Zamzul Rizalinium : Fusion of Love and Intelligence: Bravely Default Review! (Day 3)

Hey Readers!

As promised I will bring you the review of one of the best games I've played on my 3DS XL:

BRAVELY DEFAULT.

So, by any chance you bought a 3DS XL or a 2DS, I highly recommend you buying Bravely Default. It is one of THE BEST RPG game (my personal opinion, congratulations Square Enix!) amongst other Final Fantasy games I've played. You can get immersed in the game like swimming in a pool of strawberry milk, cuz y'know, I like strawberry milk.

OK, the gameplay is a turn-based system, adding job classes and abilities you will get when leveling up by defeating various enemies. Like any other turn-based games, you have to use strategy, choosing carefully what to do and when you hit "GO!" You'll see your strategy play out. One of the uniqueness of this game is the use of "Brave" and "Default".

Brave is used to attack and to attack, you will use Battle Points (BP). You can use until 4 BPs in one go to make a full-out attack. However, not managing it properly will make your character vulnerable to the enemy's attack for 4 turns as your BP is negative (-4). So, going full attack is sometimes not a great idea.

Default is like the equivalent to defending, you take less damage and at the end of the turn you will gain BP. You can store BPs up until +3. This is a strategic move as some of the jobs use BP instead of MP for their attack. Player needs a good reading of how enemies attack and defend and use their Braves and Defaults effectively. Note, the enemies can ALSO use Brave and Default. Meaning they also can attack multiple times and defend to take less damage.

The weapons in the game is also unique in terms that they have their own added effects, specialties and also special attacks. The weapons, such as Swords, Axes, Spears, Katanas, Daggers, Bows, Staves, Rods, and Knuckles are effective according to the jobs that are used by the players. For example, a Knight is effective in using swords, Black Mages use rods, White Mage uses staves, Swordmasters use katanas, Ninjas use daggers and Rangers use Bows, and etc.etc. Special Attacks can be done by doing some actions during battle, such as Braving 5 times, Defaulting 5 times, Use Items 5 times, etc. You can customize your Special Attacks by adding effects to the special attacks, maybe Dark, Light, Fire, Wind, Water or Lightning attacks, Power Boosts, Elemental Resistance and BP addition. It's up to the players to add which ever effects they want to add that extra damage and benefits from the Special Attack. Heck, you can eve customize the text box for the Special attack (It's a bit small though, and you can swear. Shit). Where do you get all the effects for the Special Attack, you ask? Well, we'll get to that later.

The online side of it, you can Summon or Send a friend to help in Battles. If you have a friend that is totally OP and has played the game far longer than you do, you'll get some insane attack power and will make some Boss Fights easier. There is also another option other than Summoning Friends (Cuz you can only do that like once every 24 hours), which is Bravely Second. In my opinion, I'm not fond of this Bravely Second. Ok, it stops your battle and you are free to put some heavenly punishment to your enemies. Well, that's great. And to gain the Sleeping Points (that's the name of the point for Bravely Second), you have to put your 3DS to Sleep Mode for 8 hours (real hours, not in-game) to even get 1 SP. Like BP, you can only have until 3 SP. If you're the impatient type, you have to purchase the SP. Using REAL MONEY. Can you believe this? I will NOT spend my money for something I use seldom and I can just wait 8 hours for it. It's not that hard! Every game you play, they really wanna milk the player's money. This is so EA-ish. C'mon Square Enix, don't be like them, OK? Also, when you have friends, you can link your friends to your characters and they will automatically get abilities that your friend's characters know. The higher their job levels, the more abilities you get without leveling up. This helps if you're lazy leveling up 24 jobs to the max level (Level 14).

OK, now I'll answer the earlier question. There's also a side quest on the bottom half of your 3DS. It's called Rebuilding the Village of Norende. You need people in your village to start building the city. To gain villagers, you either use Street Pass, use Friends who are playing the game or pick up random players when you Update Data. You'll get from 3 to 5 villagers and this can only be done once a day. Building Norende will give you access to shops that sells the Good Stuff, and by Good Stuff, I mean amazingly expensive unless you use a Golden Egg which also comes from the village and cost 200,000pg! As I said earlier, patience is key in this game. The more villagers you have, the faster you can level up the shops to gain access to some sweet equipment. The effects for your Special Attack is free though, but it takes up a heck lot of time to build. Some may take 99 Hours! However, that time can be cut down if you put more villagers to work on that upgrade.

