand Ship.
• Cat Girl: The new Catmancer class comes with cat ears and a tail.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The Bravely Second Hourglass and system? The latter becomes relevant for advancing to chapter 5 while the former gives an insight of how you first received it early and way back at the prologue of Bravely Default that eventually became the item to bring Tiz back to life courtesy of the Adventurer/Deneb.
  • Additionally, early in the game, Yew will remark directly to the player that his disappointment that the bridge is out isn't due to his fear, this time. It comes off as a throwaway joke, but come the final battle when the True Final Boss has attempted to deliver a Heroic BSoD to the player themselves, Yew's ability to speak to you may come in handy...
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • After Agnès is rescued, there is no possible way for anyone to ever make the crystals run wild, right? As long as they don't kidnap Sylvie...
  • A very much important example to the entire franchise would be the Adventurer.
  • The Sword of the Brave, while only used as a plot device blade in order to reveal Yew's past and set up the Yōkai Sub-Story, appears again in the Sequel Hook Stinger and will most likely play a major role in the next game.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • After Yew's Diary becomes "everyone's diary" at the start of Chapter 1, each of the characters write in a different color pen. As a concession to the colorblind, when they contribute to Bestiary entries where the player can read them, they also each have their respective icons. Yew writes in black, represented with the Crystalguard emblem; Edea writes in orange, represented with her bow; Magnolia writes in blue, represented with the flower that shares her name; and Tiz writes in green, represented with one of his belts/restraints from the White Magic Chamber. An unknown individual also writes in purple, represented with a quill; this leads Yew to refer to him as the "Man with the Purple Pen" until he introduces himself as Altair.
  • Ba'als that show up at Fort-Lune can be weakened by players' Buster Ships before being battled; both come in five colors, with Ba'als being weakened faster by ships of the same color. Like the Bestiary, they also have recognizable symbols so a color-impaired player can still identify them appropriately.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: As with Bravely Default, there are a few instances of this.
  • Bella doesn't need to spend an extra BP to use Spellcraft on her spells, unlike the player characters.
  • Alternis Dim retains his massive HP total and move that deals his missing health in damage to one target from the first game, though unlike in Bravely Default, he will use this move from the start rather than only when his HP is low.
• Continuity Snarl: Most information seems to indicate that Second takes place in Default's first world. However, Mephilia Venus apparently claimed all of Default's summons prior to a Yulyana-advised reversion, of which she only had Girtablulu until the fourth world; Erutus Profiteur and Ominas Crowe makes mention to "the final battle in Eternia" and "those ridiculous teams" from the fifth world; and Lord DeRosso appears to be Killed Off for Real following his Heroic Sacrifice against Ouroboros in the final world, though there is a mention of him possibly being around in the entry of the Magnus Bat bestiary.
• Cool Airship:
  • The Grandship has degraded back to a nation due to having used up all of its orichalcum power supply.
  • The one the party obtains is an airship that's also a bathhouse.
• Contrived Coincidence:
  • Edea, knowing full well by now in the rewritten world of the past that Barbarossa and Praline will listen to her decision to support one over the other once she's beaten some sense into them, devises a plan so that the group doesn't have to go all over the place to hear them out again. Only her method to lure Praline out works as intended, but her plan to get Barbarossa to come works by virtue of him conveniently sailing near Florem (he could be found in the western waters of Ancheim), conveniently having his men in Florem, and conveniently listening to her choice while being inside a hidden lab that Fiore used to occupy and alerting the captain at top breakneck speed.
  • In both worlds, while siding against the obsessed Mephilia causes her to turn on you, Kamiizumi makes no appearance in this scenario. On the other hand, if you side with her, he interrupts the conversation and prepares to discipline you at swordpoint despite the absolute lack of foreshadowing to his arrival.
• Corrupt Church: You thought the Crystal Orthodoxy was bad in the first game? Turns out they are even worse this time around. The Crystalguard in particular is shown to have been incredibly corrupt in the recent past and is pretty much the reason for almost every villain in the game joining the Glanz Empire in the first place. House Geneolgia in particular has a history of corruption and oppression, notably the founder as well as Yew's own father, who made his followers murder every member of the Crystalguard who were against surrendering to the newly-founded Duchy of Eternia, all for his own personal quest for wealth and power. Oh, and the Great Plague, whose victims the Orthodoxy quarantined and left to die, which was one of the reasons Braev founded the Duchy in the first place? Turns out the Plague was spread by the Orthodoxy itself!
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: After giving him time to reflect on his rather absurd theories, Sholmes really starts pulling his weight around at the end of his side story.
• Cute Mute: Sylvie, the vestling of the Water Temple.

D-F

• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • In Default, when using the "Copy" and "Delete" actions on the title screen, successfully copying or deleting a save file would then return the player to the title screen. In Second, the player instead remains on the action. If a player isn't paying attention, this can result in accidentally deleting multiple save files.
  • When Sonnenblume is active, not only is turn order reversed, meaning the slowest characters move first, it also reverses the order they use their moves. If the player isn't paying attention, this can cause situations like a healer trying to heal someone before reviving them.
• Dangerous Deserter: When the Crystalguard initially disbanded, the men turned to banditry to use their skills. This inevitably led to helping Yew's father building up an armed force and gaining more power.
• Darkest Hour: The end of chapter 4. Kaiser successfully goes back in time with Agnès and Anne displaces the moon before the party manages to kill her. With the moon gone, time stops and the world is cast with a perpetually washed-out color, Altair and Agnès become unable to provide the party with guidance, and the party is left with no choice but to appeal to divine intervention to do anything about it. As the final blow, Fort-Lune goes along with the Moon, and with no Ba'al Busters to intercept them en route to Luxendar, the Ba'als completely overrun the overworld, replacing all random encounters outside of dungeons with exceptionally powerful boss fights.
• Death by Irony: Anne recruits the player at the start of Default because of their pure determination to see a job through to the very end. She seems to have forgotten that part of the "job" she gave them to involves removing threats to the world at large. Guess what happens to her and Providence after they reveal themselves as the main threats?
• Demonic Possession:
  • The Guardian's main gimmick.
  • Agnès by Revenant Grace, the Guardian asterisk's holder, to use her power to make the crystals run wild.
  • Magnolia gets possessed by Revenant in an attempt to kill Edea, who killed his father Geist.
  • Edea gets possessed by Revenant to hand over the Space-Time Compass to Geist.
  • Later on Anne uses Sylvie and the Matriarch to make the crystals run wild in the second loop.
• Demoted to Satellite Love Interest: Partially. Magnolia still retains her distinct personality, but no longer has a devil-may-care attitude and she doesn't drive the story in the way the teaser implied, instead being the secondary protagonist. Her romantic subplot with Yew makes up a sizeable aspect of her character as well.
• Denser and Wackier: While the game still has its dark moments, it's also much sillier than its already fairly lighthearted predecessor, particularly in sidequests. For starters, the new hero has a bizarre obsession with gravy.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • Due to Tiz's bangs, several job outfits will reflect on this. Everyone but him wears an eyepatch on their right eye when they equip the Pirate job, for example.
  • Any time Altair takes over Tiz's body but you are required to fight a battle right away, the Special Move and Bravely Second quotes will reflect on the change, up to and including Altair having his own set of Bravely Second quotes that he cycles through independently of Tiz's.
  • When trying to break sequence, the characters will remark on how they're heading somewhere they're not supposed to be, before forcing the player to head back. The quotes change depending on who is the lead character.
  • Depending on your decisions in the sidequests, you can later see the affected characters in other parts of the world. for example, if you choose to side with DeRosa and allow the oasis to dry up, people from the desert will later be seen in Florem with the Jackal!
  • At the end of Chapter 4, you have to return to the title screen and use the New Game Plus option to proceed to Chapter 5. The proper New Game+ unlocked after defeating Providence can, once unlocked, be used at any time. If you reach this point during a proper New Game+ (which has Bravely's options on which carryovers to perform), the game gives you the choice whether to perform a proper New Game+ or treat it as your first go round.
  • Bestiary entries cannot be acquired/updated in the Moonless World at the end of Chapter 4, due to Altair being unavailable unless the moon is shining. However, the game still keeps track of which enemies you have fought, and how many times, for the purposes of unlocking those entries; once you trigger the New Game+, any bestiary conditions will be acknowledged after your next fight.
  • The Adventurer's fox companion appears outside of Vampire Castle after defeating Yōko, selling Lv 7 magic scrolls for the mage classes. Because Lv 7 magic is unlocked at job level 11 via Awakening, its appearance there is dependent on the player having the Yōkai asterisk during a New Game+, allowing access to the magic without needing to go through the boss fight.
