I wish good health to everyone who stopped by to see me. As you know, a new guest will soon appear on the video game market – Bravely Default II. And it would be nice to get acquainted with its roots, which have a right to stand next to the great Japanese role-playing games. Today we will look at a rather interesting project, which initially did not lay claim to the laurels of any significant jrpg, however, after its release it was able to blow up the gaming community and convince major publishers that Western players also love Japanese classics. Dear game reviewers vying with nines and tens in their reviews. Famitsu, where people ate the dog at Japanese games, especially jrpg, gave it 38/40. So you understand, this is the level of the seventh final. To date, Bravely Default is the best jrpg on 3DS.
I will also talk about the continuation of Bravely Second: End Layer, which came out three years later and was also loved by many. Sit back in your chairs, grab some chips and popcorn, we’re heading into the world of Bravely Default.
It all started quite prosaically, namely with Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light, which was released on the Nintendo DS from the guys from Matrix Software. It was an average spin-off of the main series, which received average ratings and lukewarm reviews, and the bosses from Square Enix put an extra tick in the NDS line. Its producer Tomoya Asano decided not to give up and make a sequel taking into account the mistakes. This time he turned to other developers, Silicon Studio, and brought on his side one of the Steins;Gate screenwriters. Despite the fact that the new brainchild was planned as an ideological continuation of his previous project, Asano came up with (in fact, chose from a list of proposals) a new name. This was a conscious departure from the Final Fantasy series, which was also reflected in the name of the game. He wanted to do something of his own, where nothing limited him, but at the same time he still borrowed a lot from the popular jrpg series.
So let me tell you this story, about people and destinies whose feelings touched thousands of lives, whose deeds affected many worlds. Their journey began on a distant planet called Luxendark. When disaster struck the peaceful and unremarkable village of Norende. A huge abyss has opened up, devouring everything in its path. People, houses, animals – everyone disappeared into its abyss and only the modest shepherd Tiz Orrior miraculously escaped, having lost his beloved brother. The kindness of the king and the inhabitants of the city did not allow the guy to fall into despair, and convinced him to continue living. And she. The girl, whose name is Agnès Oblige, arrived at the abyss to personally verify the existence of this hole. The Vestal of the Wind Crystal, in order to protect her treasure from the darkness that has enveloped it, hopes to find answers here. As the elite troops of the Duchy of Eternia seek to capture the priestess, Tiz becomes the shield that will drive her enemies away. However, he is not the only one who is partial to Agnes. Enter the mysterious guy Ringabel, Mr. Amnesia, whose past is hidden even from him. The owner of a strange notebook, which describes in detail the future adventures of Ringabel along with Agnes and Tiz. Who kept these records and why?? To uncover this secret, our hero decides to join the company. Meanwhile, the world is uneasy. The religious organization Krystal Orthodoxy, which has been monitoring the four elemental crystals for centuries, is attacked by Eternia. Its head, Grand Marshal Braev, sends his subordinates to all corners of the world in an attempt to break resistance. And in this madness he loses his daughter, who refuses to obey and follow the path of cruelty. Edea Lee, an independent and obstinate girl, decides to help the heroes and fights with them against those whom she previously called friends. Their path lies in the four temples of crystals of the elements, so that once again they shine and illuminate the whole world with their grace. And they will not go astray, for their guiding star is the little crystal fairy who looked after the Vestals for many generations and was a close friend of Agnes. But, as it may seem to the reader, this story is not about saving crystals, it is a journey through worlds and time in an attempt to understand the laws of reality. These are personal tragedies tearing apart not only the heroes, but also their opponents. It’s a tough choice they’ll have to make sooner or later.
How much evil has been defeated because of crystals and it seems that this does not teach them anything.
And so, the enemy is defeated, the end and the beginning of a new story for Bravery Second, two and a half years later.
Agnes has taken on the burden of ruling Krystal Orthodoxy and is ready to make peace with Eternia to stop the violence. But her dream was shattered, like the stained glass windows of a temple through which the villains penetrated. Kaiser Oblivion himself personally burst into the peace negotiations, whose hatred of the sins of the church is too great to make concessions. The head of the flying castle and personal imperial army kidnaps Agnes and deals with her defenders, among whom is the young man Yu Geneology, unknown to us so far. The young heir of a great house, the leader of three cavaliers who swore to protect the values of the church, was able to survive and now he is a new hope for this world, he is our hero. And at this time, tearing apart the layers of the atmosphere, an unknown spaceship with a red-eyed girl on board is moving towards the planet. Fate is often quite cruel, fickle, and sad, but here and now it brought Yu together with a mysterious alien whose home on the moon was attacked by the Baals. Magnolia Arch, a special agent for the destruction of these monsters, arrived on Luxendark in order to stop them. And miraculously, the goals of Yu and Magnolia intersect, because the power of the Kazer is largely obtained from these monsters. The trouble that happened to Agnes did not leave her friends aside, Idea Lee and Tiz Orrior are again ready to take up arms and embark on a new adventure. Ahead of them awaits the bitter truth about the past of Crystal Orthodoxy, about the beginning of the great plague, the glory and shame of the house of Geneology and the fact that they must find the courage to start all over again.