As I mentioned there are 24 jobs in Bravely Default. Some of it, you will gain from the main story and some of it are optional, sub-scenarios that you can do at any time you want. Every job has its specialty and to gain level, jobs has its own Job Points. It is separated from Experience Points, which levels up your character. JP, or Job Points, are earned way less than EPs. Sometimes you get frustrated in leveling up certain jobs as it is way slow and little JPs earned in battle. To speed it, there is an ability called JP Up, that increases your JP earned after battle. You can also buy a Growth Egg to gain double EXP, which you can get from upgrading a shop in Norende, and bought from the Adventurer, for a whopping 500,000pg! Yep, keep making money. No money, no honey. There are many ways to gain money fast, but that's for you to figure it out.

Alright, straight to the story. Well... how can I say this. It's a bit cliche and the same for all Final Fantasy games you've played. 4 people have to save the world from the Darkness. You have to awaken crystals to banish the darkness. However, for a game that makes the characters look cute and cuddly, it has some dark side to it. Death is something casual. Some of the enemies are downright cruel. BETRAYAL is a big thing in this game. Somewhere in the game, you will try to literally, I mean LITERALLY want to go in the game and kill that character yourself (Stupid , I KILL YOU!). The storyline overall is kind of OK in a sense that it makes players delve into the mystery of the Crystal Orthodoxy and Anti-crystalism arc of the game. I won't elaborate the story, you have to buy and play it yourself.

The voice acting, for me, is above average. However, the the voice directing, of maybe the script itself, is very funny. I mean, hilarious! It's not a joke, but the way they pronounce some words, or the expression, is just... I dunno, too straight? I mean, a fake Spanish, French accent is bad enough, but saying in anger "Mrgrgr" as in "MER-GER-GER" is just dumb. The relationship between the characters is kinda cute though. Love here, crush there. It's like your first time in love as a teenager. Shy shy cat one! Hahah!

Also, a side-note here, the Options in the game is also useful. You can gain or lessen the encounter rate of random battles and increase or decrease the difficulty. You can speed up the subtitle text too (in this case, I am impatient).

Now, for the aesthetic part of the game: Soundtrack and graphics. For me, graphics ain't everything as long as the game itself is fun and immersive to the player. The 3D for this game is just eye-candy, and it's totally optional to play it ith 3D. For me, I get nauseous after 10 minutes looking at 3D, so I played the game in simple 2D. The soundtrack is BEAST! Some songs makes me so pumped up in kicking ass of some bosses in the game, especially the Red Mage, he's such an asshole.

One thing that's bit on the negative side, is when you can't explore more when you come across a cave or ruins which actually doesn't have any importance, but you WANT to explore it, no matter what. Look at Fallout, I went to a Deathclaw Cave at level 10 and I died like a wimp. It's that type of exploration that I want: No Restrictions. Let me make the mistake of going to some overpowered monster-filled cave and I will learn that I won't go there until I leveled up enough to kick their butts. Instead, I get to hear Agnes saying, "We have no reason to be here". Bitch, I go where I want and you can't stop me! But then, as you progress the main story, you will eventually go there, so yeah.

Overall, I enjoyed playing Bravely Default. The battle system is a BIG WIN for me. The Job System is phenomenal and the depth in strategizing your game play is crucial to survive some of the hardest bosses and enemies in the game. The numerous features online, like Abilinks, Summon Friends is very helpful in overcoming the tough battles. However, like I said, the voice acting is a bit sketchy and some of the stories were too boring to listen to, I just skip and get on with the game. The micro transactions, yeah, not great.

I give this game:

Grade: A-
Out of 5: 4 / 5
Out of 10: 9 / 10
Out of 100: 90 / 100
Out of bananas: 69 bananas / 96 bananas (Just kidding).

So, that's my review, hope it's useful and will make you pick up this game if you have a 3DS or 2DS. GIve it a try. You'll get hooked to it. Or maybe it's just me. Oh well. There goes my 3rd day for B.E.D.A. Thanks for reading this review. I bid you farewell and have a great 3rd of April 2014. Salam and Peace Be Upon You.

Random pics of the Day: