More than 10 hours with Bravely Default II

Bravely Default II offers a throwback to a simpler time where heroes lined up on one side of the screen, fought monsters across the screen, then flushed and repeated until peace and stillness be brought back to earth. I’ve spent over 10 hours with it, and while what I’ve played so far hasn’t surprised me as much as I hoped, it’s also shown Bravely Default II for Switch to be another satisfying and bespoke version of the classic JRPG.

It’s like a big bowl of mac and cheese: a familiar but delicious stack of carbs coated in fatty and salty goodness where every bite tastes the same as the last and yet you can’t stop eating until she’s gone. It’s comfort food, and like the best comfort food, it’s about giving you exactly what you already know you want: inspired by a time in your life when you felt safe, content, and satisfied. , at least for the duration of a quick meal, or in this case, a grindy dungeon full of turn-based battles.

I played a bunch of Bravely Default II over the past week and I’ll be playing a lot more for our review when the game releases later this month. In the meantime, here are some of my early thoughts:

• Bravely Default II is a bit like Bravely Second what was a lot like Bravely Default I what was a lot like The 4 heroes of light what was a lot like Final Fantasy III. You visit cities; these towns have problems; you try to solve problems by fighting battles, and you inevitably end up leveling up, learning new abilities, and gaining better equipment in the process.
• The story and the game world are new and completely separate from the first two games. It’s a clean and refreshing break with the past.
• Like its predecessors, the game revolves around an employment system (classes) to increase the combat capabilities of your group. Classic jobs like DPS Heavy Black Mage and Healing White Mage are coming back, but there are new ones too. Vanguards are like knights, but prefer axes to swords and come with a multitude of abilities to weaken and aggravate enemies.

• In general I have found Bravely Default IIThe composition of jobs and abilities to work even better using its unique brave and default system. This system allows you to make bank turns to be used on the road or take out a loan to take a bunch of turns early. Sometimes it’s just about maximizing your balance between attack and healing, but in the most difficult fights in the game I had to organize a spreadsheet of defense buffs, attack debuffs, and of status evils to survive and outlast my opponents in protracted wars of attrition.
• Bravely Default II is the first game in the series on Switch, and unsurprisingly the most beautiful and soundest by far. While 3DS allowed earlier games to make interesting use of stereoscopic 3D backgrounds, Bravely Default II makes up for that with sprawling dungeons and city designs. I’ve been to desert temples, bandit hideouts, mine shafts, academies of magic and, yes, even the dreaded JRPG sewer level, but each one felt like a delicious new take on a classic place. rather than just another tedious tribute.

• Random encounters are gone! You can now see enemies on the ground before they attack. You can also hit them with your sword, or try to attack them from behind, in order to enter battles with the first chance to strike.
• The first town I visited had a shipping company that allowed me to send a crew to search for treasure while my game was in rest mode. I’m not sure it gets more detailed later, but for now it’s been a pleasure to come back every day to see a new batch of items waiting to be added to my inventory.
• One thing I don’t dig is some of the new character designs. Bravely Default has always been cartoonish, but Bravely Default II sometimes mixes a chibi look with faces that appear to have been taken from a walking caricature artist. Sometimes it fits the fanciful sensibilities of the game. Sometimes it borders on bodily horror.

• Many conversations between members of your group are relegated to secondary moments. You can choose to participate by pressing the Start button when a prompt appears. Rarely have I come across anything of interest which is good as they are not mandatory. I’m mainly here for the combat and the setting, not the silly JRPG chatter. So it’s a relief that dialogue that might otherwise buzz in cutscenes has been relegated to an optional side menu. (I think the jokes in the first game were better).
• Bravely Default II is difficult. This has come in the game the most recent demo too. I like it that way. While I had no problem making my way through ordinary enemy mobs, the boss fights gave me a boost, and that makes all of this training professional and the mix and match of worthwhile equipment and capabilities.

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I’m excited to keep playing, but the big test with any gargantuan JRPG is how well it maintains its momentum and how it balances the endgame. It doesn’t have to be a cake walk for properly trained people, but it also not a death walk. To varying degrees, the first two games both suffered from these issues, which turned fun, pipe-dreaming adventures into monotonous work. We will see if Bravely Default II can escape a similar fate.