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spitblaze · 18 days

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If they made an Octopath TV show or something, what order do you think they would go in? Personally, I think it would have to go Cyrus -> Therion at the very start, since Cyrus is the most likely to assist Therion with breaking into House Ravus, and if we started with Therion he'd probably never recruit anyone else

Y'know. It really depends I think

Like the easy obvious answer is that it goes in OCTOPATH order, Ophilia -> Cyrus -> Tressa etc. Cyrus -> Therion to start isn't a bad option either, but in my opinion idk if it'd matter if we started with Therion because I think people would join him whether he wants it or not. Oh you don't want Haanit to help?? Too bad. She's coming and so is her murder cat. You want Alfyn to fuck off??? Good fucking luck dude once he decides you're his friend he will never ever ever leave you alone

If I had to pick like...the ideal way to do it. I kinda like the...not quite non-linear? Idk what the word is but like...the fact that there isn't one singular main character the story focuses on at once would work differently in a non-interactive medium, right? Like- different characters are the focus of different episodes, maybe it takes time for everyone to meet everyone else, it still COULD go in OCTOPATH order but it could easily turn out something like how @fulgurbugs has her Duopath comic where two characters are following their specific plots where they are but the others are still very much there, but off doing things elsewhere. And maybe it switches around! Very much seems like it could be a golden opportunity to play around with perspective and tone and dynamics.

and for GODS SAKES have a few episodes where the plot doesnt necessarily advance but we get some good breathing room character studies. Watching 90s Trek makes me miss the days of tv shows that are not constantly making the journey from point A to point B and instead like to occasionally meander and explore things. lets get an episode in the frostlands where everyone's snowed in. let's have some comic relief/character driven episodes where Tressa is doing some ferengi merchant nonsense. Have Therion go through some stuff to build trust with the team so we can like see it happening instead of just filling in the blanks in our minds (as fun as that can be)

#spitblaze says things #also make prim's c1 and outfit less orientalist. thx #and give tressa's journey a satisfying resolution lol #octopath

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calidrisminuta · 11 months

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Just popping back to say...

Just popping back to say that...

I have *finally* found a tag that works for CotC fics on AO3! Previously everything was showing up under the regular Octopath tag.

https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Octopath%20Traveler:%20CotC

Now I can *finally* stop cluttering up the regular Octopath tag with my nonsense! As yet, it's not a common tag and can't be filtered, but it's there. I'll eventually go back and just have the new tag on my works. You have no idea how relieved I am about this.

So... yeah. From now on, any and all of my new fics (once I write them) will have the new tag added. The old ones have all been changed.

*pops back out again*

#octopath traveler cotc #Octopath CotC #octopath traveler #writer problems #fanfic #fanfiction

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nijohirjesyho · 10 months

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Proposed Live a Live crossover for FFXIV

It’s probably not gonna happen but hey, they crossed over with Octopath Traveler’s Gatcha game so that’s cool. SE if you see this you can buy the idea off me for 20 bucks, I want this so badly. Also, spoilers for Live a Live, I don’t care if the game’s 30 next year, the remake’s almost exactly a year old. But since Oersted’s on the cover and in the trailers, his existence is no longer being treated as a spoiler.

[Typical Random Roulette let’s be honest]

I’m torn between the requirement being The Black Wolf's Ultimatum/the end of ARR or being set post ShB. But the basic concept stays the same, just depends on if we roast G’raha for his habit of cross the rift gatcha rolls.

The WoL gets a quest of something weird happening in the shroud, typical event quest nonsense. They go to investigate and lo, 5 weirdos.

Their hostile at first until the Yugioh Protagonist Reject goes “Wait, they just thought of themselves as the Warrior of Light, they might know something, don’t stab them.”

A ninja decloaks behind you.

So they introduce themselves, as Akira, Oboromaru, Masaru, Lei (I’m picking her because she’s popular of the Shifu’s three students and to have a girl in here), The Sundown Kid (The Kid’s fine), and the little robot is Cube.

Yes he’s round. Don’t worry about that.

They pause, count, and realize one of them is missing, so first task is go find Pogo.

Fortunately, it is not hard to find the caveman that’s dancing around excitedly, having found a boar. Which your party now has to deal with.

The WoL fights it, I think, so the others can go “cool, you do know how to fight” and also “this is Pogo. We think that’s his name. He responds to at least.”

Akira, who’s psychic btw: “Listen, the dude thinks in shapes, that’s what I’ve got. He doesn’t do words.”