• Disc-One Final Boss: First, there's the encounters with Kaiser Oblivion in Chapter 5, specifically the ones in Gathelatio and Geneolgia Crypts. After that is Diamante, the Ba'al that destroyed Magnolia's home.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: The Skyhold during every visit, as well as Geneolgia Crypts.
• Doomed Hometown: Magnolia's home on the moon, now serving as the reconstruction mini-game replacing Norende from the first game.
• Double Unlock: The songs in Chompcraft have two unlock conditions. First, the player has to progress far enough in the story to hear the song. Then the player has to make a certain amount of money with one batch to unlock the song. These amounts aren't shown until the player beats the game.
• Dracolich: The Zombie Dragon from the first game makes a reappearance as an Optional Boss in one of the Bonus Dungeons, with its entry in the Bestiary retconning it into being the guardian of a weapon deemed by an ancient sage to be too powerful to be entrusted to any living man. Despite now being as powerful as the other six elemental dragons, it can still be killed relatively easy by healing and reviving items and spells.
• Dungeon Bypass: The Skyhold's inner keep has two entrances, one on the east, and one on the west. The west entrance travels through a typical mazey RPG dungeon, with a lift puzzle on each floor; furthermore, one of the structures along the walkway to the west entrance is itself a small dungeon, as well. The east entrance consists of a few quick staircases. Naturally, the walkway to the east entrance is blown out when the party gets there, courtesy of the Sagitta's SP cannon missing a direct shot. The walkway is still inaccessible after defeating Anne in the Kaiser's room; during the second time around, the SP cannon hits the Skyhold dead-on, allowing Agnès' Avengers to go through the east entrance.
• Dual Wielding: As well as the forte of the returning Ninja job, the Charioteer asterisk enables characters to forgo the use of a helmet to equip a weapon on that slot to strike with three weapons at once. Leveling the class further allows you to equip a weapon on your body slot as well, meaning you can wield four weapons at once! Finally, the returning Knight job maintains its Dual Shields support ability for the defensive equivalent.
• Easily Forgiven: In the first game, most of the duchy's asterisk bearers were a bunch of violent sadists and maniacs who killed without remorse, attempted to undermine entire countries, repeatedly tried to murder the heroes, and in one instance committed serial date rape. Here, when Tiz and Edea meet with them again the two treat them like they're old friends at best and old annoyances at worst. This is especially jarring because Edea was one of the women Fiore tried to date rape.
  • Due to the Continuity Snarl mentioned above, this is less so than it might seem. The original Warriors of Light had already experienced events in later worlds of Default that led to cooperation and/or amicability with the Eternian asterisk bearers, with several references to said events by the Eternians in Second to indicate that they're canon on all sides.
  • It's also downplayed with DeRosa. When Edea first sees him in Al-Khampis, her immediate assumption is that he's up to something unpleasant; even when a scholar moves to defend him and explains his position and intentions, Edea is doubtful of him. If the player chooses to side with DeRosa against Jackal, Edea makes it clear that she's doing so reluctantly, and is supporting the research rather than Red.
• Elaborate University High: Al-Khampis, which is basically a city built to support the school and reminds you of something akin to Academy City.
• Eldritch Abomination: Ba'als, full stop. They look like twisted amalgamations of real-world objects and strange creatures that display copious amounts of Unmoving Plaid. It turns out they're monstrous manifestations of Vega's memories with Altair, created by Providence to attack Luxendarc.
• Elemental Dragon: The six elemental dragons from the first game make a reappearance as Optional Bosses in the Bonus Dungeons, with their entries in the Bestiary retconning them into being the guardians of weapons deemed by an ancient sage to be too powerful to be entrusted to any living man.
• The Empire: The Glanz Empire.
• Enemy Scan: Upgraded this time around to show HP of enemy types you have previously examined, though it doesn't work on a few enemies that aren't in the Bestiary.
• Everybody Lives: After using New Game+ to go on in the story, the party spares the members of the Empire rather than killing them as they did the first time around.
• Everyone Can See It: Yew and Magnolia. Edea, Tiz, Rifa, three bosses, and Altair all tease or encourage them.
• Evil Weapon: The Sword of the Brave, which offers its power in exchange for taking that which you care for dearest.
• Evolving Title Screen: The letters S and P, which in the game, Sleep Points are used to charge Bravely Second will appear, forming "Send Player" once you have cleared Chapter 4 and seen the AR Movie.
• Exploiting the Fourth Wall: You, the player, are a tangible force within the game's world. The true antagonists directly acknowledge your involvement with the party. This is taken to the furthest possible extreme when you use the New Game+ to derail the villain's plot completely.
• Exponential Potential: Spellcraft. It works on any spell ^note Catmancy isn't technically magic, and it not only enhances the spell's power, but it also lets you do things like attack before any other enemy, change a magic attack into a physical attack, cast the same spell on a group over multiple turns, or even cast the same spell 4 times in a row! The only things keeping it from being a complete Game-Breaker is that it costs more Mana, more BP, and takes up 2 ability slots. It can also be combined with Good Measure, which merges two of the same spell being cast on the same turn with an extra power boost.
• Expy: Sapp and Piddler are spiritual successors to Biggs and Wedge.
• Eye of Providence: The final form of Providence resembles a black, inverted Eye of Providence pyramid with purple lines of energy going through it. Adding onto it is one of his signature attacks being called "New World Order", referencing the many conspiracy theories surrounding the Illuminati and how Providence looks like their supposed symbol.
• Fatal MacGuffin: The Sword of the Brave is this to anyone that tries to wield it. Yew tried to obtain it, but his older brother Denys aka Kaiser Oblivion tried to stop him, resulting in the sword cutting off Denys' right arm and later being disowned by his family.
• Failed a Spot Check: Kikyo and Heinkel, despite many searches for the Locked Room Mystery plot, never found out about the secret passage to said room used by the killers. Particularly grating because one of their sweeps was specifically to look for any hidden passages.
• Fairy Companion: Kaiser Oblivion has one named Anne, who has a passing resemblance to Airy. This is because she's Airy's sister.
• Fan Boy: Yew has greatly admired the original four warriors of light that saved the world. He even greatly admires Tiz despite Tiz being a country bum (and Edea tossing a negative about him). He also admires Arca Pellar so much he has two copies of his music tracks: one for use and one to stay in mint condition.
• Fantastic Rank System: Al-Khampis has one based on their position in the school and society. Yew had a ranking of 6-stars (a feat only 26 others in history have managed), indicating he had even more prominence during his days there than 5-star Rich Bastard Pudgius Bismol, who claims his Daddy owns half of the city... which is pretty much the only reason he made his rank. Pudgius himself immediately becomes submissive upon learning this, showing he adheres to the classism.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Firearms are a newly-introduced weapon type. Bows have not been retired, and both have an attack rating influenced by dexterity rather than strength. Consequently, any given purchasable firearm will always be superior to a bow available from the same armoury, unless the one equipping it has better proficiency with bows than firearms (although most bows also come with status effects or other special properties)
• Fatal MacGuffin: The Sword of the Brave is this to anyone that tries to wield it. Yew tried to obtain it, but his older brother Denys aka Kaiser Oblivion tried to stop him, resulting in the sword cutting off the latter's right arm and later being disowned by his family.
• Firing One-Handed: Denied to both the player party and enemies. Firearms are a single, two-handed weapon class, which means that a character cannot fire so much as a pistol with one hand, let alone a BFG. Aimee herself swings her guncleaver one-handed for normal attacks, but fires it two-handed for any Hawkeye specialties; Imperial Snipers also wield their own rifles two-handed at all times.
• First-Episode Twist: Janne and Nikolai being moles for the Glanz Empire. Particularly because they were built up to be protagonists alongside Yew and Magnolia in pre-release material.
• Floating Continent: Sagitta Village.
• Fluffy the Terrible: One of the Seven Horrors of Al-Khampis that Yew is afraid of is a black cat named Fluffy that is said to give bad luck to anyone whose path it crosses. In a subversion, it turns out to be Professor Norzen's perfectly normal housecat. Played straight when Minette uses her Catmancy to have him kill Norzen, however.
• Food Porn: Despite no food ever actually being shown on-screen, most of the tent events and almost all of the Geneolgia Manor events feature the party eating a meal prepared by one of the party members or Alfred respectively, and giving it a lot of vividly descriptive praise.
• Foreshadowing: Talking to one of the scholars in Al-Khampis after the moon is destroyed has him remark that he detected the Kaiser traveling not to the past, but 200 years in the future. This lets on that someone other than Yew's gang has put a spanner in the Kaiser's works...
