How did Bravely Default get such praise?

[LordLundar]

Most of the praise does tend to stem from the fact that it is a throwback to the old JRPG format and style that Square was known for since FFX while at the same time being acutely aware of the criticisms that the format had. Autosave, the ability to speed up fights, even difficulty settings that allow you to turn off encounters at will. It's received praise for being a throwback to old style JRPGs without bringing the problems with it so nostalgia fans get what they want and newcomers don't feel frustrated.

 

[Luminous_Umbra]

Bad Guy: "You can't awaken the crystals! It'll kill us all you fool!"
Party: "What do you mean it'll kill us all? Can you explain what you mean?"
Bad Guy: "WE FIGHT!!!"

Except that literally only two bad guys in the entirety of the game actually says something like that first line.

Also, they do give you a reason, the first cycle simply felt that you would never believe them. (And honestly, I couldn't blame them. Who would believe the leader of an organization who was dedicated to stomping out the existence of one you belonged to?)

Also, you could boil down a lot of games to a simple one-liner, you aren't exactly proving anything by doing so.

Before any of the loops, The Grand Marshall and Edea are talking. The Grand Marshall says stuff about how it would be bad to release the crystals because...reasons. Edea says "What are you talking about?" and he responds by trying to kill us. Doesn't attempt to explain anything; he just attempts to kill us when it was clear the party is curious as to what the hell he's talking about.

That vampire dude, The Sage, and Alternis all do a similar talk where they hint that they know WAAAAY more than they are letting on and then either attack us or stop talking about it like they decided that hinting about the crystals being bad would be an effective way of making us not awaken them like some passive-aggressive teenager.

Maybe it's just because it keeps happening right in a row with where I'm at but it's Bond-Villain stupidity. Like I said above, maybe it'll all make sense once the game ends but these stupid-ass temple fights are draining the desire to play.

Hell, that's actually my biggest issue I suppose now that I think about it. It's been sixty hours of a pretty good game being grounded to an absolute halt by the Bond Villains and the "Time to fight the FYIW boss for the third time in a row". It's Mass Effect 3 all over again...

A bit of spoiler, but if you don't mind a small hint:

Spoiler

Actually, there's been a way change the cycle since the third one. Pay close attention when you awaken the next crystal and you may notice something different. Note that you will have to do something different and it will not just fall into your lap.

 

[Luminous_Umbra]

What do you mean "attacks you can't do anything about", there's literally an ability that stops all damage for 2 turns, letting you get enough brave to curbstomp anything in one go. Jrpg fans just tend to optimize their approach of playing Jrpgs thus they never encounter difficulty.

BD is a good game cause it has a really interesting story that doesn't hold back on more serious themes such as child slavery and date-rape, deep gameplay with tons of options for tackling battle and endless customization and mix-matching.It also has an awesome soundtrack which maintains the original Japanese voiceovers on a portable game no less.

That sounds like even more fun; using the one broken ability to beat the game. Reminds me of the Victoria fight where all I did was cast reflect because the game did nothing but magic attacks on me which bounced right back; slightly more entertaining than getting curb-stomped by the FYIW attacks but just as boring as I just spam the one attack that the computer can't handle...basically a FYIW attack except my team is doing it instead.

As to the interesting story, I'd find it a lot more interesting if it didn't boil down to "We must awaken the crystals!"...now do it again!....and do it again! Then there's the interactions I have with all the big bad guys:

Bad Guy: "You can't awaken the crystals! It'll kill us all you fool!"
Party: "What do you mean it'll kill us all? Can you explain what you mean?"
Bad Guy: "WE FIGHT!!!"

Every bad guy in the game wants us to not awaken the crystal and not one of them actually says why...

Maybe once I get to the actual end (once I beat these four bosses for the third time in a row...) it'll all make sense but I feel like it's setting me up for this huge M Night Shyamalan-like twist where it turns out that awakening the crystals is a bad thing. The game drills it into your brain enough times that blindly taking the word of the Crystalology group might not be the best idea. Maybe one of these bad guys should actually just give me a reason to not awaken the crystal beyond vague whining about how bad it is.

Are you being dense on purpose or what?


Show me where I said you should just use that one ability for the entirety of the game. I just mentioned it exists as an example of there being no moves which instantly kill you that you can do nothing about, like you had purported. There's tons of combinations of approaches to victory, you don't have to use anything, that's the beauty of the game. That you would even think that anyone who likes Jrpgs would advise you to just use the same one tactic over and over shows how little you understand about the core engagement of a tactical turn based battle system based around jobs and inheriting skills. The fun is in discovery of new tactics, in the invention of an even more optimal approach than the current one. That itch to improve how well you're doing and how effective your strategy is never dies.

