Bravely Default 2: 5 tips to win

Bravely Default 2

The new JRPG for Nintendo Switch is a reboot of the series that began on Nintendo 3DS almost ten years ago: having passed the development ball to Claytechworks, producer Tomoya Asano has followed the classic formula of the original, which in turn was inspired by great games of Japanese roles of the past, and in particular to Final Fantasy V. In our review of Bravely Default 2 we talked about an intuitive and ingenious combat system, open to a thousand possibilities thanks to the class system that guarantees great strategic freedom. The Square Enix title is a challenging JRPG, but the classic and linear formula makes it particularly suitable for those who want to get closer to this genre. Whether you are an old or new fan of Japanese RPGs, we have come up with some tips that might be useful to you: the last two, in particular, concern the advanced stages of the game, and for this reason we have marked them as spoilers.

It's difficult ... but not impossible

In our review we pointed out that Bravely Default II is a challenging title, in which the bosses will force you to think about the composition of the group, equipment and skills best to select. If you are a beginner, don't have a lot of time or just want to enjoy the story without worrying too much about these aspects of the game, remember that you can change the difficulty level at any time in the options menu. Bravely Default II, however, is a game that has quite high difficulty peaks, especially when you arrive at a new boss, but every obstacle can be overcome with the micromanagement of the classes you have available. If the new boss you are facing fools you with some particular skill or counter move, rest assured that in the arsenal of the classes you have unlocked there will be something that will allow you to bypass or break through its defenses.

Braveky Default II: Seth in a fight. This means that sometimes you will have to spend some time growing classes that you may not care too much about or that you didn't count on, but that unlock very useful passive skills such as, for example, the Bard's Anti-Counterattack, practically necessary in every clash in which the boss on duty insists on responding every time you use certain skills. In other words, it's not quite so obvious that one character should only specialize in magical classes and another in physical ones. Supreme Power of the Infernal Swordsman, for example, will allow you to overcome 9999 points of damage with both spells and physical attacks. In other words, our advice is to rotate all classes on each character. Take some time, before a boss, to unlock the passive skills that seem most useful to you and try new combinations: the more classes and skills you unlock, the more tactics you can employ in combat.

Chains, Lures and Wiki-wiki

Bravely Default II: Adelle in a fight. So "grinding" is part of the game, in every sense, and when it happens that you have to do it you will want to dedicate as little time as possible to this repetitive procedure. Bravely Default II offers you several solutions in this regard. The slowest and most painless is to wait for the ship to travel 12 hours while playing or the console is on standby: go to the city and collect the rewards found by sea, there may be globes that increase Experience Points and Class Points . Then there is the more traditional solution: fight. If you manage to engage an enemy in the vicinity of others, you can face more consecutive battles, and if you come out victorious you will earn a substantial bonus to the rewards. It will not be easy or fast to be chased or pushed the lower level enemies into a corner, to pile them up and produce a nice chain of fights, so the expensive baits, consumables that, used in the field, will wrap you in a bright halo and will make you fight multiple consecutive fights automatically.

Bravely Default II: The Heroes of Light meet Orpheus the Bard. There are also some items and abilities that will help you rack up more points, but which you will only get towards the end of the game. The accessory called Nourishing Egg, for example, doubles the Experience Points and Class Points that the character who wears it earns. Then unlock the Gambler, an optional class that you will only get after winning your first few games in the B&D card minigame. His first Specialty is called All or Nothing: sometimes you will not gain anything at the end of a fight, but in some cases you will gain the value in XP, CP and gil multiplied by 15. Which is a lot! You can set the Gambler as a secondary class and take advantage of his Skill with the Spirit Master's Skill 1 secondary class passive ability. If you want to overdo it, look for an area where Wiki-wikis appear in combat: these little birds, which you meet already at the beginning of the game, are quite hard to KO, but they reward with a lot of PC and XP. Once the asterisk of the Valiant is unlocked, it will be even easier to grind: the Annihilation ability eliminates at the beginning of the battle every enemy of at least 20 levels under the character that equips it ... including the Wiki-wiki.

Day and Night Missions

Bravely Default II: Seth and Gloria in one scene. Unfortunately the secondary missions do not reward with Class Points or Experience Points - except when the reward in question is one of the aforementioned orbs - but they are a precious source of weapons, armor or accessories that you will hardly find in chests or in tall grass, and that they could save you a few bucks when you pass by the shops in the city. Each time you accept a mission, the number of colored stars in the window will suggest the difficulty of the mission, but this does not mean that you cannot try: sometimes it will be enough for you to do a skilful slalom between the enemies of an area out of your reach to reach the objects you have to collect, or some miniboss that seems too strong for your level, you can still defeat with a good strategy and the right classes.

Bravely Default II: Elvis casts a fire spell. In any case, do the side missions. Remember to return to each city after a new twist in history, as new ones may appear, and also keep in mind that some will only be available during the day or night. There are no side missions that you cannot complete after reaching a certain chapter of the story, rest assured, but there are some that will delve into certain characters better, both among the good and the bad, and others that will even unlock a couple of classes : We have already mentioned the Gambler, linked to the B&D minigame, but in the village of Enderno you will find an optional mission that will make you recover the Alchemist's asterisk. In short, these missions will make you go up and down Excillant, but it will often be worth it.

Spoiler: the paths of the ordeal

Bravely Default II: defeat Anihal to get the class Tamer. In chapter 6 of the story you will be able to undertake the paths of the ordeal in which, to tell the truth, there is very little to go through. You know those stone arches he had glimpsed in the world as you moved from one city to another? Well, the game itself will warn you that they have opened and each of them leads to a small location where you can fight a special fight. In these battles you will again face the owners of the Asterisks you have defeated in the past, in imaginative combinations that will test your strategic skills. If Bernard the Thief has given you any headaches, wait until you fight him along with the Tamer, the Gambler and the Bard. The paths of the ordeal are six in total, but they do not only serve to give you a few more bosses to beat: defeat them, and you will unlock the secret skills of level 13, 14 and 15 of the corresponding classes. It goes without saying that some are really great and will revolutionize your tactics: More maximum life of the Monk, for example, will allow you to have double your maximum HP in combat.

Bravely Default II: Bernard the Thief is a tough nut to crack. By themselves, the bonus skills should already be a great incentive to take on these bosses, but that's not all. In addition to receiving a large amount of money, Experience Points and Class Points, you can steal Giant Class Experience Orbs from each individual boss, which will allow you to award up to 3000 Class Points in one fell swoop. Orbs are also included in the normal rewards, but the rarer ones include the real weapons of the bosses: they are the most powerful weapons in the game and the character who wields one automatically benefits from all the passive skills connected to that class. For example, the Dragon Lance will allow anyone who wields it to obtain all the passive powers of the Dragon even without having them equipped in the appropriate menu. The best part is that you can repeat these fights as many times as you want to collect all the weapons, even more than one of each. Of course, it will take some time, as they are quite rare, but in some cases they are absolutely worth it. Last but not least, after defeating each boss you will also find a chest that contains a great piece of equipment ... but you can only get it once. You can't have everything in life!

Spoiler: the endings

Bravely Default II: the city of Savalon. There are several endings in Bravely Default II, and not all of them are quite intuitive. The first is not really an ending, but ... if you don't lead Seth to the light when the Wind Crystal chooses him as the Hero of the Light, you will face a forced Game Over. The second ending is unlocked if you succeed in the very difficult task of defeating Adam at your first meeting, when it is assumed that he has to beat you by force. After that, the "bad" ending will also be the first you will see by defeating the boss at the end of chapter 5: you will immediately realize that something is wrong because, while being dramatic, it is also very hasty. Reload the game after the credits, and you will find that the game will continue differently than before. The Heroes of the Light will not face the boss and a new chapter will begin that will even lead you to a new city.

Bravely Default II: the Heroes of the Light at the end of the battle. Continue the story to a new final boss, defeat him and you will see a more satisfying ending ... which is not the real ending yet! Reload the saved game after the credits, and you can decide whether to face the boss again, and see the same ending, or go and take your tributes to the grave of an old friend. By doing so, you'll unlock the game's latest class, a new ordeal path, and even an extra super secret boss. When you feel ready, open the save menu and choose to overwrite the last, strange save at the bottom to begin the final segment of the story, reach a new map full of enemies and chests and face the final battle with Oblivion. of the night. At this point the game will really end ... but you can start it again immediately in New Game + mode by importing all the progress made in the previous game. Congratulations: you have really completed Bravely Default 2!