Bravely Default: Flying Fairy 3DS Demo Review 9/10

    I was up until 2:30am last night. Let me put this in perspective for you a little bit. I just went back to work from a much needed 10 day winter vacation on Thursday. During that “anything-goes” break, I did all the things that help me relax; read, write, record, exercise, and of course, play games. When taking out the nights that I was out on the town, the number of times that I stayed up past 1am during that break tallies up to a big fat whopping zero. In fact, I haven’t stayed up playing games that late in about 2 months. I’ve noticed this about myself and had decided that it was because I’ve become more responsible for my sleeping schedule and I’m just generally “growing up”. After playing the Bravely Default: Flying Fairy Demo, I’ve realized that I just haven’t had a game that I literally couldn’t put down in a while.

    I’ll start with what originally piqued my interest about this game; the art. As soon as I saw the first Nintendo Direct Trailer for BDFF, I knew it was a game I had to keep my eye on. Not only was it a turn-based RPG, but the graphics were lush with color and character. The graphics aren’t similiar to Ni No Kuni, but like that game, BDFF could win players over with it’s looks alone. Going into the demo, I felt I knew what I was getting into as far as graphics went, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. BDFF is a game that makes holding your 3DS at awkward angles 10 inches in front of your face worth it. The 3D implementation in this demo is seen throughout and it is indeed a treat I have not experienced anywhere else. That’s right folks! There are still unique experiences to be had in gaming. The cities come to life like pop-up storybooks. The clouds move along your screen as if you could reach into the 3DS and feel the water vapor. The battles take place on a proscenium stage where you’re sitting front row. After every flourish of the graphics, you can’t help but smile and give a standing ovation in your head.

(I could go on and on about the graphics but it’s better you just see it for yourself. Keep in mind that you won’t get the 3D experience from the trailer or screen shots. I want to stress that this game is one you have to see in 3D.)

    The battle system is introduced fairly fast in the demo. Having played many an RPG in my day, I had no problem jumping into it and running with two small daggers. But there were times when I didn’t know how a certain stat affected my choices. For example, it was never explained in the demo whether an A or S rank was better for weapon proficiency. From experience in other games and from visual cues, S seemed to be better. But when I asked the game to equip my characters automatically using optimum settings it would often pick a weapon with a proficiency of B or C etc.

    The actual battles are typical turn-based RPG gameplay a la games like Golden Sun where you select all your party actions first and then watch them play out against your opponents. The two things that make BDFF different from those games are the customization and the Brave/Default system.

    Customization in the game is a major hook because right at the beginning of the demo you have full control over what classes your party is going to consist of. They give you 8 classes to choose from and you can switch any of your character’s classes at anytime outside of battle. Having played many hours of Dragon Quest IX, I know how fun this can be when the game gives you creative freedom over what abilites you learn. Many games such as Final Fantasy Tactics have done this before and it looks like they’ve successfully incorporated it into this game. I’m particularly happy that I no longer have to stop what I’m doing and visit some random npc to change my class.

    The Brave/Default system is most interesting and must be very important judging by the fact that it’s in the title. Basically during battle, along with standard actions like “Attack” or “Items”, you also have “Brave” and “Default”. When you select Default, your character will defend during that turn and as a bonus, get an extra action stored for use in subsequent turns. When you select Brave that’s when you get to use that extra action. For example, if my character selects Default on his first turn, then on my second turn I have the option of attacking twice using Brave. It’s kind of complicated to explain, but I assure you it’s a welcome addition to the genre as I’ve seen nothing like it.

    I haven’t forgotten this is a demo review, although it would be easy to do so because the demo is presented so well. Playing demos for RPG’s has always been weird since the days of the PS1. Generally they would just throw you into the game about 30 minutes in when battles actually start taking place. I know I’ve even skipped RPG Demos because I didn’t want any of the story to be spoiled… ahem Mass Effect 2. But BDFF really pulls out the trump card by not giving you much story at all and even stating that the quests in the demo don’t appear in the full retail release. They also let you know that by playing the demo you will unlock gear and upgrades that will help you in the early parts of the full game. It generally only takes me a couple hours max playing the demo to know if I’ll be purchasing the game, but the BDFF Demo gives you reason to go beyond just that. I’ve clocked over 5 hours now and while I’m playing to have a headstart when the game comes out, I’m also having lots of fun. That’s important too.

