Third game of the bravely series, Bravely Default 2 is a return to the series for producers after their success with Octopath Traveler. While Bravely Default was generally considered a good game, a specific part of the second half of the game ruined the experiments of many. Although it was also the case for me, Octopath Traveler was always a fun experience overall, but I am certainly a game lover with work systems. I started Bravely Default 2 with great expectations, but I was still pleasantly surprised by the familiarity of some systems.
Bravely Default 2 includes the main group of four characters: Seth, Gloria, Elvis and Adel. These characters are respectively a sailor, a princess, a scholar and a mercenary. The story begins while the group seeks the missing crystals of Gloria’s homeland. From there, they encounter various allies and enemies connected to the central plot. Although the narrative is decent, it was also sometimes predictable and often felt mechanical. By that, I mean that you feel like following a fixed model or formula, although it deviates as the game continues. In a rather surprising way, the story of this RPG is not what makes me come back, but the gameplay is.
Bravely Default 2, like her predecessors, is a rpg in turn. In addition to the main quest, the game offers a variety of secondary quests to undertake. These quests can be simple recovery quests or have more items related to history, including cinematics and mini-bosses. The main component that connects these elements together is its combat system, which includes brave and default holding systems.
Players can activate the brave command to use up to four actions at a time, or the Default command to defend and store a brave point for a future turn. These two orders work together and one against each other to determine whether to sacrifice future tricks to have a chance to end the meetings earlier. In addition to these features, which can greatly accelerate small meetings, the game also allows you to accelerate the fight up to four times, which greatly accelerates the fight.
Finally, on the work system. Bravely Default 2 offers a number of jobs that characters can use, some familiar with kind and other more unique. Characters must increase the level of their characters as well as levels of work. By improving various jobs, the characters will learn both passive and active capacities. Active capabilities will require the jobs to be equipped to use capabilities, while passive capabilities can be equipped, whether work is active or not. Each character can equip a main and secondary work, the main work providing a specialty, a suit and a mastery of weapons.
In short, each character can have a main job, secondary work and passive capacities, all working together to allow the player to create his group as he sees fit. Not surprisingly, I spent more time than necessary to improve various jobs in order to optimize weapon specialties, passive capabilities and more to keep an ideal holiday at any time. Later in the game, various decisions will need to be taken regarding jobs to continue to use and passive capacities to equip because there is a limit. Although the story is decent and the fight has an intriguing aspect, the work system is where the game really shines for me.
The general aesthetics of the game is similar to its previous iterations on the Nintendo 3DS, although obviously improved now on the Nintendo Switch. If you look carefully, the character models are also quite detailed. Where the aesthetics of the game shines, it is the environments, especially the locations of the city. The cities are hand drawn, with a pop-up look resembling an image book. Character models and environments work well together to create a fantasy feel in the world of play in general.
With regard to audio, music integrates well with history and the environment, also contributing to different scenes and battles. However, dubbing is what sets me apart. The dubbing itself is well done, but what emerges is that the game is much more expressed than I expected, with even secondary quests and the content expressed. Although some games have all the dialogs expressed, it seems quite rare for a RPG, not to mention a JRPG.
Overall, Bravely Default 2 is a solid RPG with a unique combat system and a satisfactory work system. Having left time between the first two iterations and it, Bravely Default 2 remains a natural extension of older games, although improved under various aspects. Without a doubt, Bravely Default 2’s work system is the brilliant aspect of the game and actually enough to keep my interest despite a relatively predictable story.
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