This Game is Hard.

[Skyblade]

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.

[Fynn]

It is indeed, and I am also glad it is It's difficult, but not unfairly so. When you lose, you know it's because you made an error, not because the enemy has cheap moves. Probably the best thing, however, is how you can change the difficulty level, so that you can suit it to your needs. This way, the game has no way of getting frustrating.

[maybee]

I feel like it gets easier as you master more and master job classes, and level up more. And then the game flips on you again.

:/

[Skyblade]

I feel like it gets easier as you master more and master job classes, and level up more. And then the game flips on you again.

:/

Jobs do indeed help. As does equipment, and someone who can rebuild Norende quickly and farm for a little extra PG (not Gil! One of the few names changed from Final Fantasy) can get an incredible amount of good equipment early on. My whole team is running around in Rainbow Dresses (Ringabel has to look fashionabluh, after all) and Red Caps, which helps a ton (I got Rainbow Dresses shortly before Confusion entered the playing field as well, so I haven't ever been Confused). But only up to a point. Then the game decides you need more and better stuff.

Mastering Jobs also gives you a stat bonus when using that Job (one of the NPCs described it as increasing the Job's Stat Proficiency, though I don't know if the letters actually change), and that helps quite a bit. But even stats won't carry you in this game.

To anyone who played the demo, you should remember the Myconids (Mushroom enemies). They're a perfect example. I remembered them from the demo, but I was pretty heavily over-leveled at the time, so I figured I would try auto-attacking them. I killed something like 16, before the constant spawns wore me down and killed me (I had Healing Magic at the time, but no characters wielding black magic, nor did I think to use Sleep-Blade at the time). Until and unless you get powerful enough to one-shot them, you will need Magic to stop these guys. And you aren't likely to one-shot them until a return trip.

MP becomes a precious resource (at least, to someone like me, who never uses items). You have to use it, for healing to getting through certain encounters, and I've found myself monitoring it more closely than I have in any Final Fantasy game. I use Treat from the Freelancer to heal whenever possible, but between status effects and the amount of damage that enemies can do in a short time, you want to keep yourself pretty well topped off, and only Magic will heal out of combat.

This game also encourages variable Job use in a way that no game that has used the system thus far has. While the Job system itself is as simple and straightforward as ever, the actually Jobs are incredibly well balanced. Each has its use, and you can combine them in all sorts of ways. Every challenge can be overcome if you approach it the correct way. For example, most people would think to use magic against the Myconids, but a Spell-Fencer with Sleep can typically do just as well, for cheaper MP cost. Both White Magic and Time Magic each command an extra element (Wind and Earth, respectively), opening up some greater variability to the classes than just healing, buffing, and gravity.

I love how much I am having to plan through the fights, and I love how much the game rewards you for it. I do think a few of the bosses are a little ridiculous on the damage scale, but even then, when you figure out the puzzle of what you need to take them down, what strategy to use, what jobs to use, when to Brave, when to Default, it feels so very rewarding.

I also think it is worth another mention that, despite the difficulty, this game has no "right" way to beat a boss. I've searched through for a couple of strategies for bosses that I've already beaten (somehow, I have managed to avoid spoiling myself at all for this game, and I am very thankful for that). No two have been the same. I see tons of people asking for help with this boss or that boss, and the answers are always different. You have to play smart, but you don't have to play a particular way. This is not an easy task to pull off. They give you enough tools in the Job system, and the Brave/Default system, to take on a task, and then they just let you take it on. There are so many, many ways to combine those features that, while only a tiny fraction of them will work, you can find your own strategy.

[Dat Matt]

I aim to level up my characters at least twice for every new area I enter. This keeps me ahead of the curve. Bravely default destroyed me for that.

There was a time in the later game during grinding I turned up the difficulty from normal to hard to see if the effects of changing difficult improved battle rewards (didn't seem to). I forgot to reverse this before a boss and despite being level 99 and taking things slowly and carefully the boss destroyed me. Hard mode too intense for me.