Despite the somewhat interesting plot, the main emphasis is placed directly on the characters. Tomoya Asano grabbed their identity with his teeth, he wanted even their enemies to be ambiguous and worthy of respect and sympathy. He rejected any attempts of pressure from Square Enix on Naotako Hayashi, which ultimately bore fruit. It is impossible to forget Barras, the first boss, whose only desire is to fight off his muscles, man to man. I literally laughed until I cried at his speech. Or an old sage, or rather an old pervert, clearly partial to young girls. Their personalities are often exaggerated, but this adds its own charm and humor. On the other side is Idea, who opposed those with whom she lived a long life. Every time she has to fight with her family, friends, partners, and they, as luck would have it, are not the fiends of hell. These people truly love Idea (not all of them, of course), try their best to dissuade her and try to delay the battle as much as possible. The more painful and difficult it is for the girl to continue her journey. Tragedies befall everyone in the company to one degree or another, and it’s easier to feel it with excellent voice acting.
After the battle with Braev, he expresses his feelings to his wife and daughter. It’s hard to call this a victory over evil.
I compared the Japanese original and the English localization. I can safely say that the second is in no way inferior to the first, and in my personal opinion it is superior. Mainly thanks to the excellent work of Erin Fitzgerald, who got the role of Agnès Oblige. This character has a wide range of emotions and Erin handled them all perfectly. Sobs, hysterics, screams, restrained indignation – all with anguish, feeling, depending on the environment and situation. Maybe sometimes she overplays, but damn, not every AAA game has something competitive. The Americans had some quirks, but this is the case when it makes the character more recognizable. This affected primarily eccentric people, while Agnes and Tiz were as similar in voice and manner of speech as possible to their overseas colleagues.
On the other hand, Ringabel’s Japanese voice acting is terrible. This is a young man with the habits of a ladies’ man. You turn on the original, and there a forty-year-old man straight from JoJo speaks for him, who doesn’t even come close in character. So if you ever have a choice, get the English version.
When it comes to developing the https://casino-moana.uk/ world, I would like to talk about the very diary that Ringabel carries with him. At any time, the player can open it and get acquainted with the lore. There is literally everything here. I found a rusty knife – here’s a full-page article about it. Met your boss – get his biography, favorite foods, hobbies and phobias. All this allows us to understand why one does this and the other does something different. There is a similar notebook in Bravely Second, only all participants keep it, writing down notes with different colored pens.
To fill out all the information about an enemy in the monsterpedia, you need to defeat him more than once. But in the end you will receive complete information, lore and even impressions of team members from meeting him.
The story and its participants can be viewed in different ways, but it has a couple of drawbacks. The main thing is the discrepancy between what Asano wanted to convey and what is happening in Bravely Default. One follows the path of the heart, not duty, but in the end it turns out to be wrong. The second one, if he does the same, will not get the true ending. And I’m not the only one here, many people were indignant. How so? It turns out that if you indulge the boss, even knowing who he is, allow him to destroy worlds and eventually defeat him, then you are doing the right thing. And if you cut it at the root, don’t let it grow, save many lives and in the end live happily ever after, then I’m sorry, you were wrong.
The second drawback is the length in the second half. If you want a true story, you need to awaken four crystals five times. That is, only twenty times to go through the same dungeons and kill the same bosses. This is what I understand about backtracking and Groundhog Day. But you will understand why the last drawback is not too significant when we move on to the gameplay.
Now that you know about the events and people, I can share with you why the project has this name. And also tell why it is not true. But I warn you right away, there are thermonuclear spoilers inside.
