If you’ve watched any of the Nintendo Direct presentations over the past few months, then I’m sure you’ve heard plenty about Bravely Default. This 3DS exclusive RPG from the minds at Square-Enix promises to take us to a simpler time, filled with lands to explore, dungeons to crawl in and tough -as-nails enemies encompased in a fantasy setting while also promising a few twists to keep things interesting. After thoroughly exploring the recently released demo of the game, it’s safe to say that there’s enough here to keep old and new RPG fans alike clamoring for more.
Anyone who’s played Final Fanasy V or III, (more specifically, the DS remake from a few years ago,) you’ll feel right at home with Bravely Default. Presented in an almost pop-up book like style that’s further complemented by the stereoscopic 3D, it brings an extra flare to the chibi style character models. Each of the demo’s three distinct dungeons show off different environments that we can look forward to exploring, such as dark forests and abandoned ruins, each with enemies and bosses that will absolutely punish you if you don’t prepare your party. Those who miss the challenge of a SNES era title of this kind will be glad to know that the difficulty is unforgiving, yet fair. And that’s just on normal difficulty.
The strategy needed to take down tougher foes relies on the game’s familiar job system. Ranging from warriors and ninjas to mages and singers, each job fulfills a certain need. While each party member can only use one job at a time, ability points can be spent to carry over learned abilities from other jobs. So if you really like the Ninja’s dual weapon boost, but you also want to keep the Swordsman’s ability to gain extra attacks per turn, you can combine both attributes to accumulate huge amounts of damage. It’s customization like this that makes Bravely Default really exciting.
But most of all, what makes the demo stand out is the new ideas it brings to the table, namely the Brave and Default mechanics. Each turn costs one Brave point, which each party member gains one of every turn. If a party member uses Default instead of attacking, it’s essentially the “defend” option from other RPG’s, except this action doesn’t use the Brave Point you gained from that turn. This makes defense a huge part of any sound strategy, since defending for long enough can allow a party member to use their stored turns to move four times in one round without penalty, minimizing damage while using up their attacks at the same time. I say “without penalty” because you can choose to use up to four Brave Points within a turn as long as you have at least one to use, but if you use more points than you have, that character will be immobile for the amount of turns equal to the amount of negative BP. It’s like overdrawing your bank account, except the penalty is getting smashed in the face by a golem instead of a fee.
On top of all these features in the demo alone, any Streetpasses collected in the demo up to the first 20 will be carried over to the main game. Streetpass for Bravely Default has to be one of the best uses of the feature to date, allowing players to become summons for other characters to use. By setting an action for your Streetpass, anyone who passes you more than once can bring you into battle to perform an action that the sender sets before heading out into the world. On top of this, every time you pass a person, it adds villagers to your town, which then can be tasked with building shops, expanding the town and removing obstacles. The more you have, the faster these tasks are completed, and come in handy big time since many of the items sold here weren’t available in the standard towns.
This is definitely on our most wanted lists.
All in all, my interest in Bravely Default went from me being cautiously optimistic to this becoming a must buy for my 3DS come February. The deep, strategic game play, challenging enemies and Streetpassing galore left me wanting so mcuh more. On top of that, finishing challenges in the demo unlocks items that will be transfered to the full game, so what reason is there for this not to be on your 3DS home screen? Unless you hate RPGs, a challenge or good in the world of course.
Bravely Default will be launcing in stores (including a limited editon at select retailers,) and on the eShop on February 7th!