The GWJ JRPG Club - Q2 2020 - Bravely Second: End Layer

The way I played through this one was to set the encounter rate to max when I got into a new area, grind up a bunch of levels, then turn the encounters off entirely until I started having trouble. Eventually, I didn't do any encounters at all and only leveled up by fighting the monsters that invade your town. I don't think I ever played the game with its normal encounter rate except when I was forced to.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Persona Q2 (3DS), now surely that will get a port to Switch.

I doubt it. None of the Etrian games or spin-offs (of which PQ is one) have been ported to Switch yet, and I'm not even sure if there's a sequel in the works for it for Switch. I think they're having a really hard time figuring out how to retain some of the core features of Etrian without the dual screen design.

Yup, it's but so good!

Damn, this really do be a Final Fantasy game.

I loved Bravely Default on the 3DS.... I LOOOVED THE DEMO of Bravely Default II on the switch... i hope to start soon bravely second

I'm in.

Picked up a copy on Ebay today, should be here within the week.... although the way things are at the moment it might be a little longer than that.

Well, the game came in, so now I’m off. First impressions: bombastic intro, good music, slightly stilted dialogue? Yep, it’s a JRPG, and I’m feeling it. I’m also very glad I read up a bit on the first game.

I’m happy to see this game has an autosave. And I’m also happy there’s a party chat feature. After playing Persona 3 and 4, and later the Trails in the Sky trilogy, I have a hard time enjoying JRPGs where the characters don’t have a lot of interaction.

I made it out of the starting town, but I’m definitely still in the prologue so far.

Got the third character and I'm having a blast. I particularly enjoy how the black mage works! Being able to "craft" spells right out of the gate is such a cool idea. I'm excited to find all of the other classes, especially the catmancer and pastry wizards I've heard about!

Other things of note: It's very, very pretty and the 3D is the icing on the cake. Audio is fine so far, voice acting is solid, it's all a nice little package. It feels very connected to the previous game though, and since I played that years ago I'm feeling a bit lost. I would have appreciated a bit of a recap, but that's not too much of an issue when I can go online for a quick summary.

It's a little bit easy, but I've been playing loads of SMT and Etrian Odyssey so I guess it's all relative. Hopefully, there are some meaty optional bosses!

I'm digging the auto battle feature. It's very reminiscent of the macros in Phantasy Star IV. The only problem I'm really having is with the dungeons so far; the perspective of the map on the top screen isn't very good unless you have 3D turned on, so even in the starting forest dungeon I found myself navigating off of the map on the bottom screen.

So is part of the Bravely series’ bit is that it just takes a bunch of good ideas and quality of life things from other RPGs and just jams them into one package with some polish on top?

I’m now past the first real boss and past the woods, and have my first class to change to as well. That boss was surprisingly good. It’s also pretty clearly checking to see if you understand the mechanics of the game and how to apply them. Looking forward to what else the game comes up with, as long as I stay stocked up on healing items.

the perspective of the map on the top screen isn't very good unless you have 3D turned on

I generally still enjoy the 3D feature on the 3DS and have it turned on slightly, but yeah this has been a problem for me from time to time. My gaze is often on the bottom screen when I'm in a dungeon.

And is it just me, or is the map while in towns really ugly? Like they darkened the entire thing and just painted a white path around where you could walk. It's really distracting.

3D just gives me headaches, even with my New 3DS. Same as A_Unicycle, I spend a little while admiring the beauty of the top screen, then navigate while mostly looking at the bottom screen map.

I hadn't really noticed that about the town map. The problem I do have is that I spend a few seconds trying to find the pixel that is my character but then I remember I just need to nudge the stick and it will zoom in on my location.

There's a skill you can get that tells you how many treasures are left in the particular area, good for completionists.

My cart arrived today, two days early from Ebay. Still debating whether to start or not, but I feel good that I contributed to the economy.

Just unlocked the second job and I love how interesting these are already! Equip a weapon on your head?! Yes please!

Don’t forget your body later ;). I love RPGs that allow you to break the difficulty.

Sundown wrote:

I'm digging the auto battle feature. It's very reminiscent of the macros in Phantasy Star IV. The only problem I'm really having is with the dungeons so far; the perspective of the map on the top screen isn't very good unless you have 3D turned on, so even in the starting forest dungeon I found myself navigating off of the map on the bottom screen.

