Bravely Default Series

February 26th, 2021

Edited by tclittle on Oct 28th 2020 at 12:19:04 PM

-Shirley begins the boss fight-

-Spins the wheel-

-Dies-

-Victory Fanfare-

Another BD II Demo just got shadow dropped.

Orpheus is such a dick. I love him.

He contrasts nicely with Anihal who's a complete cinnamon roll.

Maybe a bit of extra incentive to buy a Switch.... More than just SMTV.

Of course I still need to finish BD 1.

2 Final Trailer

So did anyone else preorder the game?

Not me, I was planning on picking it up this morning.

But now I'm not sure. I definitely want to play it, but now I'm feeling a bit indecisive about if I want to play it right now. Since I do have other RP Gs on my backlog.

Might wait for it to drop a bit in price, Second definitely did after a while.

it doesn't really get my attention, tbh

I don't like the sound of all the changes that have been made

Game Xplain review is out.

Haha, it actually makes me want to play the game again. But I'll still probably wait a while

Also at 75 hours it seems a bit longer than the previous games. Or maybe that's because the reviewer was playing blind and couldn't look up anything if they got stuck.

I've got it! I've just started playing so I can't really say much yet, but it's clearly a Bravely game, though I can't tell yet how it compares to its predecessors.

I can definitely see some of the design choices being controversial. No auto battle, visible overworld encounters, an extra brave point for starting by slashing the enemy with your sword - which also gives random loot from the overmap, etc.

3 difficulty modes, I've started on normal but it is tempting to straight to Hard and just do the inevitable grinding.

So far my biggest gripe is the over importance of Speed due to there no longer being fixed turns. This rather strong arms you into picking fast jobs as your main, as having less turns is too much of a disadvantage compared to having slightly better other stats.

Hm, maybe that's why I kept getting curb stomped in the demo. I can see why no auto-battle, though. That was the thing that got abused too much for various farming methods. I would have preferred they just remove the one or two items that allowed that sort of thing, but whatever.

Not buying this yet, though. I've got enough on my plate as it is.

Why would developers care about players "abusing" basic mechanics in a one-player game?

I've got the game myself as well but I'm going to try to stay away from discussions so that I don't get spoiled on what the traditional off-the-rails twist will be (though right now I'm guessing it'll have something to do with Seth choosing to remain "dead" when the voice in the Wind Crystal forces him to make a decision). I just got the Vanguard and White Mage Asterisks so I've been grinding a few levels in those. Sloan makes for an excellent Crutch Character this early on! Still got wiped by that axolotl mini-boss though; I thought I could tough it out with his help but then it turned out to be immune to poison.

Impressions very early on is that it's essentially a Bravely Default game...in HD. Looks nice and sharp on the Lite's screen and it's lovely having Revo back in the composer's chair. Looking forward to what's in store.

Do I need to play any of the prior games to play BD 2? It looks like the type of game I'd like to try, but I haven't played the first two games.

Nope! It's a totally different continuity to the previous two.

Thanks!

*whole party gets smashed with heavy damage and poison when while I'm trying to patch myself up the fucker keeps defaulting so it can do it all over again*

Well this is certainly a Bravely game, haha. I think I'm liking the battle music for the subordinate Asterisk holders more than the chapter bosses'.

I'm most of the way through Chapter 1 of Bravely Default II, and the difficulty feels really weird.

I'm on Normal difficulty, and doing every side quest I can find, and I still feel as if the game is expecting me to level up much faster than I am. The game seems to suffer a severe case of Easy Levels, Hard Bosses, except in this case the levels are only "easy" once I manage to make my way through most of the area.

My guys are level 16, and it's looking like I'll be facing the last boss of the chapter soon the real last boss of the chapter, at least. I've heard he's a doozy. I barely survived the person that came immediately before this (After being near-effortlessly destroyed several times, I ended up having to cheese him by capturing a bunch of minotaurs, unloaded them all on him, and still he only lost about half his health. Had to scramble to finish him off before he could heal it all back). And the optional boss that I just found is looking similarly impossible to defeat fairly.

This is definitely a game that rewards strategy, more than its predecessors. Basically all the high end overworld encounters need to be ignored until way later in the game. All the asterisk battles are beatable with a bit of grinding but they're not pushovers.

Some advice - attack items are very, very good in the first 3 chapters. Use them a LOT.

I'm currently approaching the end of Chapter 2, and I can attest that the bosses get easier once you grind Thief enough to learn Godspeed Strike, which is far more powerful than I remember it being in the previous games. The Fortress Asterisk bearer was still a pain in the ass though thanks to the flunkies.

I also really like the Divergent Character Evolution given to the Red Mage job for this outing.

I really wanna know why one would implement side quests if you're just gonna do such a shit job on purpose.

One of them is literally "Run from the inn in town to the middle of this dungeon outside of town, back and forth, 3 times".

Theres no fights. There's no interesting story, it's just you delivering a lunch to a dude from his lobotomite of a wife who keeps not packing shit, and going for stuff she forgot. It's just there to waste your time. And wile this is one of the more egregious ones, most sidequests not involving actual party members or cutscenes are such vapid wastes of time that calling them fetch quests feels insulting to fetch quests. Many of them also give crap for rewards (600 bucks doesn't feel like much of a boon when I'm sitting on 15k by the end of the prologue)

Like... why? Who hurt you developper?

Edited by Ghilz on Mar 15th 2021 at 12:07:32 PM

Well, I finished up chapter 2. Was definitely a steep drop in difficulty from the previous chapter, though admittedly that's likely because Godspeed Strike is just so incredibly good. My other offensive options are honestly really lagging behind, so I don't know what I'd do without that attack.

I'm starting to max out a few jobs. Or at least, max them as far as I can (the hint screens seem to imply that 12 is not the maximum job level). And I'm noticing that some of the secondary specialties are fantastic, while others are... not. Like, the Thief's second specialty causes Defaulting to not increase BP, and allow BP abilities to be spent with MP. Except IMO, BP is infinitely more spammable than MP, so it seems like the sort of ability you'd want to specifically equip for a strategy that takes advantage of that, rather than something that is now always on for that job.

The game is being rather coy about Adelle's backstory, to the point that it's incredibly obvious that some sort of big reveal is in the works. But then I did a sidequest in some forest, and she just sort of casually says that she grew up in someplace called Mag Mell, and no one reacts to this new info. It's weird and is sort of throwing me off the scent, so to speak.

Current party setup is: Seth (Shieldmaster/Vanguard), Gloria (Red Mage/White Mage), Elvis (Pictomancer/Black Mage), and Adelle (Ranger, Thief). I like to go for a standard "tank, healer, wizard, rogue" sort of party setup when I can.