Now that they’ve got him, they explain that something like this has happened to them before, and they’re pretty sure they just need to find a “Lord of Dark” and defeat him, and they can all go home.

Possibly a debate here about an unnamed ‘him’ that they’re unsure if they need to look before resuming that they’re happy to have the WoL along for help.

At this point you would be able to bring up Zodiark, (possibly special dialogue if after EW) and they all agree that while that sounds bad that doesn’t sound like who they’re looking for.

“Lord of Dark? Name probably starts with an O and gonna be a reoccuring pain?”

The WoL: Odin maybe?

They decide that the Odi in Odin and the title “the Dark Divinity” is a pretty solid lead, and ask you to help them find him and beat him up so they can all go home.

Like the FFXV crossover, you’d get to hang out with them a bit and chat, but it would probably be twice, either the group broken in half so you have a smaller group to chat with, or you pick two characters to talk to.

(If you pick Cube you two just vibe in silence, before Cube offers you a warm drink)

If chosen, they all (Pogo and Cube excluded) talk a bit about where their from and evil they’ve faced before, and give the WoL some advice and encouragement.

That over with, they queue in unsynced since they don’t have a healer, they’re like four DPS, two tanks, and whatever Cube is. (Baby and the one with an AoE heal).

So the eight of you fight Odin, and yeah, he’s not his normal self, something’s definitely warped him to be more like the seven of them remember, but you’re bringing him down, until it hits the DPS check that Odin always has.

This is a scripted loss, in that the other 7 get knocked on their asses, while the WoL is still up, but so is Odin.

When a new voice calls out “gods damn you!” and jumps in. The final hero, and the only one who looks like he fits the current setting, Oersted.

(I have mentally written dialogue for this btw, I’m just skipping a lot of it so as to avoid making this post longer. I’d say avoid subjecting you to my brain rot but you’re getting it already.)

WoL and Oersted go for it, and Oersted is definitely wrecking shop. His dmg output is insane. [Not because he’s my blorbo and poor little meowmeow but because that’s a reflection of the game, his stats are NUTS compared to the others]

Odin gets defeated, duty complete, huzzah.

The heroes get up, check each other over, chat a bit, before Akira probably goes “alright, I know this one [WoL] doesn’t talk much, but we all know you can.”

Oersted: “What a terrible thing, so filled with malice, and with hate. How far it must have reached to find this seed, to water it thus.”

I am bad at iambic pentameter but he definitely speaks in it, adjust accordingly.

Anyway, they all seem a bit wary of Oersted but he thanks you for the chance to fight beside a companion again, and to be cautious of letting hate fester in you, and to be sure to nourish love and hope instead.

They all take their leave, quest ended, you’ve spent time with them, defeated the bad guy yay! (Replay the quest to hang out with different NPCs the true LaL experience)

Quest rewards: Cube Minion, Megalomania Orchestrion (YES I SPELLED THAT RIGHT IT’S MANIA NOT VANIA THIS TIME), and limited time glamours in the Gold Saucer such as Sundown’s Poncho and Hat (not visible on Hrothgar and Viera)

Please look forward to it (never happenng)

#Thank you for support my terminal LaL brain rot

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starghost-fics · 2 years

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maybe i'll post about every chapter, because I sense that sometimes I'll have More To Say, and also it's an excuse to re-read my own work. yes, i like to re-read my fanfic, if I wasn't writing indulgent nonsense close to my heart I'd get out of the business immediately!!!

chapter summaryish: if chapter one introduced the idea of Therion falling asleep on Cyrus, and everyone being very sweet cinnamon rolls around him, then chapter two is definitely time to introduce trauma, nightmares, and sleepless nights!

actually I'm now noticing how this chapter has Therion finding a little bit of peace in his journey (just a smidge, like "oh wait these nerds are my friends??? that's nice i guess") while Cyrus has terrible things happen. up and down. I wonder if I did that on purpose.

Therion passes through the window without the slightest creak of wood. He pulls his hood down, and sits on his bed to take off his boots, while Cyrus acts like he wasn't staring into the darkness, picturing the body hanging from the cellar wall, or every drop of blood, or the color of those blood crystals.

"Can't sleep?" Therion says.

"Preoccupied," Cyrus says, putting the candle back on the windowsill, then sinking onto his bed.

"A scene like that'll haunt you," Therion says evenly.

"Will it keep you up?"

As he removes his cloak, Therion disappears behind it for a moment. He drapes it over the end of his bed. "No," Therion says. "Plenty of other things already do that job."

