Japanese role-playing games have long been mired in stamps. And in those that are related to the script, and in those that form the mechanics. Selected boys and strong women fight with evil, passing through tens and hundreds of hours of monotonous battles, "bring / kill" tasks and grandiose rollers with orchestral music. Exceptions are few, and those who can laugh at themselves and avoid clichés are units. Bravely Second, for example.
It is impossible to completely abandon the features of the genre. After all, legs grow from Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light , unoriginal and old-fashioned. Therefore, a party of four heroes, random battles and a fraction of the pathos left, but everything is served with irony, and getting rid of typical JRPG diseases goes even further than Bravely Default.
Chief among the characters, Yu, generally a parody of a typical role-playing protagonist: he is a coward, silly, ridiculously straightforward and noble. Returning from the first part of Edea barely endures him, and Tiz in the eyes of Yi performs the role of a comic "sacred cow". The last of the quartet again becomes a character with an obscure past - now it's the girl Magnolia, who claims to have come from the moon. Well, the goal of the campaign is to save the stolen Agnes, the most charismatic heroine of the previous game. The villain, who responds to the Kaiser of Oblivion, seems to be claiming world domination, but somehow he is not serious.
In general, the whole game looks like "typical JRPG is not serious": they say, the atmosphere has been preserved, but let's remember that we are participating in a comedy. We will call the enemies of Giant Enemy Crab, one of the "bosses" will be given the white cat costume and the nickname Cat Sitter, instead of the ship we'll give the heroes a holey boat and add a mini-game where you need to sew plush monsters. Breaking the comedy is better than in 2013, and laugh at Silicon Studio, even over their problems - for example, the hateful situation with the repeated passage of half of the dungeons here quickly turns into a farce.
All this comicalness of the game is very suitable. I remember the sixth and seventh parts of Final Fantasy , where madness was constantly going on. And in general Bravely Second does not try to hide its origin. We are treated with Hi-potion and Echo Herbs, call the monsters with the Summon team, copy the "limits", that is, special attacks. The world is clearly divided into cities and dungeons, wards receive professions, the sky is furrowed by flying ships. Is that the chocobo ostrich ostriches are not enough.
But there is enough recognizable design. Heroes look all the same lightly, although slightly older than before. Watercolor decorations, unfolding in all its glory, if you do not run on them, have become not so granular. Monsters in places are charming - although many of them remained unchanged. Well, of course, complete with pathos screensavers, reminding that your 3DS is capable of something more than doll figures. (By the way, all the story dialogues are announced, and you can choose a Japanese track.) But the change of the composer is not noticeable: the music corresponds to the atmosphere, but rarely creates it.
Bravely Default is recalled so often, because there is not much new here. We are flung into the same world Luxendark, even if they are conducting other tracks, showing new places. We are given the same system of professions, although considerably enlarged. We are presented with many familiar past adventures, albeit with rethought roles. We again restore the village.
The essence of the combat system is the same. You can walk four times in a row with the Brave command and then skip three moves, or you can save the moves in the defense with the Default command. There was an incentive to spend several actions at once - if you deal with enemies in the first phase, they will propose a round with new opponents, for which they will give 1.5 times as many experience points. This is very helpful in "stuffing" the experience, which is periodically necessary. Even in the difficult case of "grind" it is useful to increase the frequency of encountered monsters; it is allowed and reduced to simply run through the dungeons, collecting objects.
Professions in battles are no less important than Brave and Default. There are more possible specializations, some of the old ones are gone, but the new ones provide such a space for tactics that you can forget about food. There are options for every taste: from the banal fencer, the monk and the dark magician to the exorcist and komomanta (that is, the master of cats, nya!). Professions also have levels that give new skills, both active and passive. The main thing is that the ability to combine abilities has not disappeared anywhere, so no one will forbid the knight to use the skills of a thief.
In order not to adjust the characters all the time, now we are free to preserve the chosen game and to leave to the weak enemies on the world map with the maximum attacking composition. With the "bosses" it is better to prepare in advance a quartet ready for work, defense and status effects. The magic system is the same - you have to buy spells, for some of the enemies, some elements act better than others, the ether restoring the charms is much more expensive than the night in the hotel. With the elements, everything is not always logical - for example, flying monsters can be afraid of the wind - but you can always spend the move and check the opponent.
Separately mention use in Bravely Secondall the features of Nintendo 3DS. First of all, the volume effect here is not just "for a tick" - in 3D landscapes of cities look like in an art gallery, and dungeons are uniquely created with the expectation that the camera is installed in such a way that a very deep picture is obtained.
The biggest mini-game - the very reconstruction of the village - still requires a lot more hours to build buildings than the campaign lasts. The same applies to the points for attack Bravely Second, which stops time. Therefore, the console is vital to leave in sleep mode. After all, useful items are sent from the village and there they create improvements for special attacks and their new versions. And the opportunity to beat a powerful "boss" without resistance is priceless.
To further motivate you not to part with Yi and Magnolia, all people encountered through StreetPass can help in the battles. The same goes for your friends, even if they do not have a copy of the game. And you, of course, can also send your data. Most teams are executed from the cross and the left "Shift", therefore, even when you have only one hand free, there will be no problems. It is more difficult in those situations when a gyroscope is used and 3DS should be rotated, but this is not enough.
In short, the interaction of not only heroes with history and enemies, but also the player with all this is thought over. Even here, the employees of Silicon Studio did everything in a modern way. Microtransactions look especially "modern", but this is only an option for those who do not want to "strain" and use sleep mode.
Rate:9/10
nice review!
nice review