Bravely Default, The JRPG Love Letter

Nowadays, Turn Based JRPGs are given the cold shoulder compared to Action RPGs. While there’s nothing wrong with that, as it’s just a matter of preference, I feel like people should take a step back and appreciate genre.

People often argue that the turn-based battle system has long since served its purpose, but I beg to disagree as these types of battle system gives the player the time to think about their moves and plan things in advance.

 

Why Bravely Default?

As a huge Final Fantasy fan, Bravely Default was the game that ticked all the boxes of an old school Final Fantasy game. Turn-based? Check. Well written story? Check. A whole lot of jobs? Check. Awesome music? Hella check.

It’s rare to see a game like this these years. It’s a game that mostly stayed traditional save for a couple things they added to make the gameplay more interesting. The biggest one being the Brave and Default system.
 

Brave and Default: The twist it needed

This system is very simple. Brave lets you do an additional action in one turn with the cost of not being able to do anything the next turn. You can do these three times in one turn. Default on the other hand is kind of like saving your turn. You defend this turn and store a Brave Point to spend whenever you want to Brave.

This gave the game a much more strategic gameplay where you can save all your brave points for a burst damage turn or until an opening presents itself.
 

“Mrgrgr” – Edea, the pinnacle of character dialogue.

Bravely Default’s story isn’t something we haven’t seen before. Four people in a journey to save the world makes for a very typical plot. But what I find endearing about this game are the interactions between the characters.

Tiz, a simple shepherd from the countryside; Agnes, a sheltered young priestess or as the game would like to call it, vestal; Edea, a hotheaded tomboy and Ringabel, a playboy with amnesia. At first glance, it’d be fair to think that this cast is a recipe for disaster, and you’d be right as this is literally what happens during the first parts of the game.

 

As you can see here, Ringabel cannot be stopped from his conquest of “bikini woman fantasy”. When taken out of context it can be a bit puzzling but fret not for I shall explain. This dialogue occurs when the party sees a very big ship that they thought it could also be an island. Ringabel quickly jokes about it by saying “have we chanced upon the forbidden sanctuary of the bikini tribe!?” which was mostly ignored. Tiz, never seeing a ship this big was dumbfounded as he listened to the conversation of Edea and Ringabel about luxury ships. Tiz expressed his surprise that a big ship like this can exist to which Ringabel replied with the silly statement.

This provides an example of how playful the characters can get when they talk with each other. The game is also littered around with puns and funny dialogue that are waiting to be heard!
 

Job system? Bravely Default has you covered

The Job system is something the JRPG fans are familiar with. It’s a system that gives your characters different abilities and attributes depending on the job they have chosen. It’s a very old system that is still being used to this day and Bravely Default is no different. The game has a total of 24 jobs you can utilize to create the party that fits your playstyle. Not just that, the game also allows you to use another job different from your main job as a subclass, allowing you to use some of their abilities.

A good job system is always welcome in any JRPGs that utilize this system. In my opinion, it can make or break the game as I really enjoy theorycrafting weird combos that are really satisfying when pulled off. One of my favorites is the Spiritmaster + Dark Knight combo which can deal 9999 damage. The damage cap of the game.

The combo utilizes the Dark Knight’s different attacks. Starting from Rage which attacks continuously until its HP is down to one. Why do that? Well, the Dark Knight has the ability called Adversity which boosts up your damage every time you lose HP. Now that the Dark Knight is at one HP, you can maximize your Dark Nebula damage. This ability damages everyone for four times the damage of its normal attack. Yes, everyone. Which means that you and your whole team takes that damage as well. This can spell a party wipe, but this is where the Spiritmaster’s ability: Enigma, comes in. Enigma nullifies all the damage that your party receives which means that you can use Dark Nebula for its full damage without worrying about the whole party dying.
 

Why am I even talking about this game?

Well, the main reason is because I don’t hear a lot of people really talking about this game on the internet either so with Bravely Default II’s apparent release this 2020 (please don’t be delayed by the virus) I’m doing my part to at least give the franchise attention.

And because Bravely Default will probably be one of the most memorable games in my life but for a reason you probably did not expect.
 

Bedridden sick, Bravely Default was my bastion

A few years back, I was sick with a flu and couldn’t get out of bed. I didn’t have the strength to play on my laptop too, so I had to lie down most of the time. Enter, Bravely Default. I booted up my 3DS and decided to play my half-finished save file.

It was just before the final boss fight and I already had a feeling that this would be a great ride. Together with my strength deprived limbs and a light headache, I plunged into the boss fight. It took me about thirty minutes to finish the boss fight and another thirty minutes for the game’s story to resolve and finish.

The fun I had playing around the job system, reading the party’s friendly banter which resembles how my friends and I talk, the breathtaking music, and probably the biggest and weirdest factor of all, finishing the game when I was down with a very bad flu, gave it a very special place in my heart.

And I think that Bravely Default deserves the JRPG spotlight with Bravely Default II coming out this 2020.

Cedric Pabriga, Junior Editor, NoobFeed
Twitter