#octopath traveler #cyrus albright #therion #ao3 #fanfic #self promo #fanfic commentary #literal sleeping together #ophilia and alfyn are also there

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bad0mens · 9 months

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Things about Octopath Traveler 2 that I think about A LOT (1/?):

If the game were more self aware, the sort of damage that you could do to the player who chose to abuse Hikari's Shadows Hold Latent ability.

Even early on, the game is pretty clear that the Shadows Hold is not fun for Hikari. He cries out in pain, and clutches his head. It's not a good time. I got the very distinct feeling that I shouldn't be using it much because of potential negative effects. Now, did I honestly think that it was something the game would hold against me for using? No. Not at all. That's way beyond OT2 depth where there is a ton of narrative dissonance for all sorts of reasons, but mostly for player convenience.

But what if the game punished you for using Shadows Hold too much and you not even being able to realize it until it's too late?

Ways in which the game could do that/how I see it playing out if you do, given a set amount of uses that the player is not told about/is randomly determined:

Hikari gains a chance to enter a berserk/confused state, starting low for the player only using it a few times willynilly (ie, about 10%) and ramping up as the player uses it more and more frequently (up to I'd say 75%).

There's a chance that Hikari no longer heals when staying at inns, implying that he's not getting proper rest, devolving into holy magic starting to hurt him.

During his Shadows Hold state, other party members get a set chance (25% or so) of gaining the Terror status effect.

A slow degradation of his sprite, with his skin growing ashen, eyes occassionally showing as red instead of dark brown/black.

Being unable to remove him from the party (if you did not select him as your starting character)/getting weird error glitches like with Castti's memories.

While berserked, he gets the Vengeful Blade counter ability, but uses it on friend and foe alike.

Once a certain threshold is reached, if he gets too close to npcs as head of the party, he auto challenges them.

And if the player just keeps it up through everything telling them to stop, you get a secret boss fight against a corrupted Hikari, who morphs into a sort of mirror of his fight versus Mugen, twisted limbs and multiple weapons, dripping with shadows and just a horrible little text box that says [Your voices cannot reach Hikari now].

LIKE the potential to do some REALLY messed up and wicked things with that. And really with the other travelers' latent abilities too. But Hikari being as close to the darkness as he is, is one I feel the easiest to sort of speculate on.

#octopath traveler 2 #hikari ku #octopath nonsense #bad0mens speculates on a game that's deep but NOT THAT DEEP

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dois-funnyzone · 2 months

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sorry folks more ‘gushing about octopath’ posting

something i really like about octopath (both mainline entries) is how it’s very ‘work smarter not harder’ when it comes to overcoming challenges, particularly its boss fights (which are imo the best parts of the whole experience). you’re encouraged to learn from your mistakes and rethink your approach rather than just be put to work grinding your party. it helps that octopath is one of those games that actually lets you debuff big bosses and inflict basic status effects like poison on them (those can really tip the scales and you should absolutely do them!).

imo there’s absolutely no point in the main traveler stories where you have to grind for a fight (grinding to be a high enough level to do certain path actions to progress the story is a different case). in fact i think the ‘recommended level’ that’s attached to each story chapter is complete nonsense that can be mostly ignored.

i’ve had a sneaking suspicion that those levels are intentionally inflated in order to give players who rush in way below that threshold that sweet underdog glory when they beat a challenge the game advised they were too low level for. that’s another part about octopath that i like so much. you can (and should) barrel into the next story chapter with your party members (sans your exp hogging leader) 5-8 levels below the recommended to both not waste your time on grinding and also to challenge yourself and your battle strategies just a little more. spice of life, baby!!

so it always disappoints me whenever i see people (namely on reddit when i scrolled there when the first octopath was all that there was) despair over not being a high enough level or thinking they need to grind to meet these recommended levels that are a huge jump from how their team currently is. no!!! stop!!!! you don’t need to grind stop!!

