Bravely Default Demo (Thoughts)

I think it's getting to the point where the spiky-haired protagonists are actually quite charming. Oh, Japan.

Slowly, but surely we are approaching the final hours of Dark Souls 2's release. Frantic times for the average gamer there's been a brief drought since the latest holiday gaming bash. You've had DK Tropical Freeze sure, but 3D World beat them to the punch in all honesty. I don't need another platformer, thanks! So with little to play I've had nothing to do but go to class, come home, and play a bit of online Halo. That got stale and I was reminded of the Bravely Default demo I downloaded a while back on my 3DS. I was pretty interested in the game once I saw ProJared's review of it on his YouTube channel. The impression that I was given is that it was basically Final Fantasy with the same old tried and true story. But with a bit of a twist this time around, I'm not sure if I can really explain it that well, but here goes nothing!

From what I can assume from the demo, the game only has four characters and each of those characters has access to a wide arrange of various jobs, or "classes", this allows for the player to customize their party however the wish. You could have three mages and a knight, a ninja, a valkyrie, a rockstar (of sorts), and a swordmaster. Each of these classes allow each character to learn a set of skills unique to each class and then you can mix and match two of these classes together to kind of offset their weaknesses or bolster their strengths. It's been done in other JRPGs but I rarely play JRPGs of any kind (Dark Souls and Chrono Trigger being an exception, few others maybe but that's off the top of my head.) It's due to the fact that there's a LOT of talking in them that can cause the game to move at what feels like a snails pace. In the demo however there seems to be very small amount of NPCs who give you tips and sometimes also give you quests to do. Shops are also streamlined. You get your equipment, you get out. I'm hoping this "trimming of the fat" will carry over into the main game. Fingers crossed. Not that it'll ruin the game for me, but I prefer having games not waste time too much.

Also as an added little feature you can summon other people's own created character and classes into your own battle whenever you are in a pinch. This can only be used every 24 hours from what I remember of Jared's review. Pretty interesting feature though I haven't used it yet. Sounds like a real ace in the hole.

Another aspect from Bravely Default that I really enjoyed was the limited set of characters. I remember playing FF6 for the first time last year and getting overwhelmed with the amount of characters that I had to micromanage and the like which is particularly strange because I rather enjoy Fire Emblem. That franchise is practically based around micro management and large cast of characters and such. Hmm, I should look more into that sometime. Anyways, it became a bit too much and I quickly grew bored of it all. *gasp* bored of FF6? Is that possible? Seems like, I've been meaning to give it another shot, but I haven't brought myself to actually play it. Thankfully from the demo they've kept the cast to only four characters. They feel really bland, but it is the demo and I'm sure their personality's will develop in the main game. Plus, there were only like two "cutscenes" where the characters actually spoke. So, I'm not going to write them off just yet.

Something else that Bravely Default also does well. NO RANDOM BATTLES (in a sense)! I quite like how Silicon Studio decided to implement this mechanic and make it a lot less frustrating. In the start menu, there's an option under Config labeled "Difficulty" and in it there is a slider allowing you to determine how often you want to encounter battles from anywhere to EVERY TWO STEPS FIGHT to having a gentle frolic across the myriad wastelands. Which is great, because sometimes I don't feel like grinding and just want to get to my objective and this actually helps a huge amount.

Okay, onto what makes this game truly special. And I have to give the developers credit for this one, because they actually named their game after this mechanic. This mechanic is called Bravely Defaulting. Essentially what this allows you to do is string together a set of moves into one turn. Normally, you are only allowed to attack once per turn in most RPGs, however this allows you to "Brave" or stack turns and allow you to use 4 actions in one turn rather than taking 4 turns. "Default" is the term used to stack an extra turn for later use and go into a defensive mode for your character. While "Brave"ing does sound a bit broken on paper it actually adds depth to the combat and makes you think in advance of what's currently happening. The only downside however, is the character will not be able to move for an x amount of turns. Utilizing this mechanic will allow the player to put more thought into what's happening rather than continuously pushing the A button like most other RPGs. It's a neat little departure from your traditional JRPG game like Final Fantasy.

From what I've played in the demo (that is up to the bit with the dragon at the oasis) I'm actually quite impressed. Bravely Default is definitely on the top of my list for games to get as soon as possible. At least I'll finally have something else to play on my 3DS that isn't Pokemon X.