You can have a dark knight with the rage ability while using a sword that has the sword magic "Drain" cast on it, which heals you for the HP that dark knights use up in their super powerful attacks. You can have Ninjas dodge and gain BP and counter attack and gain passive buffs, each turn by utilizing Red Mage passive traits. You can cast spells which make your foe weak to elements and then nuke them with a mage for 9999 damage. You can max out a two hander Pirate and use bravely second to cause damage far beyond the 9999 limit with the Torrent ability.

There's TONS of really effective approaches in this game. Stop blaming it for your lack of creativity.

Creativity is incredibly important. For instance:

Spoiler

The third boss, Chaugmar, was giving me enormous trouble. Until I learned that Salve-maker item attacks always deal the same damage and bypass ALL defenses. Once I did, it fell before it could lower its shield for the first time.

As a side note, there are a set of fights later that really test your knowledge of game mechanics and force you to work outside of your comfort zone.

 

[tippy2k2]

A bit of spoiler, but if you don't mind a small hint:

Spoiler

Actually, there's been a way change the cycle since the third one. Pay close attention when you awaken the next crystal and you may notice something different. Note that you will have to do something different and it will not just fall into your lap.

I've awakened The Wind Crystal already and I didn't notice anything different in the process. Although at this point, fighting these bosses have glazed my eyes over as I just click attack, heal, repeat until the stupid thing finally dies so there's no surprise if I missed something...

Either way, I've calmed down a smidge and have accepted my fate so now I'm just grinding to level up some new jobs to see if I can get a better job combo. I'm still irked that I have to do it but I'll bite the bullet just to finish the game off...

I have no idea what FYIW attacks you're talking about, I never came across any in my playthrough, but maybe my tolerance is just higher than yours since I'm a SMT veteran.

With where I'm at, I can give you three examples off the top of my head but I know there are more...

Orthros (Wind Crystal boss): Both heads have a "group" attack that can wipe out most of your health and only takes one of their turns a piece. If both blast the group with their group attacks in the same turn, you're pretty screwed.

Rusalka (Water Crystal boss; AKA the fuckstick that inspired the thread): Goes into the Seep mode every four turns. The blast alone will wipe out (at least) half of your health, even in default and may God help you if he ends up getting a crit in the process. You then get to mess with four of the stupid things as they spam charm and smack the crap out of you while you try to heal up from the Seep.

Raffelsia (the little flower looking bad guys with a red top); They have a pollen attack that will hit the entire party. Alone, they can't do much but I've seen the game throw up to eight of them at a time and the pollen attack plus first strike many times means you get to sit there and watch your team get destroyed.

I know there are more (Victoria/Victor I remember being a giant pain in the ass until I found my own FYIW cheap tactic to beat them) but those are three right off the top of my head that don't make the game fun, just a pain in the ass. Although maybe Dreiko's onto something and I'm just an idiot, that's always a possibility.

 

[tippy2k2]

The first 2 bosses are a bit of a pain the first time through, but elemental attacks on multiple targets and elemental defence (especially accesories) makes them trivial after the first time through. Don't you use multiple target Firaga and summons to nuke the Rusalka clones out of existence in the second they appear? And Orthros shouldn't have a single head lasting the first round, just use Firaga and the vampire's fire attack with 3 of the characters on max brave and heal the rest with the remaining character.

Or the Victor/Vicotria is with the red-mage's "status ailments give 2 BP" is insanely easy, the girl will give you free turns. Really the game is more like a puzzle, that's what I liked most about it.

The funny part with Rusalka is I do exactly that. I magic with Tiz Black and White (Black Mastered and Level 12 White so he has the "Group Attack losing no attack power" thing unlocked) and he does "pitiful" damage (I put that in quotations because it's still like...1,200 damage per bad guy but Hunter Edea can do twice that damage in one shot and we still need multiple turns to kill all the clones even with full brave). I save my Braves so that he does four blasts in a row AND I have Ninja/Sword Magic Rinabell use Thunaga (or whatever the top one is called) with his dual daggers.

As for Orthos, same thing except Tiz was somehow doing only 500 damage with his big boy elemental attacks pending which head he was shooting at. I've got him with the best stuff I can find (and the amulet that gives you magic boost). For whatever reason, he does all kinds of damage on regular bad guys but when we get to these two big bosses, his magic wand goes limp. Maybe my game is broken because Edea is the only one that seems to actually be able to really hurt the bosses...

I feel like I'm doing everything right but not "right" the way Square Enix wants it done. Maybe that's part of what is irking me too; the "creative use of jobs" seems to be more of a "Use the ones that we want you to use or else".

 

[Popido]

Its a good Final Fantasy and like every Final Fantasy, it fucks up at the midpoint. So its a damn good Final Fantasy.

The only "FYIW" bosses I know are optional and need your party to be tailored for the encounter.

