Nintendo Anyone playing/played Bravely Second?

[Xbob42]

Finally worked my way through Bravely Default 1 earlier this week after years of giving up pretty early on because I found the writing real bland. Once I got over that, the combat and job system became really amazing, and even the writing began to become very interesting, and despite going on quite a few hours too long to get the true ending, the ending itself was quite cool and got me right into Bravely Second.

Which brings me to why I'm making this thread: I need friends on my 3DS who've played the game for the Abilink system! In BD1 I had a ton of people with decently leveled characters, so I could use their abilities and get some fun builds going early. Right now I've got almost no one. So even if you're not actively playing, if you have save data (and even better if you beat it) I'd love to be able to add some folks as friends so I can use those sweet sweet abilities.

[Nokt]

This series has always been on my list. I’ve just never got around to buying them. I think I own end layer? Not sure id have to dig it up. 

[Keyser_Soze]

Didn't @Biggie play it?

[Biggie]

4 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Didn't @Biggie play it?

Hell if I know

[Slug]

It's a game I intended to buy but never did for some reason or another. I loved the first one, the timing just was never there for me to buy 2. I'll try to pick it up soon.

[Raggit]

Ha, I just beat this last month. I can add you when I get home this evening. 

[Xbob42]

55 minutes ago, Raggit said:

Ha, I just beat this last month. I can add you when I get home this evening. 

Neat! Forgot to post my FC I think.

 

2019-9987-2854

[Xbob42]

1 hour ago, Slug said:

It's a game I intended to buy but never did for some reason or another. I loved the first one, the timing just was never there for me to buy 2. I'll try to pick it up soon.

So far I'm liking it a lot more than the first game.

It took me until about 2 weeks ago to get past the Shieldbearers portion of Bravely Default 1. I bought it at launch. Not only that, I've tried multiple times to get past that part and have stopped there every time. Not because it was hard, but because it was so dull. I can't remember my original post, but I'm pretty sure I said something to the same effect up there so I won't repeat too much, but it took a long time for BD1 to start getting interesting, although it did pay off pretty well even if overstaying its welcome.

 

While not all of the humor and dialog lands in Bravely Second, the fact that they're trying makes a massive difference over the early hours of the first game. I'll take a joke I don't find funny over hours and hours of boring characters being overly-serious. The early hours of BD1 kind of remind me of Tokyo RPG Factory and their forced somber tone trap they keep falling into where they think sad piano music and snowy locales will somehow get people invested in the world and take it seriously. Without humor and human moments, it just comes across as sadporn to me. See how miserable we can make all these characters and this world with no contrast to show what it was like, what it could be again. Just a total narrative failure.

Which is especially sad because BD1 really picks up around the halfway point. The characters become... characters. They have actual personalities beyond going "Mrgrgr!" and "Unacceptable!" while reiterating their basic ass goal over and over. Unfortunately the true ending completely betrays the much smarter and more thematically appropriate "bad" ending, but hey, can't win 'em all.

Anyway before I started on that tangent, the point of this post was to say the gameplay in Bravely Second is FUCKING AMAZING. There's so many goddamn quality of life and overall improvements it's insane. The music is more lively, the characters are more lively, moving around the world map is faster and more zoomed in so it feels more personal, you can do chain battles for bigger rewards, the map works better, there's a little semi-AFK minigame to make money for when you can't actively play but will be coming back shortly, all the jobs got an overhaul and max out at 10 instead of 14, you no longer lose a huge chunk of power by switching to a lower level job, encouraging experimentation, the jobs interact with each other more, there's a fucking SYSTEM WHERE YOU CAN CRAFT SPELLS MID-BATTLE BY MIXING AND MATCHING and that's my favorite part by far.

 

Combine a heal spell with wall so that upon taking damage, your character is healed, combine a thunder spell with mist so enemies take thunder damage over time. Combine a fire spell with dart (which ensures the spell happens before anything else during a given turn) to finish off an enemy before it can hit you, or with a cure spell to get an emergency heal off before a big hit. There's so many combinations and they're so fun. It makes magic a joy to use. Combined with the much better job system and refined jobs (and what appears to be several new jobs) it's just awesome unlocking them all. Hell, you can save 3 autobattle presets in the event you have a specific setup you need when you're late-game and your builds require multiple turns to get rolling, or you can dedicate them to different forms of wiping out groups of random encounters, whatever you want. You can save up to 10 job/gear/ability loadouts so you don't have to tediously reassign jobs and everything after switching for a boss fight or to farm/grind. SP builds up while you're playing as well as sleep mode. The bottom screen is used in a much more enjoyable way. The diary mechanic this time around, while less mysterious, is also much more enjoyable to browse.

 

This is all the stuff I've noticed and I'm not even level 20 yet. Hell, one of the very first new jobs has support abilities that allow you to equip weapons to your head and body slots in lieu of armor, which actually contributes not just damage, but how many attacks you do per round, which has a bunch of gameplay potential in and of itself.

 

So while I might get a little annoyed at the new main character yelling about fucking gravy all the time, it's a small price to pay for this kind of insane turn-based combat innovation. Sadly, looking it up, BD2 does not retain any of the spellcraft stuff, so I suppose I'll enjoy it in Bravely Second while I'm playing it, because it's my favorite part of either game I've played thus far.

[Slug]

Ok, ok already! I'll own it before the weekend. Sheesh.

 

:P

[EternallDarkness]

I beat 1, know I own 2nd though I don't know how much I played of it, but I played the crap out of Bravely Default 2 on Switch, which is what I originally thought you were asking, lol

[Raggit]

11 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

Neat! Forgot to post my FC I think.

 

2019-9987-2854

0447-6712-9168

I don't remember how the friend code thing works but here's mine in case you need to add me back. 

[Xbob42]

37 minutes ago, Raggit said:

0447-6712-9168

I don't remember how the friend code thing works but here's mine in case you need to add me back. 

Yeah, got it set up. 97k friend ability, nice!