So is part of the Bravely series’ bit is that it just takes a bunch of good ideas and quality of life things from other RPGs and just jams them into one package with some polish on top?

I’m now past the first real boss and past the woods, and have my first class to change to as well. That boss was surprisingly good. It’s also pretty clearly checking to see if you understand the mechanics of the game and how to apply them. Looking forward to what else the game comes up with, as long as I stay stocked up on healing items.

I tend to think of the Bravely series as what a Final Fantasy game from the 16-bit era would look like, with modern design sensibilities. Bravely Default was originally developed under the Final Fantasy title if I'm not mistaken. But yeah, you're right, there's a lot of quality of life things there, and they really elevate the game.

I've finished the game's first side story, which ends with a choice between the Thief and Red Mage jobs. Last time I played the game, I went with Red Mage, because it gives you early access to traditional spells like Fire and Blizzard, which are stronger (against single targets) than the Wizard versions, and thus great for spellcraft. Plus, in the first game, one of the Red Mage skills was a key component of my favorite, dodgy tank build for a Ninja. But this time, I went with the Thief. I don't regret it at all. I found that Phoenix Downs can be stolen from most flying enemies, so I'm saving a ton of money there. Plus, equipping a bow on the thief makes for a great damage dealer.

I am closer to giving this a shot. The cart arrived from Ebay yesterday. I found my 3DS. I fired the game up and it loads fine.

Nice! I think you'll really like this one. The Brave / Default mechanic really adds something to old-school turn-based battles, and there are so many delightful ways that the different class skills interact.

A_Unicycle wrote:

Just unlocked the second job and I love how interesting these are already! Equip a weapon on your head?! Yes please!

The best thing this game does (and a big part of why I prefer it to the first one) is give you access to some really interesting jobs right away. You'll get access to a more traditional Black Mage job later, but I like that you get the Wizard role first because the Wizard's spell crafting abilities are more interesting and interact with the Brave/Default system in neat ways.

LastSurprise wrote:

Bravely Default was originally developed under the Final Fantasy title if I'm not mistaken.

Correct. It was originally a sequel to Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
A_Unicycle wrote:

Just unlocked the second job and I love how interesting these are already! Equip a weapon on your head?! Yes please!

The best thing this game does (and a big part of why I prefer it to the first one) is give you access to some really interesting jobs right away. You'll get access to a more traditional Black Mage job later, but I like that you get the Wizard role first because the Wizard's spell crafting abilities are more interesting and interact with the Brave/Default system in neat ways.

That's a great point about the strengths of the sequel. The first four jobs in Bravely Default were the pretty standard Monk, White Mage, Black Mage, and Knight -- nothing out of the ordinary there. In fact, the jobs may not have become truly interesting until Eisengard, which was a good way into the game.

I also really love Good Measure as a counterpoint / compliment to the Wizard's spellcrafting.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
LastSurprise wrote:

Bravely Default was originally developed under the Final Fantasy title if I'm not mistaken.

Correct. It was originally a sequel to Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light.

Ahh, that's right. I never played 4 Heroes of Light. Is it worth it?

I've never played it. I tried to track down a copy but kinda lost interest when I found out it was made by a different development team (Matrix Software, who made all the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy DS remakes).

I'm now up to a full party of 4. Been through another boss fight, which was fairly simple to figure out. I'm expecting/hoping it gets crazy by the end. And I'm finding great value in using Examine near the beginning of boss fights, to know what I'm up against.

I'm also up to the point where having friends could matter, and I'm glad that GT Chris posted something on the first page about it, because otherwise it is a flood of information about things you can do that didn't mean a whole lot to me. And with that in mind, I'll toss my friend code up, and start adding some of you who have posted it already.

3711-8412-9003

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

I am closer to giving this a shot. The cart arrived from Ebay yesterday. I found my 3DS. I fired the game up and it loads fine.

I'm at the exact same point.

I was a little disappointed to find the cart I received only had a single save 2 hours into the game. Hopefully I do a bit better than that.

Looking forward to getting stuck in after work tonight.

So I just have to share this: the demo for Bravely Default 2 is out, and Revo (composer from Bravely Default) is back! Just listen to this battle theme:

I love how it sounds like the other tracks composed for Bravely Default, and also samples from prior Final Fantasy games. The first few seconds are clearly the lead-in from the FF IV battle music, and the beginning of the refrain is remixed from FF V:

Cronox wrote:
Godzilla Blitz wrote:

I am closer to giving this a shot. The cart arrived from Ebay yesterday. I found my 3DS. I fired the game up and it loads fine.