  • This bit requires quite a bit of grinding (or lots of friends to send you low-level ones), but fill the Ba'als' bestiary entries and you will notice Purple Pen/Altair getting distraught by the scenes on the background. You later indeed find out the Ba'als and the background are made from his and Vega's memories together.
  • Yew relating the story of how he, during his childhood, accidentally cut his brother's right arm using the Sword of the Brave and then the latter disappeared from his life. An attentive player would easily find out through the voice clips alone that his brother sounds so awfully familiar like Kaiser Oblivion... who then is shown not later on to be staring at his mechanized right arm and vaguely commenting about his past.
  • Ringabel's reveal during the Yōkai sub-story is made out to be a huge shock, however players who have been paying attention could easily find out that it was not Alternis in Geyser Grotto or in Florem, due to his very not-Alternis-like flirtatious speech and the fact that the Alternis at Grandship, parts of Caldisla, and Yulyana Woods doesn't have Edea's ribbon around his arm.
• Freudian Excuse: Several examples in the side stories:
  • Holly's determination to keep the old man and his granddaughter from selling their old house by the sea to give Eisen a guaranteed future to prosper as a nation after being ravaged by the war is because she faced a similar situation with her own grandfather having to move both of them to the big city to gain riches easier, which indirectly led to her grandfather never giving her attention. Now what are the chances this will happen to the old man too?
  • Alternis's drive to help the orphaned children of Grandship by keeping the poor laws in place is because he doesn't want them to suffer a cruel childhood like he did in Florem.
• Full-Potential Upgrade: The Yōkai's second skill, Awakening, allows the characters to level up their jobs to 11.

G-K

• Game-Breaking Bug: There are some versions of the game where the Great Chasm at the end of the Norende Ravine won't load. You have to watch a couple scenes here, and traverse this place every time you want to enter or leave Via Celestio, so 'not going here' isn't an option. You can force it to load by putting the 3DS into sleep mode, but it's a pain in the ass to have to do it every time. Thankfully, going out of that particular area or getting into a fight with Anne gives no problem whatsoever.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • Nikolai has a habit of saying important things twice. This matches his Job, the Bishop, which makes spells more powerful if cast twice in a row.
  • The start of chapter five. You are to start a New Game Plus to continue on and then you remember it begins with a Hopeless Boss Fight and stays that way until you activate Bravely Second by pressing Start (and you may notice the hourglass number is not displayed when you do this, but they want you to figure it out). Which lets you keep ALL the items, asterisks, and skills you had from the first time around to win against Kaiser Oblivion.
  • When Altair speaks through Tiz prior to a few battles, he has his own set of quotes for using Special Attacks.
  • How did Tiz use the Jedi Mind Trick on those guards? He set the Random Encounter meter to zero.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: The Black Mage/Ranger sidequest has you Locked in a Room with the relevant NPCs. Logically, this should be easily solvable by using a few Teleport Stones, but the only acknowledgement of this fact is that, if you do happen to have some, they arbitrarily don't work until the sidequest is brought to its proper conclusion.
• Generation Xerox: Sholmes' and Whitson's families all turn out to be the best at what they specialize, except for both of them at least until Sholmes starts coming around and when Whitson grew disgusted with how his family lineage is nothing but glorified assistants to Sholmes' family and decided to become a Phantom Thief.
• Genre Savvy:
  • After the fifth side story, Tiz surrenders to the idea that Edea will end up fighting the losing choice's supporter for picking the other.
  • During the Seven Deadly Sins side quest, each boss encounter begins with a terrified Magnolia announcing what Sin they're about to fight while the rest of the party recoil in shock. However, as the side quest goes on, the party's reactions become more and more rehearsed. When they fight the final boss in the side quest Magnolia attempts to start the action again only for her friends to politely tell her that they know the routine.
• Gilligan Cut: In the Grandship sidequest, if you side with Alternis (keep the ludicrously high taxes in the name of keeping the Grandship's various social programs and handouts intact,) over Khamer (cut the taxes almost completely and thus end those social safety nets in order to fix the crumbling economy), after Khamer is defeated and chased off, Edea gives Alternis a stern and impassioned speech about how the social programs still need to be kept in line and at least brought down to what the Grandship can actually afford, and that further bloating of the already overburdened social programs is a terrible idea. Alternis sheepishly promises Edea he'll try to be reasonable with the social programs. Cut to the next scene, and the taxes have increased again, to the point that the already ludicrously high prices for everything have quadrupled.
• Glass Cannon: The Charioteer zigzags this. On one hand, the Triple Wield and Quad Wield support abilities allow the user to equip additional weapons in lieu of head and body armour, allowing for up to four weapons in exchange for a relative lack of defense bonuses. On the other hand, the class itself has proficiency with heavy armour and shields, thus allowing them to serve as a tank in the vein of the Knight or Templar.
• Gold Digger: Madam Goldiga.
• Goldfish Scooping Game: Yew and Magnolia play this together as Altair and Vega did before them.
• Gone Horribly Right: Cu Chulainn's birth. He is extremely thankful to be a half-man/half-horse being thanks to Bella's magic... but Bella shyly whispers, "my mistake".
• Good Morning, Crono: Happens to Yew after being utterly creamed by Kaiser Oblivion. Happens yet again when he wakes up in Caldisla in the final chapter, doubling as a direct Call-Back to Default.
• Grand Theft Me: One of the abilities of the guardian class is to possess people.
• Gratuitous French: Magnolia, as well as the Sagitta people and the inhabitants of the moon.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Anne and Providence are this in regards to the first game, as defeating Airy and Ouroboros played into their hands.
• Guest-Star Party Member:
  • Janne and Nikolai have shades of this, as game promotions never show them able to change into the asterisks' outfits like Yew does and show up at various points in the game to lend a hand. By the full game, they turned out to be moles. Savy players may also immediately notice they can't gain any experience while in the player's party.
  • Ringabel for Yōko's asterisk fight. Played with in that whilst he helps out with special moves, he’s not controllable in any form, and Edea will eventually tell him to put a sock in it.
  • Altair in a few instances is in control of Tiz during battles, though it makes no difference gameplay-wise.
• The Gunslinger: The Hawkeye is a new class that specializes in guns.
• Guns vs. Swords: Aimee vs Danzaburo, the former having Improbable Aiming Skills and the latter having Implausible Fencing Powers.
• Healing Boss:
  • Nikolai Nikolanikov can cast healing magic to restore his allie's HP or his own.
  • Geist can use Undo to negate all damage done to him in a single turn.
  • Any time its HP reaches 0, Diamante will revive itself.
• High Fantasy: The game once again entails a world of adventure, swords, and magic.
• History Repeats: Used in three different ways:
  • Chapter 5: With the knowledge of how events played out in the first world, the party is able to stay one step ahead of the Glanz Empire's movements and foil their plans at every turn, this despite the fact they had also retained their memories and manage to lose.
  • Edea repeatedly tries to use this to prevent certain events from happening in the side stories. Unfortunately, she can't make a difference in all of these and she must endure having to choose between two polarizing choices as always. At least she manages to abbreviate the events doing considerably the second time around though.
  • On a grand scale that parallels Altair and Vega's relationship, Yew and Magnolia's relationship heavily mirrors theirs and it's even in the same order. First, they meet together in a snowy region and Yew gives Magnolia a flower (Snowcap); second, they share an Umbrella of Togetherness scene using Urchin's umbrellas (Urchin); third, they go to a festival to fish goldfishes (Goldie); fourth, their sneaking out at night at Sagitta Village to research how the village is floating, realizing that they're very good working together (Apparati); fifth, after putting a stop to the Glanz Empire, they all dine together (Redshirt); and finally, the part where they either tie the knot for good (Turtle Dove) or Magnolia leaves on a ship without ever telling her feelings to Yew (Diamante). After Altair heavily suggests them to act on their feelings, they do realize their feelings for each other and Magnolia stays behind to be with Yew. To add to all this, one scene plays in one chapter as well.
• Hopeless Boss Fight:
  • The first scene in the game is a fight during which the party is completely obliterated and Agnès abducted. Subverted when you have to restart the game with New Game+, since you are able to defeat the boss, using your original party, in order to progress through the story.
  • The random Ba'al encounters at the end of Chapter 4 also qualify, as you're likely nowhere powerful enough to reasonably take them on. Thankfully, you're not meant to and they can be ran from.
• HP to One: In the second fight against Anne, she can lower party members' max HP to 1, and it will stay that way for the entire fight. Though it can be reversed if you use the Exorcist's undo HP spell quick enough but the journal entry won't take that into consideration.
• Identical Stranger: Danzaburo is literally an illusion of Kaiser Oblivion/Denys Geneolgia wearing a samurai getup, but you can't tell the difference since he is wearing a big hat all the time, even at the hot springs.
