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Bravely Default – Game Review

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While the last generation of video game consoles have brought out some nice looking JRPG’s over the years, I still can’t help but notice some of the issues when compared to the earlier generations. Undoubtedly games are looking prettier, but in return it is very rare to reach the 40-50 hour playtimes that earlier releases provided, they lack the challenge they once had and have become less about strategy and more about looking flashy (Okay, I will admit Final Fantasy XIII is coming to mind there).

Then there is Bravely Default, a video game developed by Silicon Studio and Square Enix that Nintendo of Europe / Nintendo of Australia picked up the rights to, capping off their 2013 release slate. Random encounters? Many job classes? Storylines involving crystals? TURN BASED BATTLE SYSTEMS?… I am in heaven already!

Storyline

Bravely Default takes place in an expansive world known as Luxendarc, which has towns spread throughout its landscape which are protected by the elemental crystals of fire, water, wind and earth lying in shrines spread throughout the landmasses. Not all is well however – oceans have now become tainted, the village of Norende has been swallowed up by a giant chasm and the elements which powered the world now lie dormant with their respective crystals becoming tainted. 

Agnès Oblige, the vestal of the Wind Crystal manages to escape obliteration at her respective shrine and comes across Tiz Arrior, a 16-year-old boy who had a short time ago lost his home and younger brother in the giant chasm, who decides to join her on the quest to revive the crystals. Shortly after they are joined by Edea Lee who abandoned the Sky Knights division of the Eternian forces after discovering their cruel actions and Ringabel – a man suffering from amnesia who has access to a notebook that can predict the future.

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While occasionally introducing other characters into the story, Bravely Default is primarily about the party of four and the non-playable fairy Airy on their quest. True to many JRPG’s of the time, while there is an ample supply of battles to be had, no opportunity is passed up on to deliver another piece of the storyline. The game takes a while to pick up, and the first few chapters come across as pretty stock-standard and traditional in style. However especially as you get to the final few chapters, it does pick up with a sufficient supply of twists and sets itself apart in a very interesting way. Character development for all four characters remain consistent throughout, and they aren’t just portrayed as random characters who come across each other during their journey – with each having a notable role in the conclusion.

While he will most likely remain renown for titles like Steins;Gate, Naotaka Hayashi did a sufficient job in producing an engaging storyline for this latest RPG experience. It is nowhere near the best I have seen, but offered just enough to keep me enticed to continue.

1386636015_3DS_BravelyDefault_CH (3)Design / Music / Voice Acting

The biggest issue to me I think is that the Nintendo 3DS isn’t fully equipped to take full advantage of the huge visual potential that Bravely Default could offer any of the major home video game consoles on the market – and I would like to see its visual style translated to other titles in the future. That being said, Bravely Default is still one of the most visually appealing games on the Nintendo 3DS to date.

Walking around town in particular is a highlight as it could be equated with walking around a piece of animated artwork sourced directly from the games artbook. The environments were hand-drawn and took advantage of the 3D functionality of the console well. Despite being chibi-style in-game, the character designs are well conceptualized and offer a variety of designs for each character kudos to the job system – and do carry over to most (Although not all) in-game cutscenes. While limited in number, they also provide a few really nice animated cinematic cutscenes.

The one downside of Bravely Default is that the overworld and dungeon maps are relatively bland in design in comparison to the fantastically designed towns and other key areas.

Fans of the anime series Attack on Titan may be familiar with the composer Revo who was involved in the renown opening theme Jiyū e no Shingeki. He serves as composer for Bravely Default as well and provides a strong soundtrack with songs to suit every occasion – a particular highlight being the battle theme “The Gongs of Battle“.

While you may be thinking that card space would be an issue, Bravely Default comes with both the original Japanese and a brand new English dub. I don’t think you can go wrong with either one, however the English dub actually exceeded my expectations with Bryce Papenbrook, Erin Fitzgerald, Cassandra Morris and Spike Spencer doing strong performances of Tiz, Agnes, Edea and Ringabel respectively.

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Gameplay

Bravely Default returns to the more traditional RPG mechanics with a few of their own unique twists thrown into the experience. The battle system is your typical turn-based system where you enter in commands at the start of battle and then depending on agility and other stats / skills, both parties attack one another. You will have the standard set of commands – Attack, Abilities, Items, Runas well as two new commands ‘Brave’ and ‘Default’.

The former option allows you to attack up to four times per battle which uses up BP while the latter allows you to defend and gain an additional BP point for future turns. This system adds an an additional element of risk and strategy, as you require at least 1 BP to attack, and extending past your allocation means your character won’t be able to attack and will be undefended for potentially several turns. On the other hand, being conservative about your BP use may allow you to choose a command every turn but exposes the party to potentially more damage. Aside from boss battles this doesn’t play much of a role at the start of the game, but later on becomes a critical component of almost every battle.

Carrying over from Final Fantasy V, Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light and I suppose to some extent Final Fantasy X-2, Bravely Default features a progressively unlocking job system that allows you to go from a Freelancer to one of 23 other distinct character classes from the generic Knight, Black / White Mage to more uncommon classes such as Performer, Arcanist, Merchant and even Salve-Maker. These can be unlocked through acquiring a specific “Asterisk” from main or sub quests and can be leveled up individually for unique job-specific skills (Job points are earned separately from standard EXP). If you decide to change jobs, you can mix and match skills between them by selecting a sub-class and bonus support abilities for any unlocked job. Don’t have the Red Mage unlocked yet? Why not choose a White Mage with a Black Mage sub-class for example.

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Streetpass and Online functionality are integrated into the game at an early point. One of the first unlocked systems involves Tio relying on people you meet to aid in the Norende rebuild effort – where the more people you meet equates to less time it takes to rebuild landmarks on a village map. Soon after you will obtain the ability to send and summon friends during battle, and link friends with particular characters through the Abilink system to temporarily increase their job level while associated with them. While I didn’t experience this myself and should be fine if you go with the random “Guest” characters the game will throw at you every day from the player pool – if you have a friend significantly higher level than you… it could potentially cheapen the value of some battles when summoning them.

While they are settings that many most probably wouldn’t touch, you are given the option to change not only the difficulty but encounter rate at whim. So if you are treasuring hunting in a dungeon and don’t want to battle insignificant mobs of enemies, change the option in the setting menu and you can wander around without being troubled – or alternatively for those wanting to grind, add 100% more to the encounter rate.

Final Words on Bravely Default

After setting a high note after my unboxing of the game last week, Bravely Default has continued to impress by highlighting many aspects of what made the traditional RPG’s great while also making a mark of its own through the risk-and-reward battle system mechanics and the expansive job system. With high production values already setting a standard for new RPG’s on the Nintendo 3DS system, I am excited to see what the upcoming sequel Bravely Second has to offer.

Sam
Sam
Founder of The Otaku's Study. I have been exploring this labyrinth of fandom these last fifteen years, and still nowhere close to the exit yet. Probably searching for a long time to come.

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