Bravely Default - Or, Square Enix still loves stupid names

fronkhead wrote:

...(as good as the battle music is, it could have been in any JRPG, likewise with the overworld music)...

The "Limit Break" tunes are great though.

Balladeer wrote:

fronkhead wrote:

...(as good as the battle music is, it could have been in any JRPG, likewise with the overworld music)...

The "Limit Break" tunes are great though.

Oh yes, wasn't thinking about those. Funnily enough I had Edea's one in my head just before I saw your post.

The original soundtrack for the game includes versions of the songs with vocals.

Eh, I can do without the vocals. They'd only get in the way of Ringabel's accordion.

fronkhead wrote:

...it still feels like it lacks an identity beyond that game that is like classic Final Fantasy...

fronkhead wrote:

I do feel it has an identity, particularly each individual town and the general substories within.

Can I ask what changed your mind? For me, there's no doubt that it's Norende, which has been much more effective than the SP gauge at getting me to leave my 3DS on Sleep Mode. I just love seeing it slowly complete over time, with the results helping me in the game proper (when I can afford them).

I have now clocked 30 hours into the game and I am wondering where all of you are at in it. I believe I have just left Florem (the town with all the girls) and all my characters are about level 42. I took the initial Jobs (White/Black Mage, Knight and Monk I think) to the completion of the first 4000, then it started on 4000 again, so I changed them all to the next 4 Jobs. I set the encounter rate at the highest level to upgrade as quickly as possible, so that has slowed my journey somewhat, plus, playing it on Normal (I think, the middle level anyway) means that every Boss has been dead simple for me - I think I over-levelled them, perhaps I should move the difficulty to Hard. I use Brave every time and win every battle really quickly, hardly ever taking damage.

I really do love this game, easily my favourite 3DS game so far. The music is great, the graphics are superb in 3D, when I turn it up and put my glasses on. The characters are likeable with few annoying voices, plus some decent humour as well. I am also enjoying the story. I only wish they made games like this for the Wii U. Also, I have Maxed out more than half of Norende as I never turn the game off except to play a bit of Animal Crossing.

Where am I compared to all of you?

Balladeer wrote:

Eh, I can do without the vocals.  They'd only get in the way of Ringabel's accordion.

fronkhead wrote:

...it still feels like it lacks an identity beyond that game that is like classic Final Fantasy...

fronkhead wrote:

I do feel it has an identity, particularly each individual town and the general substories within.

Can I ask what changed your mind?  For me, there's no doubt that it's Norende, which has been much more effective than the SP gauge at getting me to leave my 3DS on Sleep Mode.  I just love seeing it slowly complete over time, with the results helping me in the game proper (when I can afford them).

Norende's great, I finally finished rebuilding it last night.

As for the identity worries, it was mainly down those towns, which are the stars of the game world. It feels less like a traditional RPG given how distinctive they are (in SNES-era Final Fantasy the towns are pretty identikit and only serve a focus of advancing the game's story) and the side quests were all very memorable (bar a couple).

I still heavily criticise the dungeons, though. Why must they all be caves or the odd closed off forest? There's nothing to even match 2002's Golden Sun or 1991's Final Fantasy IV here, even the latter had, say, a mountain to traverse up. Or something that doesn't feel like it's been built from the same template dozens of times.

So in an odd situation I'd probably be able to tell apart Bravely Default from traditional Final Fantasy by way of its towns, but I'd tell apart traditional Final Fantasy on the SNES by way of its dungeons.

The side-quests are pretty good.  I just unlocked the Ranger asterisk, pretty much as soon as I could (which should tell OS where I am as well - far, far behind the two of you, with my characters on level 25/6, although in a similar place geographically), and that was well told.  Better told than the actual story, ironically.  Clock Town was a standout and Flower Town is okay too, although they're quite small (no houses to go inside or anything).  And the dungeons are par for the course, I felt - I don't remember the FF dungeons being particularly special, apart from the Sylx Tower and Eureka musics which are brilliant.

