That is not a criticism. I am playing on Hard Difficulty, after all.
This game is hard, and it is great. The Brave/Default system adds such a huge tactical element to the standard turn based system. Sure, at first you can just Brave x4 and Attack and kill most random mobs, but that quickly changes. When you Brave, when you Default, and what you do with your stored turns has a huge effect on how combat plays out. It reminds me a bit of Radiant Historia's system, with the shifting around of turns, but I think the execution is a bit more elegant.
It also makes the traditional "Defend" command suddenly actually have a use. Before, it wasn't really useful, as your turns were almost always better spent attacking. Sure, you could save a character at the brink from a bit more damage while someone else healed him (assuming that he couldn't heal himself). Or Defend against a heavy, telegraphed attack. But those circumstances were rare.
Even better, however, is the fact that enemies can (and do) Brave and Default as well. Sure, chaining a bunch of attacks can do a lot of damage in one turn. But then, that means that one turn of Default by your target enemy can massively reduce the damage they take, wasting those extra hits (and, if you went negative, leaving your ripe for a counterattack). Or they can chain together a bunch of hits of their own, which can be really devastating, especially when bosses do it.
The game also requires you to plan and prepare for fights. While it lets you repeat the actions of your last turn for auto-attacking, that is rarely an ideal strategy, unless you are over-leveled or over-geared. Different mobs require different strategies. The physical or magic nature of the attack seems far more important in this game than in many others that I can remember playing, with defenses, evasions, and even counter mechanics coming in to play to punish you for choosing wrong.
That being said, if you do approach things tactically, there is a lot you can do to swing things in your favor. If you approach the game and think things through, you can always find a path through. You may need to change your party or skills, or set your turns differently, or even use your Special Attacks. But you can do it.
I still hear the constant cries of "turn based games aren't hard". It's nice to see how much the list of counter-examples has grown. It's nice to see that Square can churn out a difficult, turn based game that requires thought and planning to succeed at. This game is hard, and that's fantastic.