• Idle Game: Two! Norende reconstruction is back (reskinned as Magnolia's hometown), and there's a brand-new Chompcraft minigame.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Yew gets smacked on the arm with a sniper's bullet in Ancheim. Cut to Eisen Bridge, where Aimee Matchlock notes that she "was already pushing [her] luck at this range, huh?"
  • And after she's defeated, she can be seen shooting something in the air. It turns out to be a ring with a letter which lands right at Angelo's finger a few scenes later as he's about to commit suicide by pastry.
• Inconsistent Dub: Edea's name is now pronounced "IH-dee-ah", rather than the previous game's "Eh-DEE-ah". Additionally, all of the age changes in localized versions of Default are ignored, with characters having the same ages in all versions of Second. Several asterisk abilities have also been renamed:
  Burgle and Buff → Big Bad Burglar
  Epic Group-Cast → Group-Cast Master
  Conservation of Life → Circle of Life
  See You In Hell → Blaze of Glory
• Infinity +1 Sword:
  • The Yōkai asterisk is the final asterisk you can get in the game and has some of the most powerful moves in the game and grants the useful "Awakening" skill. However, that requires you grind the job level to maximum to get all these moves. Since you get this near the end of the game and only after doing all the other sidequests, the only real use it will have is to assist in the Bonus Dungeons.
  • Defeating the Superboss Deneb (aka the Adventurer) in one of the aforesaid Bonus Dungeons will get you a unique sword and shield for your trouble: the Spacetime Blade and Spacetime Bezel, fashioned after the pieces of the compass of space and time.
• In Medias Res: While the demo provides some backstory, the game proper opens up with a Hopeless Boss Fight against Kaiser Oblivion, leaving questions about what happened beforehand to be answered in as the game goes on. Subverted on New Game Plus, wherein you have the opportunity to change your destiny by defeating Kaiser Oblivion then and there.
• Instant Expert: In Starkfort, Whitson steals the asterisk of either Heinkel or Kikyo, and effortlessly manages to not only use their abilities against the group, but impersonate the respective asterisk's rightful bearer in full.
• Insulting from Behind the Language Barrier: The floating city of Sagitta speaks largely in French. At one point, a young boy named Procyon insults Tiz's hair while speaking to his father in French. Magnolia knows French, but Tiz does not (though he could still tell that his hair was being made fun of).
• Interface Screw: The final boss, Providence, will distort the screen, briefly control the party and make them attack one another, and also change the button functions so that it looks as if you're about to delete your save file.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • Zigzagged. The number of entries in the bestiary for boss fights gives away that you'll fight a particular boss again, mostly. In chapter 2, after fighting Janne in the Fire Temple he falls to his apparent Disney Death. Except you need to fight him three times to finish his entry in the bestiary. It doesn't spoil that you battle him (and the other Empire bosses) again during Chapter 5. Their entries don't get updated with their new boss fights, either.
  • Played straight with Janne and Nikolai. The fact that neither can gain EXP or JP makes it pretty obvious that they are guest party members. The fact they already possess job abilities outside of Freelancer is also a big hint to those that know about how jobs and abilities work in the Bravely world that they are actually Jobmasters and thus most likely must be fought at some point.
  • If a party member is capable of Spellcraft, the ability selection in battle identifies which spells are Craftable. If all the spells in a given magical class are Craftable, the marker will indicate the header in that menu; if only select spells are Craftable, they'll be indicated individually. If a character has both Summoning and Spellcraft, all of the summons are indicated individually as Craftable; Lv 5 Summoning, unlocked at Summoner Job Lv 11, has the same function as Default's Invocation ability (stat boosts that specifically target the caster), and are not Craftable.
• It Amused Me: Almost all of Yōko's manipulative schemes to bring sadness on her victims and their tragic pasts related to them can be seen as this. However, she is always doing a Secret Test of Character so that her victims may find salvation to stop running away from their inner demons, but it is still ambiguous at best.
• I "Uh" You, Too: In the Epilogue, Agnès indirectly tells Tiz she wants to get married by saying she wants his last name, and Tiz says it's what he wants too.
• Keep It Foreign: In most languages of the game, the native tongue of the Moon is Gratuitous French. In the Japanese, Korean and (naturally) French translations, it's Gratuitous English instead.
• Killed Off for Real: Once again, the death count of important villain characters rise up as you get closer to the Skyhold. Until you reset time from the prologue and the party spares every single villain from dying. The only ones who die are the true villains.
• Kill Streak: If you wipe out an entire Random Encounter in a single turn, you get the option to chain another battle immediately afterward. The longer the chain, the more your rewards get multiplied when you stop (up to 3x at 10 or more battles).

L-O

• Laser-Guided Amnesia: A massive example. Players will notice that a quick look at the world map reveals the Caldis region has completely vanished from existence and it can't be found anywhere else. You eventually learn this is happening because Yōko herself used her powers to make everyone outside Caldisla forget about the region (and vice versa with Caldisla) to keep Anne from ever using the Great Chasm to open a clear path between Luxendarc and the Celestial Realm to transport Ba'als without the moon noticing. Unfortunately, the seal is undone near the final moments of the game, and the Caldis Region shows up on the world map again.
• Last Episode, New Character: The Adventurer reveals their true name after the final battle.
• Last of Her Kind: Magnolia Arch is from the world's moon, and the last of her kind after a demon attacks her homeland. Truth be told, she has her Vice President Appleberry up there, along with a few survivors, but Magnolia is the only surviving Ba'al Buster. The Sagitta are related to her kind as they are descendants of Moon people who settled on Luxendarc.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • The game itself is a direct sequel to the previous game, but even the marketing directly spoils that Edea is the heir to the Eternian throne, and spoils the True Ending where Tiz is stuck in a coma and Ringabel returned to his home timeline.
  • As if the story itself didn't spoil newcomers, the game's Attract Mode provides a quick summary of Default's entire story, including Airy's betrayal and the identity of Ouroboros. It also includes a panning shot of the Duchy's asterisk bearers, with Yulyana prominently featured.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Sholmes and Whitson.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Quoth Heinkel during the Starkfort murder: "It'll take more than a job change to get me to lay [my armour] aside."
• Left Hanging: The "calamity" that spurred Altair and others to board a ship and flee from the Celestial Realm is never revealed. It's possible that it was Providence, but one would think such a thing would be brought up after Providence's reveal if that were the case.
• Lethal Chef: Edea's cooking is stated to be edible, but the problem with it is that she likes to wildly experiment with spices by adding exaggerated amounts of them for an extra kick.
• Lighter and Softer: While still containing as many mature and disturbing themes as Default, Bravely Second has more enthusiastic party members and dialogue, and relationships and The Power of Love are more in the spotlight. And like the first game, the next loop has the party reconciling with all of the opposing army.
• Limit Break: Special attacks take this role once more, with a few improvements. For example, you can individually select trigger conditions for special attacks, instead of the triggers being weapon-dependent like in the previous game.
• Limited Wardrobe: Mahzer Lee complains that Braev doesn't ever change out of his Templar outfit because he's grown very attached to it.
• Locked Out of the Loop: The asterisk holders of Eternia and people related to them all conveniently do not retain the memories from the first loop unlike everyone else in the main story (Kamiizumi himself only retains the memories of the main story but not his side quest's ones, and unlike everyone else, Rocca Pellar does retain the memories of his sidequest, for some reason), allowing the group to obtain all missing asterisks they ignored over the other in the second loop.
• Locked Room Mystery: The mystery for "The Murder at Starkfort" Side Quest with Heinkel and Kikyo and their nephew, Sholmes. Madam Goldiga killed her husband, and Whitson helped her until she tried to get him on the crime, forcing him to kill her. Both of them used a secret passage to the room that no one could find.
• Lost in Translation:
  • The "Nekomancer" job in Japanese is a pun on "neko" (cat) and "necromancer". In English, the job is called "Catmancer", which is just a standard Whatevermancy construction and not punny at all.
  • The pun in the Sequel Hook, that "Bravely Sword" sounds almost exactly like "Bravely Third", only really works in Japanese.
• Love Hurts: Many couples experience a lot of pain in their relationship.
  • The Ba'als are manifestations of Vega's pain from being left behind by Altair, weaponized by Providence.
  • Edea is secretly burying a lot of sadness from Ringabel's absence.
  • Late in the story, Magnolia and Yew are hurting deeply about her having to return to the Moon.
• Love Transcends Spacetime: Altair says this. It's also Magnolia's final line to the Player.
• Luminescent Blush: Plenty of times, for just about everyone in the party and Yōko. And the townswomen who were charmed by Angelo.