Bravely Default is a strange name, isn’t it?? Once Maxim Solodilov laughed at him, calling him Brave by default. And if he reads blogs, he will probably be interested to know, like all readers, where this phrase came from. Default is not only “by default”, but also “failure to fulfill one’s obligations”. The hidden meaning lies in the phrase of one of the characters – “Find the courage to go against your duty”. The implication is that one must act according to one’s heart, even if one has to violate one’s responsibilities. This is how Asano wanted to express his desire to go beyond Final Fantasy. A little later, an extended version of Bravely Default: Flying Fairy was released and there is also a hidden message here, which is also a spoiler. Airi is a crystal fairy whose duty is to help and guide the priestesses. This cute creature shares advice and raises the spirit of the team, and is also a close friend of the main character Agnes. So Bravely Default: Flying Fairy translates as Bravely Default: lying airy – Find the courage to go against your duty: Airi is lying. In the end it turns out that Airi is a servant of Glavgad and uses the heroes for her own interests. Two letters FF are removed from the name, I suspect this is a symbol of Asano leaving under the wing of Final Fantasy.
And now I would like to touch on Bravely Second. Everything about the characters here is ambiguous. Asano has not changed his principles and the villains (except the last one) are worthy of sympathy and understanding. Each of them experienced a tragedy in the past that changed his worldview and most serve the Kaiser solely to ensure that it does not happen again. The story of a demon that plays with the destinies and feelings of other people is especially memorable. Ringabel calls her true evil, but she once sacrificed everything to save humanity. She was once deceived by greedy people, for whose mistakes thousands of innocent people paid. And it is in Yu that she finds hope, the one that was instilled in her thousands of years ago by an “ambitious man”.
If you click on Y, a hermitage with some cool mini-scene will start, and if you talk to the fox, then Yu and his friends will pitch a tent for relaxation and, yes, they will launch another event, where in 99% of cases they will eat something or chat about food.
Unfortunately, in the sequel the characters lost certain traits. If before Idea only adored sweets, now she eats everything in cosmic quantities. In general, sometimes it seems to me that the cult of food in the game has some special place, because the heroes eat everywhere and always. Entered the city – serve some food, a monastery appeared (optional scene) – in half the cases it will be about how the characters had a delicious lunch. They even killed two bosses over grub. I suspect that if the Kaiser had stolen their meat and not Agnes, he would have been dismembered on the spot. In addition, everything here is filled with moldy anime clichés like the butler, ordinary Japanese schoolchildren, hot springs, horror stories about ghosts and other things. Damn, there are even memes here. Remember the meme about a feminist with glasses and red hair?? So she is here, fighting for the rights of female students.
The whole conflict between feminists and white cisgender oppressors is whether or not girls and boys should be co-educated. We must pay tribute to the Japanese, they did not set out to humiliate or ridicule one of the parties.
The entire first half looks like a complete farce with a banal plot of saving the world from evil and solving other people’s problems, the importance of which is often negligible. But then the fire starts. Right in the middle of the passage, the game gives a pretty big plot twist and seems to end, after which it prompts you to start a New Game +. And you’re so shocked you think: “And that’s all?”. Then you click on a new option and start the game again. The start is the same as we know it, but now not only the player knows what will happen in the future, but the heroes are also aware. If during the first half the Kaiser was always one step ahead, then here Yu and his friends already know all the ins and outs, all his plans and the minions that they will meet. Oblivion is getting closer to defeat with every step, and it won’t be long in coming. After New Game+, the plot begins to unwind more and more, revealing new details and the intensity of passions turns into an explosion of emotions right during the battle with the last boss. And at the very end you will understand everything, this is where all the details take on one big, integral form.
Despite the fact that Agnes was kidnapped, she has a way to contact her friends at any time and answer questions.
Unlike the first part, here I would recommend choosing Japanese voice acting or text if you can read it. The fact is that the lunar language that Magnolia speaks is English, no matter how ironic it may sound. That is, all the text is in Japanese, and her words are in the language of Foggy Albion. But how can this be translated to Americans?? They simply replaced Magnolia’s speech with French and tried to transfer jokes about mixing languages onto new tracks, which is why it turned out to be a complete mess. Here’s an example. In the original, when combining two words from different languages, the result was gambarevenge, that is, “don’t give up” (Japanese.) + “revenge” (English).), this is the cry of Team Yu and it is perceived quite clearly and clearly. And in the English version it’s “coup de grâce” + “gravy” – a blow of mercy and the sauce turns into a coup de gravy, probably something like a hit of sauce. As you can see, the whole point of the battle cry becomes some kind of bad joke.
And again, I would like to share with you what the name of the game means and what it really is. There are a lot of spoilers, so read everything at your own peril and risk.
