If you couldn't tell from my last few articles, I've been mildly obsessed with the video game "Bravely Second." Over the past two or so weeks I've put 22 hours into the game, and it has been almost everything I've expected. Like every good sequel, it both captures what I loved about the first game(customization ahoy!), and put some novel twists on the formula. Some ... very novel twists on the formula. Here are some of the most unexpected features I've encountered so far in this game(mild spoilers for the first chapter or so).
1. One female lead is from the Moon.
This is Magnolia Arch, the love interest of "Bravely Second's" protagonist Yew Geneolgia. He discovers her inside her crashed space pod, and she instantly becomes infatuated with Yew and joins the party. She comes from Luxendarc(the fantasy world's name)'s Moon, where apparently they speak French. Really, she often throws French statements like "Ah, la vache" into her speech. She's far more complex a character than I let on. Rebuilding her home on the Moon, Fort Lune, uses the same mechanics as rebuilding Tiz's hometown Norende in the first game: receiving villagers/workers via StreetPass and/or downloading them from the internet, you allocate them to various projects that are completed in real time, ranging from an hour to three days. Thankfully, each person working on a task halves the time, and you are rewarded with parts for your special attacks. You also receive optional bosses to fight, like the last game as well, but you can weaken them by shooting at them with spaceships.
See? Spaceships.
2. You bust Ba'als.
This is a Ba'al. It's pronounced the way you think it is. Personally, it would be less ... embarrassing if they pronounced it "bail", but ...
The civilization on the Moon is dedicated to fighting these weird, creepy technicolor monsters called Ba'als: Magnolia, as a Ba'al Buster(yes, that is her job title), was sent down to Luxendarc to fight off these monsters, especially the one trapped in the evil Glanz Empire's Skyhold along with Agnes from the first game, who is now the Pope of the crystal religion. You can expect these kinds of games to have crazy complex plot lines. Since according to Yew we are Agnes' Ba'al Busting Avengers, I'm probably going to have to fight more of these in the plot, alongside being the StreetPass bonus bosses mentioned earlier. At least the bonus bosses in the last game looked like normal monsters:
See? Grotesque head on tentacles. Perfectly normal looking for a monster. Compared to:
... this. I don't want to fight this. I probably will have to, though. Joy.
3. You can warp between towns ... using pigs.
This one surprised me. It entirely shocked me, and I played the demo. Apparently, in each town in the game, somewhere, there is a pig. If you talk to that pig, you will be able to teleport between towns you have visited in-game. The game does not explain this in any way. At least it's faster than rowboat ... No, I'm serious. You have to use a shallow-water rowboat to get between continents. When do we get the airship back? I miss the airship.
4. You have to make complicated moral decisions.
"Bravely Second" is a direct sequel to the first game; two of the protagonists even return to the party! (This also means massive spoilers to the first game, unfortunately.) All of the optional side-bosses featured in the first game also return, and you have the chance to obtain their job asterisks as well in this game. However, there's a catch: in every side story situation, two job holders are put in opposition to each other. For instance, in the story featured above, there is the thief who wants to protect the magical water gem that powers the oases for the poor and disenfranchised, and then there is the red mage turned college professor that wants to use that gem to eventually create an infinite energy source. In the quest, you have to side with one character or the other; you will fight the person you opposed as a boss and claim their asterisk. So, in any given sidequest, you will choose between the two classes, and will not have access to the other for most of the game. You can make these decisions between which class abilities you would like to have at this point in the game, or, you know, actually decide based upon your morals. That's what I've been doing; the completionist in me is throwing a small fit, but is reassured by the fact that there's an extensive New Game+ mode.
5. You can make plushies.
... I'm really not kidding. In Al-Khampis, the university town Yew graduated from, Magnolia is approached by a mysterious owl wizard man and given a box labeled "Chompcrafts". It contains supplies of making plushies of a Chomper monster. The party, for the heck of it, decides to do this at any time, the button for it available alongside the moon reconstruction project and the item/monster lore handbook on the bottom screen. They create a little production line that you can speed up/improve the quality of plush created using the currency produced from your last batch, and taking a snack break doubles your productivity ... It's far too complex for its own good. Oh, you can also listen to music from the normal game while you --wait. So, all this, is the sound test screen?
...
Eh. I still love its game for all its nonsense. I can effectively tie a weapon to my fighter's head in place of armor and cast big expensive summons over the enemy party at the end of every turn. I have fought a neko-mancer(like, cats) and a cowgirl as bosses, and know I will have to fight a pasty chef. I love this sort of absurdity. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to kill a giant space goldfish on the Moon before heading to crystal Japan.