• Lunacy: The moon where Magnolia hails from. It's the place she can help nourish and where the party can fight really messed up bosses just like Norende in the prequel.
• Magikarp Power
  • The Wizard is initially limited to Spirit Magic, which is a fairly weak selection of spells that only target the entire enemy party, and the only thing it has going for it is elemental coverage^note Black Magic covers four elements, White Magic two, and Time Magic one plus non-elemental; Spirit Magic comes in all seven plus non-elemental. However, its main selling point is Spellcraft: Shaping Your Attacks in a variety of increasingly useful ways. The only reason Spirit Magic exists is to provide an elemental foundation; Spellcraft can be combined with any pure magic type in the game.
  • The Catmancer starts off as fairly weak version of Default's Vampire class, with some gimmicky, low-damage abilities with an irregular elemental spread, you need consumable items to cast them, and you can only learn some abilities by having confused monsters use them on you. But they don't cost MP, so once you earn enough money and build up your bio-lab you can sling Catmancies with willful abandon and still have have MP left for support magic. And then you unlock Cat Mastery, which has all sorts of powerful abilities...
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: In a meta example, the world map has been reorganized to have the Eternia and Eisen regions on the east side of the map, and the Harena and Florem regions on the west side, where they had been the other way around in Default. From a dramatic perspective, this means that the Caldis region, which is hidden from existence until the last chapter, is no longer smack in the middle of Luxendarc, making it easier for the less-attentive to miss its absence. From a mundane perspective, the story mandates that initial travel between Harena and Eternia is limited to a stretch of shallows that, in Default's layout, would have gone straight through the Wrap Around.
• Mecha-Mooks:
  • Automatons and Spriggans return as recurring enemies, with the latter's bio retconning them into being upgraded versions of the former that were sealed underground after they proved too powerful for the Eternian army to control. The final dungeon houses a new variant called the Spartans, which were apparently originally designed to act as "caretakers" for the Celestial Realm's inhabitants (although even their creator is unsure why he needed to give them such great battle capabilities in spite of this).
  • The Iron Men, a series of egg/frog-shaped mechanical soldiers in service of the Glanz Empire. The first generation despite being deemed outdated models surprisingly remains the strongest to the point that they exist as part of the Empire's Praetorian Guard, while the designs of the third and fourth generations are said to have played big roles in the creations of the Superdreadnought Bael and the Vucub Caquix. Turns out their creator was a former Eternian engineer who had been working on them during the events of the first game before the duchy was defeated, then later started making them for the Empire after the Kaiser was impressed enough by them to want them as a significant bulk of his army.
• Mechanically Unusual Class: Many of the new classes qualify as this:
  • Wizards can use Spellcraft to change the behavior of any spell they cast (such as turning it into a single-target physical attack, having it trigger at the beginning of the turn, having it trigger automatically after everyone's turns for several rounds, etc). Their normal set of spells are fairly unremarkable but cover every element.
  • Charioteers start with mediocre weapon proficiency, which goes up every time they use a basic attack. In addition, they can throw their weapons and wield up to 4 weapons at a time.
  • Fencers utilize a Stance System, which grants them bonuses that even stack with other buffs.
  • Bishops at first glance are just a variation on the White Mage but their healing spells are directly based on their targets maximum HP, which can be quite exploitable later on. Just make sure not to heal a boss by accident...
  • Catmancers and Yōkai can learn monster abilities, the former by getting hit by said abilities and the latter by defeating Optional Bosses, though Catmancy uses consumable items instead of MP.
  • Patissiers can create delicious (and debuffing) cakes and pastries by combining items.
  • Exorcists can rewind time for a character, reverting their HP, MP, or BP to a previous turn's value.
  • Guardians can posses people, adding theirs and their target's offensive stats together and their abilities use a special resource called "Soul Power" which builds up with every hit they take.
  • Kaisers use powerful effects that apply to both your and the enemy party, including stopping any type of healing, reversing speed for several turns and having everyone deal critical hits every time.
• Mental Time Travel: The Bravely Second Hourglass can store memories. When you use it in New Game+, the protagonists and antagonists regain their memories of the previous timeline.
• Metal Slime: In addition to the Chomper and Guzzler, the game adds 4 new members to the Chomper family. There's the Gobbler, who stays and fights instead of running away; the Chompette, who alternates between enduring attacks and running away; the Silver Chomper, who makes the party run away; and the Gold Chomper, who makes one character leave the battle at a time, resulting in a Non-Standard Game Over if everyone is gone.
• Mini-Game: Chompcraft, which also doubles as a Sound Test. The cp made in Chompcraft can be exchanged in Chompshire for pg.
• Mistaken for an Imposter: Trying to go to Ancheim before Professor Norzen creates the sandstorm has the party turned away, on the grounds that "If [the guard] had a pg for every 'Tiz' and 'Edea' that came through here..."
• Modesty Towel: Whenever the characters are in the hot springs at Yunohana or on the Rubadub, they wear towels (with the presumption that they remove them before actually entering the water, but the water's waist-high and the girls only ever poke their heads over the divider). The player can purchase a universal costume called "Washcloth" in Chompshire for 200000 pg, which allows them to fight (and work Chompcraft) in the towels.
• The Mole: Turns out that Janne and Nikolai, Yew's partners, are actually working for the Glanz Empire and are Asterisk holders themselves.
• Moon Rabbit: Magnolia considers bunny ears sacred items referring to the moon rabbits at her home. It is merely a coincidence to see them away from the moon though.
• Moving the Goalposts: Subverted. Jobs trained to level 10 are marked as "mastered" until the party acquires the Yōkai job, whereupon an 11th level is unlocked via the Awakening ability. However, training a job to Level 11 marks it as "legendary"; level 10 jobs are still counted as "mastered", and the Freelancer's "Late Bloomer" ability is only dependent on job mastery.
• Multiple Endings: The side stories have a Bittersweet Ending and a Downer Ending for each choice in Japan. The Western release only has the Bittersweet Ending on each branch; the Downer Endings were removed after intense negative feedback from JP players, who felt they were too depressing and found it tedious to have to play the game four times to see every ending.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: One of the quotes in the 4th sidequest says: "Survivors: 9 (and 1 D'gon)"
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast:
  • Kaiser Oblivion. His real name is anything but.
  • The Jobmaster for the Exorcist job is named Geist, the Bloody.
• The Needs of the Many: Brought up many times.
  • Norzen Horoskoff plans to use a massive sandstorm to bring down Skyhold, but acknowledges that it will likely kill most of Ancheim and Agnès. But allowing Skyhold to continue its acts while inside his sphere of influence is something he can't do.
  • Jackal and DeRosa both want the Wellspring Gem, the former to restore the oases around the desert, and the latter to create a clean, renewable energy source. It comes down to gambling the needs of the immediate desert dwellers over a positive future for all of humanity. The player decides which is more important in the end.
  • Erutus points out that by turning the inlet into a port they can solve a majority of the problems that the country, including the economy and labor shortage that the youths face. Holly and the older generation still admire the beauty of nature and have fond memories of it, not wanting to give it up by turning it into a port.
  • Ominas Crowe believes that teaching Femto Flare to Bahamut is the best chance the world has at stopping the Ba'al, which is why he insists on everyone in the party giving their rations to Bahamut when they get Locked in a Room, even if they die as a result. To his credit, he is at least consistent - "everyone" includes Crowe himself, and he has been giving his own rations to Bahamut from the beginning.
  • The Sagitta Tribe have a duty to eliminate the Ba'al, meaning that if the party can't get Agnès from the Skyhold, they will open fire at it regardless.
• Nerf:
  • A few of the more Game Breaking Jobs from the first game don't return, including Spell Fencer, Salve-Maker, Arcanist, Spiritmaster, Vampire, and Conjurer. There are replacements for some of these classes, such as Hawkeye having Warheads as a means of simulating Sword Magic, but they are generally not as overpowered as their original counterparts. Spell Fencer, for instance, had the ability to use Drain Sword which made a Dark Knight's HP Drain by attacking non-existent if you were not attacking a zombie.
  • Hasten World and Slow World and Veil spells have been entirely removed from the Time Mage. The Kaiser job gets weakened replacements for the former.
  • The Red Mage's Revenge ability no longer activates on zero-damage hits. This means, among other things, that Dark Nebula is no longer reliable for free BP.
  • The Merchant job's Big Pharma ability is explicitly capped at 99,999 pg per battle, preventing AFK farming loops. Not that money is exactly hard to come by without it, but that's beside the point...
  • Jobs only have 10 levels this time around. The final job, however, unlocks an 11th level for all jobs with the skill Awakening.
