The combat holds up for the long run, which is good because like the dialogue, Bravely Default’s structure is in desperate need of a shrewd editor. Some early balancing issues eventually even out, and you don’t need to grind unless you want to max out additional jobs in the final hours of the game. All of this mixing and matching just begs players to experiment with different strategies, and because characters level up independently from their jobs, you don’t have to sacrifice your overall stats to try something new. The job system has all the depth you could want players unlock 24 different roles, assign a secondary role that gives access to an additional job’s moves, and equip a number of support abilities as well.

The titular Brave and Default system, which allows players to borrow actions from subsequent turns or save them up in advance, adds a clever wrinkle to the turn-based battles and makes steamrolling weaker foes a quick and easy affair. Luckily, the combat is good right out of the gate and only gets better. The protagonists are particularly fond of discussing Luxendarc’s cuisine, to the point where even George R.R. The text-only party chat scenes are the worst offenders, offering pointless banter among your group that repeatedly hits the same tired notes. The opening hours of the story and characters are rife with clichés, and the dialogue is excessively wordy, often bombarding players with a dozen lines of dialogue where a few would suffice. Players control a foursome of heroes fighting on the side of the orthodoxy, and must activate the crystals before the world is shrouded in darkness. The story revolves around a war between the Crystal Orthodoxy, a religious group that worships Luxendarc’s four massive crystals, and the Duchy of Eternia, a collection of secular forces that want to use the crystals for scientific purposes. Despite these helpful tweaks and an engaging combat system, enjoying all Bravely Default has to offer still requires a great deal of patience.īravely Default gets off to a slow start.

That wait has brought with it a few extra perks, as Silicon Studio used the past year to smooth out some of the original shortcomings. Western JRPG fans have been waiting to get their hands on Bravely Default ever since it released in Japan in 2012.

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