Bravely Default II marks the series’ jump onto a house console in the Nintendo DS onto the Switch. It's also the first within the series to be produced by Claytechworks yet still be published by Square Enix in Japan and Nintendo everywhere else. Featuring an entirely new story and characters, Bravely Default II draws around the classic JRPGs from the PS1 era to produce an all-new game having a nostalgic flavor.
This method of the game’s design is largely an optimistic one, however it does wind up hurting the storyline. It's serviceable, but that is since it all continues to be done so many times before. The narrative follows a refugee princess named Gloria who lost her kingdom and has to find four magic crystals to both save her kingdom and stop an elemental cataclysm. After teaming track of a crashed sailor (the player’s primary character), a traveling scholar, and a mercenary, the audience embarks on the journey over the five countries of Excillant. Each country players travel through are stereotypical fantasy settings that we have the ability to seen a dozen times. The storyline hits all of the plot points one expects from the setup, even though doing a serviceable job, it never transcends just serviceable.
This familiarity also carries over into the characters themselves. The main antagonist, Adam, seems to be a villain just for the sake from it. A militaristic emperor, little explanation is offered for his cartoonish amounts of villainy that pop up whenever he seems to try and impede the party’s progress. There are other villains that cannot be discussed without crossing into spoiler territory, but the reality is that while they are a little bit more believable, they still feel like replicas of notable villains from the genre’s past.
Even the party members that players will spend the majority of the game speaking with and researching are little more than cookie-cutter stereotypes. Gloria is really a pure princess that must definitely be protected with a stronger male (the player’s character who promises her guardian that he will protect her) despite possessing an enormous power of her very own. Elvis is really a traveling scholar whose search for knowledge leads him to get involved in affairs he'd rather avoid but can’t because of the friendships he's made along the way. Adelle is the slightly cold mercenary that cracks a good idea to hide her emotions and the dark past that motivates her. The player spends a sizable area of the game speaking with these characters, and while this is not a bad thing, it's unfortunate the characters haven't much else to provide.
However, Bravely Default II does perform a solid job of delivering its story. Cutscenes work well with full voice acting that gives the characters more of a personality than they would certainly have, although it does boil down to each character just having a different accent. The cutscenes are supplemented by the party chat feature that is cut back from the first game. They are optional dialogues that are triggered once the player performs certain actions or travels to a particular locations. These party chats are wonderful. They assist make the party members feel more connected to the world and story. They feel as if they're traveling around with you, rather than just helping in battles and popping up when the story needs them. The party chats add a lot to the exploration of the planet, as well as serve to deliver context and lore concerning the world in a natural way.
With the storyline being so underwhelming, the real standout of Bravely Default II is its combat. There are 24 total jobs that party members are able to undertake, each with its own set of abilities and costumes for whomever has it equipped. Party members are able to even have a sub job equipped that is best employed for max level jobs, as it gives them access to the job’s abilities but all experience gained only goes for the main work. The task system here is great at giving the gamer plenty of choices to toy around with and choose, but additionally at keeping the combat fresh, while there is a constant trickle of recent jobs to level and switch around your party through the game.
The combat encounters themselves follow the traditional turn-based structure of most JRPGs, albeit having a twist. In combat, players can accrue up to three brave points, either by getting a totally free one by surprising enemies or by having a character take the “default” action which raises their defense but otherwise skips their turn. Brave points may then be employed to perform extra actions on characters’ turns, allowing players to complete large bursts of harm at opportune moments. When the character doesn't have any brave points, they are able to go negative, however need to automatically spend turns defaulting to get their points back to zero before they can be recycled.
The system does add a strategic layer over the combat, but it also makes many fights towards the beginning of the game trivial, while there is no punishment for the player to spam actions to pay off the field in a single round. This issue disappears pretty quickly; however, as combat gets reasonably challenging following the prologue, especially as players have to memorize the monsters’s weaknesses not to waste turns examining them every combat.
The game’s visual design, however, is a mixed bag. Bravely Default II utilizes an isometric camera along with a tilt-shift effect whenever players aren't in combat. The results are often beautiful. Backgrounds have a hand-painted aesthetic that is beautiful and filled with character. The tilt-shift effect shrinks the size of characters in the world down, making small environments feel larger and more opposing. Those same characters are the sore spot of the game’s design.
Seemingly like a callback to the PS1 era that Bravely Default II pulls a lot inspiration from, the smoothness models are low-poly, almost chibi designs that clash unceremoniously using the environments and every other. There is a cheap feel to them, especially when contrasted using the detailed backgrounds and environments. The models also often clash with one another. It was strange to me to possess a party where one character appears like a pirate, another a belly dancer, another a Russian elite including a tall white fur hat, along with a fourth that has a leather duster coat topped served by a fedora. The party characters all clash using the outfits of those around them and every other, contributing to the feeling that the character designs tend to be more tossed together instead of made up of a unifying theme.
It is fortunate for Bravely Default II, that the strength of its combat and world designs outweigh its odd design choices and uninspired writing, if perhaps barely. It's enough to help keep the knowledge enjoyable, but it's unlikely that it is one that will stick with you for too long.
Bravely Default II is available now on Nintendo Switch.
