Bravely Second: End Layer - Nintendo 3DS

[NO SPOILERS HERE] I've been waiting for this game since it's initial release in Japan over a year ago and so far I have not been disappointed. I fell in love with the Bravely series because it seemed to bring back a lot of what made Final Fantasy successful originally. I'm not talking about the jRPG style, job classes, and crystals (although those are some fun throwbacks to a time long gone), but in the quirks of the characters, the goofy situations, and the ability to put the story first. No spending 45 minutes hammering buttons for 10 minutes of story. Now I get 45 minutes of story and hammer buttons for 10 minutes. In that, a lot of the positives from the first game come to the second game. Here are my list of pros and cons. Please note, t's actually difficult to write a review for this game since it borrows so many elements from the first one. City building, the job system (along with skills and abilities), magic scrolls, and even the graphics engine and parts of the soundtrack are recycled. I won't be mentioning these in my pros and cons list unless it directly relates to the new stuff :) Pros 1. A lot of the same things that made the first game great also make the second game great. The job classes give you a ton of options for combat, strategy, and out-of-combat scenarios. Much like the first game, you battle special bosses to get new jobs and level up jobs to obtain new abilities and skills. I won't go in-depth with it since it is, essentially, the same mechanics as the first one. Thankfully, the first one was awesome, so no complaints here because it's not old yet. 2. The story line is, I think, a little better than Bravely Default. The characters are a bit more believable this time around and the voice acting seems more competently done. I'm not talking about in terms of sheer content or quality, but the kind of "okay, now we understand what we're doing better" polish that comes with making a sequel. Yes, this improvement also translates to the characters from the first game as well. The whole thing feels more "grown up" and polished, which definitely contributed to an improved experience. 3. The graphics are, again, just lovely. Towns, dungeons, and landscapes have that "hand drawn" quality to them and they work well with 3D (even on the older 3DS and 3DSXL). There are a few recycled locations from the first game, but much of it is new which kind of expands the world. 4. The soundtrack is phenomenal. I was worried because they didn't bring the composer from the first game back. However, they actually blended the first game and the second game soundtracks together and the new composer did a great job making his new compositions fit into the world. Quirky when needed, epic when needed, and good experience overall. 5. I actually really enjoy that the next story took place soon enough after the last one to where the characters could come back and make an impact. The old cast of characters gives it a solid foundation that the new characters can grow from. This gives SE a route to slowly phase out old characters and add new ones over time, giving the series itself a "moving parts" feeling that gives me hope that there will be more games. 6. Despite it borrowing a lot from the first game, a lot of the mechanics were improved slightly. Auto-battle is now configurable, the "diary" aspect is more streamlined (I think), and little tweaks (like being able to brave a single move by pressing the button while selecting the monster to hit) takes away a lot of the clunky feeling that Bravely Default had. You can, in fact, play this entire game with only your left hand. 7. They made grinding even faster by allowing you to chain battles quickly. Yay for less grinding and more story line. They've also included more ways to grind for various things. For instance, the Chomp maker game is a great way to farm gold. It not only gives you the ability to get super high leveled super fast, but it opens up more ways to play the game. For instance, when I get to a new location, I grind until I complete the bestiary in that region. Then I turn battles off and walk around blissfully. Cons 1. Because the game borrows so much from the prior title, there isn't a lot of "newness" that comes with this game. I'm not too upset at this because it's still a very well written game and the mechanics are solid, but I didn't realize that they were going to borrow so many things from the first game. On top of that, you immediately get the "start where you left off" feeling which kind of nullifies the "I just bought a new game" feeling lol. 2. I guess some of the content was altered or censored for North American markets. Censorship from Japan to North America happens on virtually everything that comes from Japan so this is no surprise to me. As far as I can tell, it's like 95% aesthetic changes. Less skin showing and stuff like that. Since that stuff literally doesn't matter at all when it comes to story line, I didn't remove any stars. I don't like it anymore than anyone else, but I think acting out like this is some new thing that started happening yesterday is disingenuous. The Siren summon used to be naked in Final Fantasy 6 and she got covered up in the NA release. These things happen. Calm down, folks. Overall, I'm very happy with this game. It feels like a natural continuation of Bravely Default and the blend of old stuff and new stuff seems to hit almost all of the right areas. I do wish there'd been a little more "new" and a little less "recycled", but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy hearing the Land of Immortality song or Edea's theme when she made her character entrance. Make no mistake, the Bravely series is a fresh drink of water in the continuously stagnating pool of jRPG options. In fact, if Pokemon didn't exist, the argument could be made that the genre would've died out years ago. Thankfully, there are still developers willing to explore what it has to offer and the Bravely series exists. I couldn't be happier.

