Never let it be said that Square Enix has forgotten where they came from.
Even as the monolithic Japanese RPG developer looks ahead to the future with titles like
Final Fantasy XV, Kingdom Hearts III, and the Final Fantasy VII Remake, they continue
to keep the spirit of old-school JRPGs alive in the Bravely series.
The original Bravely Default was something of a spiritual successor to the 2009 Nintendo
DS title Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, which itself was an attempt at recapturing
and modernizing the gameplay stylings of the first three Final Fantasy titles on the NES.
While The 4 Heroes of Light ended up being a relative drop in the bucket, Square struck
gold with Bravely Default, which successfully married old-school gameplay inspired by the
earliest Final Fantasy titles with an almost irreverent willingness to trim the fat anywhere
and everywhere possible.
Bravely Default dared to take genre conventions like turn-based battles, level-grinding, and
random encounters and suggest that, hey, maybe these things would be more fun if players
have total control over them.
And so it is with Bravely Second, which serves as a direct sequel to Bravely Default and
holds fast to the innovations that made its predecessor such a pleasure to play.
Bravely Second whisks players back to the world of Luxendarc two short years after the
events of the first game.
The war between the Crystal Orthodoxy and the Duchy of Eternia is no more, and former
wind vestal Agnés Oblige is now the Pope of the Crystal Orthodoxy.
Unfortunately, right as Agnés is on the verge of signing a permanent peace treaty between
Eternia and the Orthodoxy, a new villain named Kaiser Oblivion crashes the party, taking
Agnés hostage and wiping out everyone else present.
We soon learn that Kaiser Oblivion is the leader of the Glanz Empire, a new military
force seeking to take over Luxendarc.
What follows is a lengthy adventure in which newcomers Yew Geneolgia and Magnolia Arch
team up with Bravely Default heroes Edea Lee and Tiz Arrior to rescue Agnés, defeat Kaiser
Oblivion, and drive back the Glanz Empire.
To be honest, it’s a pretty contrived setup for a sequel and the kaiser himself comes
off as a somewhat one-note bad guy, but he’s at least very good at being an incredibly
smug jerk, making him a quality villain… if not a particularly deep one.
Fortunately, even if the plot itself feels a little more pedestrian this time around,
it still packs plenty of fun twists that you may not see coming.
It’s also paced very well and backed up by a cast of ridiculously charming, lovable
characters.
The friendship Yew and his companions share feels realistic and well-earned, thanks to
a natural camaraderie between the four that comes through in the way they casually banter
back and forth in the game’s many voiced cutscenes.
Sure, they’re fictional characters in a video game, but more than that, they come
off as real people who care about each other.
Through their interactions, we get a sense that Luxendarc is a real, lived-in world with
its own history.
Fans of the first game will delight in the way Yew trips over himself to impress Tiz
and Edea, who are now revered as heroes that saved the world.
Bravely Second doesn’t simply coast by on the appeal of returning heroes, though; Yew
and especially Magnolia are charming newcomers in their own right.
It took me a little while to warm up to Yew, but his unabashed nerdiness and general goofiness
eventually won me over and Magnolia, as a French-speaking warrior from the moon, offers
an outsider’s perspective on the goings-on in Luxendarc and is delightfully quirky and
memorable.
Just as with Bravely Default, the main twist in Bravely Second’s otherwise fairly traditional
battle system lies in the “Brave” and “Default” commands, which give you unprecedented
control over when your characters get to act in battle.
Selecting the Default command for a character will cause them to spend that turn in a defensive
position, taking a lot less damage and banking up to four turns that can be used later, when
you need them most.
You use these banked turns by selecting the Brave command, and if you have three turns
banked, that character can act up to four times in a row.
You don’t have to use all of your banked turns at once, though, and even if you don’t
have any turns banked at all, you can still Brave and take an advance on up to three future
turns if you really need them immediately.
So what’s the catch?
Well, this system is governed by each character’s Brave Point value, and a character cannot
act if their BP value is in the negative.
Characters begin every battle with zero BP, and each turns costs one BP.
So taking an advance on three future turns would leave a character with minus four BP,
rendering them unable to do anything until their BP value returns to zero, with BP being
recovered at a rate of one per turn.
But then there’s also the Bravely Second feature, which lets you break all the aforementioned
rules and stop time to take an extra turn literally whenever you want!
You can’t do this endlessly, of course - every time you use Bravely Second, it will cost
you one SP.
You can only have up to a maximum of 3 SP at once, and they only recharge over time
or through the use of an SP Drink, which must be purchased with real money.
However, I can’t stress enough that you never even need to use Bravely Second to progress
and the game only mentions once that you can spend real money to instantly recharge your
SP.
It’s actually very easy to forget about the Bravely Second feature altogether after
its initial introduction, regardless of the microtransaction element.
The battle system might sound complicated when being laid out like this, but I assure
you it quickly becomes second-nature when playing the game.
The result is a fantastic risk-reward system that allows for an amazing amount of flexibility
in your battle strategies, where you’re actually encouraged to find ways to abuse
the system and turn it to your advantage.
As you might expect, winning battles against tougher enemies and bosses absolutely hinges
on your ability to use this system to its fullest, Defaulting against enemy assaults
and Braving at the right time to use your banked turns when the time is right.
Also returning essentially unchanged from Bravely Default is the job system, which gives
you complete and very fine control over how your characters grow in strength throughout
the game.
Bravely Second features 30 different jobs in total, with an eclectic mix of all-new
professions joining many returning jobs from Bravely Default.
These include more traditional roles like the Knight, Thief, Black and White Mages,
Summoner, Ninja, and Monk as well as more exotic and situation-specific jobs like the
Fencer, Astrologian, Patissier, Catmancer, and Performer.
Interestingly, many of the more traditional jobs returning from Bravely Default are actually
optional and earned via completing side quests that catch you up on what their owners have
been up to since the events of the first game.
That means it’s Bravely Second’s more unique lineup of non-traditional jobs that
are actually the unmissable ones earned throughout the main story, which is a nice change of
pace for those used to the job system.
Also note that the aforementioned side quests usually force you to choose between one of
two returning jobs, locking you out of the ones you didn’t choose until much later
in the game.
This lends the side quests a nice bit of agency despite reports of Square Enix tweaking them
to make their consequences a little less dire in Western versions of the game.
Jobs are won from specific bosses who hold them, just as before, and characters can be
switched between all available jobs at any time.
Leveling up a job unlocks increasingly powerful command abilities and passive support abilities
specific to that role, but job points earned in battle only go toward each character’s
current job.
The decision is up to you, then: do you have each character become especially proficient
in certain roles, or do you level up jobs evenly across your whole party?
But there’s still more to consider.
Learned support abilities can be equipped regardless of a character’s current job,
and each character can use one other job’s set of command abilities alongside those of
their currently equipped job, so there is merit in having a character become proficient
in multiple roles… but again, it’s all up to you.
Not only is Bravely Second’s job system incredibly flexible in terms of party setups
and strategies, it’s also perfectly possible - and even encouraged - to completely break
the game by leveling jobs up enough and then mixing and matching them in certain ways.
Truth be told, this gigantic wealth of potential options can get pretty intense and may very
well be downright daunting for players who prefer a little more inherent structure in
their RPGs, but the true beauty of Bravely Second lies in the fact that every aspect
of the game can be tailored to provide exactly the kind of JRPG experience you want, when
you want it.
This is, without a doubt, the defining achievement of both Bravely Second and its predecessor.
Elements that are normally set in stone in most JRPGs, like the difficulty, random encounter
rate, battle animation speed, and even whether or not you earn experience, job points, and
money after battle can be adjusted at any time in Bravely Second.
If you’re tired of random encounters, well, turn them off for awhile!
Or maybe you want to grind levels while you’re doing something else, like watching TV?
No problem - switch the difficulty to Casual, slide the random encounter rate to max, set
up an automatic routine of commands for your characters, and watch the experience, job
points, and money roll in - especially if you set battles to run at quadruple the normal
speed, which you totally can by the way.
Speaking of grinding, a new addition to Bravely Second has made it easier and more convenient
than ever to grind for levels.
If you win a battle on your first turn, you’re given the option of immediately taking on
another wave of enemies with an increased experience and money multiplier.
Continuing a winning streak in this fashion increases the multiplier, but your BP doesn’t
carry over between battles and if you lose, you lose everything you’ve accumulated.
It’s fun, optional way to speed up level-grinding even more, with an element of risk thrown
in for good measure.
Importantly, Bravely Second does not penalize you for taking it easy, nor does it incentivize
you for making things as difficult as possible.
Experience and money earned are the same regardless of your currently chosen difficulty setting,
so you can play the game how you want and rest easy that you’re not making any “wrong”
choices as defined by the game.
The difficulty balance is well-considered across all three settings; on Casual, even
bosses are wimpy enough that you can get by with minimal character management, while unprepared
players can easily be wiped out by regular enemy mobs on Hard.
This truly is an RPG that wants you to enjoy it on your own terms, whatever those are.
