Now that the game has been released in all regions I've prepared a short summary of bravely default and what it brings to the table. Without further ado:
Bravely Default Flying Fairy is a spiritual successor to "Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light" published by Square Enix for the 3DS.The game was released in early December for Japanese and European audiences, and on February 7th for the American Audience.
Story and Characters
The game features four main characters you control from early in the game, Tiz, Agnès, Ringabell and Edea. Tiz is your first party member, a young farmer boy whose hometown Norende is swallowed by a large destructive force known as the Great Chasm. Awakening in the nearby town of Caldisla, Tiz discovers he is the sole survivor of the destruction of the Great Chasm. Tiz returns home to find that Nordene has vanished. It is here he meets Agnès.
Agnès is a shrine maiden from Ancheim, home of the Wind Crystal. She reveals that the Great Chasm's appearance was due to the four crystals of light losing their radiance. She has set out on a quest to restore the four crystals to their former glory. Tiz agrees to aid her in her quest to restore the crystals.
Shortly after, the two are ambushed by Eternian forces who oppose the restoration of the crystals. They return to Caldisla to find Eternian forces ravaging the town. They drive the Eternian forces back with the help of Ringabell, a young man who has lost his memory. All he has in his possession is a notebook called "D's Journal" which appears to document the future.
Following the advice of the D's Journal they storm an Eternian Fort and confront a member of the Eternian forces, Edea. Edea is opposed to the violent actions of the Eternian forces and aids the party in repelling them from Caldisla. The four then set on a journey to restore the four crystals of light back to their former radiance.
Combat Systems
Bravely Default plays much like a standard turn based RPG. You input your commands at the beginning of the turn and try to hit the bad guys harder than they hit you. The battle system offers rewards based on performance. Depending on how the battle turns out, you can get increased gold, job points and experience. What Bravely Default brings to the table is the introductions of two new mechanics, Brave and Default.
Every member of the battle has a gauge that reflects the number of actions they can use in one turn. The Gauge starts at 1 meaning you can use 1 action that turn, however by activating brave you can increase this number to 4. This allows you to use a total of 4 actions in the one round per character. The drawback with this is that you are then unable to act again until the gauge returns to 1 - leaving you vulnerable to attacks for 4 turns.
This gauge can be increased in many ways, but is done so most commonly through defaulting. Default is the game's term for guarding. While guarding is good to cancel out an enemy attack, it also increases your action gauge by one point. This means if you Default for 3 turns you are then able to act 4 times without leaving yourself vulnerable. These two mechanics allows for new strategies to be implemented into the game and breathes new life into the guard function.
The battle system also offers the use of special moves which can be activated after a certain requirement is met. The requirements are based on the weapon you have equipped. Some requirements include the use of brave a certain number of times, while others require a number of critical hits to land. What is useful about these special attacks is they offer bonuses to the party for as long as that characters "Special attack music" is playing. These effects stack so long as the music is playing so Edea could use her special to increase the team defence, followed by Ringabell's special to increase the teams attack. Both bonuses would be in effect until the music from Ringabell's special runs out. This is especially handy when battling at 4x speed.
The Job System
One element that Bravely Default resurrects it the Job System. Each character has access to a total of 24 Jobs each with unique abilities. Jobs ranging from series favourites such as Black Mage and Monk to new entries like Spiritmaster and Pirate are unlocked over the course of the game. You find them by fighting strong bosses, unlocking the jobs associated to that boss, i.e. defeating the white mage unlocks the white mage ability for your character to use. Many of these are completely optional, but there is no reason not to get them all, as they all offer something useful.
Each job has 14 levels and each level offers either a new ability or support skill after each level up. Each character has a total of 5 support skill slots that you can equip skills to. The more useful the skill is, the more the it costs to equip. When you learn a skill, you can use it across classes, which can lead is where the game becomes really customisable. Each character can also assign a secondary set of abilities. There are some useful combinations of job skills, such as a tank knight with white magic abilities.
Street-Pass Functionality
Street-Pass is used in an interesting way in Bravely Default. At one point in the game, Tiz is appointed to head the restoration of his destroyed hometown. Buildings in Norende are restored based on a real time countdown and by appointing friends met online or through street-pass the number of the workers in the village grows, cutting down the time it takes to restore the buildings.
Each building offers a unique function to the party, such as weapons and armour. They also offer speciality shops that improve the effects of special attacks. These additional effects can add elemental and status effects to the special attack, make it more damaging to a particular type of enemy and improve the efficiency of the bonus the special provides. The restoration of the village also offers items that cannot be found through regular gameplay.
People you find via street-pass as well as your friends contribute to the town restoration, but they can also come to your aid in battle for one time only. You set up your character to be sent to friends prior to an attack, and when data is received that attack is used on the receiving 3DS. This is very useful against tough bosses if you have a high powered character waiting for an attack.
General Thoughts
This game is amazing fun. The battle system is unique and offers a number of options when considering how to use your brave. I would often start battles using all my brave to ensure victory on the first turn and without taking damage to ensure bonuses. This does not work on tougher enemies as I found out the hard way. The environments are stunning for a 3DS title and the music is sublime. The special attack music is my favourite tracks in the entire OST.
All of the characters, including side character have story and have a purpose that is more than "we need a boss for this dungeon". My favourite part of Bravely Default is your main four characters. Their personalities bounce off one another in such as way that dialogue is very engaging and often humorous. Overall Bravely default provided me with 60 hours of enjoyable turn based combat and likeable characters.
Yeah, you should totes get this game
