Given that the demo for Bravely Second is a separate story and independent (albeit short) game, I'm counting it here. Basically this serves to get you ready for Bravely Second and, for those of us who played Bravely Default when it first came out years ago, remind you of the game mechanics and controls. The demo's story follows three of Pope Anges's cavaliers - Yew, Janne, and Nikolai. There have been reports of mysterious goings-on near the Temple of Wind, so Anges sends these three cavaliers to investigate the situation. Along the way, they meet a super adorable French moon alien named Magnolia. If you've played Bravely Default, then you know exactly what to expect. It's basically your typical JRPG but with the "Brave" and "Default" mechanics adding a twist to the game. Each turn, your characters gain one BP, and you can store up to a maximum of 3. If you choose to "Default" (it's really just guard), you can gain an extra BP that turn as well as take less damage from enemy attacks that turn. With the exception of certain special attacks, every action takes one BP. You can also choose to "Brave" up to four times, however, which uses an extra BP but allows you to take an extra action. It's important to know, also, that you can run a deficit of up to -4 BP, but if you go into negatives, you can't take any action until you get back to 0. So, for example, let's say you Default three turns until you start a turn with 3 BP. You can Brave four times and make four attacks that turn. You'll end the turn with -1 BP, so you'll be able to attack again the next turn since you'll be back at 0. You could also, however, Brave four times at the very start of the battle and attack four times on your first turn, but you'll end the turn with -4 BP, so you wouldn't be able to do anything for three turns. If you did that with all four characters, you could attack 16 times in the first turn, but it's a gamble. If you can beat every enemy in that turn, you're good because your BP reset to 0 after the battle. If an enemy is left, however, all four of your characters become defenseless punching bags for the next three turns. The last risk-vs-reward battle quirk that I REALLY love for grinding is the option to chain battles. If you end a battle in one turn, you can choose to fight a follow-up battle immediately for boosted experience. Every time you do this, the percentage boost increases. Two battles nets you 1.5x, the third gets you 1.8x, then 2x, 2.2x, 2.4x, 2.6x, 2.8x, and 2.9x before maxing out at 3x. When you finally end your chain, either by choice or by being unable to finish a battle in one turn, the gold, exp, and job xp earned from your battles are totaled and then multiplied by whatever multiplier you earned. Doing this, setting the battle speed to 4x, and setting it to autobattle, it's really easy to grind while doing something else, even on weak enemies since the multiplier increases the exp earned. If you're on the fence about Bravely Second or haven't played the first one and wonder if you'd enjoy it, give this demo a download and play through it. Even taking your time with it and trying to complete everything, it won't take you more than 10 hours, and it's a self-contained story, so you don't have to worry about being confused with what's going on if you haven't played the first game. My Rating - A |
I'm a teacher.And I like to play video games. I like to collect video games. I like to talk about video games, and I like to write about video games. During the day, I teach high school history; during the night, I spend my spare time gaming. Then I write about it. Archives
April 2024
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