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I'm going to preface this by saying that my only turn based RPG experience prior to playing Bravely Default was the Pokemon series, Paper Mario series, Mario & Luigi series, South Park: The Stick of Truth, and Final Fantasy X and X-2. If the problems that I'm going to complain about are just endemic to classic JRPG design, then I apologize in advance.

I remember hearing all of the critical buzz for Bravely Default when it came out; I played the demo and really enjoyed it. Then I got the actual game and my opinion soured considerably. I hated the cast with Ringabel outright infuriating me, Anges and Tiz boring me to high hell, and much of the supporting cast coming off as creepy/perverted/annoying. I absolutely adored the combat system, but the dungeon design felt boring as sin, both mechanically and aesthetically, and every regular enemy encounter either went on too long costing an uncomfortable amount of magic/health/expensive ass restorative items if you don't have some specific class builds (should also mention I haven't play many class based RPGs prior), or ended with the enemies getting lucky crits which made me want to give up entirely.  I would like to mention that I gave up BEFORE the part that everyone says sucks (right after the fight with Braev, I just simply DID NOT feel like backtracking through the dungeon and then back through the overworld map to progress), so that certainly didn't fill me with enthusiasm to continue.

I would like to mention that I liked a lot of what the game has to offer. I also feel I should mention that I didn't hate it at first. It was a slow burn over several dozen hours. l absolutely adore the general combat system with the Brave and Default systems. The soundtrack's superb. I love the ability to set enemy encounter rates, even if you have to fight so often so as to stay properly leveled that it felt somewhat moot. I enjoy the general art and character design, even if the dungeon desperately left me wanting. The general plot itself and the world were interesting, but I disliked the characters too much to care all that much. I wanted to like the game so much, but I just couldn't bring myself to enjoy it.

So that brings me to now. I played and greatly enjoyed the demo to Octopath Traveler. It seems to be a rather similarly positive overall reception as Bravely Default. I like the art style and already love the combat system which admittedly seems to work rather similarly to BD. So for people who are playing this game, should I give it a look? I reeeeally don't want to get it and end up disliking it.

 

EDIT: I should stress that I am NOT saying that Bravely Default is a bad game. There's a major difference between a bad game and a game I don't like.

Last edited by Megaoverlord12 - on 16 July 2018

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