(maybe you need to grind for Three bosses in the endgame. but before then you definitely don’t need to)

#mayor talk #i could be completely mistaken tho and octopath might just be an easy ass game. i’ve been suspecting that as i cut through my 2nd run #maybe i’m insane but tbh in my second playthrough i did not buy a single weapon after the first towns #in each region. all of my weapons were from chests or stolen [throne is my pookie 🥰]#or piece of armor for that matter. i always felt like we were broke + i was meaning to save up to buy the boat for partitio #idk if this added any challenge to the experience but i’m gonna pretend that it did. cuz again octopath is all about feeling like the #little underdog just trying to make it through this scary scary world

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unproductive-software-blog · 5 months

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every game I played in 2023 in chronological order:

1. Persons 5 Strikers: see post

2. Octopath Traveler: played for 1hr11mins after trading my copy of Pokémon Scarlet for it with a friend. The dialogue is too unrealistic, long-winded, and expository. 1/10

3. Alundra: great writing, but not enough to stand out from 2D Zelda. I also don't care for how sepiatone the visuals look. 7/10

4. Wide Ocean Big Jacket: nice game. Could be a blueprint for something really special in the future. 8/10

5. 20 Minutes 'Til Dawn: wow, a run-based game that's actually skill-based. Super addictive, looks awesome, doesn't waste your time, works great on phone. 7/10

6. Vampire Survivors: boring game with uncomfortable controls and bad graphics. Someone was bound to come up with this idea, so I think this game gets too much credit because it was almost immediately bested by its copycats. 5/10

7. Into the Breach: a puzzle game skinned as a tactics game. Too restrictive for my tastes. nothing to it. weirdly good ost. 2/10

8. Oneshot: see post

9. Pokémon Unbound: ROM hack that delivers on everything we want but don't get from Pokémon, but the heart is missing. 4/10

10. Mega Man X: fun game, great ending, worst guitar samples on SNES (sounds like a car commercial), and plays more like an NES game than Mega Man 6 on the NES. 4/10

11. The Dark Spire: one of the best soundtracks on DS, great aesthetic all around, interesting turn-based battle system with many different ways to execute a normal attack (fast, accurate, strong, etc.) and it leaves a lot up to you to discover through play. drops off after not to long when it becomes clear the story wasn't really going anywhere, and the dark aesthetic is just an aesthetic. 4/10

12. Pokémon Sapphire as Nuzlocked: pretty tough!

13. Final Fantasy III (NES): excellent pace that never requires grinding until the very end, which pits you against a dungeon the length of nearly a third of the game length to complete normally. i save-stated the hell out of it, and it still wasn't worth it. maybe play the pixel remaster and just up the speed or lower the difficulty or something at that part, because there are actually some very beautiful moments, and it's definitely, up until that point, the best RPG on the NES that I've played. 3/10

14. Elden Ring: this game makes me feel like the sane man in an insane world. everyone says it's the best game ever, BUT NONE OF THOSE PEOPLE HAVE BEATEN THE GAME. what a padded and directionless game. also does not provide anything of value in the story/themes department that hasn't already been beaten to death by the developer in their previous titles. Dark Souls 2 does everything this game tries to much much better. 2/10

15. The Legend of Zelda: I played this to see if open world fantasy action adventure games were ever even any good. this is honestly, basically just Elden Ring on the NES. 2/10

16. Sonic Advance: hits hard and fast. gotta save those animals. my dad says sonic runs fast and goes through unnecessary loops and stuff to build kids' confidence. 6/10

17. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: ok so TOLZ isn't as good as I remembered, was its sequel any good? no! this is still an interesting game with absolutely garbage soulslike combat. 1/10

18. Dragon Warrior II: I keep trying to play through this and either dropping it for a different version or losing my save data. it's another early open-world game. i like the way the world is like one big puzzle for you to solve, but they SERIOUSLY don't provide enough hints, like hiding a necessary item on an unmarked tile of the overworld, surrounded by identical tiles. gets points for good npcs. Yuji Hori is clearly a man who gives a shit about stuff that matters. 3/10

19. Master Chu & the Drunkard Hu: another NES game for my commute. They give you infinite continues unless you lose to the final series of bosses, which they don't tell you. feels like a little life lesson to get used to it, then have it suddenly taken away. kind of a nonsense game otherwise. 1/10

20. Sonic Advance 2: even as a kid with the manual i didn't know how to do the aerial moves, and i didn't know about them this time until I finally looked it up because i kept dying on the parts where you need them. actually made it kind of far by being a little creative. the game really doesn't teach you about them. once you learn them though, oh man. i played through the whole game again because it's so much fun to use them. this is basically strictly better than the first sonic advance. AND IT HAS CREAM THE RABBIT, who is my favorite of the sonic crew. BRING BACK CREAM! 7/10