  • The levels of schools of magic has also been cut down to 6, with only two spells per level Awakening and job level 11 usually add a seventh level, which has just one spell
  • Fort-Lune has no weapon or armor shops, unlike Norende in the first game, so you can't get any Disc One Nukes from there.
• Never Trust a Trailer: Well, Never Trust a Demo, anyways. The Ballad of the Three Cavaliers demo has the player controlling Yew, Janne, Nikolai, and Magnolia with a full compliment of job classes to use... but only Magnolia changes outfits in the process. This seems to indicate that the other three will not be properly playable characters come the full game... but come the full game, Yew is not only fully playable but the central player character. Janne and Nikolai aren't so lucky.
• New Game Plus: Like the first game, you are allowed to choose what you want to carry over. Unlike Bravely Default, this gets subverted as choosing a New Game+ is required to advance to the two final chapters of the main plot after chapter 4 and you're forced to take everything from your first go in this case.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While reuniting Altair and Vega was a nice thing, her soul was the only thing holding back Providence's full power.
• "No Peeking!" Request: When the party visit the Yunohana hot springs, Edea and Magnolia threaten the boys (Yew in particular) with violence if they peek at them while they're bathing. But when the guys go to bath at their side, it's the girls who peek at them instead. And after they're done Edea warns the boys again that she'll beat them up if they try to peak on them. Yew is particularly offended.
  Yew: They can look, but not us!? It's not fair, I say!
• Note from Ed.: What originally starts out as Yew's personal journal becomes later a place where every party member can add their remarks to most enemies.
• Offscreen Teleportation: During a tent event, Edea somehow managed to teleport right next to Magnolia after the latter had prepared food for everyone to eat. Mind you, Edea was outside punching a wall...and she appeared on the side of the tent that had no entrance, freaking Yew out.
• Once More, with Clarity: The context behind the Ba'als, their Eldritch forms, and their battle backgrounds. By traveling Via Celestio with Altair, you learn how each Ba'al represents a key memory from Altair and Vega's relationship.
• One-Handed Zweihänder: Greatswords are a new weapon class, with the literal Zweihander and Excalibur from Default being reclassed appropriately; they are, however, a one-handed weapon class. They all have roughly the same accuracy rating as axes, being less accurate than regular swords.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: As revealed in the very end on the game, people in Moon only tell their real name to the one they marry. The player doesn't get to hear Magnolia's, though. After all, she isn't marrying the player!
• Only One Name: Yōko, Altair, Vega, and the true name of the Adventurer, Deneb.
• Our Angels Are Different: The fairies fit most of the older definitions of angels, being powerful messengers of their gods sent to guide humanity. Pity that their gods are evil.
• Overrated and Underleveled: Despite Magnolia being a veteran "Ba'al Buster", she joins the party at about the same level as the rest of the cast. She does come with a fairly powerful spear for this point in the game, but there is nothing keeping you from equipping that on another party member.

P-S

• Permanently Missable Content: There are a few items that can only be obtained by stealing them from a specific boss. Miss your chance and you can't get their diary entires without doing a New Game Plus.
• Phantom Thief: Whitson becomes one at the end of the Side Quest featuring him and Sholmes.
• Powerful, but Inaccurate: Strong Strike (powerful attack with 50% chance of missing) from the Monk class makes a return.
• Poor Communication Kills: Strongly averted, unlike the previous game. The protagonists are much more proactive in asking why the antagonists are opposing them, while the antagonists are more willing to explain their motives.
• Pungeon Master: Minette the Catmancer is constantly making cat-based puns. Lord Arima, ruler of Yunohana, a city famous for its hot springs and tourist industry, frequently makes water- and bathing-based puns.
• Punny Name: The sidequests host a bunch of minor NPCs, and all of them are given names that are far too appropriate for their role. In roughly chronological order of sidequest availability:
  • Gho Gettar^note "go-getter", a four-star scholar from Al-Khampis and avid reader of Master Kamiizumi's book on swordsmanship.
  • Mittleman^note "middleman", the Deputy Director of the Power Betterment Office of Ancheim.
  • Jambalay, Risotto, and Paella, hired help for Ominas Crowe, who unfairly divvies rations and gives the lion's share to his d'gon. Jambalay^note from "jambalaya" is also the son of the poor delivery guy who was originally going to bring their restock.
  • Sholmes^note Sherlock Holmes, wannabe sleuth (and nephew of both police detective Heinkel and private investigator Kikyo), and his friend Whitson^note Watson whose name is much less appropriate
  • Lord Earl Gulliver^note He's not an earl, his name is Earl, murder victim renowned in Eisen for his wealth^note Gulliver Quick is the title character of a murder mystery written by Marleen Earl and published in 1992, who dies on page one
  • Madam Goldiga Gulliver^note "gold digger", Earl's widow and murderer
  • Lande Lessor^note "lessor" referring to the one providing a lease, current landowner of Starkfort, who was about to sell the property to Earl before his death
  • Noah Enterest^note "interest", Earl's financial advisor
  • Rocca Pellar^note "Rockapella", the a capella band from Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego, grandson of the famous bard Arca Pellar^note "a capella", whose students were the subject of Praline's sidequest in Default.
  • Chancellor Ursula U. DeWitt^note "You do it", who makes Edea the Superintendent of Education simply so that there's less work for her to do.
  • Hedy Steddie ^note "steady head", who streamlines the instructions that DeWitt hands off.
  • Preema Proppa ^note "prim and proper", who tries to keep DeWitt on task.
  • Rhea Veeling^note "revealing", former soldier of the Bloodrose Legion, who was complicit in DeRosa's corruption of Florem into a place where fashion comes first and skin is shown.
  • Swetti Tracsute^note "sweaty tracksuit", former Eternian Sky Knight and a perspiration-prone brawler.
• Rare Candy: The stat-raising Buns dropped from Ba'al encountered via Streetpass or Internet make a comeback. Their counterparts encountered during the story, though, replace them with Elixirs, thus requiring the players put some actual efforts obtaining and weakening Ba'al.
• Red Herring: Throughout the game, every town you enter has a child who will tell you part of the story of Setanta, a warrior who attempted to become a hero to make friends but ended up being a hated killer. Despite being spread out over the first four chapters, the story has no relevance to the game's overall plot. Its real relevance is to the odd one out among the Empire's asterisk bearers: Cú Chulainn, who was an idol reanimated by Bella's magic rather than a sufferer of the Orthodoxy's corruption. During the first fight with the two of them, Cú explains his centaurian appearance as a merging of himself and his steed Sainglend; the story that the children tell mentions Sainglend as being Setanta's steed.
  • Of course, if you happen to be a fan of Irish Mythology, this is less a Red Herring and more exactly as expected: Setanta is the birth name of Cú Chulainn.
• Refreshingly Normal Life-Choice: Agnes Oblige is the pope of the Crystal Orthodoxy and a renowned Warrior of Light who helped save multiple worlds from annihilation. She takes her own kidnapping in stride and remains resolute in her efforts to aid the heroes in their quest. But at the end of the story, she retires to settle down in the rebuilt Norende with her beloved Tiz, a humble shepherd (and fellow ex-Warrior of Light).
• Reincarnation Romance: Played with. Yew and Magnolia's relationship has many parallels to that of Altair and Vega. Altair and Vega are distinct and separate from Yew and Magnolia, but how they met, bonded, and fell in love is incredibly similar. And Altair works to prevent them from becoming Star-Crossed Lovers. Additionally, when Altair recounts his memories with Vega in Via Celestio, their silhouettes look very similar to Yew and Magnolia. Magnolia can also dress like Vega with a costume available in Saggita.
• Remember the New Guy?: Both Barras and Einheria can't truly remember who Swetti Tracsute and Rhea Veeling are despite being their former underlings respectively. It doesn't help their motives to endorse each respective side are a little petty.
• Renovating the Player Headquarters: The game follows in the footsteps of its predecessor by giving you the moonbase, Fort Lune. It functions nearly identically to the Norende Village sub-mode from Bravely Default, but calls its Nemeses "Ba'als", of which pose a much more significant role in the game's story.
• Riddle for the Ages: "The Murder of Lord Gulliver" side quest intentionally leaves a few major questions unanswered, such as what was Whitson's true plan and motives, his connection to Lady Goldiga and his exact involvement in her murder plot, and what Goldiga threatened him with that provoked him to murder her.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: When Yew uses the SP Hourglass during the plot-mandated New Game Plus that starts Chapter 5, everyone - ally and enemy alike - remembers the events of Chapters 1-4. It is, however, subverted for the sidequest characters; the asterisk holders are shown to remember some of the events (i.e. DeRosa recalling everyone's Al-Khamp-O-Noodle orders), but react to the sidequests' conclusions as though it is the first time.