I can't say that I agree with many of OS' other points, though.  Where he/you say(s) "great" or "superb", I say "decent":

• Decent graphics that hardly seem better than FFIIIDS';
  
• Decent 3D for a game obviously not designed around it (I could believe it if this were a DS game or even a PSP/Vita game originally, so little are the features bar StreetPass used);
  
• Decent story for an old-school JRPG;
  
• Decent music apart from the Special Move themes;
  
• Decent characters apart from Ringabel, whose one-note personality is irritating me;
  
• Decent voice acting.  This is a welcome surprise after the trailers, but I often skip the speaking anyway, because it's no better than decent (apart from Ringabel, whose actor is obviously loving it) and I'm impatient.

The better-than-decent aspects for me (where not mentioned above) are the job system, which combines the best aspects of FFIII's and FFV's; Norende; and the ability to change monster frequency, which is an absolute godsend and should come as default (ha!) for every random battle-RPG from hereon out.  THIS MEANS YOU POKÉMON.

My position is near the end, I had my backside handed to me by the penultimate boss with my standard party and a revised party so I'm taking a breather for a while while I think up my next plan of attack. Normally I'd just grind out a few more levels and try again with my last plan as it seemed to do passably well, but I'm already at level 99 with the entire party so that's not happening. Well on the bright side at least you can't overlevel for the last two bosses.

Athrun, didn't you say at one point that Agnès was terrified of public speaking?  It seems to me that every time she gets up in front of people, she won't shut up!

Also the Red Mage is an arse and I need to train up more before I take him/her on again.

Agreed with Balladeer in the things he said are mostly 'decent'. Bravely Default, more often than not, has a tendency to sometimes remind me of better RPGs I've played before it, but it's good. Just not top-tier for me, the dungeon design and lack of worldbuilding outside of the towns makes it fall a little flat to me, and overall it feels like a cross between an NES and SNES Final Fantasy rather than a SNES one, i.e. it's lacking the intricacies, pacing, game world design and great character-driven plots of the likes of Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI. Though those are genre hallmarks, so maybe my expectations are set a bit too high.

I do believe it's always been planned as 3DS title, though, on the basis of its backgrounds alone. Turn off the 3D and it suddenly feels like you're in PS1 RPG land, trying to navigate confusing prerendered backgrounds with odd collision detection. The 3D effect suddenly justifies such backgrounds (and also makes them stop looking prerendered, which is a bonus).

I've gotten to chapter 5 and all I can say is my motivation to keep playing the game as much as I have been previously has fallen by a bit.

Balladeer wrote:

Athrun, didn't you say at one point that Agnès was terrified of public speaking?  It seems to me that every time she gets up in front of people, she won't shut up!

Also the Red Mage is an arse and I need to train up more before I take him/her on again.

But think of what she goes through before she starts talking! My language for the red mage would be a bit stronger than arse. Have you got Reflect? I found having him reflect his thundera spells back on himself really made him weak. If you've got it near the point of maxing one of the final skills from the Black Mage class really helps with those spells too, as it makes all spells for no extra mp hit the entire party.

I don't think so.  I presume you get that beyond Florem?  Anyway, after some grinding, I'm going to do the Valkyrie quest first.  She seems easier.

EDIT: Everything went more smoothly after I levelled up Agnès as a furry ranger (and sorted out my electricity protection).  Are bows overpowered, or is it just me?

Sorry for the double post. I now understand what Athrun meant by the end of the second chapter (blinking heck ), but that's not what I wanted to talk about. No, what I wanted to talk about was the game's producer being an arrogant muppet. I think our discussions have given an entire list of improvements - "decent" isn't "perfect". Despite having really got into the game yesterday, I think I like it a bit less now.

Honestly I can sort of see where he's coming from, that said there is always room for improvement and having modesty and humility never hurts.  Not to mention post chapter 5 needed more than general mechanical refinements, more like a complete overhaul.  

Honestly that interview is one of the reasons I never look up anything behind the scenes of things I like.  As the saying goes, meeting your heroes never ends well.   


