Bravely Default - My first impressions

[InfinityX]

Hello everyone! I figured that since bravely default came out, I'd like to do a first Impressions thread.

DISCLAMER
Im by no means a reviewer, just stating my thoughts . Also I've only played about 2 hours in (hence First impressions), taking a break for now.

Right now, I'm finding the game pretty fun. Its a nice throwback to old RPG like the early final fantasies. Character dialog with each other is a nice touch. I wont say much of the story (not like I can) but

Spoiler

its going on again with crystals that can save/destroy the world, so nothing too different from SE's comfort zone.

Class/job changing is pretty nice, and I cant wait to try out different combinations of jobs. Though I worry about getting some jobs much later into the game, that I would already have a comfortable set-up, I wont use them.

Graphics are nice, but you really need to use the 3D feature to get the best of it. Character Art is really good, but simple.

the two biggest game play features is what i like alot, Brave and Default.
Brave allows you to attack multiple times (based on BP) in a turn, but use too much, and you lose a turn.
Default gives you a defensive stance, but adds 1 BP, allowing for multiple attacks the next turn.

It was nice that the first boss fight uses these mechanics simply, and I expect some cool features and mechanics from them in harder fights.

what I dont like:

WHY THE [BLEEP] IS THERE MICROTRANSIONS! sure its optional, but WTF SE!
basically you can pay for these "coins" that, from what I understand, completely skips the opponent's turn and goes straight back to yours. while you do also earn these coins from havinng your DS in sleep mode, its still a dirty feature that I will not use, nor do I recommend any serious RPG player to use.

but surely that's the worst right?
Except there is also a FACEBOOK-LIKE CITY BUILDER! again, WTF!
I'm only going on the tutorial that forced you into it, but from what I've seen, you build structures that take time (faster with friends of course) on nodes. I don't know what these buildings can do, but I only hope its nothing overpowered or required for ultimate weapons/armor. In addition to this, "monsters" can attack your Village, which you then get your friends to help defeat it.

Actually, I wouldn't mind the city building part, if it wasn't with the fact that its "friends this, and friends that". I JUST WANT A SINGLE-PLAYER RPG!

So with a short play time right now, I feel like its a good RPG, one that's well worth its price, As long as you can ignore the micro-transactions and the (hopefully) non-required city building.

Now if you excuse me, Im going to continue the adventure and probably post a though on POST-GAME.



P.S - As this is a first impressions thread, I ask that any poster be respectful to others learning the game and try to avoid spoilers

 

[hazabaza1]

Over here in Europe we had it since last year so I guess I'll talk about some stuff.

The core combat and standard JRPG stuff is really good. Nice class system, works well, and the city can just be done with other people on streetpass with the game, not only friends.

The story takes some decent twists at first, but avoiding spoilers gets really fucking tedious towards the end and introduces some fights that seem more like "use your mighty google-fu to find out the one way to finish it" rather than "make the team you want and do the fight your way!" To the extent that I have max level characters with most classes maxed out and can still hardly put a scratch on some of the fights.

Jobs do stay useful as you unlock them though, and the city stuff does give you better gear but it's not required to finish anything.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

I loved the game initially but it goes pretty downhill towards the end, where hours of grinding becomes essential to experiencing the story, though I can't say I didn't expect this sort of thing from this game. What I really hated was that you have to play through about 4-5 'new game +' playthroughs to be able to fight the final boss and experience the end of the story. You can skip most of the content in new game + and just defeat the major bosses but at this point I just could not be bothered devoting any more time or energy to the game, it felt like a slap to the face. Additionally the Facebook-like city builder was completely awful.

I was a lot more impressed by Etrian Odyssey IV.

 

[stroopwafel]

It's a cool game with some poor design decisions like indeed the city builder, sleep points and some tedious questing. I wish developers realized just for once that not every game in every imaginable genre needs to be a 'social experience' and that excessive padding does not equal value for money.

However the game itself looks absolutely gorgeous, espescially the towns with its hand-drawn art that looks like a pop-up picture book on 3DS. The battle system is a lot of fun. Eventhough I'm not really a fan of menu-driven combat anymore there was enough variety of job classes and skill combinations in this game for it to remain fun and dynamic, and the brave/default option was a refreshing twist on a stale formula. The music was also quite nice with these typical soothingly mellow JRPG tunes.

It's definetly one of the better JRPGs in recent times. If they fixed some the game's issues and made the story a bit more interesting it could easily turn into a cool franchise on par with the earlier Final Fantasies.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I got the demo but I couldn't really get into it, maybe it's because it just thrown me right into the game as opoose to given me the story/ intro. Sure the combat system is interesting but I kind of find it iffy which again it probably cos it didn't give a proper tutorial on it either.

