Woke up early today

51. Bravely Default (Nintendo 3DS)
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The game centers largely around the four Crystals, which at the beginning we see engulfed in darkness. Meanwhile, one of our characters hometown is swallowed up by the Earth. He teams up with the vestal of Wind and two other companions as they attempt to revive the Crystals.

This game plays like some old school Final Fantasy games with some differences. You have 4 characters, all 4 usable in battle. There are many job classes to choose from and each serves its own purpose. You can switch to any of the ones you have anytime outside of battle and for any character you want. In Bravely Default, jobs are obtained by defeating enemies of the job at certain points in the story or through sidequests. It also has the Brave/Default system, where you can borrow against or save up turns in battle.


General impressions:
This game was one of the reasons I got my 2DS. I was so excited to play it. But every time I went to get a new game, I was never in the mood for this one. Eventually I was and I picked it up and for the first few days I could not put it down. My 2DS was constantly on the charger because I was draining the battery like a crazy person. I was so interested, so excited. But I noticed that the further in I got, the more my interest waned. I realized I didn't really like the characters, the story was incredibly predictable, and the game was really kind of hard, even on easy. I still like the game, don't get me wrong, but I suppose it didn't live up to what I expected it to.

Story:
At first the story really grabbed me. I couldn't wait to see what happened next, to get the next character, to go to the next area. What was going to happen!? As it went on though, I realized the story was absurdly predictable. I saw pretty much every twist coming, and that's saying a lot because I'm really bad at that. Especially the (SPOILER)“Things aren't black and white!” twist because Edea spent the whole game shoving black and white morality down my throat at every opportunity. If they'd been a bit more subtle about it, it would have had more of an impact. Instead it was “Okay, when's the reveal, let's get on with it.” But the story is still pretty solid and I liked that the villains for the most part had some depth to them instead of just being evil badbads.


Gameplay:
I'm split on this so I'll start with the negatives. I like to play video games ALONE. I won't even VS players in fighting games anymore, I'll just take turns. I want to play games A L O N E. I don't want to turn on StreetPass, I don't want to connect with other players, I want to play it as if no one else exists. I hated that this game penalized me for that. Oh you want to rebuild the town? Well it's going to take 10 years because you prefer to play without linking to your friends. You don't get the special friend attacks. And we are going to remind you every time you boot up the game that you will not have it as easy because you play by yourself. I don't play with other people. I don't like that. Awesome if you do, but don't penalize me if I don't. Also this game was hard and really repetitive towards the end and also in dungeons. Now that that's over with, this was refreshing if you enjoy games like FFV and the job system. I LOVE the job system. So many jobs, so many cute outfits, they get to keep those jobs in scenes. So much fun. The Brave/Default option was also really cool and made the regular fights much quicker and easier. It was also good that they had battle and difficulty settings.


World:
The games world was quite interesting and I did like it. The towns were very pretty and artistically done and I always liked seeing what the next town would look like. Very pretty, great diversity. Only negative I can think of were the repetitive dungeon maps. Other than that, no complaints, really great world.


Characters:
Another weak point for me personally, although a lot of people love the characters. I thought I would love Agnes and made her my main lady, giving her my favourite job classes and such. She is a good person but I don't know, she didn't stand out to me. I didn't really like the others, although I didn't dislike them either. I guess Tiz would probably be my favourite of the bunch, but not enough to give him his own section in this review. I'd say some of the villains were more interesting to me. But I did enjoy their interactions and little character skits.

Overall this is a good game, especially if you like old school Final Fantasy. It definitely goes back to its roots. It was a bit repetitive and predictable, but it's good fun to play, especially for fans of the job system.