The recent reception
of my Deluxe
Edition of Bravely Second reminded me that I had yet to play the serie's
first instalment, which I bought a good two years ago yet never touched.
Classic story, shall we say; the same could be told about most of my game
collection. But I digress; the important point here is that my gaming instinct
commanded me to pick up Bravely Default and discover the series for
myself at long last.
I would nearly be tempted to write "rediscover", because Bravely
Default bears an uncanny resemblance to a game I played two years ago. More
than a mere resemblance, in fact. For, lo and behold, Bravely Default is
basically Final
Fantasy I with revamped
graphics, a slighty more fleshed-out story, an inflated job system and an
avalanche of gameplay tweaks designed to erase all trace of old-school
clunkiness. But I'm not fooled by all this flashiness, oh no precious: under
the modern coating, this is old-fashioned Final Fantasy through and
through. Here's a convenient list of all the similarities I've spotted so far:
- The design of the game world is similar to the one found in FFI, with a roamable world map full of areas that can be explored yet serve no purpose and empty dungeons devoid of puzzles.
- Crystal-based narrative, Phoenix Downs and spells that have exactly the same names and effects as the ones encountered in FFI: the whole Final Fantasy grammar is there allright.
- The job system is there too and shamelessly reprises some of FFI's jobs: Knight, Thief, Monk and the good old White/Black/Red Mage trio.
- Last but not least, Bravely Default has a certain dryness to it, just like its venerable model. This is a game that's rather light on the narrative side yet offers millions of excellent reasons to grind senselessly. All things considered, it actually offers little more than metric tons of grinding. The story is not gripping enough to provide a reason to play the game and often consists in detours and meanderings that are only pretexts for more grinding. The sidequests only lead to the acquisitions of new Jobs, which then lead to even more grinding. And the rest... Well, the rest is just grinding, period.
Which is just so, so totally fine by me. I love
heavily grindy RPGs as a rule and I have a taste for simple and straightforward
gameplay styles: since Bravely Default fits both bills, I'm
absolutely lapping it up. Gorging on it would probably be closer to the truth:
I enthusiastically play it for hours on end, and I'm more likely to stop my
daily session of play because my 3ds' battery is dying on me than because I'm
bored of the game. And since I'm mentioning my daily sessions of play, let's
expand a bit on my run, shall we?
I've played 17 hours so far and just started the Eisenberg arc. My party
members' Jobs are pretty much fixed now, with Edea as a Knight, Tiz as a Monk,
Agnès as a White Mage and Ringabel as a Black Mage; these Jobs fit them
perfectly and they all perform really well in their respective roles. I've
gotten 13 of the 24 Jobs available and I'm enjoying myself immensely with all
the possible combinations of Job Commands and Support Abilities—so much so that
I'm currently in the middle of a grinding marathon in order to raise every
single Job to Lv.6 for all my party members. There's something curiously
intoxicating in the though of directing a bunch of over-powered characters
mastering every single competence offered by the game; that very though had
been a driving force in my legendary solo run of Dragon
Quest IX, compelling me
to play beyond reason, and it is very much a driving force as well in my run of
Bravely Default. Last but not least, I'm playing on Easy mode. That
makes nearly all battles a piece of cake, and I'm regretting that a trifle;
however, the Normal mode is just too, well... hard. It makes even the
meanest random battle last forever, and it's simply unacceptable in such a
grindy game. A difficulty rate halfway between Easy and Normal would have been
pitch-perfect, but it's not available. Oh, well. Bravely Default is so
deliciously player-friendly that I'm not complaining in earnest. Take the
random encounter meter, for instance: isn't that the most perfect tool ever to
grind senselessly? Crank it up to 100%, and voilà! Random battles every
two steps for your convenience! So much more practical than the old random item
that raises random encounter rate for a while only. And the flexible and
customizable Job system is both really simple to grasp and incredibly fulfilling—more
so than any Job system I've ever encountered in an RPG, including the one in DQIX.
And let's not even talk about the adjustable speed in combat and the
possibility to wrap up random battles neatly and quickly by spamming the Brave
command and stacking up turns, which are absolute blessings that nearly made me
tear up when I discovered them.
You get the idea now: I totally adore that game and I feast on it on a daily basis. It's old-school Final Fantasy brought to a new generation of players; and when I say that, I'm including myself in said new generation. I never had an attachment to the Final Fantasy series because I virtually missed all its entries, and playing them years—or decades—later cannot arouse the kind of genuine affection a gamer can feel for a series they've discovered and played from its inception. But with Bravely Default, I can finally have my own Final Fantasy: my own legendary series that sums up and encompasses the very essence of turn-based old-school RPG goodness. Here's to many more Bravely entries to come! Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!
Bravely Default
is amazing. It's just a giant shame that Squeenix is even surprised that the
game is so popular. They talked in an article about how surprised they were
that a traditional RPG could sell so well. Imagine that. The kind of games that
they built their fame and fortune on, can actually sell. And yet they still
insist on messing their Final Fantasy games, including making the FF7 remake
episodic and with an actionized battle system =.="
Thankfully, we now have bravely default. It's a terrible shame that it may be
the only traditional RPG from Squeenix we handheld gamers might get. They've
skimped on localizing the vita versions of Adventures of Mana and I am Setsuna.
They say they are reconsidering due to fan demand, but giving that it's Squeenix,
I'm not too hopeful. A shame, I was looking forward to I am Setsuna so much. I
hope we still get World of Final Fantasy :(
So perfectly
said. I always loved Square's taste for innovation and pushing boundaries, but
not when it makes them ditch without a second thought gameplay styles that many
old-timers as well as new players still fancy. And not when it makes them craft
messy fighting systems such as the one in FFX just for the sake of being edgy
and keeping up up the hottest trends in gaming.
Wait... Are they planning to give up on localizing Adventures of Mana as well?
Noooo! I so wanted to play that game. :(
Anyway, Bravely Default IS an amazing game allright. Polished and captivating,
and so deliciously old-school. It reminded me why Square became the powerhouse
they are (or rather used to be some years ago): they can produce amazingly
polished games when they put their mind to it. Too bad they squandered all that
energy and talent in meaningless projects in the last decade... Oh, well.
Yes, they've
decided not to localize the vita versions of Adventures of Mana and I am
Setsuna. Adventures of Mana will only be available on mobile (because yeah,
that's the perfect platform to play long RPGs on =.=") and I am Setsuna
will be available for PS4 and PC. Once again, we are screwed over in favor of
PC.
Fans rallied and voted for a localization when they heard about Adventures of
Mana, and Square updated their blog saying "they were looking into
it", but we've had no news since then. As for I am Setsuna, they said
they'd also reconsider if they got enough fan demand, but again we've gotten no
update since then. I've mostly lost all hope. It's not like they're Koei Tecmo,
who does have a track record of listening to fans (see the Dynasty Warriors 8
Empires vita port), so there's still hopes for Nights of Azure. I'm just hoping
they don't do the same with World of Final Fantasy, that game looks so fun and
cute.
That's so
depressing, really... At this rate, I guess we can actually count ourselves
lucky to have gotten the Bravely games at all. It's nearly a miracle, given
these wretched localizing policies of theirs.
Given that they released Final Fantasy Explorers in the West, I'm confident
that they will do the same with World of Final Fantasy. Their know that the
Final Fantasy brand sells well and they probably won't miss yet another
opportunity to cash in. If only they could understand that we are interested in
their other IP as well... *sigh*
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