Bravely Default: Courageously Standardize your day!

[Yukito]

I don't have a North American 3DS, but Mr. Gossip, who lives in the North, has informed me that the Bravely Default demo is out in North America. Of course, if you are European you already have had a chance to play this game.

Much has been assumed about Bravely Default, but I feel like there is a little bit of misrepresentation about what the game is. If Square Enix is using the same demos they used for the Japanese promotion, they are to an extent, not terribly representative of what the final game ended up like. It isn't a throwback to the extent that the DS Warriors of Light Final Fantasy game was and it's not as progressive or unique as say, Half Minute Hero or The World Ends With You. It is something rather more indescribablely in the middle.

Therefore I present to you the

What Will Bravely Default Do to Me Quiz?

It's simple. Reply to each statement with either "Yeah," "Meh," or "Eh," with the latter being the most negative and in disagreement with the statement, then add up your points at the end.

1. I love the 3D features of the 3DS, potentially including AR.
2. My favorite type of RPG progression is one where it is made fun to grind when you want, but it is never needed to win the basic game.
3. I like smaller casts with more intimate plots that are about lots of character interaction with a somewhat detailed fantasy world and lots of smaller scenarios over political and extremely detailed worlds with complex plots.
4. I prefer to fight intricate battles that demand a degree of forethought, but have ways to make them less tedious should I grow tired of them.
5. Random, turn-based battles are a thing of the past.
6. RPGs without extensive voice acting in this day and age should be a relic consigned to the past.
7. I really like PlayStation-era Square FMV.
8. There should never be any reason to reuse any content from a game's basic scenario; every moment should ideally use new places and assets.
9. I have time to complete a rather long game and see it through to the end.
10. I wish characters would talk more and I didn't have to go on side quests or read journals to get more information about them.


Answer key:

SPOILER: Click to show

1. Yeah = 5, Meh = 3, Eh = -2.
2. Yeah = 10, Meh = 7, Eh = 3.
3. Yeah = 6, Meh = 2, Eh = 4.
4. Yeah = 5, Meh = 2, Eh = 3.
5. Yeah = -10, Meh = 3, Eh = 10.
6. Yeah = -4, Meh = 0, Eh = 5.
7. Yeah = 3, Meh = 0, Eh = 0.
8. Yeah = -15, Meh = 0, Eh = 5.
9. Yeah = 5, Meh = 3, Eh = 7.
10. Yeah = 2, Meh = 0, Eh = 4.

And now the effect Bravely Default is likely to have on you -

60 - Bravely Default will be a contender not just for game of the year, but my favorite game ever.

45-59 - There is an excellent chance that I will reach points in this game that will make me stop playing just to hug myself in congratulation for treating myself to it.

30-45 - I may end up really thinking this one of the best recent RPGs released and support the series from here on out, but I will most likely enjoy other recent RPGs more.

15-30 - I will complain on message boards how Square Enix is dead to me, but not in length and will give the game props in several areas I thought it was good in/had potential.

0-15 - I will angrily post giant screeds about how incompetent the developers were and how this game is overrated and a piece of crap that nostalgic manbabies only like because it reminds them of their shitty childhoods.

-20 - 0 - My mugshot is going to be broadcast on the local news because I am extremely likely to go on a murdering rampage from the sheer rage this game induces in me. Every one will cite me as proof that games really can make you violent.

If you rank below 0, do a favor to everyone who lives in your neighborhood and don't buy it. I wonder if anyone will get a 60...

[Ike]

This is a really elaborate and confusing way to say "you might like this game if x"

[Super Orbus]

It's already on my to buy list. You don't need to convince me.

[Jave]

The demo pretty much won me over.

[Deleted]

Looks like yet another tiresome identikit JRPG of the kind that were a dime a dozen on the SNES and PS1. I don't know how the NeoGAF crowd can bring themselves to rev up their hype machines over this stuff time and time again. I'd pass even if I owned a 3DS.

Tim Rogers has said a lot of dumb shit, but he was dead on with his statement that the JRPG genre in its traditional Dragon Quest/Final Fantasy mold was only ever meant to be a placeholder for something better after technology improved. Games like these continue to ignore over twenty years of progress. And no, I'm not saying that every game should be a brown military/zombie shooter or Assassin's Creed, but when your hyped-up, commercially released 2013 game has gameplay no more advanced than a first-generation SNES title, there's a problem.

[Échalote]

Jan 2, 2014 16:35:41 GMT -5 @felixm said:

but when your hyped-up, commercially released 2013 game has gameplay no more advanced than a first-generation SNES title, there's a problem.