[Del Murder]

I heard 'Radiant Historia' and that's all I needed to know.

The Brave/Default system sounds annoying. Now I need to finish the bazillion other 3DS games I have so I can play this.

I want you all to picture me with my arms wrapped around two infants while playing a 3DS. This will be my life for the next few months.

[Skyblade]

I heard 'Radiant Historia' and that's all I needed to know.

The Brave/Default system sounds annoying. Now I need to finish the bazillion other 3DS games I have so I can play this.

I want you all to picture me with my arms wrapped around two infants while playing a 3DS. This will be my life for the next few months.

I think your system auto-corrected "awesome" into "annoying".

Play the demo, if you haven't yet. It will help you get a feel for it.

The way it works is this: Each action costs a Brave Point (some high level ones cost more than one). Each turn, you get a Brave Point for each character who isn't stunned, stopped, or asleep. So, each turn, you can take an action. Basic stuff.

However, there are two other features that let you manipulate this. If you choose to "Default" during a turn (it's basically the "Defend" command from Final Fantasy, except actually useful), it will reduce the damage you take, and not cost a Brave Point, so you store up that turn's Brave Point to use later. And you can store up to 3 Brave Points.

The "Brave" command will let you spend Brave Points to take additional actions. You can take up to 4 actions at once. This is done by either spending stored Brave Points, or dipping in to your future turns and going negative on Brave Points (well, technically, even a standard action will take you to -1 with no BP stored up, but it regenerates to zero on the next turn, and you can act again). But if you go negative, you can't act until you regenerate to zero BP.

So if you rush enemies with multiple Brave attacks, you can do a ton of damage, but you'll then be unable to defend yourself, possibly up to four turns (which is enough for even most random encounters to trash your party, if they survive your onslaught). Thus you either need to plan your strikes carefully, and know what you can take down and how much BP you need to spend. When to rush, when to defend, who to attack with, who to leave in reserve. It's a brilliant system, and you get the hang of the basics really quickly. But each foe can throw a twist on it, by changing how they fight, or what skills work most effectively against them, so the battlefield is ever shifting.

[Del Murder]

Haha, yeah meant awesome. What the hell was that?

[Endless]

It feels to me like there's a huge gap between trash and bosses. Case in point being the dragon and its annoying mow down that would hit my whole team for 200+ even when defaulting and chaining it with its bully move which ignores default altogether. It would just outdamage the healing I could output and wipe my team fast.
So I used summon friend and picked one that would wipe it through the floor, but it annoyed me a lot.

Also, how in the world did you save the PG to buy the Norende gear? I rebuilt it a lot (got most of it at level 9 before getting to yulyana woods) but I can't afford squat since equipment costs several thousands apiece and I barely make 50 per open world fight.

[Fynn]

It's easier to get gold later on Also, the merchant job is your friend.

[Pumpkin]

I want to try out this game because it really sounds like the type of game I would like, but I don't like hard games :<

[Fynn]

Switch to easy and it's a breezy. Heh.

[Endless]

It's easier to get gold later on Also, the merchant job is your friend.

The merchant job sucks at low job level, only skill is "throw PG out the window" :/

[Fynn]

I found that, after switching out from some maces jobs, they all suck at low levels. The merchant is actually pretty awesome. It was hilarious to me whe Ringabel kept selling eye drops the the eldritch abomination the party was fighting

[Skyblade]

I want to try out this game because it really sounds like the type of game I would like, but I don't like hard games :<

It's Hard on the Hard difficulty. From what I've heard, Normal and Easy are significantly less troublesome.

It's easier to get gold later on Also, the merchant job is your friend.

The merchant job sucks at low job level, only skill is "throw PG out the window" :/

Merchant passive ability gets you extra gold from battles. And Sell High is nice, when it works. Which it doesn't always, so I don't use it.