Bravely Second, Part Two
Aug. 8th, 2016 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rynlingIt took 85 hours, but I completed Bravely Second. I made it through the postgame content, and I saw the face of the Adventurer (the woman who saves your game). It was so worth it.
In the closing scenes, four love stories are resolved, but I didn't feel satisfied with any of them. There was no tension, no slow burn, no dramatic revelation, and no physical chemistry. When multiple characters suddenly got up and said "Let's get married," I was like, "...okay?"
I think Bravely Second really missed a chance with Denys (the villain for most of the game) and Agnès (the vestal virgin he kidnaps). The revelation that Denys is Not Actually Evil - and this is not a spoiler; he's too much of a bishōnen to be evil - makes sense as far as anime tropes are concerned, but it also comes out of nowhere. In my mind, Denys clearly crossed over the Moral Event Horizon in several major ways, so Agnès asking everyone to forgive him when the Bigger Bad appears is bizarre. If Denys and Agnès had talked to each other (even once!) it would have added richness and complexity to the story, not only fleshing out both of their characters but also endowing the romance between Agnès and Tiz (one of the floopy-haired moppets in your party) with a much-needed element of conflict.
The true star of Bravely Second is Edea, the bratty princess from Bravely Default who goes from being a general at the beginning of the game to becoming an empress by its end. Edea makes all of the branching-path decisions (such as they are), which are slowly set up as a way to train her to think about moral conflicts. Although she initially approaches these decisions with a nonchalant attitude, she gradually manages to achieve a video-game version of wisdom and maturity. Because of this, tacking a random eleventh-hour love story onto her growth as a character felt especially insulting.
In the end, I guess, the point of this game isn't the story, it's figuring out how to exploit the battle system for fun and profit. Although it was possible to set up your party in Bravely Default so that they could infinitely spam powerful attacks while taking no damage, it's much easier to do this in Bravely Second. The game has a strong focus on grinding, and I suppose I could have gotten every character to the maximum level of every job class if I put in another two or three hours, but I already finished all the tv shows I watched while the autobattle was doing its thing, so I think I'm done.
In the closing scenes, four love stories are resolved, but I didn't feel satisfied with any of them. There was no tension, no slow burn, no dramatic revelation, and no physical chemistry. When multiple characters suddenly got up and said "Let's get married," I was like, "...okay?"
I think Bravely Second really missed a chance with Denys (the villain for most of the game) and Agnès (the vestal virgin he kidnaps). The revelation that Denys is Not Actually Evil - and this is not a spoiler; he's too much of a bishōnen to be evil - makes sense as far as anime tropes are concerned, but it also comes out of nowhere. In my mind, Denys clearly crossed over the Moral Event Horizon in several major ways, so Agnès asking everyone to forgive him when the Bigger Bad appears is bizarre. If Denys and Agnès had talked to each other (even once!) it would have added richness and complexity to the story, not only fleshing out both of their characters but also endowing the romance between Agnès and Tiz (one of the floopy-haired moppets in your party) with a much-needed element of conflict.
The true star of Bravely Second is Edea, the bratty princess from Bravely Default who goes from being a general at the beginning of the game to becoming an empress by its end. Edea makes all of the branching-path decisions (such as they are), which are slowly set up as a way to train her to think about moral conflicts. Although she initially approaches these decisions with a nonchalant attitude, she gradually manages to achieve a video-game version of wisdom and maturity. Because of this, tacking a random eleventh-hour love story onto her growth as a character felt especially insulting.
In the end, I guess, the point of this game isn't the story, it's figuring out how to exploit the battle system for fun and profit. Although it was possible to set up your party in Bravely Default so that they could infinitely spam powerful attacks while taking no damage, it's much easier to do this in Bravely Second. The game has a strong focus on grinding, and I suppose I could have gotten every character to the maximum level of every job class if I put in another two or three hours, but I already finished all the tv shows I watched while the autobattle was doing its thing, so I think I'm done.
