On February 7th, 2014 a new contender in the JRPG genre from Square-Enix entered the arena. Find out why you should play it!

Love them or hate them, Square-Enix has certainly created games in recent years that are either beloved or hated by current and past fans. Bravely Default should prove to please the full gamut of JRPG enthusiasts.

But why should you check out Bravely Default, the newest JRPG offering from Square-Enix on the 3DS?

Let's get right into it, shall we?

Why Don't You Get a Job?

To begin, let me address a common question. "Why Bravely Default? Flying Fairy? What? Why?"

There's quite a simple answer to this. The creators of this game desired it to be pretty much a Final Fantasy title without that actual name. Hence, FF was reassigned to stand for "Flying Fairy"(Yes, there's also a fairy). They want you to think of Final Fantasy. Even if Flying Fairy didn't quite make it into the Western title!

Now, why is this important? Simple! Job systems! Any fan of Final Fantasy V or even the Final Fantasy Tactics series will feel right at home with Bravely Default. There are numerous jobs to play as and cross-skill with both active skills and passive buffs earned by leveling each class. Jobs are unlocked throughout the story, and you will truly feel like you have earned each new job class for your characters.



While you will only start out with Freelancer, you will quickly grow and discover new jobs to be mastered. Many favorites from past Final Fantasy titles are available, along with some new ones. Mastery of both the job system and Brave/Default system will result in some very cool combos.

Bravely Default

Remember how I addressed the title earlier? Here's where that other part comes in! What you need to know is that in this game, turns are regarded as Battle Points or "BP" for short. Braving means you gain an extra turn, but begin to create a deficit of BP. If you Default, you essentially defend and gain a Battle Point. You can Brave numerous times if you are confident you can destroy your opponents in a single turn; however, if you are too cocky you may find the enemy destroying you as you cannot act for four turns without sufficient Battle Points.



People have assumed that always Braving should win everything; however there is another catch- boss fights are often a dance between Braving and Defaulting. You simply are unable to leave yourself vulnerable for four turns of uninterrupted boss damage. Just trust me on this one. It won't be pretty.

Recuit Warriors

A common question about this game is if there is multiplayer or not- to which I would definitely answer... yes and no! Consider it Spotpass and Streetpass boons to your gameplay experience. People you have Streetpassed with will be added to your reconstruction efforts in Norende as villagers(see below). Nintendo and Square-Enix have anticipated that Streetpass is not as popular in the West, so not to worry! Each day you can "Update" from the right-D-pad menu and receive four random Spotpasses. People found through Spotpass and Streetpass can also aid you in battle, and trade Nemeses to you(also below) in Norende village. Of course you can also send your own recorded battle move out(the game literally has the option to record what one character does in a turn of battle), and you can chain together your own special move to aid other adventurers in Bravely Default.



Another great feature is that if you have anyone on your 3DS friends list playing the game, you can register their Mii to one character, with a limit of one friend per character. This is wise to do, as they can increase job levels on whichever character they are linked to. The game does not mince words here- you need friends to use Abilink and there are no substitutes. Spotpasses and Streetpasses result in "Guests", so these will simply not work at all with this feature.

While there are no Vs. options in multiplayer, this is hardly a concern to me. The other types of buffs are very interesting, and making them more accessible to those who may not be in a bustling metro area via Spotpass is a great idea.

We Can Rebuild It

Shortly into the game, you will receive the mini-game of rebuilding a certain village within the world! This will prove to be a time-consuming and daunting task... but fear not! Your numbers of available villagers will grow via both Streetpass and Spotpass! You need villagers to upgrade stores, and also to clear obstacles to make more land available. Tasks range in times from minutes to hours... but the more villagers you assign to a rebuilding task, the quicker they will be completed... all in real time.



Why upgrade? This is the path in order to unlock numerous types of goodies such as skills, equipment, items, and more! Every time you upgrade new stock is made available. It certainly isn't as fleshed out as say... the fairy village from Breath of Fire III, but it is nothing to sneeze at and certainly a great addition to the game.

Nemeses your Streetpass and Spotpass hits send you will also end up in Norende village- you must fight these monsters with your own party. You can also send Nemeses to others just as they have to you by selecting a Nemesis and opting to trade it- the great thing is that it will not cause you to lose the Nemesis and the rewarded loot attached to defeating it!

Have Your Config Your Way

Despite all the other, more flashier features... configuration makes this game truly stand out. Three difficulty levels greet you on creating a new game- Easy, Normal, and Hard. This is only the beginning of customization. Pretty much everything can be catered to you using the job system obviously, but traveling even deeper you can manipulate certain game mechanics.



The most prevalent game mechanic you can change is the encounter rate. Don't want many encounters? Feel free to set that! Wanna grind and you're sick of running back and forth? Turn the encounter rate up! You can even turn random encounters completely off if you are backtracking for a treasure chest you missed, or otherwise. Additional options include the ability to turn EXP, currency, and Job Points on or off- as well as being able to change the overall difficulty level of the game at any time.

All this on top of being able to select your battle speed on the fly in battle by using the right and left D-pad buttons, and of course the standard language options(Japanese or English audio, and numerous written language options including Japanese).

Overall, this game has been absolutely one I am unable to put down for too long so far. I highly recommend you pick up this game! Print runs have been considered as patchy as the Fire Emblem: Awakening limited quantities last year, so now is the time to Brave and check out Bravely Default! Even so, on a budget you can certainly choose to default and buy on the eShop... the choice is yours, after all.