Bravely Default

So I've not quite finished this game yet, I'm on the final battle but it's giving me some issues and I could be a while before I get the ending so I'm going to write a little bit about this game now.

Bravely Default is one of those games that I heard people talking a lot about back when it was first released but because of the 3DS region locking I was never able to actually play it.  Eventually, I got my mother to bring a EU copy with her when she came to visit me in Japan and I jumped right in.

The game follows the adventures of 4 characters who have to go around the world of Luxendarc and revive 4 elemental crystals.  On their adventures they have to fight an evil empire and as you defeat the generals you gain asterisks which allow you to change into their job.  That's the general plot of the game but each area for each crystal has its own arc that plays out so you aren't just jumping from dungeon to dungeon.

It's very easy to sum up Bravely Default's game play because it's just classic Final Fantasy.  It's SO classic Final Fantasy that it would have made more sense to call this game Final Fantasy 15 and call that game something like Men's Fashion Model Adventure or something.  Your party of 4 never change but as I mentioned before you have a job system with a pretty wide selection of things to choose from once you do the side quest to unlock it.

The combat is also pretty much classic Final Fantasy but the BP system does manage to go a good job of making things a little more interesting.  Each turn you are allowed to "Default" which is the games way of saying defend and doing this will raise your BP count by 1 and you can stock a max of 3.  Then on your next turn you can "Brave" which is where you expend a BP in order to make another action that turn.  So if you brave for one turn then the next turn you can make 2 attacks or you can use a skill that requires BP without having to wait for the count to go up back to zero from whatever minus figure you end up at.  Going negative BP means that the character can't act until his counter returns to 0 and you get 1 BP at the start of every turn.

The game also makes use of something called Sleep Points which build up as you close the lid on your 3DS.  Every 8 hours you are granted 1 sleep point for a max of 3 and these allow you to make a free attack at any point during combat.  Hitting start will freeze time and you can just do whatever the fuck you like.  If you have more than 1 SP you can even brave during the time freeze and really ruin someones day. 

There are also features using street pass where you can send people moves from your party for them to summon and use in combat.  Living it Japan is awesome for this because walking round town for a while means that I'm pretty likely of passing someone with the game and being sent some insane full power special attack for me to use at any time.  The game also has a feature where you build a town which grants you special items and the like to buy at save points.  Putting multiple villagers on a building project lowers the time it takes to build and you gain more villagers by street passing.  The town can also come under attack from optional bosses called Nemesis but they don't do any damage they just kind of fly there until you decide to take them on.  Not taking them on doesn't mess you up in any way.

*SPOILERS HERE*

As much as I love the game and find it hard to mention any real stand out problems with it, the method for getting the true ending is complete and utter bullshit. 

After you revive the 4 crystals things get fucked up and you end up in an alternate world where the crystals aren't revived.  So you have to revive them all over again but this time you can break them and breaking a crystals puts you on the path of the normal ending.  To get the true ending you have to revive them all like 4 or 5 fucking times and the whole thing gets pretty fucking tedious because nothing really changes except the bosses get ever so slightly stronger.

It's fucking bullshit busy work and I swear to god this true ending better be worth all that goddamn hassle.  It's a huge tarnish on an otherwise really good game.

*End Spoilers*

For RPG fans, Bravely Default is one of those must have games for your 3DS collection.  It's well polished, has a good length and apart from some dodgy English voice work there isn't a hell of a lot wrong with it.  Go play it, now, it's awesome.

Portable Embarassment

So recently I've been playing Bravely Default on my 3DS and I think it's an awesome game but the opening scene pissed me off pretty hard.

So the opening scene in an AR scene which I wasn't able to do properly because I didn't have the card to hand.  Just in case there's anyone who doesn't know what I mean by that, an AR movie is something that uses the DS camera to play the cut scene in the "real world" so to speak.  An AR card is something that the camera detects and produces the characters on screen but I didn't have it so one of the things in the scene didn't play.

What did play was a scene where one of the characters gets swallowed up by some hole and makes a plea for help to the player.  The only problem is, she doesn't stay still and because it's AR you need to move the system around in order to keep track of where she is.  Now, while this is actually pretty cool, keep in mind that the DS is a portable system and I was watching this scene on a train.  So of course I'm stood up in a train car looking like a complete dumbass moving my DS around trying to keep track of the girl on screen.

What made it worse is that when she eventually stopped moving around, my system ended up directly in some guys face so it almost looked like she was being swallowed by the void inside a Japanese salaryman. 

I don't understand why they have to put this shit into portable games.  It's embarrassing having to do this shit and the companies who make these systems KNOW they are designed to be played outside.  Especially in Japan where there's almost always at least one person with their DS on a train so why include shit like this?

Of course, I just look silly waving my 3DS around but there are certain features which could even be considered dangerous.  My friend tells me, that on the DS version of Rayman when you make a checkpoint, the system plays the camera shutter noise.  This is fine but it plays out of the speakers even if you are wearing headphones, which is a real embarrassing kick in the dick.  But let's say I'm playing this shit in a subway and someone gets the wrong idea.  There's a lot of shit that could potentially go down if some person across from me thinks I'm taking sneaky photos.

What I'm NOT saying is that having these features in a in a portable game should be completely erased, but make them fucking optional.  Give an option to turn off the camera sound, let me use the thumb stick to move the in game camera for the AR scene in bravely default or something, don't FORCE me to look like a dick. 

Phoenix Wright had the right idea with the whole screaming "OBJECTION" into the microphone.  Sure, the idea of doing that would be embarrassing in a public place but if that was the case you could just push a button instead.  Then, if you were in the comfort of your own home you could take full advantage of that games silly but highly enjoyable feature.

Also I don't want anyone telling me "uhh, but you can skip that cut scene in Bravely Default", because you can go fuck yourself.  I shouldn't have to deny myself content out of fear of looking stupid on a system DESIGNED TO BE PLAYED OUTSIDE.  Also since this is the internet I know there are people who think like "well only children play portable systems in public" to which you can go double fuck yourself because 1) that much insecurity in a hobby that is now this widely enjoyed is quite frankly pathetic and 2) I live in Japan where, as previously mentioned, no one gives a fuck and pretty much everyone does it anyway.