21. Omori: see video, 10/10

22. Pokémon Scarlet: see video and post, 4/10

23. Etrian Odyssey III HD: see post, EO3 has some kind of sloppy political metaphors dealing with racism and colonialism, but as someone who knows the other games in the series, which are more straightforward, I do think their head was in the right place here. excellent class system and world. the two benefit eachother a LOT. the rpg classes actually reflect class in a really unique and interesting way (examples: sovereign, farmer, knight, privateer, academic, indigenous person [these are not all the exact names used in-game]). I sat down irl and did lots of math on paper trying to come up with a fun yet powerful party. so addictive and enthralling. a massive adventure that I immediately started on NG+ to see the secret ending. 7/10

24. Pokémon White 2: tbh, still a game that didn't really need to exist. I think plasma in this game is a metaphor for old fans still clinging to the Pokémon series' past. Colress goes on Smogon. IRIS is the hero because she's just a kid who loves pokemon. 5/10

25. Sin and Punishment: crazy ambitious for its time. its influence can be felt today in games like Final Fantasy 7 Remake, which flow seemlessly between action and cutscene. what relentless pace. kind of awkward controls and an outright outdated continue system. would be strictly outclassed by Star Successor were it not for the love story and cutscenes in general, which have a really cool evangelion kind of feel to them. 7/10

26. A Short Hike: recommended to everyone. so easy to pick up and enjoy. real nice ending. 8/10

27. Drx Mario 64: actually very underrated: has a cute fun little story mode with really unique pop-up book presentation. 7/10

28. Puyo Puyo Tetris 2: excellent writing that utterly kicks Drx Mario's ass. WOW. kept playing all the way through the horrible ending just to see the story. this game was a portal into a whole world of compile that i never knew about before, and man, this is like their smash bros. there is so much crazy lore going on in this game, and they are so flippant about ALL OF IT, it's hilarious and cool. Satan is a character in this game. HE JOINS YOUR PARTY. CW, there is a chapter in which you play as one member of the party as they sexually harass another member of the party!! So yeah, I don't love the big themes in this game, but it's just so surprising and very modern. also gets way too hard towards the end. 5/10

29. Celeste: stressful game with stupid frustrating characters. I related more to Badeline than Madeline. seriously Madeline would be so dead were it not for infinite lives. also the way characters squish when they move is nauseating. Absolutely loved the ending when you make peace with your darkside and can practically fly around the game. I wish the whole game played that way instead. 5/10

30. Etrian Odyssey II HD: EO2 is honestly just not that great. it's way too basic. it's strictly outclassed by EO2 Untold, which is fun for the sheer amount of customization options, and the cozy vibes. 4/10

31. Pokémon Leafgreen: this game introduced me to the concept of a remake. as a remake it's pretty good. it plays it very safe, but adds a whole new area to the postgame which is the best content in the game by far. they really did improve after gen 1, and it shows, especially in the writing department. I experimented with a new nuzlocke technique in which I don't count deaths as a result of crossing the street and not looking at the game, allow myself to fight bosses underleveled without counting it as a game over if i lose, and sacrifice a new pokemon of the same family to revive an older one. it cut down on grinding significantly, while still pushing me to stragize and try new monsters. 4/10

32. Final Fantasy VII REMAKE: the most AAA game ever. so glad a developer made a AAA game that focuses on quality over quantity. it made me feel the way i always hope a AAA game will, like I'm actually happy people worked so hard to create this human achievement. even if the game is still padded, it's always got a great flow and almost never gets boring or aimless. also, the team clearly really loves FF7, and for every major scene they didn't quite nail, there is tons of interstitial dialogue, and new scenes that expand on the characters, world, story, and themes in a way that almost always feels right. I do think the ghosts are stupid. please do not add random ghosts into the background of cloud and aerith's first meeting, it kind of kills the vibe. 8/10

33. Fire Emblem (GBA): Wow. Talk about a game that has earned its reputation. The game is very high in the kind of last-minute surprise reinforcement/ critical hit bullshit that I hate about this series most, but the story is so incredibly wholesome and pairs excellently with the crazy violent animations. They clash so severely in a way that really emphasizes how ahead of their time the heroes are. They want to be perfect, peacemongering leaders in a world filled with hate and oppression on every level. Deals with race, class and sexism in a way later games have probably done better, but was very surprising and very E-rated in a way that was extremely direct, which is how I prefer games to tackle those themes (basically succeeding where EO3 fails, even if it is overly-simplistic in comparison). Might be my favorite of the series if not for the cheap way they ramp up difficulty. Also, the music is totally forgettable. The scene in which you recruit Nino pairs excellently with Yuzo Koshiro's The Poets I from Streets of Rage 3. 7/10

youtube

^ 0:11 - 0:52

#goty 2023

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triggerhappy938 · 9 months

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Sometimes my brain makes up hot nonsense

Screen: Octopath Traveller My brain: oh it's the OCTOPOD IDITAROD. Looks at shelf, sees my old PS Vita My Brain: (Nappa voice) PLAYSTATION VEGETA!

