Bravely Default Series

As I understand it, Braev was particularly bad since the party (which includes his own daughter) start asking him why the hell he's doing what he's doing, and he flat out refuses to say anything.

I mean, did he think they wouldn't believe him? Did he have no way to prove his stance even though he knew enough to know it was right to do (in his mind)? What the hell man?

"Dad, WHY are you trying to kill us? What's the point of sending your goons to oppress and attack people all around the world? We're literally saving the world by purifying the crystals, anyone can see that, so why are you trying to stop us when we know you're not a villain?"

"SHUT UP EDEA YOU'RE SO NAIVE OH MY GOD"

The only thing I can think of is that he knew exactly what Airy was, and he was afraid that if he screwed up her game she'd just slaughter everyone and move on.

But there wasn't any hint of that. He didn't imply there was some threat, or even "it's too complicated for you to understand." He just... didn't communicate, and acted like that was their fault.

Yeah he and the rest of the Jobmasters just assume that Edea knows exactly what she is doing despite her not signaling this at all.

Regarding Second's story, I assume many people where thrown of by how it starts in medias res and doesn't really start to explain things until chapter 5, heck Yew doesn't even get a backstory until chapter 3.

The jobmasters refusing to explain things makes sense if you assume THEY assume Edea knows why awakening the crystals is bad, and assume that she told her party, then they decided to keep doing it anyway.

Which is, of course, not true, because she keeps FUCKING ASKING WHY. Like, depending on the angle you look at it, Eternia has a terrible, terrible preponderance of psychopaths, to the point it might be genetic and Edea just lucked into not being AS MUCH of a sociopath as most of her countrymen.

I also found it incredibly weird that nobody relevant commented on how Alternis and Ringabel looked identical - especially Edea herself. It's like she never saw Alternis without his helmet prior to that point which just seems goofy and ridiculous.

To be quite honest though, I'm not sure how much this stuff is the real problem. We don't experience stories to see everything go perfectly and for people to make all the correct decisions, otherwise there would BE no story. It just makes me think there's a deeper issue with how the game is written. Which in this case, it feels incredibly weird that there doesn't seem to be a credible or satisfactory reason for Braev, Kamiizumi, etc to tell Edea at least part of the truth if they really want her to stop what she's doing. They always just respond with vague platitudes like "Things aren't black and white", "You should know better", or whatever else until post chapter 4 where they finally start telling you important stuff.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Jun 23rd 2020 at 11:42:47 AM

Literally just telling her 'there's a prophecy that the crystals will destroy the world' would solve JUST ABOUT every problem I had with Edea's lack of knowledge of what's going on.

Hell, have Edea know about the prophecy and misinterpret it as the crystals destroying the world by going dark, so she thinks she's stopping the prophecy by helping fix them. It's an easy fix.

As much as I agree to this, the issue there is that we're never given something remotely sounding like a reason for those people not to tell you the truth, and in absence of this, the only conclusion that makes sense from the perspective of the story is that everyone in it is an idiot, and idiot plots tend to be pretty hard to care about. It's something big enough that if you notice it while playing the game rather than after the fact, it can cause the entire story to collapse on itself.

Shamus young once worded it quite wonderfully about inconsistencies in a story : it's kinda like bugs in programming. You can't realistically get rid of all of them. But more importantly : Software does not exist for it's own sake. You don't write a word processor because you want fifty thousand lines of well-documented, bug-free code, you write it because you want a word processor. Auditing a story purely for consistency is missing the point of storytelling in the first place.

The problem here is not that it's an inconsistency, but the way it's built into the story puts your entire immersion into the story at risk because the simplest explanation to it is "everyone in this story is an idiot or an asshole", which is patently not what the story is trying to say since it wants you to care about several of those people, which in turns leads to the conclusion that the writer doesn't know what they're doing. And when you stop trusting the writer, that's a one-way road to losing investment in the story, which is pretty much the worse thing that could happen to a story.

Edited by Yumil on Jun 23rd 2020 at 6:09:25 PM

the writing in BD has also put a damper on me on wanting to try out Steins Gate (since the same guy wrote it). Everyone raves about it, so maybe BD is just one of those times where a writer drops the ball.

Stein's Gate is amazing, don't let their other works influence you like that.

Sometimes a writer doesn't make a knockout hit compared to their other work.

Stein's Gate 0 is even better.

I don't think Yew not having a backstory is a problem, personally. Tiz's backstory in Bravely Default is that he's a guy who watched his brother die and that's pretty much all of the detail he needs to be the main character for the whole game. There's nothing more to him than that.