• Robot Wizard: The E-Type models of the Glanz Empire's Iron Man soldiers are partially built using magic charms and are capable of casting spells like Lightning, thanks to having magic stones inside them that allow them to do so.
• Rocket-Tag Gameplay: The Kaiser command abilities Noble Eagle and Overlord can enforce this, doubling the offensive stats of everyone in a battle and causing all attacks to critical hit, respectively. Combined with a Fencer's Wolf stance and some Attack-boosting special moves, and suddenly Ba'al v: Urchin's 9999 Guard looks a lot less impressive.
• Running Gag: Several:
  • Yew's only fear. He has more than one.
  • Yew's obsession with gravy is questioned many times.
  • Any possible pun regarding Ba'al / Ball is used... many times.
  • The returning asterisk bearers always indirectly insulting Edea.
  • Edea's Big Eater moments return with a vengeance.
  • Any non-Moonfarer or non-Sagittan trying and failing to correctly pronounce any spoken French. Occasionally, Magnolia or the Sagitta misinterpreting something in English.
  • Any of The Man With The Purple Pen's Ice-Cream Koan sayings involving vegetables.
• Samus Is a Girl: The Adventurer who serves as both a save point and a bonus boss in Final Fantasy: the 4 Heroes of Light and the Bravely series turns out to be a woman named Deneb.
• Sanity Slippage: Geist, the Bloody became Ax-Crazy due to constant usage of Undo. The fact that he left his son to die and had to put him in a suit of armour doesn't help him either.
• Scenery Censor: During one scene where Yew falls off at Sagitta Village and Magnolia jumps after him before inadvertently finding a material that would allow the Rubadub to fly, as they hold hands and spin, a piece of rock obscures any chance of getting a panty shot of the latter.
• Scenery Porn:
  • The gorgeous towns from Default are all revisitable, and some. Al Khampis, Gathelatio and Yunohana, the new locations, are equally breathtaking.
  • Dungeon maps have taken an impressive leap forward.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Pudgius Bismol boasts this. The only reason he has 5-stars is because his father is rich, and he flaunts it.
• Sequel Hook: After the credits, a short scene plays in which one can hear Ringabel speak of some sort of Three Keys and the Sword of the Brave, which was a plot device at the beginning of the game, being one of them. Works even better in Japanese where Bravely Sword sounds similar to Bravely Third.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The main motive Kaiser Oblivion had aimed to make the Crystals go berserk again. He wanted to go back in time and kill Foundar Geneolgia, the first head of the Geneolgia family so the Crystal Orthodoxy wouldn't be as corrupt. His own followers (minus Angelo and Aimee who defected by Chapter 5 for a much peaceful and happy life) had their reasons too but they shared the same goal as the corrupt main Crystal Orthodoxy at Eternia before the reform by Braev was the reason for all their Dark and Troubled Past issues. Even if it meant that he and Yew would disappear.
• Seven Deadly Sins: The Nemeses from Norende^note who were themselves bosses from Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light that embody them all return as bonus bosses on the stone monuments after getting the final asterisk.
• She Is All Grown Up: Tiz's years inside a stasis tube were kind enough to him as he now looks older with longer hair. Edea is old enough to wear more form-fitting outfits.
• Shipper on Deck: Edea ships Yew and Magnolia hard. She won't allow others to ruin their moments, to the point of drop-kicking Tiz to stop him from spoiling the Umbrella of Togetherness scene.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Ghost status effect is a callback to the spiritual precursor to the Bravely series, in which characters who died in-battle became ghosts until revived.
  • Revenant, the holder of the guardian asterisk who died of sickness while his father, Geist, left to treat the Great Plague. His soul was placed in a suit of armor as a likely one for Fullmetal Alchemist.
  • Revenant: My name is Revenant Grace! You killed my Daddy! Prepare to die!
  • When you meet the Jackal, the narrator calls him a diamond in the rough.
  • One of the enemies in the game is named "Enemy Crab", and has a physical attack named "Massive Damage" and a defensive move called "No Weak Point".
  • One section has Tiz attempt a Jedi Mind Trick, telling the guards "these aren't the intruders [they're] looking for." This works.
  • One of Magnolia's, the resident Ba'al Buster, Bravely Second quotes is thusly;
  Magnolia: Bustin' makes me feel good!
  • Magnolia also gets another reference in one of her quotes:
  Magnolia: One of these days... BANG! ZOOM! Straight to the moon!
  • The Enopu Mushroom might as well be green, considering the fluff talks about plumbers. The Sdrawkcab Name helps too.
  • In Sagitta, Procyon makes a few less-than-flattering comments about the party in a foreign language, not knowing that a member of said party also speaks said foreign language until they respond in it.
  • Metal Gear gets a few shout outs, with the main antagonist (played by Liquid Snake's voice actor) being the brother of the main character, backstory about a deadly virus hidden inside of a fox, and a stinger involving a call to the President.
  • The design and music of the Ba'als rapidly drew comparisons to the witches from Puella Magi Madoka Magica. As they were created from the memories and despair of Vega, in the same way a witch forms in Madoka, this is unlikely to be a coincidence.
  • One of Yew's Bravely Second quotes is "In the name of her Holiness, I will punish you!"
    • Additionally, Yew might state that he, the Soaring Falcon, flies faster than light. He also mentions that he made the Khampis Run in less than 12 parsecs. Much like another fictional falcon, dont you agree?
  • Likewise, Edea will say stuff associated with characters from the Marvel Universe.
    • The Incredible Hulk: "Don't make me angry!" You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry!!", "Edea Lee, Knights-Captain, SMASH!"
    • The Thing: "It's clobberin' time!"
    • Mary Jane Watson: "Face it, tiger... you just hit the jackpot!"
    • Spider-Man: "With great carbs comes great responsibility!", "My sugar sense is tingling!"
  • During Bravely Second, Tiz may quoth Neil Armstrong: "That's one small step for lamb... one giant leap for lambkind!"
    • Another one of Tiz's Bravely Second quotes is "You know, this is a darn fine cup of coffee!"
    • He also references Final Fantasy VII in the line "Limit Break: Omnishear!"
  • There's also one from Altair's special move quotes in "Like spinach, we'll fight to the finish!"
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Aimee believes Angelo is this with her, but he truly despises her so much but just uses her for his own ends. Or so he would have you think. It's worth mentioning, though, that despite his claims of hating Aimee, Angelo goes well out of his way to confront the party after they kill her, and as soon as he reads her final message to him, he immediately follows her wishes and stops opposing the party. Once the group goes through a time loop, the two of them have no objections and truly become this.
• A Sinister Clue: Zigzagged with Janne. When he's a playable character, his weapon defaults to his right hand like everyone else, but during cutscenes, he holds his sword in his left hand. He fights left handed full time as an enemy.
• Sidequest Sidestory: There are plenty of stories detailing the previous Jobmasters where Edea helps one of two sides. Unlike the previous game, you can only choose one of the two. Choosing the other will make you be unable to take up the other asterisk you did not pick. Luckily, you are able to obtain the other through a New Game Plus.
• Snow Means Love: Yew met Magnolia in the snow and presented her with a flower, like Altair did with Vega.
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: Oddly enough, averted with Janne and Nikolai; after the first run through Pilgrim's Grove, the three Cavaliers split up due to their betrayal, yet Yew maintains their gear. Not only is this less than five levels into the game, but whenever using a New Game Plus, the characters in question are equipped with a new set of the gear in question.
• Something Only They Would Say: when confronted in chapter four, Anne addresses the player, reprising her lines from the opening of the first game.
  Anne Oh, hello. I see fire in those eyes! How do I put it? They've a strong sense of duty. Like whatever you start, you'll always see through, no matter what!
• Sound Test: Chompcraft serves as a sound test in addition to a mini-game. The songs are unlocked by hearing the song in the story, then making a certain amount of money in a single batch.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Any song can be played during Chompcraft, although some have to be unlocked first. With sufficient patience, a player can listen to whatever they wish during their simple, mindless craftwork. Like [Battle] Ba'al Battle! Nothing says plush toys like Creepy Children Singing.
• Speaks Fluent Animal: Minette can speak with cats. Obtaining the Catmancer Asterisk allows you to do the same.
• Stamina Burn: Brave Points, which allow you to act up to four times but renders you unable to act for the next couple of turns. There are Special Attacks that can be modified so they can decrease up to three of the enemy's Brave Points. There are also certain job abilities that allow you to decrease brave points as listed below:
  • The Exorcist's Undo BP, which reverts the target's BP to its previous value at the beginning of the previous turn.
  • The Kaiser's Citadel lowers the BP of all allies and enemies by 1 every two turns.