    I could go on and on about this game. I wasn’t even able to touch on the music or the online character sharing or the robust streetpass feature that will have me leaving my 3DS on while traveling… please just listen to our podcast to find out more on those features. Simply put, the Bravely Default: Flying Fairy Demo has not only sold me the game, but if this was my first foray on a 3DS at a friends house or at a local game store, it would have sold me a 3DS.

    The Bravely Default: Flying Fairy Demo receives a much deserved 9/10. It’s one of the best demos I’ve ever played, and if it wasn’t for the confusion I had with the stats, the menus, and the small grinding that asks you to streetpass, it would have received a perfect score.

    I had already planned on purchasing this game, but it’s now going to get a pre-order. I’ll be getting the normal version but there is a collector’s edition that will probably be very limited so jump on that if you’re interested.

Bravely Default: Flying Fairy launches in the U.S. on February 7, 2014 for Nintendo 3DS at 39.99 for the Standard Edition and 54.99 for the Collector’s Edition.

/cheers

Derrick Bettis        Class:    Chiefly-Editor        Level:    99

Stats:

Hours played:               4

% spent with 3D on:    63%

3DS colour:                 Flame Red

.hack//FF>ME (Part 3)

    .hack is far from perfect but that’s where some of it’s charm comes from. To play a game that’s quite flawed but still draws you in is something that happens less and less nowadays. Many gamers choose what to spend their limited time playing based on reviews. Games that scored low or didn’t have enough money or time put into their marketing often slip through the cracks. It’s hard to say whether the .hack series had enough time or money, but there’s no doubt it was made with lots of love.

    When I first began writing about .hack I wanted to talk about how it was one of the first games to succeed with a multidisc story arc. Mass Effect is definitely the pinnacle of multidisc story arcs, but it certainly wasn’t the first.

If you own any of these, you're automatically a collector.

    Looking back, one of the many problems the .hack series faced was that each installment of the game played out more like an episode of a show. By the end of a .hack game, one of the reasons you wanted to play the next one so badly was because there was little conclusion. After finishing .hack Part 1 and Part 2, I didn’t feel as if anything was really resolved yet. I’ll compare it to an episode of Lost. Every episode of that show ended on a cliffhanger. I may be exaggerating there, but I think it’s understood what I’m trying to say. Hopefully by the end of Part 4, I’ll feel as if the .hack story wraps up.

Imagine watching Season 3 first. Now imagine playing Mutation first. Same thing.

    In Mass Effect, you never felt compelled to finish subsequent releases in order to complete the story arc. After finishing the original Mass Effect, I wanted to play Mass Effect 2 in order to get more out of the characters and the world. I didn’t need to play Mass Effect 2. The original Mass Effect story reached a rewarding conclusion. I’ve even heard that people playing the Mass Effect series out of order still enjoy it. People playing .hack for the first time that picked it up out of order would probably be disappointed. I imagine they might be taken aback by the mystery of the world, but certainly to enjoy it they would have to track down previous games and play them first.

I wish .hack would have a compilation.

    Rather than comparing the .hack series to Mass Effect, I think it’s more appropriate to compare it to the Final Fantasy games. Final Fantasy became one of the first multidisc story arc games. The difference being that you got all the discs at the same time. After finishing disc 1 of Final Fantasy VII you would certainly need to play the next 2 discs in order to reach any resolution. There was no conclusion before changing discs. Final Fantasy simply needed many discs because the game was too big for just one cd-rom.

I own this game on PSN. If only .hack was available there too.

    I don’t know if the .hack series released the way it did because of storage limitations, but it might have been a better game, and better received, if all the parts were originally released as one. If they couldn’t do that, it would have been nice if the separate games would have finished with stronger conclusions. As the series stands, sometimes it feels like they made the entire game, then just decided to ship parts of it every 6 months. Again, I don’t see anything wrong with this, but none of the games felt like seasons. They all felt like episodes. You absolutely needed the next installment to make sense of the first one and vice versa.

    I wanted to applaud .hack as being one of the first games that carries over saved data. I wanted to compare it to Mass Effect, but thematically, it just doesn’t compare. .hack is more comparable to a Final Fantasy game that chose to release and sell their games separately. It’s still a very rewarding experience, but certainly not an easy one to have.

    In the next article of this 4 part series I’ll be looking at the future of the franchise. Stay tuned for next Friday!

- lvl 99