Bravely Default- Is it really that good?

[Elvis Starburst]

The Metacritic scores are off the charts, with many reviews going 80 and above. I have sunk 21 hours into this game, and I thought it was great at first. But, as time went on, and reaching generic dungeon # 7 (Re-skin #5 as well of one certain type of dungeon layout, music and all) my enjoyment swiftly fell.

I started to realize the story was engaging, but nothing truly ground breaking (Obviously, being a re-creation of the classic crystal awakening save the world idea), the characters were all rather generic and boring (Save for Ringabel, being the only character I liked) and overall bland dungeon design. Like I said above, I have gone through several main story dungeons and side dungeons.

Many of them are the same as others, just re-skinned, with the same music accompanying them. I can't ask for every single place to be totally exciting and different, but after being through the 5th or so re-skin of the first dungeon, with none of them having any worth while mechanics or puzzle solving, they all ended up feeling really boring. I just got to a re-skin of a single dungeon type I never saw for awhile, and I closed the game and am debating giving up.

I will say for sure that combat is the best part. I adore the Brave and Default mechanics, and Square Enix managed to make blocking not feel absolutely useless, and that deserves points in any RPG or JRPG. It all adds a lot of lovely strategy, and said strategy helped me clear a really tough boss about an hour ago. Sadly, that's all I can say that's truly noteworthy, save for how gorgeous the music and environments are.

At most, I'd give it a 6/10 or a 7/10 (Still a good game, don't get me wrong!), losing points for bland characters, repetitive dungeons, and things feeling a bit like a drag. Maybe I'm wrong. If you think I am, let's hear your opinions as to why you feel this game deserves much more!

 

[SebastianVelcro]

Theres also quite a bit of grind, even at early levels. (or I just suck)

so yeah, 7/10 maybe, not 8/10

(The music and art are effin' great though)

 

[SlaveNumber23]

The game makes a really good first impression and sucks you in, but definitely drops the ball later on. I'm thinking maybe reviewers just didn't get all that far into the game before writing their review. If you think the repetition is bad now then just wait towards the end of the game where you have to complete 3 or 4 "new game +" playthroughs before you can fight the final boss and experience the end of the story, that felt really cheap and like a slap in the face to me. Also there is way too much grinding required later on just to progress.

 

[lapan]

The game makes a really good first impression and sucks you in, but definitely drops the ball later on. I'm thinking maybe reviewers just didn't get all that far into the game before writing their review. If you think the repetition is bad now then just wait towards the end of the game where you have to complete 3 or 4 "new game +" playthroughs before you can fight the final boss and experience the end of the story, that felt really cheap and like a slap in the face to me. Also there is way too much grinding required later on just to progress.

Only 2 of those "playthroughs" were actually almost exactly the same, chapter 7+8 have really great boss gauntlets that make it worth it again. I pity the japanese who got the first version of the game though, i heard for them they were truly identical.

I didn't feel like it required that much grinding, but i only played on normal, not on hard.

I think the high ratings are mostly because it's the first game in ages that feels like classic final fantasy, people have been pretty burned by FF13 and reccent square enix games.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

The game makes a really good first impression and sucks you in, but definitely drops the ball later on. I'm thinking maybe reviewers just didn't get all that far into the game before writing their review. If you think the repetition is bad now then just wait towards the end of the game where you have to complete 3 or 4 "new game +" playthroughs before you can fight the final boss and experience the end of the story, that felt really cheap and like a slap in the face to me. Also there is way too much grinding required later on just to progress.

With as little spoilers as possible, I wanna hear what exactly you meant by... 3-4 entire playthroughs for the final frickin BOSS?!

 

[Radeonx]

For me, yeah. It was better than any RPG of its kind to come out in a really long while, so I'd definitely say its top tier. I don't mind if a game has a some grinding in it, though, so you should probably keep that in mind. Personally, it was an amazing hark to old final fantasy goodness.

 

[oplinger]

I liked it a lot, but it does fall flat near the end. I like how it was almost an improved FF5 with a new twist to the battle system.

Really for the first game in the franchise I think it does well, it has a few weird ideas in it (and some dumb onces) but overall a really great game. The sequel, I hope, will improve on it.

 

[Xathos]

With as little spoilers as possible, I wanna hear what exactly you meant by... 3-4 entire playthroughs for the final frickin BOSS?!

I do not have the game, and this is only based on what I heard, so I have no idea how accurate it is. I'm not who you quoted, but I believe its an answer.

Basically at some point in the game, you are required to go through the dungeons you have beaten (or only a set of dungeons you've beaten) about 4 more times (beating the midboss/boss again as well). You can apparently set the encounter rate to low (or not at all) to help you, but as you've guessed it sounds really, really annoying. If I'm wrong, someone can feel free to correct me as again, I don't have this game or have read too much about it.

OT: I've been curious if it really is so good as well. Sadly, after just beating Tales of Xillia (yay PS+ prices!), and getting FFX/X-2 HD soon, I haven't been in the mood to go for another RPG, even a handheld one. Maybe someday in the future I'll think about picking it up.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

With as little spoilers as possible, I wanna hear what exactly you meant by... 3-4 entire playthroughs for the final frickin BOSS?!