I'm at the exact same point.

I was a little disappointed to find the cart I received only had a single save 2 hours into the game. Hopefully I do a bit better than that.

Looking forward to getting stuck in after work tonight.

Actually, I'm MUCH farther along than you then. My cart came with a Level 89, 42-hour game.

Kidding aside, I actually... started. And you can count me as officially in.

I'm only about an hour in, somewhere in the prologue dungeon, just hit Level 3 with the main character. For whatever reason the other two guys aren't gaining experience, but I figure that'll sort itself out as things go along.

Initial impressions...

I really like the UI and how the game introduces itself. It's just so smooth and gentle and inviting. So many games overwhelm you in the beginning (looking at you, Final Fantasy Tactics!), but this just gives you bite-sized chunks that make starting such a pleasure.

I love the diary, with the expanding information on enemies and things you find. Really nicely done. I'm looking forward to filling it out more.

I'm looking forward to the jobs/exp/leveling system.

The default mechanic in combat is an interesting twist. I'm looking forward to seeing how that plays out. So far so good.

Art and music is inviting as well. Easy on the eyes and ears.

Only negative so far is the dialogues/voice-acting. The voices themselves aren't bad, but the acting is painful, and good lord, the script/translation? Fortunately, it's actually so bad that it's crossed the line from painful to humorous in a few places, and I'm pretty skilled at just turning off my brain for those types of situations. It's also pretty easy to click through things quickly enough so that you don't have to listen to the voices much, and the dialog is limited so far. So on the whole no worries about this so far.

On the whole though the game was a pleasure to start. I'm looking forward to playing more.

The translation is pretty faithful I think, if not literal. There's Japanese VA available but you'll probably find it annoying in a similar way.

I must have turned the voices off. I thought the game didn't have voice acting.

It's really dense, the number of lines they must have recorded feels pretty amazing for a handheld game! Only the portraitless NPCs seem to be unvoiced (although I'm sure there are exceptions I'm forgetting).

The Party Chats with the party members don't seem to be voiced. There's also been less of those so far than I was hoping there would be.

I should say that the voice-acting/dialog don't annoy me. They're more like a cheesy clown painting in your living room, and you can easily position the sofa so you don't have to look at it. Once in a while you might focus on it, chuckle, and say, "Damn, that clown painting is bad." But everything else about the living room is wonderful, and I'm really happy spending time in it.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

The translation is pretty faithful I think, if not literal. There's Japanese VA available but you'll probably find it annoying in a similar way.

I was wondering about that. There have been a couple of odd English word choices where I can feel the Japanese underneath, but it's interesting to know that the Japanese is similar.

I'm also about an hour in and enjoying things so far. Very much still have trainer wheels on, with only one real party member (I assume this as the other two are not gaining any JP or EXP).

As Godzilla Blitz said the game does a fantastic job slowly rolling out its systems and the interface is a joy to use.

The brave/default system looks like it could be very interesting, I'm excited to see how that plays out and I'm hanging out to get to the jobs.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

I should say that the voice-acting/dialog don't annoy me. They're more like a cheesy clown painting in your living room

So far I'm really enjoying the over the top silliness of everything, it might wear on me after 50 hours but for now, it's a nice change of pace

I’ve made good progress, and I’m now out of the Prologue and into Ch. 1.

Reading the recaps of Bravely Default, it looked like the story started generic and got wild once the layers were pulled back. So far this feels standard as well, but based on what the first game did there’s a decent chance it won’t last. I guess we’ll see how it goes.

I’m slightly disappointed. I gave a party member Triple Wield, and put an axe on the head gear slot. But the character model isn’t holding the axe in their teeth. The game’s grade just got bumped down a full point for that oversight.

Also, the upgradeable base is weird. Like, it’s fine that it’s there and it seems to have something to do with the special attacks, but the idea that I just am going to leave the 3DS idling for multiple hours at a time to let the counters run down as stuff is built seems like an odd choice. And some of them are for 70+ hours, which is insane even if I assign everyone I have to them to speed it way up. Like, this seems like something that would be in a freemium mobile game. At least you can get more workers each day for free from going online.