Just got Bravely Default!

[Pumpkin]

Can't wait to see what all the fuss is about.

Won't be able to play much tonight though because the cat chewed up my charger :colbert:

[Slothy]

Only game out from a major publisher right now that I'm actually interested in. But I'm so damn po'.

[Wolf Kanno]

I still haven't touched my copy yet, been too busy with other things and trying to finish some older saves from backlog games.

[Vyk]

I haven't finished mine either. But I got it upon release. And even though I haven't finished it, I totally feel I got my money's worth. It's an awesome game. A great throwback to old school game, with worthwhile new school mechanics added. The characters are extremely lovable, and the voice acting fits them to a tee (in my humble opinion at least)

It does tend to be a longer game for a portable, but it is a JRPG through-and-through. As Del pointed out in a previous thread for some people it kinda drags towards the end. But others couldn't get enough of it and maxed everything out. Regardless of whether you finish it or not, I have no doubt you'll enjoy it, considering your taste in games. It's basically Final Fantasy V set in more of a Final Fantasy 9'esque world (yeah, I know, big difference, but the art style and fleshing out are a tad more so in 9), with Fire Emblem: Awakening'esque characters

[Fynn]

You can switch difficulty modes whenever you want. The game starts deceptively easy, but gets really hard later on, so don't be shy and change that difficulty!

Also, this is one of the only games I know that it's really easy and advised to reach level 99 and the enemies are even scaled to that. Normally you finish an FF around lv. 50-60, even though you can reach 99, so those levels are basically wasted. Not here! :D

[Jhereg]

There isn't a whole lot that I can add that hasn't been mentioned already, but I really found myself loving the characterization given to the villains of the game. Learning their histories and motivations ended up becoming a reward in and of itself.

Otherwise, the job and ability system had enough customization to it to keep me busy trying out different combinations. The ability to change difficulty settings is a godsend. Especially the enemy encounter options.

[Pumpkin]

You can switch difficulty modes whenever you want. The game starts deceptively easy, but gets really hard later on, so don't be shy and change that difficulty!

Also, this is one of the only games I know that it's really easy and advised to reach level 99 and the enemies are even scaled to that. Normally you finish an FF around lv. 50-60, even though you can reach 99, so those levels are basically wasted. Not here! :D

>Implying I would ever have it on something other than easy

[metagloria]

Normally you finish an FF around lv. 50-60

:erm:

You're talking about finishing disc 1, right...?

[Fynn]

Normally you finish an FF around lv. 50-60

:erm:

You're talking about finishing disc 1, right...?

Pshaw

FFs are easy as pie. Only time I went over that was when I went over lv. 70 in VII to beat the weapons

[Pumpkin]

Just got the Monk and White Mage jobs. Hoping I get the other characters sooon~

I am hating how much street pass is being pushed on me

[Del Murder]

My advice is to not be afraid to turn off random encounters or lower the difficulty when you need it. You can do this any time from the main menu with no consequence. This game is built to accomodate the play style of the player and you should take advantage.

Also beware that it realllllly drags on at the end.

[Pumpkin]

I has all les characters now

The difficulty is kind of weird. I'll first enter a new area and the battles are difficult (well, I actually have to heal at some point level of difficulty) and then like a few fights later I'm winning the fight in like 1 turn :confused: A lot of the time I haven't even gained a level

But is pretty fun. Between this and FFV I am just rollin in the job classes

[Skyblade]

I has all les characters now

The difficulty is kind of weird. I'll first enter a new area and the battles are difficult (well, I actually have to heal at some point level of difficulty) and then like a few fights later I'm winning the fight in like 1 turn :confused: A lot of the time I haven't even gained a level

But is pretty fun. Between this and FFV I am just rollin in the job classes

Partly you're just leveling up. Partly, you're understanding how the fights work. Bravely Default actually does a really good job of making you think through fights. You'll notice this a bit more with later enemies and especially bosses, but there are tactics you have to use for pretty much every situation. Once you know them, you can set it to auto-battle half the time. But before then, fights will offer up quite a reasonable bit of challenge.

[metagloria]

I has all les characters now

The difficulty is kind of weird. I'll first enter a new area and the battles are difficult (well, I actually have to heal at some point level of difficulty) and then like a few fights later I'm winning the fight in like 1 turn :confused: A lot of the time I haven't even gained a level

But is pretty fun. Between this and FFV I am just rollin in the job classes

Partly you're just leveling up. Partly, you're understanding how the fights work. Bravely Default actually does a really good job of making you think through fights. You'll notice this a bit more with later enemies and especially bosses, but there are tactics you have to use for pretty much every situation. Once you know them, you can set it to auto-battle half the time. But before then, fights will offer up quite a reasonable bit of challenge.
For the record, I did not know auto-battle was a thing for most of the game. Even when I discovered it, I didn't trust it because I wanted to make sure I destroyed everything in one turn to keep my chain going.