Me: brain pls stop

#Octopath Traveler #Playstation Vita

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pyromancerofaronons · 1 year

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Octopath 2 is so much better than the first game on the grounds the final boss isn't absolute disgusting nonsense like the first one.

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myreia · 5 months

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Sometimes it makes me laugh how easy it is to convince me to check out a game. Forget game mechanics, story and aesthetics, does it have a good soundtrack?

That is the only thing I need to know.

#i picked up octopath traveller because of the ost #got into supergiant games' games because of the music #youtube music started autoplaying death's door this morning and now i am so tempted to get it after i finish octopath 2 #personal nonsense

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bmaxwell · 2 years

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Bravely Default II

I miss Final Fantasy Tactics.

I mean, I still have it. But I miss it. The part of the game that hasn’t really been done in other games is the job system. FFT let you change job classes for your characters from among ~20 choices. Each class has access to various unique skills and passive abilities, and you have the ability to sort of “roll your own” by choosing a primary class, secondary class, and any passives you have learned. You could make incredibly overpowered characters, or interesting, weak carnival freak show characters.

Other games have done this to varying degrees of success, but a key part of the quality of FFT is that each class had its own distinct look and feel. Some games give you freedom to change classes, but they all look and feel kind of samey.*

Enter Bravely Default II.

First off, the name is that special brand of JRPG nonsense that I love and hate. Bravely Default. Triangle Strategy. Octopath Traveler. Various Daylife. Never change, Square Enix. I never played the original game as it was on the Nintendo DS around the time I was less into videogames. Bravely Second came out a few years later, also on the DS and I likewise missed it. The right combination of store credit, disposable income, and bad judgment led me to pickup the third game in the series: Bravely Default II. And it didn’t do much for me. I decided to trade it in while the trading was good, and reacquired it ~a year later when the price came down.

This time I got hooked on it. I dislike the chibi style of the characters, but that grew on me over time. The story is serviceable and weird, nothing too out of the ordinary for a JRPG. There’s a big evil bad and we have to go collect/visit/defeat X MacGuffins to defeat it.

A game, for me, can be carried by its systems. And this is where Bravely Default II shines. It starts with the old-ass turn-based combat I have loved since the NES Dragon Warrior days. The requisite twist on the formula is the Brave/Default system. One of the options in battle is called Default; this is a guard-like action that reduces incoming damage and also earns you one Brave point. You can spend a Brave point to take an additional action on your turn, and you can do this up to three times in a turn.

You can also go into debt this way, starting a turn with 0 Brave points and spending up to 3 - this means you’ll get up to 3 additional actions, but you’ll also miss the same number of turns. The enemies have the same brave/default combat system the player uses. This gives combats a push-your-luck element where you are going into hock, gambling on a big swing. The game’s boss battles typically ranged from 15 minutes to an hour for me, and they were almost always tense affairs. Plenty of “Okay, my healer HAS to take 4 actions now to keep everyone alive, and we’ll just have to do without his services for a few turns. My Vanguard can use her ultimate next turn and that will buy us some time.”

Each job class has its own Ultimate action too, which are charged by doing basic attacks, or by doing whatever that job specializes in. These ultimates can turn the tide of a battle, and I built my team around these abilities as much as anything.

The other standout part of the game is the job system. There are 24 job classes in the game including a couple of optional ones. Every class has a very distinct look and feel. Finding synergies between all of these job classes and their ultimates among a party of four characters was a blast for me. It gave me the old mad scientist feeling I used to get from building weird decks in my Magic the Gathering years. I really love finding a thing that appears useless, then figuring out how get value from it. Sure, I can use the Ranger, Vanguard, or Black Mage job just fine - but what about the Gambler, Pictomancer, or Arcanist? Each job has its own distinct look, and that look changes for each of the four party members.

The game’s goofy, aw-shucks charm grew on me, and I found myself invested in the story and characters by the time it was over. I loved my time with Bravely Default II. Looking forward the 4th game in the series: presumably Bravely Default III whenever it comes around.

*Looking at you, Fire Emblem Three Houses

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