Oh, and before I crash I have to say I absolutely love the battle theme for Ba'al which I got the soundtrack for today. It's really epic stuff.

Ironically I was reading a list of the improvements made to the game before bed yesterday, and one of them was to make the game's bosses harder as a way to try and implement the Bravely Second. Make of that what you will, but combined with the low sales of the Bravely Second mechanic SP Drink itself in this game I'm expecting even harder bosses for Bravely Second.

If any of that last sentence made sense.

And post chapter 5 is a joke. I appreciate it probably has some sort of significance story wise, but honestly, I'm not enjoying this difficulty hike. As such I'm going back to the superior Etrian Odyssey IV while I try and make some sort of progress on this. The general feeling I get from this is it's been overhyped/overrated simply because it's been so long since we've had a game like this. Had we been in DS-land where we were swamped with JRPGs, fresh and exciting, I don't think this game would have been received in the same way.

I echo Balladeer's comments, even if the producer is probably saying that he doesn't want to do anything more relating to the original game (wonder whether there have been complaints in Japan about it, especially given it's a bunch of improvements that has a price tag attached to it, of 2600 yen if you own the original game and want to upgrade). And a lot of the changes I wouldn't call improvements, but rather acknowledgement that they set up a rather tedious game at points (there shouldn't be a need to fast forward battles that much, and including autosave is acknowledgement that the difficulty curve isn't perfect).

Oh, and I was just reminded that the exploration aspect of the game is fairly pants, given how a lot of houses have their doors closed off to you. Usually I feel like the world is my oyster when I receive an airship in Final Fantasy, but on this I never felt more restricted.

Edit: Okay, I read those spoilered bits on the previous page. I don't believe what the player has to do post chapter 5 (furthermore, what the player has to do if he/she wishes to get the true ending from what I read on gamefaqs) is a worthy trade-off.

Now I'm really nervous about chapter five. What happens, without spoiling the plot (such as it is)?  Do the monsters suddenly get much higher level?  And is there a really difficult subquest or something to get the true ending?

From my point in the game, Fronk, I think you're a being a bit harsh.  I think it's a good game, rather than a perfect one, but still good.  It'd rank highly among the DS' RPG library, if not excessively so.  That said, maybe I'll change my mind on that when I reach chapter five.

Oh, and Agnès has suddenly turned into an self-centred difficult whelp.  Which does at least give her some character.

Athrun888 wrote:

Oh, and before I crash I have to say I absolutely love the battle theme for Ba'al which I got the soundtrack for today.  It's really epic stuff.

I sent my team into battle against Goldie the other day.  Not to fight, you understand - that would have been suicidal.  No, just to enjoy the music and the light show.

The problem is to tell you anything about chapter five would be a spoiler, or make it obvious.  The enemies do go up a bit, but no more than the usual amount.  Honestly I found it more just a case of having to revise my team and make it more well built, and taking full advantage of the brave and default options.  I lost a ton when I started chapter 5, but once I'd got a few levels under my belt (really easy and quick if you go to the right place) and started doing that I didn't lose again until the last chapter started.

Don't worry about the ending requiring anything difficult, as long as you follow the quest markers you'll get there.  Every sidequest that opens up in chapter 5 is optional and can be completely ignored if you want to do so.  To go on in a bit of a spoilerish way but nothing important...

Spoilers:

And yeah, I did the same and took on Ba'al with no intention of fighting him.  Now we don't have to to hear that awesome theme.  This is easily one of my favourite themes from the game, almost as good as the final boss theme.   

Balladeer wrote:

Now I'm really nervous about chapter five. :aww:What happens, without spoiling the plot (such as it is)?  Do the monsters suddenly get much higher level?  And is there a really difficult subquest or something to get the true ending?

From my point in the game, Fronk, I think you're a being a bit harsh.  I think it's a good game, rather than a perfect one, but still good.  It'd rank highly among the DS' RPG library, if not excessively so.  That said, maybe I'll change my mind on that when I reach chapter five.

Oh, and Agnès has suddenly turned into an self-centred difficult whelp.  Which does at least give her some character.

Athrun888 wrote:

Oh, and before I crash I have to say I absolutely love the battle theme for Ba'al which I got the soundtrack for today.  It's really epic stuff.

I sent my team into battle against Goldie the other day.  Not to fight, you understand - that would have been suicidal.  No, just to enjoy the music and the light show.

I never meant to imply that it isn't good, I'm more making the point it isn't exactly the second coming of Final Fantasy like many have made it out. I've enjoyed what I've played thus far but it's clearly flawed in some ways. And it's not like I didn't praise it in a post on the previous page. It's a good RPG.

My other problem with post-chapter 5 is I haven't been getting EXP or money for beating the bosses, which really doesn't help given the amount of items (such as Turbo Ethers) that I have been using.

It sounds like there are opportunities for a reprieve in chapter 5, then.  Thanks Athrun.

Fair enough, Fronkhead.  It was just the tone of the post, I guess: I'll agree that your previous one was much more positive.  It was like CVG's Resi 5 review, where they spent almost the entire piece complaining about it and then gave it 8/10.  I think the game is up there with FFIIIDS, definitely, if not FFIVGBA.

Just started this up the other day and I'm quite hooked. I've adopted the gfs 3DS as my own now so I'm adding friends, code is 0130-1954-6720 if anyone will be my friend and let me use your well powerful dudes in battle! I've added the codes I found in the friend code thread.

Adding you now!

This game has really gripped me by the short-and-curlies, ever since chapter 3 really, as some people may have guessed from my information.  Not because of the characters, goodness no (although everyone has had their moments save Tiz), or the plot, and definitely not because of the dungeons.

It's the jobs.  The jobs, and the numbers that accompany them.  I love honing those jobs up to be the best they can be, and then combining the power of a Swordmaster (how great is Multitask?) with the magic of a Spell Fencer and the attack bonus of a Monk; although I'm not so fond of the sudden increase in JP required to reach lv. 10 and above.  Probably fair though.  

My current favourite jobs are the Ninja and the Swordsmaster.  Why is it that the rubbish jobs, like the Salve-Maker and the Red Mage, seem to have the hardest boss fights associated with them?

I'm now presumably near the end of chapter four, having cleared out the two path-bosses with ease and defeated Creepy and Creepier with a bit less ease (adding the light elemental to my specials really helped).  If the plot twist you've all been raving about is the take on Nice Job Breaking It Hero that I think it is, I'm going to be sorely disappointed.

I'm really enjoying it again. I think I needed a rest from playing it so much.

Just fought the Red Mage and breezed through it. It might be because it was the last thing I did in Florem but he practically fell over my team (unlike the water crystal boss). I'm still using Tiz as a Thief, Ringabell as a Monk, Edea as a Black Mage and Agnes as a White Mage. I quite want to change classes but I'm a bit worried about when to do so and buying new weapons for everyone. I have to agree that the Bows seem to be crazy strong. Tiz can destroy anything with it!

I need to stop playing and sleep but I can't...

It's really addictive, isn't it?  Just one more battle, a couple more minutes into Norende...

I think the weapon types even out later in the game.  Daggers still seem to be rubbish though.

Also, boo to you for using Agnès as a White Mage!   I say!  I'm bucking the stereotype, with the girls as physical attackers and the boys doing the more magical/esoteric jobs.  (Actually, Edea seems to have the highest natural attack.)  Ringabel as a performer is the best thing. Do take some time to change jobs: that's what I've found the most fun in the game. (The Red Mage is a terrible job though.)

I really hated how the guys looked in the White Mage outfit. That was the only way I decided who did what job! I could probably never use a Time Mage for that reason...

If you use that criterion, you'll never use some of the best roles in the game. I don't know if you're familiar with the Magus job from FFIII? Best black magic in the game, and yet:



There are jobs like that in this game too. Powerful, yet ridiculous.

End chapter 4 spoiler: