Demo Review: Bravely Second: The Ballad of the Three Cavaliers

You can check out my Review on Bravely Default: Flying Fairy here!
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Even though it had a repetitive second half, Bravely Default: Flying Fairy was one of my favorite RPG's when I played it through. You can imagine the excitement that I had when its sequel, Bravely Second: End Layer was announced. Scheduled to hit next month, Nintendo released a demo to help tide us all over. Titled "The Ballad of the 3 Cavaliers" you're tasked with exploring the area of Luxendarc. Specifically around the town of Al-Khampis under orders from Agnes Oblige who now resides as Pope. Your party consists of Yew, Janne and Nikolai who operate together as The Three Cavaliers. Upon reaching Al-Khampis, they meet up with their supposed guide Magnolia. With your party of 4 in hand, you go out completing quests for the town as you get closer to the main story's mystery at hand.

The scenery and hand painted backdrops of some of the areas (the town mainly) are beautiful and served as a reminder to me for why I enjoyed Bravely Default so much. You start out with several of the jobs for your team to take on in every encounter (which you can alter in terms of frequency). As with the first game, the combat is turn based. Mainly built around the actions of Brave and Default. You store up Brave Points for every turn you don't take an action. This is where Default comes in, all you do in this case is defend. The option to Brave allows one of the characters to take multiple actions in 1 full turn. Course that also means your enemies can do the exact same thing.

You get to interact with the crystal ball to talk with Agnes

Some of the jobs include familiar ones like the Valkyrie and new ones like the Astrologist which is based around buffing your party with Physical and Magic attack. This being the demo, only Magnolia undergoes a costume change whereas the other 3 are stuck in what I guess are their default knight garb. Another battle element is what's known as a Bravely Second. This freezes the battle and allows you to interrupt enemy attacks. Offering a chance to turn the tides in your favor. This being done with the START button though has caused me to mistakenly press it. What's knew is that if you wipe out your foes in 1 turn, the chance to go into another battle is offered. You're BP stays where its at and gives off multipliers for EXP, money and Job Points.

I'm aware that some people weren't a huge fan of the voice acting in the previous entry, but I personally enjoyed it. Not to mention the music is a delight to listen to. The demo is a self contained story separate from the upcoming game and knowing what I know of the main characters in that, it'll be interesting to see what happens. The demo ran me a little bit over 5 hours so as expected, it's short. There's also the StreetPass function with rebuilding Magnolia's home on the Moon. Much like the first demo, this allows you to get bonuses in the full game.

If you don't think this is beautiful, get checked.

What Bravely Second's Demo did was just make me more excited for the upcoming full release. Seeing as I pre-ordered the Collector's Edition, I'm very much looking forward to the goodies stored in it. ART BOOKS YAY!

Should you Play this Demo?

If you were a fan of the first game then by all means check this out. If you somehow missed out on Bravely Default but are curious, this is a good opportunity to see if the game is to your liking. Not much has changed in terms of the battle system. It's a good fit for any JRPG lover!