As long as I’ve been talking about this game already, Bravely Second is so stuffed
full of options and content in every aspect of its design that there’s a lot I haven’t
even touched on.
Just like in Bravely Default, you can still set up and customize special attacks for each
character that are triggered upon conditions of your own choosing, such as winning a certain
number of battles or Braving a certain number of times.
And not only can you record up to three sets of battle commands for the game to input automatically,
allowing you to autopilot through easy battles, you can even record up to ten “favorite”
party configurations geared toward specific strategies, eliminating the need to reconfigure
your whole party before going up against a boss specializing in magic, for example.
Bravely Default’s well-considered social and StreetPass features also return once again
in Bravely Second.
Once you’ve registered a friend in your game, you can send them your custom-designed
special move to be used when they summon you, and of course call upon them yourself when
you need a little extra firepower in a tough battle.
You can also use the Abilink feature to temporarily access your friends’ job abilities, even
if you haven’t learned them yet yourself.
This also works across regions, so if you want, you can even link up with a friend who’s
beaten the Japanese version of the game and gain access to game-breaking abilities early
on!
The Norende Village reconstruction minigame from Bravely Default returns here as well,
except this time you’re rebuilding Magnolia’s home on the moon instead.
It works much the same way, with every person you StreetPass being sent to the moon base
to aid your reconstruction efforts.
Rebuilding and upgrading various establishments on the moon unlocks various special move upgrades,
and you’ll also be gifted with free items on a regular basis.
Don’t worry if you’re one of the many people living in a rural area where StreetPasses
are rare, though - your moon base population will automatically increase as you progress
through the story, making the StreetPass functionality a cool but ultimately optional addition.
One area in which Bravely Second is undoubtedly inferior to the original is unfortunately
its soundtrack.
Whereas Bravely Default’s epic rock ballad-infused soundtrack was composed by popular Japanese
musician Revo, Bravely Second’s music comes to us courtesy of Ryo, the leader of J-pop
group Supercell.
It’s not a change for the better, with Bravely Second’s music coming off as uniformly less
memorable and more by-the-numbers than Bravely Default’s.
That’s not to say the music isn’t good - it’s absolutely headphone-worthy and I
would say it’s still a cut above the typical JRPG soundtrack, but it’s not genre-defining
like Revo’s fantastic turn with Bravely Default.
The English voice acting, while a little uneven at times, is mostly great and up to the same
high standards set by the first game.
Dialogue flows naturally between characters most of the time, and Square should be commended
for getting all of the major actors from the first game to reprise their roles in Bravely
Second, which helps add an even more tangible sense of continuity between the two games.
That said, the Japanese voice track is also included if you’re one of those people who
just can’t get down with English voice acting in your JRPGs.
Much like Bravely Default, if you leave the 3D slider off, Bravely Second is a good-looking
3DS game… and that’s about it.
The graphics look nice enough and the character models do the inspired art style justice,
but everything comes off as slightly muddy and the game is not necessarily a showcase
for what the 3DS can do when pushed to its limits.
Turn the stereoscopic 3D on, however, and suddenly you’re looking at one of the best-looking
3DS games out there as you play what looks like a digital pop-up book.
The 3D effects here are some of the absolute best I have ever seen and really make Luxendarc’s
gorgeously designed towns spring to life.
Bravely Second’s use of various 3D layers to give locations a genuine sense of depth
is downright incredible, and I would say you’re really missing out if you don’t play with
the 3D at least slightly on.
It’s tough to find genuine fault with Bravely Second.
If I really wanted to nitpick, I would mention that optimizing equipment can be kind of a
pain when changing a character’s job, because each job specializes in using different kinds
of weapons and armor and the automatic optimization command isn’t very good at understanding
this, so you’ll have to manually adjust your party’s equipment if you want to get
the most out of it.
Also, for as incredibly user-friendly and obsessed with player convenience as Bravely
Second is, the game doesn’t do a very good job of explaining how things like special
attack setup and the social features work, leaving you to kind of stumble around on your
own until you just figure it out.
If you haven’t already guessed by now, I love Bravely Second.
It’s hard to say whether it’s objectively better or worse than Bravely Default, but
for my money, Bravely Second edges its predecessor out as a slightly superior overall package.
It maintains and expands on everything that made Bravely Default such a wonderful modernization
of the earliest Final Fantasy games while delivering a story that is perhaps less ambitious
than the original’s narrative, but also more consistent and engaging throughout.
But most of all, Bravely Second is incredibly respectful of your time as a player and just
wants you to enjoy yourself while in its world, and that rings loud and clear in every aspect
of its design.
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