Bravely Default is no masterpiece (meh story, indecent backtracking during the later chapters) but his innovative "turn management" gameplay is probably BD's main draw.
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

[Jave]

Jan 2, 2014 16:35:41 GMT -5 @felixm said:

Tim Rogers has said a lot of dumb shit, but he was dead on with his statement that the JRPG genre in its traditional Dragon Quest/Final Fantasy mold was only ever meant to be a placeholder for something better after technology improved.

Even by Tim Rogers standards, that statement is staggeringly off-base.

Early RPGs, both on Western PCs and Japanese consoles, were meant to translate tabletop role playing into something that would work on their respective platforms. Those games were, not surprisingly, turn based and outcomes were determined by dice rolls and stats.

And even if that weren't the case, BD is a deliberate throwback to 16bit JRPGs, and people are excited for it because they still want to play games in that style. Final Fantasy in particular, has kept up with technology, and it's also been a shit show for years. This is an alternative to that, and a good one. So yeah, it's not an advanced game by any stretch, but I don't care.

[Super Orbus]

Some (most?) of us grew up on 16-bit rpgs, and miss them.

[Deleted]

felixm is the devil, right? I mean the literal Satan created by Jehovah to test the faith of his followers. If you don't like 16-bit RPGs, man, that's fine. Doesn't mean there aren't other people who enjoy them. Why even post in this thread if you already know you don't want to get the game? Were you not hugged enough as a child / hugged too much in the wrong way?

[Ike]

Jan 2, 2014 16:35:41 GMT -5 @felixm said:

Looks like yet another tiresome identikit JRPG of the kind that were a dime a dozen on the SNES and PS1. I don't know how the NeoGAF crowd can bring themselves to rev up their hype machines over this stuff time and time again. I'd pass even if I owned a 3DS.

Tim Rogers has said a lot of dumb shit, but he was dead on with his statement that the JRPG genre in its traditional Dragon Quest/Final Fantasy mold was only ever meant to be a placeholder for something better after technology improved. Games like these continue to ignore over twenty years of progress. And no, I'm not saying that every game should be a brown military/zombie shooter or Assassin's Creed, but when your hyped-up, commercially released 2013 game has gameplay no more advanced than a first-generation SNES title, there's a problem.

what you plebeian swine don't understand is that while your tastes in what amounts to navel-gazing jerkoff entertainment are frankly boorish, you see, I on the other hand have turned video gaming into something of a science, if you're familiar with that term, heh, which is to say that I have achieved a certain "level," (grunt) by which I and I alone am able to judge the worth of entire genres of video games, because, really, realistically speaking (truth to power here my friends) is that your button-pushing, controller-molesting exercise is simply not worth my valuable time, as it is not worth the time of any respectable man in this highly consequential and important world of video games, however though I understand that there is something of an underclass, a lower form of "gamer" if you will, of which you all are, and I, oh, blessed are you lot, I have come to educate you all with my opinions, which are at first to the untrained and benighted minds present here apparently devoid of substance, a deceptive non-opinion, but I must state, friends, poor pitiful friends with your malformed, bludgeoned intellects, that this very deceptively empty appearance is intentional, striking and profound, as a Zen koan, that I must repeat them in every thread in this intellectual wasteland of Hardcore Gaming 101's forums, and let it never be said, lo, that I have made a post here devoid of any kind of valuable contribution whatsoever.

yours,
felixm

[Weasel]

Maybe this thread should actually be about the game itself instead of being another podium for people to argue over whose tastes are shit.

[Ike]

I downloaded the demo and I'm honestly kind of turned off by the aesthetics of it, but I haven't spent a whole lot of time with it either. It's a little jarring how the demo just throws you in to the world.

[kaoru]

Hated 4 Heroes of Light, but really liked Dumb Titles Demo, so I'll probably get it eventually. You know, when it's not 45€ anymore. It honestly, and I'm of course only speaking from the limited experience with the Demo here, didn't even remind me at all of 4 Heroes, with it being louded as the spiritual succesor to (probably more for being by the same team, I guess), and more of FFV. Also liked the look a lot, but the models sure are clashing with the Machinarium-esque city.

[Jave]

I definitely see the connection to 4 Heroes, but whereas that game seemed happy to just upend conventions for the sake of upending conventions and throwing crazy ideas at the wall, Bravely Default (at least from the demo) feels like a more refined and restrained version, and is much more playable for it.

And yeah, the grafting-on of mechanics from FFV is pretty blatant… and I couldn't be happier about that.

[Super Orbus]

I really need to sit down and play 4 heroes, since the concept looked great, but seemed like the reception was pretty poor.