• Status Effects:
  • Poison, blind, silence, curse, doom, etc. all return, but then you have some unusual ones:
  • Ghost. It effectively renders you KOed, but with the ability to still default and use magic. The catch? You’re also unable to use any items or summons, which means you are effectively useless if you run out of MP or aren’t a mage. Until you reach Florem and can purchase magic bottles, the only way to cure it is to use the Rubadub. However, since you also become immune to all damage as a ghost and have 0 HP which automatically makes all critical HP abilities trigger, it's a key part of some of the Game-Breaker strategies.
  • Love. An afflicted party member will mimic the party member they’re thinking of, including taking the same damage. If two characters love the same person, the love rivals will instead spend their turns attacking each other.
  • Freeze. Exclusive to the Ba'al vi; Snowcap, this immobilizes the character, and to cure the victim you need to hit them with a fire attack.
• Stealth Pun: There's a random pig NPC who teleporks you between cities.
• Stone Wall: The Guardian job is built like this statistically, with S-rank affinity with shields, armor, and helms, and S-rank modifiers to HP and the two defensive stats, but only a B-rank modifier to physical offence and E-rank modifiers to the remaining stats.
• Stop Being Stereotypical: In the journal entry for Profiteur, Magnolia is appalled and insulted by his fake French accent that she can't bear to listen to him. Fittingly, she speaks real French.
• Storming the Castle: Yew's initial plan as to how to save Agnès.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome: Mephilia believes that Sage Yulyana died and went to Heaven after a battle with a powerful Ba'al, telling her about Amaterasu in their final meeting before his fight. The bestiary entries for the dragon bosses hints that he could have possibly survived and left for another world.
• Superboss:
  • There are the 7 Deadly Sins (the Nemesis from the previous game and by extension the same ones from Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light) to power up the final job.
  • The above relocates all of the elemental dragons guarding the spheres in every monument to enter Vampire Castle to the 3 dimensional dungeons and turning into the Chest Monster kind for the Infinity +1 Sword weapons.
  • After the above is done, you can fight the Adventurer and the Companion in the Dimension's Cauldron (the volcano dungeon in Eisen that used to lead to the Fire Temple)... which THEN leads to a harder boss fight against the Adventurer in her Deneb form immediately after.
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: According to the bestiary, the Rocket Punching, Optical Camouflage equipped Spartans encountered in Via Celestio are caretaker robots. Not even their designer can explain why they need such power.
• Suspicious Video-Game Generosity: The addition of a pseudo-inn makes the Adventuer qualify for this even more than Default. Dangerously subverted in the Skyhold, where the Adventurer appears at the endpoint of both dungeon areas... with her position in the second segment being after the third battle with Janne.
• Sweet and Sour Grapes: While the Eternian officer sidequests all have two sides to an argument and are meant to end with one side forfeiting what the other side proposes, sometimes an outcome combines the best of both worlds.
  • Gho Gettar is torn between refining his summoning research and committing to a back-breaking job. Mephilia wants him to quit the job and study with her, whereas Kamiizumi encourages him to stick it out. If you side against Mephilia, he uses what he learned to improve the energy efficiency of the machinery he works with, earning himself a spot in the less physically laborious research and development department.
  • Ominas Crowe wants the food to go to Bahamut so he could master Femto Flare, whereas Artemia wants everyone to have an equal share of the rations. Turns out Ominas held one last fire spell back to burn away some of the debris when things were getting desperate, thus alleviating the burden on the rescue team. At least Artemia isn't sour about the whole thing.
  • Sholmes is stuck deciding between whether to become a police inspector and a private investigator. The trope is inverted — not only does Sholmes have to pick a path and stick to it, but his friend Whitson (who aided Madam Goldiga in her scheme) goes rogue no matter what he chooses.
  • Rocca Pellar is being pestered by Praline, who wants his grandfather Arca's last song for remixing into a pop hit, and Barbarossa, who wants the song to stay as is. After the time loop, Barbarossa was only opposed because he never heard Praline sing, but is willing to let her go so long as he helps her with her choreography.
  • Grandship has laws that provide comfort to the poor, the children, and other destitute souls who migrate there for shelter, but those benefits drain the coffers at a phenomenal rate, causing taxes to soar through the roof. Alternis wants to retain the poor laws at all costs, while Khamer wants to abolish the taxes that sustain the poor laws to keep the nation from going bankrupt. Siding with Khamer does cause the poor laws to dissolve, but the businesses use their profits to pick up the slack, providing materials to sustain the destitute and apprenticeships to further the children's education.

T-Z

• Taking You with Me: When the party is not able to defeat Diamante, who keeps regenerating itself, Denys decides to take himself and Diamante to the most distant future with the compass of time and space in order to save the present.
• Tangled Family Tree: Heinkel and Kikyo are related somehow. Made even more confusing when they're related to Sholmes' family.
• A Taste of Power: Janne and Nikolai join you for a part of the prologue, and they possess abilities that you won't be able to use until a bit later.
• Title Drop: The "end layer" is mentioned by a few minor NPCs throughout some of the towns. In-universe, it refers to an unchanging, stagnant world, and is suspected to refer to an apocalypse of some kind. When Anne gets rid of the Moon at the tail end of Chapter 4, time stops, wind doesn't blow, waves don't roll, and several of those NPCs believe that the end layer has come.
• Trailers Always Spoil: The opening cinematic, released as a trailer, shows Tiz, Edea, Yew, and Magnolia as a party.
• Trick Boss: The final boss surprisingly enough. When you've defeated the first form, there's nothing to indicate it has a second form other than the first form being slightly easy for a final boss battle, but the instant you try to leave the area, you get drawn into the real final boss battle. Hope you were Genre Savvy enough to heal up before proceeding.
• Umbrella of Togetherness:
  • Magnolia offers to share her umbrella with Yew, unaware of its implications while Yew blushes madly. When Edea whispers what it means to Magnolia, she grips Yew even tighter.
  • Vega and Altair did this when they introduced themselves to one another.
• Violence is the Only Option: When picking a difficult choice between two in each side story, the losing side will always object and fly into a rage against Edea and the group. Diplomacy be damned!
• Weird Moon: The moon of Luxendarc is host to a Space Base, populated by Ba'al Busters whose duty is to protect the world below from Eldritch Abominations. The reconstruction of Fort-Lune is roughly on the same scale as that of Norende in Default. When it is destroyed at the end of Chapter 4, time halts on Luxendarc; Magnolia recounts a legend that the moon was what brought about the flow of time. The opening cinematic also shows Magnolia fighting alongside the Buster Ships without any sort of space suit, but it's not clear whether that's a case of Weird Moon, Batman Can Breathe in Space, or Cutscene Power to the Max.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • Sapp and Piddler are absent come Chapter 4, with no explanation given as to their absence. Made all the more notable when the party travels back in time and they still make no reappearance.
  • Whenever the party defeats an asterisk user, they run away to parts unknown and don't appear again.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: In Profiteur's entry, Magnolia complains what kind of French accent he is using, which is justified, given talking in French is something she speaks fluently without sounding too thick or silly.
• Wham Episode: Par the course for the series by now at some stage, but in particular the party discovering the Sword of the Brave and what Yew did to his brother, finding out Kaiser Oblivion is actually said brother, Denys' attempt to sacrifice himself to stop Anne, and the entirety of Yōko's asterisk quest.
• Wham Line: Anne the fairy gets an epic one at the end of Chapter IV to reveal that she is Airy's sister from the first game.
  Anne (facing the player): Oh, hello! I see fire in those eyes!
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: The Grace family is probably one of the biggest victims of the Great Plague. About the time Rev started coming down with some other disease, Geist was called away to 'exorcise' a young lady who turned out to be a host of the Plague itself. He sent out a dire warning (unbeknownst to him, it arrived in Braev's hands), but was otherwise silenced as the Plague went out to ravage Luxendarc. By the time Geist came home, Rev was dead, and a sliver of his soul remained, clinging to the hope of seeing Geist one last time. Geist used some of his power to move Rev's soul into an empty suit of armor, but realizing that this was the fullest he could accomplish drove him mad with grief. That, coupled with Revenant's childish mentality (he mistook daddy's insane laughter for that of happiness), eventually led the two to join the Glanz Empire.
• You All Share My Story: Nearly all of the new asterisk bearers are revealed to be interconnected by the tale of the great plague; Yōko carried it, Griede (Yew and Denys's father) freed Yōko and thus spread it, Geist was dispatched to exorcise it, Revenant was a victim of it, Minette's mother and Norzen researched a cure for it, and the fallout of its ravages caused Braev's rebellion against the church, which led to Janne, Bella, and Nikolai's sufferings.
• You Killed My Father: Revenant Grace to Edea in Chapter IV.