Protip: Get everyone to learn the Valkyrie's Crescent Moon. It's the earliest way to consistently hit all enemies, making you more likely to get the kill-everything-at-once bonus.

[Del Murder]

Hint: Crescent Moon is the level 1 Valkyrie skill so everyone automatically has it. :)

[metagloria]

Hint: Crescent Moon is the level 1 Valkyrie skill so everyone automatically has it. :)

Oh. Forgot that. Well then! I must have been confusing it with Spear Lore or High Jump or Judgment or something.

[Fynn]

Also, black magic is pretty reliable for chains and is available much earlier.

[Pumpkin]

Sorry, I've been busybusybusy, but I did get to play some. I just fixed the wind crystal

Some thoughts:
-I can definitely see the whole FF returning to its origins thing people say. With the job class system and the crystals

-I like how they are still in their job uniforms during scenes

-I am super happy about their being French script on this. I am grossly out of practice and I do miss speaking French. I think(?) it has Spanish script too which will be good for helping me practice

-I enjoy the job class system and the battle style well enough

-I like the characters but none of them really stand out to me. Usually in games there will be one character I just fall in love with and that didn't happen here. I like Agnes and think she is adorable, I like Tiz, I like Edea, I don't mind Ringabel, but no one has really made me fall in love with them

-I like how obvious they make the story and sidequests with the big exclamation marks. No sarcasm

-I am annoyed at how often streetpass is brought up when all I'm trying to do is save my game or something

-The dungeons all feel very similar to me. Go through maze, walk up stairs, walk down stairs, go through more maze, boss fight. It gets a bit repetitive.

Overall I am enjoying it :up:

[Fynn]

Yes, Spamish is definitely there at least in the Eu version. I know because that's how my wife played it. She was pretty satisfied with it and from what we compared it was similarity stylized to the English script.

Oh, and all those streetpass features - they're actually pretty cool and your internet friends should be enough to make up for a lack of streetpass users nearby (like, literally nobody has a 3DS in Poland, but I used all those features a lot anyway thanks to Internet and I think they're really neat!)

[Vyk]

Having a high StreetPass/Friend person (like Flynn) for instance, can come in super handy if you need to summon them for a boss fight that caught you off guard or something. It'll find random people for you. Adding to the towns nets some decent equipment. But its really expensive and probably not really worth it, but it's there if you have the money. They're really quite powerful sometimes. But mostly it's just nice to have high level net friends so you can customize your characters more. But its not necessary AT ALL. I didn't let it get to me. I didn't like it. But I still made the best of it and made use of it

[metagloria]

-The dungeons all feel very similar to me. Go through maze, walk up stairs, walk down stairs, go through more maze, boss fight. It gets a bit repetitive.

This doesn't really get better. But that's what -100% encounters is for! :D

Have you built up Norende yet? You can get some AMAZING things early on if you do.

[Dat Matt]

I connected to the internet and got most of my people there for Norende. I still haven't reached 10/10 people for streetpass.

Edea was my favourite in this game. Mrgrrgrr.

[Vyk]

Ditto that. I loved Mrrgrrgrr

[Pumpkin]

Sooo I just got to Chapter 3, and now I will do random job class commentary

Ahem

Agnes's jobs:
Black Mage - I have always loved the Black Mage classes and this time is no different. It's always on Agnes's command list even when she is a different job. It has come in handy in more than one boss fight. Also her dress is adorable

Spell Fencer - Cute outfit and was really useful when I found out an enemy's weakness. It takes less MP than the black magic spells and sometimes does more damage.

Ranger - Not sure what I think of the look. It's cute but also not in some weird way. Really good damage dealer

Summoner - I don't like the look as much as I thought I would and my goodness does it drain the MP

Tiz's jobs:
Thief - A much stronger damage dealer than I expected and it looks funny on Tiz because it doesn't really suit his personality. But useful, I like it

Time Mage - I don't like Time Mage much in this game. The look doesn't appeal to me and Quake has been pretty useful but other than that I don't really enjoy using it.