This review is unbiased towards the censorship that occurred. Purely because I really didn't buy the game for it's politically correctness... I just wanted to play the game and I just so happen to not be able to read Japanese. TLDR: I consider it to possibly be my favorite game on the 3DS. This, accounting for the bias that I actually didn't watch any videos. I have almost no idea about the overall story (aside from what I was able to pick up). So my review is purely on the gameplay. That being said, with rushing through the game without watching videos, you're looking at about 28hrs (Which justifies $40 IMO). It also should have fairly good replayability, not to mention many hidden dungeons and mega bosses. Having played the first one, I was a bit apprehensive about the grind-to-come. This sequel brings a few things to the table that make huge improvements on the first one. With so many different classes, it'd be a pain to train them all (4 times each), and they fixed that with chaining. That being said, the chaining can get you maxed out pretty quick. That also being said, you can max out pretty quickly, which makes the game easy. As for improvements, I'd say that is the best because it actually gives you an incentive to train things up. And with so many different classes, you actually CAN play using many different techniques. This is great because it actually gives the game a lot of replayability. Aside from those changes, the game is VERY similar to the first. So if you loved the first but hated the grind, then I'm sure you'll like this. As well with the grinding, it almost becomes your own fault if you can't be a boss. (this is a jab at how the last boss on the first one could 1 hit TKO you at any moment, which made your builds have to be very specific). And that is where I'll leave my review of the game specifically ***General comments/complaints that may spoil*** - I found that team became overpowered fairly quickly. The bishop/spellcrafter is quite ridiculous. I found that once Yew was maxed on those, I had no reason to change him. This is slightly due to the chaining system. - Speaking of overpowered, that same team that I had for probably 70% of the game lead me to beating it without ever using Bravely Second, or summoning a friend, or even using magic items. - Because of the chaining system, I would just sit there and grind for a while and then turn off encounters when in dungeons. This way I could explore without worry, but still keep my levels up. This surely wasn't how things were intended, but it worked for me. - I never really had any massive damage moments unless I criticaled, which still only net me about 4,000 damage. All of my physicals had triple wield and multitask though, so my net damage was usually 4-7k later on.

Game came in good condition, very happy with this purchase

El juego llegó en perfecto estado y muy rápido. Uno debe saber lo que compra, yo ya sabia que este juego era bueno y me esta gustando. No se por que hay gente compra sin saber de que va el juego y resulta no les gusta, creo que no por eso deben opinar negativo. Es un gran Rpg, con un sistema de pelea un poco diferente a otros, sin sacarte de lo cotidiano de Square Enix. Una gran historia. No puedo decir en tiempo de juego cuanto ofrece, yo llevo apenas 2 horas pero me esta gustando mucho. Si te gustan juego estilo Final fantasy, Dragon quest, Suikoden, debes comprarlo y si aprovechas alguna oferta de Amazon pues mucho mejor.

Todavía no lo juego, me falta terminar el primero, pero comentaré después que me pareció. Actualización 1: Llevo 50 horas de juegos y la verdad me está encantando, los nuevos trabajos, los personajes agregados, la música, qué a pesar de ser diferente a la del primer juego, igualmente es épica, lo único que podría criticar del juego es que recicla ciudades y modelos, en parte me recuerda a las secuelas de Pokémon Blanco y Negro. Seguiré jugando y espero el final no decepcione. Actualización 2: Terminó siendo un gran juego y buen cierre de los protagonistas, hubieron una que otra cosa que quedó inconclusa, en verdad me gustaría una tercera entrega.

Extremely quick shipping. Exactly as advertised.

Game works, spend a lot of time playing it and completed it without issue! Had a lot of fun!