Trying To Make It Work: My Time With Bravely Default II
A JRPG Post Mortem in which I try to talk myself into finishing a game that I never intended to finish.
I’m not here to yell about how JRPGs suck.
I love JRPGs.
I especially love how early JRPGs took something from Western Role Playing Games and added their own unique spin on the already niche genre. Rich, vibrant anime aesthetics tied with the numbers game of Ultima and Wizardry seemed like a match made in heaven. I could be ever so loquacious regarding my love for games like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and it’s ilk but I just want to admit that out of the dozens of Japanese role playing games I have played I have only finished about an eighth of them. They’re long games. A typical Dragon Quest game can take nearly 80 hours to finish, but I’ve spent that time and more on puzzle games like Tetris, Puyo Puyo Fever, and Lumines.
If I can play puzzle games for hours on end, why not JRPGs? They’re both stat-intensive. You could even say puzzle games are more of a numbers game than JRPGs, and you’d be right! It’s fun to max out your character’s levels in a Final Fantasy game. It’s doubly fun to minmax stats for your characters in order to deal as much damage as physically possible to optional boss enemies like Emerald Weapon and the Dark Aeons. However at the end of the day you’re playing in a world where these stats were always available to you. Unless you directly go into the game’s code and modify something you’re manipulating a space that was built from the ground up to be manipulated. Puzzle games were built in a way where a random number generates what piece of the puzzle comes next. Modern iterations of Tetris cannot be read like books. You roll with the punches, that’s what makes them fun.
But enough with comparing apples to oranges. It’s low hanging fruit after all. Let me talk about my quarter life crisis with Bravely Default.
Frugal as I may be I still buy games that I won’t finish. That’s how I ended up with 4 copies of Final Fantasy VIII. I bought it on PS1 in highschool back in 2011, PC nearly 5 years later, PS4 when the remaster came out in 2019, and Technically while not an individual purchase I played it on Game Pass for PC early this year. I could never get past where I left off in 2011, which was nearly to the end of Disc 1. I didn’t have a job ten years ago so between my senior year of highschool and sleeping all I mostly did was watch anime and play videogames. I was an elitist otaku nerd. I literally forbid myself from playing games that weren’t Japanese. While my friends and classmates played Call of Duty I was playing through Persona 3 and Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 2. Some people in the west might know the game as Raw Danger.
I thought I was hot shit. Looking back I can see that my motives were misguided, but I will admit that it gave me good taste in games. I even played bad Japanese video games. I’d go to my friend’s place, slam a PS2 game case on the desk and say something like
“Check out this game called Chaos Wars. It fucking sucks. Let’s play it. It’s already better than Mass Effect.”
Even with all this time to play games I still didn’t finish them. I got nearly to the end of Persona 3 before quitting because I “Didn’t want the game to end”. Truth was I just stopped caring. I got too enclosed into my own thoughts at the time and figured it was just time to stop. I was worried I wasted my time. I never got around to finishing it even to this day, and while I did play and finish Persona 4- I got the bad ending…..seemingly on purpose. I was angry. I wanted to end the game on a note that made sense to me. I still got the ending where something incredibly bad happens to one of the characters. I won’t spoil a 13 year old game.
What’s funny to me is that I actually did finish the PSP remake of the first Persona game- which doesn’t play at all like Persona 3&4. Maybe I just don’t like the life simulation elements of those games. Maybe I just wanted a more grounded experience. That battle theme made it all worth it though.
After highschool I fiddled around with friends for a bit, did dumb things for the last time, played games, and watched anime. It was the usual grind until later that summer when my old classmates started attending college while I was still jobless and depressed. I was more despondent then than I am today. That much is true. A good friend of mine bought me gave me a copy of Portal 2 for my birthday that August. She got it for me because we would sit and watch clips of the game. We enjoyed the humor. I finished what would be my first American game that I played in years. Not long after that she and another friend would move and vanish from my life completely. They did it willingly. They no longer wanted to be friends. I can’t say I blame them just about as much as I can’t say I don’t blame them.
