Bravely Default is a traditional role-playing game that has turn-based battles and is considered a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light. The game uses a random encounter system, meaning you won't find any monsters on the map, but will randomly be thrown into battle with them.
Battle System
The battle system in Bravely Default is your typical turn-based system like in classic Final Fantasy titles, but with a few twists added. The battles themselves take place on the top screen, while the player can select the commands on the bottom screen. You have your typical commands like Attack and Items, as well as unique ones called Brave and Default.
Default and Brave
There are two mechanics introduced in the game that give it a strategic feel, which are called Default and Brave. Default, when used, will forfeit that character's turn and give them one BP, as well as increasing their defense for that turn. That BP can be used to give characters extra chances to perform actions on subsequent turns with the Brave command.
An example is you use Default with Ringabel on his first turn, giving him an extra BP. On his next turn, he can use Brave to allow him to attack two times during that turn. Note that the Brave command can only be used three times during each turn for each character, and it can make BP go into the negative. Doing this will make that character unable to act until his/her BP reaches zero again.
Summon Friends
One of the unique commands in battle is the ability to summon another player's character, who will perform an attack designated by them. That player must then use the Send Summon ability for that character to be summoned again. As a player's character is used over and over, they gain "affection" and get stronger.
Special Moves
Special Moves are powerful moves that are based on the weapons equipped to a character, which can be unleashed once certain conditions are met. Not only do these Special Moves do more damage than normal attacks and abilities, but they usually bestow buffs on the player's party or debuff the enemies.
Job Classes
The characters in Bravely Default will utilize various job classes in the game, which they can switch to at any time once players have acquired them (outside of battle). There are a total of 24 in the game, with players only having access to Freelancer at the very beginning.
To get more classes, players will have to defeat bosses and complete sidequests (usually culminating in a boss fight). Once a class has been unlocked, all of the characters will be able to switch to them at any time outside of battle. All job classes can be leveled up to 14, which is done by gaining JP from battles.
Each job class has a basic command that is innate to that class, as well as abilities they learn as they earn JP in battles and level up those classes. These abilities are split into active battles, some of which use BP, and passive abilities. Passive abilities must be equipped to a character, of which each character has four slots, although some abilities may take more than one slot.
Norende Village
Norende Village is a mini-game of sorts that tasks you with rebuilding Tiz's village that was destroyed. This mini-game utilizes both StreetPass and your 3DS friends to help restore the village. The goal of the mini-game is to have village residents (you start with one) assigned to buildings and obstacles, which are built/removed once enough time passes.
These buildings will make it so the adventurer, who is the NPC that saves your game, will start selling items, some of which are only obtainable from building up the village. Although it looks like it might take many, many hours to upgrade all of the buildings, you can gain more residents by using StreetPass or adding friends over the internet. What would normally take one hour with one resident, would only take 30 minutes with two.
For The Sequel
The original Bravely Default was a Japan-exclusive game, but Square Enix released an enhanced version subtitled For The Sequel. This was the version released overseas in both Europe and in North America. There are some improvements to the game that are exclusive to this enhanced version, which are listed below.
- Ability to set characters to automatically fight
- Can change encounter rate
- Two extra save slots
- Extra language options (English, German, Spanish, Italian and French)
- Difficulty levels
- New events
Bravely Second
Bravely Second is a mechanic that was added with For The Sequel (and not to be confused with the actual sequel). You get SP, which can be used to freeze time during battles, allowing you to get attacks on enemies without fear of retaliation. In order to get this SP back, you can place your 3DS into sleep mode, or you can buy SP Drinks via microtransactions.