Yew just being a member of the Pope's personal guard that wants to save her was more than enough of an introduction.

Edited by Hobgoblin on Jun 26th 2020 at 1:21:22 AM

So after much waffling and procrastination (and, in my defense, a dearth of free time), I finished my third and final run of Bravely Default (hard mode, 65 hours in total) and started Bravely Second. My opinion of it is much the same: a very flawed game, and one of my favorite games ever. Interestingly though, I amended my opinions a bit with regards to the ups and downs of it, specifically re: the story (better than I remembered) and the gameplay (a bit worse, I'll get into it).

About the story, I was surprised to find out that it dragged a lot less than I remembered. Specifically, the post-chapter 4 plot, when the world cycles start, only dragged on at the very end — I would've removed one world, but no more. World 2 (chapter 5) establishes the new status quo, world 3 is where all the revelations happen and the characters figure out the main plot, and world 4 would be where you get the Asterisk team fights and the preparations for the final battle. This isn't to say that there are no issues here, because there definitely are — having to do the stupid crystal breaking minigame is unbelievably tedious, even if it has some plot relevance (speaking of which, having to press X five times a second for a full minute in order to get the break is pure insanity). The Asterisks refights often have new details and different story beats (usually for the more lighthearted) but sometimes they don't and it gets repetitive either way, and the Crystal boss fights never change at all (by the end I was so done that I just Bravely Second + Elixir'd Gigas Lich every time for the OHK). I know it's just a series of what-ifs, and in the end the main cast end up going to their original worlds to deal with their lives, but it's still a bit of a weird feeling to get scenarios in which Mephilia became sane again and fulfilled her quest, or Jackal survived and went on to take care of a bunch of orphans, or Khint got to survive and meet his daughter again, only to then get reminded that those are pretty much non-canon. Then again, this is used to surprisingly great effect in the Conjurer sidequest where the main cast get confronted with the option to basically ignore the main plot and live out their ideal lives with their loved ones, though that one has some measure of Fridge Horror in that, for example, Braev got to see his daughter back from the dead only for her to disappear forever again. Kind of a kick in the nuts. There's also a bit of ambiguity in that not all the worlds tell you what happened to the party in them, in some it's highly relevant and in others it's pretty much shoved under the rug.

As far as the main plot goes, the Airy reveal was surprisingly well done, I'd pretty much forgotten how it went. However, it's impossible to ignore how much the latter half of the story runs on Idiot Plot — first because none of the characters in the know (most egregiously Braev) never bother to actually tell the party what the fuck's going on and instead fight to the death rather than talk like goddamn adults, and later because after the party groks onto Airy's plot they just keep going on about their business with only some vague allusions in party chats that they know what's going on and are intentionally following along, which is never conclusively shown in the actual final confrontation (presumably because maybe the player hasn't caught on, though if you've played through chapter 6 and not realized that Airy's evil you might be legitimately illiterate). Relevant [[Awkward https://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic/reason-for-the-treason]] [[Zombies https://www.awkwardzombie.com/comic/mislead-the-way]].

Anyway, what I would've fixed plotwise: take one world away, make the refights (both Asterisk and Crystal bosses) and the worlds in general meaningfully differentiated, and for the love of God come up with some actual reason for them not to communicate. Maybe emphasize that Airy would kill them all if she knew they'd found out and has done so in the past, I don't know. It's surprisingly not that far removed from a good plot, but it trips magnificently over the finish line, because the first half of the game is actually pretty good in the general story department. Won't win any awards, but the characters are likeable enough (I disagree with Drag on this account), the plot is solid and the various scenarios are diverse and engaging. The Party Chat feature does a lot to make you care for them. I probably should play a Tales game one of these days.

Onto the gameplay part. It's good. Next.

Okay, fine. It's amazing, just about the best turn-based combat system I've ever played. It has a great amount of tactical depth (shocking for a system with no positioning, as opposed to SRP Gs), insane levels of flexibility, and a ridiculously good UI and QOL features. But I've said all this before so ONTO THE NITPICKS. Caveat: none of this is a dealbreaker and it's still great but I've put 200 hours into this goddamn game so these minor issues get real noticeable.