 

[bojackx]

As others have said it goes downhill massively later on. Without trying to spoil anything, what I thought was the near end of the game turned out to not be, and the rest of the game turns to utter shit and seems like a terrible attempt at extending the gameplay.

On saying that, I've only just gotten up to this point like an hour ago, so maybe it really picks up, but if the rest of the game is anything like this last hour I honestly doubt I'll be able to finish this game. Such a shame considering it was my first JRPG and I really liked it initially.

 

[William Dickbringer]

I got the demo but I couldn't really get into it, maybe it's because it just thrown me right into the game as opoose to given me the story/ intro. Sure the combat system is interesting but I kind of find it iffy which again it probably cos it didn't give a proper tutorial on it either.

The demo from what I hear isn't that good representation of the game
here's a video that describes the problems

 

[Yopaz]

The SP thing is something you'll get from leaving your 3DS in sleep mode so it's not that big of a deal. The village builder is also quite easily bypassed by choosing update data once a day and you'll get 2-5 new villagers. I got 50 villagers and I haven't added a single villager except for a friend who just got the demo (and I was friends with him before I got the game).

I've been too busy to play that far in, but I like the game so far. I like the throwback to the job system of the old Final Fantasy games since it allows you to customize your party. I kinda wish I had bought it earlier so I would have had the time to play through it before I got this busy though...

 

[Vern5]

It's a solid game despite streetpass and micro-transaction gripes. I've never seen a reason to use or even want SP and I have the means to get as many streetpasses that I need for the village. On the other hand, you can actively reach across the void of the net in order to wrangle up more help from other players, which is a massive improvement over other 3DS games that might require you to actually streetpass at close proximity.

My big problem with this game is the awful, awful, AWFUL exposition. The voice acting is hammy both in English and Japanese. I ended up turning all of the voices off. Of course, that doesn't save me from the terribly written dialogue. It's odd because the plot itself is charmingly formulaic whereas the dialogues are formulaic but dismally poor AND lengthy.

Despite the above, the game is still a lot of fun to play.

 

[ThriKreen]

I'm torn on the grinding... on one hand, I hate wasting time and would prefer good pacing of intentional encounters and XP rewards. Like in Dragon Age Origins, progressing as normal and you'll always be at the appropriate level for the encounters. And optional ones can be avoid if you want to, instead of enemies that appear out of nowhere with the transition screen.

However, flip side side of the debate is I can spend some time to gain levels to make fights much easier and get lots of money, without having to fight them at the level the designers want you to. And it's nice they have the Encounter slider to increase or decrease when you play, as well as the fast forward play speed.

I do like love the job system though, customizing the characters and mix'n'matching skills.

And summoning my friends to help out with a fight, although I have to poke them to remind them to save/update their attacks, otherwise I'm in a fight against like L20 guys a L1 Tiz summon pops out doing a piddly 26 damage.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

I got the demo but I couldn't really get into it, maybe it's because it just thrown me right into the game as opoose to given me the story/ intro. Sure the combat system is interesting but I kind of find it iffy which again it probably cos it didn't give a proper tutorial on it either.

The demo from what I hear isn't that good representation of the game
here's a video that describes the problems

It's exactly my problem with the demo.
It turned me off so much I don't even want to try the real game even though I know it's gonna be good.

 

[Shocksplicer]

My first impression is that there are no copies of the game in any store in the entirety of Brisbane. -.-

 

[InfinityX]

After playing a bit more (still in chapter 1) I've noticed that a lot of the Bosses and even some of the "appropriate Level" monsters have quite a lot of HP. Now while I like the idea of a long boss fight, I usually like the fights to vary up a bit throughout, the ones I've faced so far haven't really changed their fight much.

I'm torn on the grinding... on one hand, I hate wasting time and would prefer good pacing of intentional encounters and XP rewards. Like in Dragon Age Origins, progressing as normal and you'll always be at the appropriate level for the encounters. And optional ones can be avoid if you want to, instead of enemies that appear out of nowhere with the transition screen.

However, flip side side of the debate is I can spend some time to gain levels to make fights much easier and get lots of money, without having to fight them at the level the designers want you to. And it's nice they have the Encounter slider to increase or decrease when you play, as well as the fast forward play speed.

You know, Im seeing myself torn between the two as well, I don't like how every new place I encounter I feel like I got to grind a few levels so I can come out of a battle not at the brink of death. However, I like the idea of getting levels and progressing in that way.

Also encounter slider? Is that the difficulty slider? or something different?

My big problem with this game is the awful, awful, AWFUL exposition. The voice acting is hammy both in English and Japanese. I ended up turning all of the voices off. Of course, that doesn't save me from the terribly written dialogue. It's odd because the plot itself is charmingly formulaic whereas the dialogues are formulaic but dismally poor AND lengthy.