In January of 2012 I got my first steady job. Since then I’ve never been more than 3 months without one. While some of my friends were in school I was stocking shelves, some friends were working as well as going to school and I have to commend them. I could never do that. I won’t ever do that. By the summer of 2013 I already had another job and finally decided to take the plunge and get internet for my parent’s house. It was a new era for me. Streaming was big deal by now so I had a near limitless amount of anime to watch. With anime at my disposal I saw quick to absolutely gorge myself on the dumbest shows I could find, and gaming took a bit of a backseat. I played a lot of handheld games, and by 2014 I had picked up a little game by the name of Bravely Default. I picked it up at launch and absolutely devoured it. It was an RPG that for the most part respected your time. You could set how often you wanted to battle enemies. Did you want a new battle every few steps? maybe once every minute or so? Did you want none at all? Well there you go. Did you want your battles to be played in 4x speed? Bravely Default would suit that need. I would grind battles relentlessly at work underneath my monitor where the cameras couldn’t see me. I’d do all the story beats at home at my leisure. If I had to grind in an RPG I wanted to be paid for it.
I got maybe halfway through the game before Bravely Second came out. I purchased the game but told myself that I wasn’t going to start it until I finished the first game. Having said that I’ll admit that I never played Bravely Second.
That’s because I never finished Bravely Default.
As a matter of fact the last big turn-based JRPG I had actually finished was Dragon Quest XI, and I finished that game twice. Once on PS4 and again on Switch. I still haven’t finished the endgame so to some fans you could say I never “finished” the game, but I saw the credits. I finished the game. (I still want to go through the rest though.)
So a JRPG’s length isn’t an issue for me. It’s clearly not the music either. I played Dragon Quest XI on switch and I still played with midis. I don’t hate them! I have a deep disdain for the composer however. Maybe we’ll get to that later.
He’s a war crime denying homophobe. Alright, we got to it. Moving on.
By 2019 I had long given up on the Bravely games. I had picked up Octopath Traveler the year previous thinking that it would be “just like Bravely Default.”, but it wasn’t like it at all really. It wasn’t bad- but the game’s lack of true character interaction and it’s soul-crushingly difficult boss battles is what hurt my experience as a whole. That said though I still thoroughly enjoyed what I played. I got about twenty hours in before Dragon Quest XI came out and well, that’s that.
At the Game Awards that December Geoff Keighley told the audience on stage what ultimately came out to me as “Hey guys we don’t have a Smash character announcement this year but here’s this.” A trailer began to play. I didn’t know until the last moments that this was the announcement of a new Bravely Default game. When they said that REVO (stylized in all caps like MF DOOM) was returning to compose music for the game I was sold. I didn’t hate the music in Bravely Second, after all I didn’t even play it. I did play the demo, and the battle theme this time around wasn’t as punchy as the first game’s. You might be wondering “well if this the third game in the series why is it called Bravely Default II?” and the answer is because wacky kooky crazy Japan names their games all weird! I jest. We’re done riffing on Japanese naming conventions. This isn’t a mid 90’s magazine and this isn’t late 00’s games journalism. Game names like Nier Replicant, Resonance of Fate, and Infinite Undiscovery absolutely own. They’re progressive rock album names for progressive rock games. To be fair though Bravely Default II actually makes a bit of sense. Bravely Second is a direct continuation of Bravely Default I’s story. Bravely II is it’s own thing for the most part. I haven’t finished the game (go figure) but I haven’t heard any rumblings about it secretly being another sequel to the first game. It’s kind of like how the sequel to Final Fantasy XIII isn’t XIV but XIII-2. Final Fantasy XIV is a new story, XIII-2 is more of the same characters from XIII.
Cut a little later to March of 2020 and we get a nice little demo to Bravely Default II. I got to my first battle and my initial thought was (and I won’t mince words here):
“HOLY SHIT THIS BATTLE THEME IS AMAZING”
God, the work REVO and his orchestra put into this track really encapsulates how much of a good time you’ll be having in this world. The glass shattering sound and run on the keyboard, followed by the abrupt beginning are both a reference to the first 6 Final Fantasy games and the previous two Bravely games respectively.
It makes sense though that this track is a celebration of classic FF games because Bravely Default got it’s start as a Final Fantasy spin-off. “Final Fantasy: 4 Heroes of Light” was a spiritual sequel to Final Fantasy I-VI, specifically III and V because of their job systems playing an integral part in the game’s unique flavor. Love it or hate it, Final Fantasy III and V were innovators. Yes I am making a joke about Dragon Quest III having job changing two years before Final Fantasy III. Don’t yell at me.
After 4 Heroes of Light the team that worked on the game (Silicon Studio)went on to begin development of a direct sequel. Square Enix (the game’s publisher and developer of the Final Fantasy franchise) recommended that they make a new name in order to separate from the Final Fantasy name and build a new brand for themselves. This sequel went on to become Bravely Default.
Playing that demo was Square’s way of making people work for free however. Released the same day was a short survey you could fill out which essentially made us playtesters. The demo’s monsters dealt a lot of damage, so people wrote that in the survey and sure enough in the final game released a year later the enemies are (albeit slightly) squishier. It’s not Octopath levels of difficult nor is it Pokemon levels of ease.
Bravely Default II can be enjoyed by first time players of the genre, but you need to think a bit more. There’s more to the game than what it leads on, and here I am still dissecting a game that has it’s whole plan laid out for you. There’s even a special ending that triggers if you beat the boss at the end of the first section of the game. You’re supposed to lose the fight, but if you grind and grind and manage to actually win the battle the game literally tells you “You were supposed to lose this, but good going.”
That’s good game design! Bravely Default II celebrates the people that want to break the game and I love that for it. The game rules. It’s just a wonderful little game.
.
.
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So why do I not want to play it?
It’s not the music that’s for sure, but is it the character design? I mean look at them. They’re not hideous but they have this plastic doll gloss to them. I feel like i’m watching some kind of messed up puppet show. I never did like ventriloquist dummies. I still don’t think that’s the main issue here though. I played Suikoden IV on the PS2 and I actually enjoyed what I played of it. I have a tolerance for weird artistic choices regarding character designs in videogames.
Is it the story? I don’t think so. It’s a pretty cut and dry affair so far of “Get the crystals, save the world” and while there’s likely more to it than getting macguffins, chotzkies, and brikabrak I can’t help but think that this might be as deep as the hole goes in regards to the overall plot of the game.
What about the gameplay? I mean it’s easily one of the most accessible games in an already mildly accessible genre. It’s got three difficulty options, several speed options, monsters you can see and avoid in lieu of random battles, a robust class system, it’s even got an encumberment system for crying out loud. This game’s mechanics are a battle system nerd’s metaphorical McDonald's ball pit.
Maybe turn based games just aren’t for me anymore…..Wait no. I played Dragon Quest XI twice in the span of two years. That was something no one could ever do if they didn’t like turn based JRPGs. I hoped that in the time it took to write all this I’d have a concrete answer but it seems I’ve failed you all reading this. I enjoyed Final Fantasy VII’s remake more than I enjoyed the original. The hack and slash combat flow of VIIR’s battle system paired with the game’s lovingly crafted “Tactical Mode” took a page from JRPGs that have been doing it for years. It made you just mess around with some buttons for a while until you started to learn how the game wanted you to play it, and by the end you’re managing meters, stats, and point totals better than a coach of a baseball team. You have this velvety friction where everything is in it’s place. The flow of battle is a steady stream. This is the culmination of what initially began in Final Fantasy XIII. But while XIII’s character progression was more set in stone FFVIIR gave you options to work with. Bravely Default II’s battle system takes pride in it’s return to traditional turn based content, but have we moved past the need for a game like this?
Have I?
Did I ever?
I don’t know, but what I do know is that I am promising you that I will play more Bravely Default II. I owe myself this. I owe you all this, and if by some miracle I actually play through the 50 hours of content that is needed to finish the game then I’ll report back my findings. I can’t let this book stay open for long. I have other games to purchase and not finish.
I’m looking at you, Nocturne.
