Bravely Default: Bravely is the new Fantasy

The recent reception of my Deluxe Edition of Bravely Second reminded me that I had yet to play the serie's first instalment, which I bought a good two years ago yet never touched. Classic story, shall we say; the same could be told about most of my game collection. But I digress; the important point here is that my gaming instinct commanded me to pick up Bravely Default and discover the series for myself at long last.

I would nearly be tempted to write "rediscover", because Bravely Default bears an uncanny resemblance to a game I played two years ago. More than a mere resemblance, in fact. For, lo and behold, Bravely Default is basically Final Fantasy I with revamped graphics, a slighty more fleshed-out story, an inflated job system and an avalanche of gameplay tweaks designed to erase all trace of old-school clunkiness. But I'm not fooled by all this flashiness, oh no precious: under the modern coating, this is old-fashioned Final Fantasy through and through. Here's a convenient list of all the similarities I've spotted so far:

• The design of the game world is similar to the one found in FFI, with a roamable world map full of areas that can be explored yet serve no purpose and empty dungeons devoid of puzzles.  
• Crystal-based narrative, Phoenix Downs and spells that have exactly the same names and effects as the ones encountered in FFI: the whole Final Fantasy grammar is there allright. 
• The job system is there too and shamelessly reprises some of FFI's jobs: Knight, Thief, Monk and the good old White/Black/Red Mage trio. 
• Last but not least, Bravely Default has a certain dryness to it, just like its venerable model. This is a game that's rather light on the narrative side yet offers millions of excellent reasons to grind senselessly. All things considered, it actually offers little more than metric tons of grinding. The story is not gripping enough to provide a reason to play the game and often consists in detours and meanderings that are only pretexts for more grinding. The sidequests only lead to the acquisitions of new Jobs, which then lead to even more grinding. And the rest... Well, the rest is just grinding, period.

Which is just so, so totally fine by me. I love heavily grindy RPGs as a rule and I have a taste for simple and straightforward gameplay styles: since Bravely Default fits both bills, I'm absolutely lapping it up. Gorging on it would probably be closer to the truth: I enthusiastically play it for hours on end, and I'm more likely to stop my daily session of play because my 3ds' battery is dying on me than because I'm bored of the game. And since I'm mentioning my daily sessions of play, let's expand a bit on my run, shall we?

I've played 17 hours so far and just started the Eisenberg arc. My party members' Jobs are pretty much fixed now, with Edea as a Knight, Tiz as a Monk, Agnès as a White Mage and Ringabel as a Black Mage; these Jobs fit them perfectly and they all perform really well in their respective roles. I've gotten 13 of the 24 Jobs available and I'm enjoying myself immensely with all the possible combinations of Job Commands and Support Abilities—so much so that I'm currently in the middle of a grinding marathon in order to raise every single Job to Lv.6 for all my party members. There's something curiously intoxicating in the though of directing a bunch of over-powered characters mastering every single competence offered by the game; that very though had been a driving force in my legendary solo run of Dragon Quest IX, compelling me to play beyond reason, and it is very much a driving force as well in my run of Bravely Default. Last but not least, I'm playing on Easy mode. That makes nearly all battles a piece of cake, and I'm regretting that a trifle; however, the Normal mode is just too, well... hard. It makes even the meanest random battle last forever, and it's simply unacceptable in such a grindy game. A difficulty rate halfway between Easy and Normal would have been pitch-perfect, but it's not available. Oh, well. Bravely Default is so deliciously player-friendly that I'm not complaining in earnest. Take the random encounter meter, for instance: isn't that the most perfect tool ever to grind senselessly? Crank it up to 100%, and voilà! Random battles every two steps for your convenience! So much more practical than the old random item that raises random encounter rate for a while only. And the flexible and customizable Job system is both really simple to grasp and incredibly fulfilling—more so than any Job system I've ever encountered in an RPG, including the one in DQIX. And let's not even talk about the adjustable speed in combat and the possibility to wrap up random battles neatly and quickly by spamming the Brave command and stacking up turns, which are absolute blessings that nearly made me tear up when I discovered them.

You get the idea now: I totally adore that game and I feast on it on a daily basis. It's old-school Final Fantasy brought to a new generation of players; and when I say that, I'm including myself in said new generation. I never had an attachment to the Final Fantasy series because I virtually missed all its entries, and playing them years—or decades—later cannot arouse the kind of genuine affection a gamer can feel for a series they've discovered and played from its inception. But with Bravely Default, I can finally have my own Final Fantasy: my own legendary series that sums up and encompasses the very essence of turn-based old-school RPG goodness. Here's to many more Bravely entries to come! Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!