Despite the above, the game is still a lot of fun to play.

I agree, At first I liked how the character interactions and exposition was, but now the characters are getting annoying. Its hard for me to explain, but They keep their same personality and make the same jokes throughout chaper 1, It feels like Im playing robots rather then fantasy characters.

 

[ThriKreen]

You know, Im seeing myself torn between the two as well, I don't like how every new place I encounter I feel like I got to grind a few levels so I can come out of a battle not at the brink of death. However, I like the idea of getting levels and progressing in that way.

And it's sad when certain games implement a party AI to help you automate said fights, which shows you how poorly thought out the "traditional JRPG" combat system is.

Also encounter slider? Is that the difficulty slider? or something different?

Tactics->Config->Difficulty->Encounter Rate, set it to 0% (normal), 100% (x2 chance), or -100% (no encounters). Makes grinding in a spot faster, then when low, just set it to -100% and mosey on to the nearest inn without worrying about bumping into an enemy

 

[neonsword13-ops]

I can't wait to pick it up later this month.

Been looking for a new JRPG that I can sink my teeth into for handheld after SMTIV (which I never finished >->") and this looks like the one.

The demo was pretty terrible, though. The combat was difficult, and I was expecting to get to try the job system at some point. I don't know if they let you get to that point, but I quit around level 7 or 8 after endless fighting for monster guts and feathers or whatever. It's good to know the real game isn't like that, or else I wouldn't have even considered it.

One thing that really stuck out to me while I was playing the demo was the music.

Holy FUCK this shit came outta left field. I was expecting some pretty standard fantasy inspired stuff that wasn't too flashy like the older FF games, but jesus this is some good shit.

I mean, the field and battle themes are all I really need. Shit is so tight. I can feel the goosebumps.

Pure ecstasy​

I'm considering getting the special edition just so I can have a physical copy of the OST. It all just works so well. This may be my new favorite soundtrack that will sit among the top ranks of Persona 3 and 4.

 

[InfinityX]

Tactics->Config->Difficulty->Encounter Rate, set it to 0% (normal), 100% (x2 chance), or -100% (no encounters). Makes grinding in a spot faster, then when low, just set it to -100% and mosey on to the nearest inn without worrying about bumping into an enemy

Thats pretty cool! I did not know that / Missed that. Thanks!
Still though, It does feel like the mobs have a bit too much HP, Maybe reduce it to 0.85% and I think you might hit that sweet spot. Sometimes I get the feeling SE did little balancing with them...

I can't wait to pick it up later this month.

Been looking for a new JRPG that I can sink my teeth into for handheld after SMTIV (which I never finished >->") and this looks like the one.

The demo was pretty terrible, though. The combat was difficult, and I was expecting to get to try the job system at some point. I don't know if they let you get to that point, but I quit around level 7 or 8 after endless fighting for monster guts and feathers or whatever. It's good to know the real game isn't like that, or else I wouldn't have even considered it.

One thing that really stuck out to me while I was playing the demo was the music.

Holy FUCK this shit came outta left field. I was expecting some pretty standard fantasy inspired stuff that wasn't too flashy like the older FF games, but jesus this is some good shit.

I mean, the field and battle themes are all I really need. Shit is so tight. I can feel the goosebumps.

I'm considering getting the special edition just so I can have a physical copy of the OST. It all just works so well. This may be my new favorite soundtrack that will sit among the top ranks of Persona 3 and 4.

Oh yea, the game is currently very enjoyable, as well as the music. However, when fighting a boss for 30+ mins, the boss song gets repetitive quick. Still, its an enjoyable song and I've heard much worse.

and I really should finish SMTIV too... >_>

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

I got the demo but I couldn't really get into it, maybe it's because it just thrown me right into the game as opoose to given me the story/ intro. Sure the combat system is interesting but I kind of find it iffy which again it probably cos it didn't give a proper tutorial on it either.

The demo from what I hear isn't that good representation of the game
here's a video that describes the problems

See for me I feel it's absolutely the other way around, I loved the demo and got the full game but the story is totally awful, the characters bland as all hell and it's really the most grindy thing I've ever played. The only thing the game does better than the demo is the whole Street Pass stuff and thats because it doesn't limit you to waiting around for 10 hours while your weapon shop builds and you can buy a damn weapon.

 

[Eve Charm]

The village is kinda a big bore. Even with 32 villagers now and keeping my 3ds on round the clock I've only got 2 places maxed out.

It's a bit BS to say that the Town Isn't needed. While you don't really need the weapon or armor and such, Special moves and special move parts on the other hand are need for highly damaging attacking against special bosses and such. And the shops halfway are all 99 hours till the next upgrade if you put a single villager on it.