My biggest gripe is about missed potential. Specifically, there are two mechanics that could've been great but the execution screws that over: the hit/dodge count and the BP-costing abilities. To elaborate: the use of multi-hit attacks scaling with speed whose final damage is a function of attack damage, hit count and accuracy vs evasion and defense is brilliant and a great way to make dodge-tanking an actual thing and introduce some granularity to the offensive/defensive profiles. It's then promptly thrown out the window because every physical damage ability uses maximum hit count as the baseline for its damage, so in the end (with the exception of endgame Frenetic Fighting/Dual Wield builds) basic attacks are strictly worse than physical abilities and Evasion is a largely wasted stat. Real shame. The other point is that the damage cap for endgame is fairly low, so you have to start to budget your turns around hitting the damage cap one per BP — quickly making abilities that cost additional BP fairly obsolete with one glaring exception. Stuff like High Jump, Torrent and Radiant Blast ends up being a waste of turns and more glaringly, design space — hitting the damage cap is so comparatively easy that it's largely pointless to invest in the highest-damaging combos. So after about chapter 3, just spamming MP-costing abilities is best, or most notably, Dark Knight's Rage. Which is special not just because it does a ton of damage, but because it gives you an attack-per-BP rate greater than 1, uniquely in the game, which makes it automatically the best offensive ability, even before you factor in all the other synergies you can dump on it.

Aside from that, the vast amount of interesting combinations and min-maxes you can get up to only really factor in about halfway through chapter 3 onwards, because previously almost every ability you get is just stat increases and whatnot. Early-mid game is mostly dictated by what your strongest available weapon and abilities are, rather than interesting tactics or synergies. Minor complaint, considering the "endgame" is easily half the game, but it's there. Also, Bravely Second is rather clumsily implemented and though it's very useful, I wish there were some other way of breaking the damage cap, not to mention the inherent scumminess of the micropayments (though I doubt anyone ever shelled out for this). On the bright side, I found out that in one turn of Bravely Second you can do about half a million damage to the Adventurer on hard mode with the proper setup, so that's fun.

Final notes: voice acting is cheesy but serviceable, although I wish Agnes would tone it down a couple octaves. Ringabel and Edea are fine, at any rate. Music is absurdly good and so are the backgrounds, it's incredible. Item and area encyclopedia lore is surprisingly in-depth. Wish the core systems (stuff like how the damage is calculated and spell base power) was better informed. Semi-random turn order and surprise attacks absolutely blow chunks and should've never been in the game. Special attacks are a cool mechanic but suffer from the same issues with damage cap, making it so the utility ones are usually the best. Village mechanic is a fun minigame. and the GP costs keep it from affecting the damage curve too much. Earth dragon can suck my dick. Some classes are wonky in the balance department. Basic attack-based passive abilities are too costly. All of the optional endgame outfits are great except for Tiz's Onion Knight getup. Airy is a good villain, Ouroboros is boring. Every single boss theme is a banger but Wicked Flight and Wicked Fight take the cake.

Hmm... here is a thought I had for the plot, since the 4th wall is a bit flimsy, maybe you could work that in as the reason as to why the characters aren't communicating.

I'm curious, how many played the first game and realized the time loops were referencing the original Final Fantasy 1, not a certain anime about magical girls?

Because back when i first played this game, my mind went immediately to what Garland did and then i saw the discussions and saw most recalled the Anime instead.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Jul 11th 2020 at 8:27:22 AM

Ouroboros and Providence are both awful villains. There's nothing interesting about a giant monster from nowhere that wants to destroy everything just because LMAO.

Between them both, I liked Providence a bit more for at least having a few interesting boss gimmicks and a neat fourth wall break.

Ouroboros: And now i'm going to destroy the world!

Tiz's party: Why would you want to do that?

Ouroboros: What?

Tiz's party: What's the point in destroying the world? What do you gain from it?

Ouroboros: I... don't understand the question.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Jul 11th 2020 at 8:52:40 AM

I mean, he does say he's gonna use the energy he gets from destroying worlds to invade the Celestial Realm, destroy everything and remake existence in his image. Generic, but valid.

Oh shit yeah.

It's been a while since i played the first game.

That, and I like I said, his theme is God Tier:

Let's be real, even the Asterik boss theme is pretty damn good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk-9ihcy2R8

I love the player's character folder on Bravely Default Divine Beings.

Serpent Eating the Ground is a banger absolutely. Up there with Hades Castle as one of my favorite game themes of all time.

Makes me wonder how meta the game can get next.

New Danganronpa V3 level of meta?

How viable is Dark Knight Edea?

I like Providence for being just motivated by a fine delicious meal and how its dinner being spoiled by hope meant he cant enjoy it forever.

The fact he rules the earth is at most secondary to that. And honestly with the way the earth is Providence intentionally making the earth a shitstain seems pretty accurate.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Jul 24th 2020 at 2:43:13 AM