 

[JimB]

I don't know how it got such high praise either. A small part of that is being creeped out by the art style insisting on drawing all the characters with the proportions of babies and then insisting on putting the female characters in slutty outfits; it reminds me too much of children beauty pageants, and I just feel uncomfortable knowing someone out there is beating off to Edea's pear-shaped, head-accounts-for-two-thirds-of-her-height-and-mass body. Honestly, though, it's a much smaller complaint than that all the characters are complete morons. Why will no one answer a fucking question? How have none of the PCs figured out the betrayal I saw coming right around the time of the second temple? I hate to go all Cinema Sins on it, but seriously, this game would have been two hours long is people had just talked like human beings talk instead of like piles of contrivances deliberately trying to pad out the plot.

 

[Naraku578]

I really did not like this game either.

1. One of the worst, most predictable stories. Completely bland/boring casts of characters. Insultingly evil/self righteous villains, and then comes "big bad".
( http://www.awkwardzombie.com/index.php?page=0&comic=082514 and http://www.awkwardzombie.com/index.php?page=0&comic=091514)

2. Combat is boring, slow and grindy. The best part of this game is that you can turn off random encounters, since combat stops being fun half way through the game and all the boss fights feel the same (except the true last boss which requires a little prep). Leveling each class to see their new abilities gets tiring really quickly.

3. Aesthetics: boring/usual Nothing spectacularly good or worthwhile to notice.

This is the second worst game I bought for my 3ds (sticker star #1) and I had to force myself to finish this game.

The only redeeming qualities would be the variety of classes, but it's too much grinding to bother with.

 

[tippy2k2]

Why don't you use Agnes for attack? Tiz is stronger physically than Edea by this point and like I said Ringabel is a better healer since he has better speed and magic defence, you may want to look in a guide on how to get the all-hit and the fire-debuff vampire attacks.

Also don't by afraid to use all the BP in the first turn if it means killing the enemy, or better, just save the BP until she does the split attack and then you can have 8 attacks with everyone except the healer.

So without spoiling (please ), how much do I have left to do? I'm on the third (and please God be the last) cycle so I'm wondering if it's worth all the grinding I'd have to do to completely change everyone's class. If I'm close, I might just finish the game off with a whimper rather than a bang and move on to the next game.

 

[False Nobility]

It has a rad battle system and a meh story. Opposite of most RPGs. It's kind of refreshing in that sense, but I got major fatigue from the late game.

 

[Luminous_Umbra]

A bit of spoiler, but if you don't mind a small hint:

Spoiler

Actually, there's been a way change the cycle since the third one. Pay close attention when you awaken the next crystal and you may notice something different. Note that you will have to do something different and it will not just fall into your lap.

I've awakened The Wind Crystal already and I didn't notice anything different in the process. Although at this point, fighting these bosses have glazed my eyes over as I just click attack, heal, repeat until the stupid thing finally dies so there's no surprise if I missed something...

Either way, I've calmed down a smidge and have accepted my fate so now I'm just grinding to level up some new jobs to see if I can get a better job combo. I'm still irked that I have to do it but I'll bite the bullet just to finish the game off...

I have no idea what FYIW attacks you're talking about, I never came across any in my playthrough, but maybe my tolerance is just higher than yours since I'm a SMT veteran.

With where I'm at, I can give you three examples off the top of my head but I know there are more...

Orthros (Wind Crystal boss): Both heads have a "group" attack that can wipe out most of your health and only takes one of their turns a piece. If both blast the group with their group attacks in the same turn, you're pretty screwed.

Rusalka (Water Crystal boss; AKA the fuckstick that inspired the thread): Goes into the Seep mode every four turns. The blast alone will wipe out (at least) half of your health, even in default and may God help you if he ends up getting a crit in the process. You then get to mess with four of the stupid things as they spam charm and smack the crap out of you while you try to heal up from the Seep.

Raffelsia (the little flower looking bad guys with a red top); They have a pollen attack that will hit the entire party. Alone, they can't do much but I've seen the game throw up to eight of them at a time and the pollen attack plus first strike many times means you get to sit there and watch your team get destroyed.

I know there are more (Victoria/Victor I remember being a giant pain in the ass until I found my own FYIW cheap tactic to beat them) but those are three right off the top of my head that don't make the game fun, just a pain in the ass. Although maybe Dreiko's onto something and I'm just an idiot, that's always a possibility.

Yeah, not going to lie, Rusalka was by far one of the hardest singular bosses in the game, especially at the level one would be at. At least Chaugmar had a glaring weakness that, once found, made it a breeze.
And if you really want it spoiled for you, here's one last hint.

Spoiler

In the previous cycles, you would be stopped by Airy once you had awakened the crystal and the game would cut immediately to a cutscene. However, from the third cycle onwards, you have the ability to keep hitting "X" after the crystal has awakened. Do so. And don't stop.