I'm sure you all remember that a while ago, I went and played the Bravely Default demo and complete it in a blazing fury of bored college students hopped up on sugar. I commented on how it feels like a Final Fantasy game (and technically, it's a part of it: It was supposed to be an indirect sequel to Heroes of Light! ...Which I haven't played.), what with the job system and all. It also has the benefit of not having encounters every goddamn step you take. The Brave and Default system (in a nutshell, Defend more = more points to do actions with) works smoothly and makes you think about how to spend your actions. Do you Default? Do you Brave(spend an additional action point) and try to take care of two things at once? There's a little more strategy involved than "get element/powerful weapon, whoop everything in one fell swoop", which I am grateful for. Honestly.
With the official game out, though, I can now go ahead and say holy shit, did Square get a brain for just a moment and make workarounds for the common pitfalls of RPGs? Seriously, wow!
For one thing, when you're stuck in a tough spot, there's essentially an entire journal there to use as hint guide and everything, so you don't have to always run to an FAQ whenever you get stuck: its right there in the game! Weapon info, story progressing info, tutorials, monster info? Long as you've seen it, its just right there! Its perfect for people who like comparing things. That and being OCD and going on a weapon collect-a-thon. Because haw.
Another important thing that many RPG players will probably fucking scream about: Encounter rates!
Alright, let it out. You hated random encounters. You could go a long time without encounters or every single damn step involved a battle with a mob of angry monsters, eager to taste human flesh. Its just irksome, even though the battles are beneficial in getting EXP. Sometimes you just want to fucking get to town, but noooo, these crazy horses are coming in fours and oh look, they crushed my white mage's skull in and Inns don't revive people. And I don't have phoenix down. OhohohohoAHAHHAHA-
Ahem. No, I'm not bitter, not at all.
So, what did Square do to fix this?
They allow the player to adjust the encounter rates. They can raise it in case they don't feel confident enough to take on a hard boss and want to go on a grindfest, or lower it in case they just want to zoom back to town for equipment and healing. You can either double it or lower it to nil, so its essential if you don't want to absolutely go nuts like any RPG player has in the past.
Now, job classes! Job Classes are the same as in FFIII or FFV, with a few key differences:
1. You have to fight the job (or asterisks, in this case. Why do they call em that? Eh.) in order to get the job. It gives you a nice preview in what kind of damage you'll be dealing and what kind of skills you're gonna get, along with learning your own class's weaknesses. This is pretty fantastic, although a certain source (*coughstevencough* ) told me that some of the job class fights are pretty damn challenging. (That may or may not be his words exactly. :U )
2. You can equip support skills! As in, more than one of them! That's grrrrrreaaat! Because who wouldn't want a Monk that could dodge an attack and get a buff, then counter attack like a truck going at 200 MPH. A very angry, sentient truck.
3. black mage looks neat- wait that's not a key difference shit
Aside from that, there's still the standard stuff that comes with an RPG, aside from being able to summon friends who are farther than you and possibly destroying some boss, building up a village to get better equipment, having a little fairy to give you additional information in case you jump back into the game 20 years later, special moves with certain requirements to pull off (you can chain them! And also it gives your party a buff! Yiss.), yadda...
And best of all...
MRGRGRRRRR
"Wait what the fuck did you just spew out of your mouth"
Oh, you'll see if you get a chance to play the official game. Next time: I'm actually gonna do a stupid story about a game and characters and hrng
so basically next episode: Tiz the Sheep Wrassler and Agnes the burny burny witch
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