Bravely Default borrows a lot from Final Fantasy, especially from the third and fifth games. What exactly is he?? This is a jrpg with a top view or better said in isometry. The map of the world where we travel is replete with rugged terrain, cities and dungeons. A monster is hiding behind every bush and is just waiting for a random encounter to allow it to attack. And when he succeeds, the battle takes place in a step-by-step mode. It would seem that there is something to praise the game for, why the gameplay is considered the main advantage? Let’s figure it out. The class system was taken straight from Final Fantasy V. Defeating the next boss, the heroes take his asterisk, an item that gives the right to change their class. Having taken one from a black magician, you can change into a robe and throw fireballs. Each victory upgrades the class a little and opens new levels. And they, in turn, provide passive and active skills. A character can have an active class that he currently uses, and a second one that provides only combat skills. Thus, you can mix a black and white mage to have additional healing, or a white and time mage to not only strengthen/weaken, but also speed up/slow down. High customization capabilities echo the fairly high difficulty of boss battles, especially in the second half. And this forces us to look for new solutions and approaches. Every night I went to bed with thoughts like this.
What if you combine a knight with his incredible vitality and a ninja with the ability to divert monster aggression to any player?. It turns out I can aggro the enemy every turn and don’t worry about the safety of my ally. What would be better to choose for a healer: +100% HP buff, which disappears upon death, or +30% HP permanently.
Asterisk, allowing you to change profession. Not to be confused with Asterix!
Until the very last credits, you experiment and try to come up with the best builds, thanks to the fact that new classes are released gradually. And among them there is something quite unusual. If everyone is familiar with a knight or an archer, then what about a merchant?? This is a fighter whose combat resource is money. He is capable of both farming huge sums and spending them on equally decent damage. Heck, he has a skill that allows him to sell your healing potion to a monster for four times its actual value. And all this right during the battle.
But nothing comes for free. It is not known in advance what abilities a particular class hides, so you either upgrade everything or read the guides. But in any case, the only way to the top is a relentless grind. It is directly proportional to your ambitions, but even without them, thousands of monsters and an hour of nerddom will go under the knife to get to the top of the profession. Therefore, planning comes in handy here.
There are 24 professions in Bravely Default, and 30 in Bravely Second.
And this feature helps with this, which eliminates all the negativity with random encounters. At any time the player can change the frequency of monster attacks. I like to calmly explore dungeons and look for hidden passages and chests without interruption during battles, so I completely turn off opponents. Then I go to the area near the city and, in order to gain a level, I double the frequency of attacks. This is the most convenient thing, which just helps to cope with that crazy backtracking in the second half.
The second undoubted advantage in the gameplay is the battles themselves. Remember, I told you where this strange game name came from. So, it also means a combat system. We all know the rules of turn-based battles, when at the beginning of your turn you give an order, and then watch how the heroes carry out an attack. But there are a couple of nuances here: brave and default. The first borrows moves, and the second accumulates them. It looks like this. Tiz sees that the enemy has 1000 HP, and his damage is only 250, so he takes three turns plus the current one, it turns out four and the enemy is defeated. Then it’s time to pay and our Tiz sits idle for several turns, getting hit in the face. But all this time he gets from one, not two. And here is the second version of events. Agnes stands in front of the boss, he has 10,000 HP, and she still deals the same 250. The heroine defends herself three times using default, thereby reducing the damage by half and accumulating moves, and on the fourth she releases them through brave. It turns out that in the same time she destroyed the same number of lives from the enemy, but absorbed much less damage (250% instead of 400%). This system is actively used by enemies, so the tactics in Bravely Default are much deeper and more thoughtful than in most standard battles. If earlier it was like roulette, now it is blackjack, where balance rules the roost, and any risk must be justified. In addition to everything there are some interesting gizmos, for example, bravely second. At any moment of the battle, regardless of what happens, time stops and for special points the hero carries out an attack that his class is capable of.
Stopping time yourself. You can turn it on even in the middle of an enemy attack.
Naturally, such cheats cannot be obtained just like that; the sp points required for this are earned for every 8 hours of the console’s sleep mode or for donating. Yes, donate on 3DS. What do you want, you have to keep up with the times. The second cheat can be used through the abilink command to borrow a powerhouse from friends who also play Bravely Default. Even if you are an introvert by nature, the game will kindly provide bots for this case. And finally, the last one is similar to a limit breaker. After filling the invisible scale, the hero performs a special attack. The coolest thing about this is that the music changes for a while, it sounds in real time and gives buffs. And after 30 seconds they disappear, she doesn’t care what the player does. So the faster you give commands, the more you will get out of this situation.
0 Comments