I do not have the game, and this is only based on what I heard, so I have no idea how accurate it is. I'm not who you quoted, but I believe its an answer.

Basically at some point in the game, you are required to go through the dungeons you have beaten (or only a set of dungeons you've beaten) about 4 more times (beating the midboss/boss again as well). You can apparently set the encounter rate to low (or not at all) to help you, but as you've guessed it sounds really, really annoying. If I'm wrong, someone can feel free to correct me as again, I don't have this game or have read too much about it.

OT: I've been curious if it really is so good as well. Sadly, after just beating Tales of Xillia (yay PS+ prices!), and getting FFX/X-2 HD soon, I haven't been in the mood to go for another RPG, even a handheld one. Maybe someday in the future I'll think about picking it up.

That sounds like nothing but absolute ass. Man, am I glad I stopped playing XD It's not a bad RPG at all, it is solid. I just don't find the characters or story very engaging after about 15 hours in. It started getting a bit stale and I stopped playing. But, the music, lovely art style and great soundtrack do make it worth a buy, if you can prepare yourself for rather basic storytelling.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

With as little spoilers as possible, I wanna hear what exactly you meant by... 3-4 entire playthroughs for the final frickin BOSS?!

Xathos pretty much covered it but yeah, towards the end of the game there comes a point where to progress any further you have to defeat the main bosses in their dungeons about 4 times each (with increasingly ramped up difficulty that you have to grind a lot for) before you can progress any further in the story, its completely ridiculous and it turned me off the game so much that I just stopped playing right then and there.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

I'm really enjoying it so far, but then again, I'm only on Chapter 2. Guess all the bad stuff that people talk about only comes in much later. Or, maybe I'll enjoy that bit, too, who knows?

 

[klaynexas3]

It's like the first NSMB game in that it brought back a long missed game style, but is little ground breaking or amazing, just a nice throwback to an old play style. I just hope it doesn't become a norm for JRPGs. The genre needs a revamp, not more stagnation.

 

[DragonLordSerge]

I really enjoyed it and you dont have to new game + to get the true ending im about 80+ hours in the game and im at chapter 7
and im having a blast having every job mastered and getting all the characters to 99 i havent played a jrpg that has brought me this much joy in a while

 

[The White Hunter]

Theres also quite a bit of grind, even at early levels. (or I just suck)

so yeah, 7/10 maybe, not 8/10

(The music and art are effin' great though)

No it really is grindy as balls, for example;

Spoiler

When you first come to Ancheim and are presented with the side story to get the Thief and Merchant asterisk, I was around 12-13, done a bit of grinding before hand but nothing major, I fought the Thief and Spellsword, and it took about an hour because I could barely hurt them, then I saved, tried Merchat, gave up and grinded a few hours upo to 20 across the board, even then it still took a good half hour to painstakingly whittle them down, and it didn't feel like I achieved a good hard fought win, it felt like a tedious whittle.

The game is very good but it has serious issues with it's difficulty curve and grinding and never seems to go smoothly, and unfortunately it's classic JRPG trappigns mean grinding feels likea grind, even with speeding it up and bumping the encounter rate. Grind can't be disguised in the sidequests because, as stated in the above spoilers,t he sidequests are difficult and tedious if you haven't been grinding quite a bit.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

With as little spoilers as possible, I wanna hear what exactly you meant by... 3-4 entire playthroughs for the final frickin BOSS?!

Xathos pretty much covered it but yeah, towards the end of the game there comes a point where to progress any further you have to defeat the main bosses in their dungeons about 4 times each (with increasingly ramped up difficulty that you have to grind a lot for) before you can progress any further in the story, its completely ridiculous and it turned me off the game so much that I just stopped playing right then and there.

Jesus friggin tits man. That sound absolutely horrible. I can't imagine WHY you'd have to do that sort of thing. Glad I stopped then. I'd never get to the final boss that way

 

[SebastianVelcro]

With as little spoilers as possible, I wanna hear what exactly you meant by... 3-4 entire playthroughs for the final frickin BOSS?!

Xathos pretty much covered it but yeah, towards the end of the game there comes a point where to progress any further you have to defeat the main bosses in their dungeons about 4 times each (with increasingly ramped up difficulty that you have to grind a lot for) before you can progress any further in the story, its completely ridiculous and it turned me off the game so much that I just stopped playing right then and there.

That whole having to fight 4 bosses over again and having to do a bunch of grinding really does sound like a super turn off. Is it really worth it to spend hours of your time grinding and fighting the same bosses over again just to get the full ending? Personally I'd rather just go look up a video of it on YouTube or something instead (yeah that is kind of lame but fuck hours of grinding, I'm just not into that). It reminds me a bit of the end of a Megaman game where you have to re-fight all the master robots again, but by that time you already have all the weapons and can use them against the bosses to beat them quickly. That sounds much more reasonable than having to re-fight old bosses that get harder and harder. I really think I'm never gonna be able to properly finish Bravely Default because of this.... damn