Edea's jobs:
Monk - Ohmygosh her pigtails are adorable. My favourite look for her so far. Good damage dealer, but low MP for using her White Magic

White Mage - I always have White Magic set for her because I mean I would be so dead without a White Mage

Valkyrie - I actually don't like using this one much *ducks*. Just doesn't suit me I guess

Red mage - Pretty outfit and pretty useful

Ringabel's jobs:
Knight - The Knight job has kind of felt a bit bland to me. Not really my deal

Merchant - I'm always short on cash so it doesn't give me as much use as it could, but not a bad damage dealer. Also funny outfit

Freelancer - Pretty basic. I like using it to scan bosses

[CimminyCricket]

this game is very fun and we should trade friend codes or something

[Fynn]

Didn't we have some spreadsheet for that, or was that just for Pokemon?

[Vyk]

The original thread for this game we traded a lot of friend codes. That's where I picked you (Flynn) up at. Got Rantz and someone else as well

[Pumpkin]

I just got the Pirate job and I am in the dungeon that comes after it with the ghosts and things.

I think this game is really fun in terms of gameplay because I love job systems like this, and the story is interesting enough. But it does feel repetitive and although I like all of the characters, I don't love any of them, which makes me feel less invested in the game. It could have been great but so far it falls more in the realm of solid game as opposed to "ohmigosh I can't wait to finish so I can PLAY IT AGAIN" and it doesn't have me trying to rush through because I just HAVE to see what happens next.

That could change because I'm not very far in to it, but that's how I feel so far.

I am also unhappy with the game not being easy despite being set on easy mode :nonono:

[Del Murder]

The Pirate job is one of my favorite jobs and the stat reducing skills it gets really help your team maximize damage output.

Also how can you not love Edea?

[metagloria]

I just got the Pirate job and I am in the dungeon that comes after it with the ghosts and things.

I think this game is really fun in terms of gameplay because I love job systems like this, and the story is interesting enough. But it does feel repetitive and although I like all of the characters, I don't love any of them, which makes me feel less invested in the game. It could have been great but so far it falls more in the realm of solid game as opposed to "ohmigosh I can't wait to finish so I can PLAY IT AGAIN" and it doesn't have me trying to rush through because I just HAVE to see what happens next.

That could change because I'm not very far in to it, but that's how I feel so far.

I am also unhappy with the game not being easy despite being set on easy mode :nonono:
This is not a game many people will want to immediately replay after they finish. As for easy mode...I don't know what to tell you. Boss battles are all about party setup, and normal battles are trivial (or avoidable entirely if you turn them off). Of course, if you turn off the normal battles and never level up, you could certainly have some issues.

[Vyk]

Also I think they intend on most people to have higher level friends that can be summoned in battles to aid you for either massive damage or massive healing. I think we got up to like 7,000 for some moves before I stopped playing, and I'm just a pace or two past the pirate stuff myself. If someone enters their limit break mode (I forget what it's called) and manages to get a critical when they're sending a move, that critical counts and they'll always do critical damage when you summon them ^_^

[Pumpkin]

This performer sidequest is just :nonono:

[Fynn]

"Set in my sights,
Get you tonight,
Love in the crossfire,
Ready, aim, fire!

Feeling alright,
Squeeze you so tight,
Love in the crossfire,
Ready, aim, fire!

Fit to ignite,
Set full(?) alight,
Love in the crossfire,
Ready, aim, fire!"

STUCK IN MY SMURFIN' HEAD!!!

:argh:

[Ayen]

With any luck I'll be joining you very soon :excited: It probably won't be until January at the latest until I can thoroughly go through it, but I could probably clock some bathroom time.

[Skyblade]

"Set in my sights,
Get you tonight,
Love in the crossfire,
Ready, aim, fire!

Feeling alright,
Squeeze you so tight,
Love in the crossfire,
Ready, aim, fire!

Fit to ignite,
Set full(?) alight,
Love in the crossfire,
Ready, aim, fire!"

STUCK IN MY SMURFIN' HEAD!!!

:argh:

There are certain songs which would be earworms, except for the simple saving grace of not actually knowing their lyrics.

You just ruined that for me. It won't go away!

[Fynn]

"Set in my sights,
Get you tonight,
Love in the crossfire,
Ready, aim, fire!

Feeling alright,
Squeeze you so tight,
Love in the crossfire,
Ready, aim, fire!

Fit to ignite,
Set full(?) alight,
Love in the crossfire,
Ready, aim, fire!"

STUCK IN MY SMURFIN' HEAD!!!

:argh:

There are certain songs which would be earworms, except for the simple saving grace of not actually knowing their lyrics.

You just ruined that for me. It won't go away!

You're welcome :bigsmile:

[Pumpkin]

I can't beat Qada :G :G :G

[Jhereg]

I can't beat Qada :G :G :G

I also had trouble with Qada. I'm sure there is a strategy to beating him, but I just power-leveled until I was about level 60.