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Topic: Bravely Default II (Nintendo Switch)

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Ralizah

Just filled out my BD2 survey, explicitly detailing my complaints about the demo. I hope some pretty big changes are made because that demo was incredibly disappointing.

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

Tyranexx

I downloaded the demo the day after it came out to avoid the initial download rush. I was under the impression that surveys were sent based on time first played, not completion, but perhaps that has changed this time around? I did beat the demo but didn't bother with any of the post-completion extras that I now know about.

Currently playing: Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr's Journey, Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (Switch)

"Love your neighbor as yourself." Mark 12:31

Dezzy

@Ralizah

What didn't you like exactly?

It's dangerous to go alone! Stay at home.

Ralizah

@Dezzy I'll just quote my own post from earlier in the thread.

Ralizah wrote:

Not impressed.

  • Dungeon design still sucks.
  • Seeing enemies on the map is a step back from BD's full customization of random encounters.
  • Random battles seem wildly unbalanced within a given area. I'm either destroying everything or getting crushed.
  • The visual style is ugly. An overly aggressive DoF effect makes towns look fairly blurry, and something rubs me the wrong way about the... shininess of enemies in this game. It's hard to describe, but the effect is grotesque.
  • I was excited when I heard Revo was back to do the music, but nothing in the demo stood out. Massive downgrade musically from the first game's excellent OST.
  • The change from inputting commands all at once on your round to having enemies and allies acting individually based on speed really ruins the 'default' command, especially for slower characters. The battle system in the first game was almost perfect.
  • If they're going to make this change, they should have added a turn order indicator. They did not.
  • Equipment weight was added for whatever reason. Why add this when the first game played fine without this element?
  • I don't like the characters. Granted, BD games aren't famed for their beloved casts, but this group of people seems generic and forgettable. The only one I remember is Elvis, and that's only because he's an offensively bad stereotype of a Scotsman.

I'm open to S-E improving this game, but it'll need a LOT of work, so I'm not hopeful.

There were also a number of tweaks needed for the UI.

Pretty much the only thing I did like was being able to run into buildings. That was nice.

Edited on by Ralizah

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

scoobdoo

@Ralizah same here. Very disappointed, and I let them know it.

FC: SW-3470-2213-1835

JaxonH

Let’s see.

Loved seeing enemies on the map. Excellent change. It’s a dated mechanic, and I have little interest in playing games in 2020 where I can’t see the enemies on the map.

Love the visual style. One of the closest things to perfection I’ve seen in a visual style to date.

Love equipment weight. It adds a strategic layer of depth, and there’s hardly a game I’ve played where I hated the mechanic, if not downright loved it.

Music seemed fine. Hardly seems fair to judge the epicness of a game’s soundtrack based on a demo. Especially if the music present isn’t actually bad (which, it wasn’t- and if anything I’d say it was actually above average compared to most games, even if not exceptional).,

As for the rest, I’m either neutral or of little opinion on, or havent played enough to form an opinion on. I do agree with the unbalanced battles though. That’s... probably the only thing.

Edited on by JaxonH

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

CroRock

I’m super disappointed with blurry graphics in handheald mode! Didn’t try it on tv but in handeald it’s looking horrendous for a new game. It cannot be that Switch is that bad spec wise.. we’ve seen much complex games running much better graphics.
That’s a shame because if graphics were better it would be a day one purchase for me because I’m a big fan of previous Bravely games

3DS - 2294 - 4578 - 7970
SW - 3371 - 1931 - 2042

JaxonH

I played in handheld mode and it was one of the best looking games I've played on handheld (art style played into that, of course).

But it wasn't "blurry" at all. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 in Gormott field or in the cloud sea, or Wolfenstein 2 in game cutscenes before the patch... that's blurry. This game was absolutely fine.

Taken right on my Switch Lite. This is top notch. I bet it comes out to be 720p in the analysis too, or at least 540p minimum. People said the same thing about other games, then it turns out ya, it was max res the whole time. I mean, even going out there on a limb and saying its 540p, that's still pretty good for handheld gaming. No way that's "blurry". You need 360p to 480p before things actually get into blurry territory. In fact, go play Bravely Default or Bravely Second on 3DS for a reminder on what actual blurry games look like.

I've even seen some 480p games that didnt look blurry due to some visual tricks they use. Spyro is one of them. That game looks fantastic on handheld and it was only 480p! Goes to show res isnt everything. Sometimes games can look better than their native res suggests. Art style likely plays into that.

In any case, if this is considered "blurry" then I'll play blurry games all day every day. Please make my games blurry like this.

Untitled

Edited on by JaxonH

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

CroRock

Just look at character models.. it looks like they ported straight from 3ds games. Actually all that BD2 hype made me start a new game on Bravely Default on my 3ds xl and I swear that game looks more impressive with 3D on that this one on Switch.

And no, I'm not saying BD2 doesn’t have higher resolution but but original just feels more visually impressive on that piece of toaster aka 3ds.

Just look at high detail lvl of tiny things in Animal Crossing NH.. I couldn’t believe that game can look so good on switch and now you have that irritating character Elvis from 3ds era.

3DS - 2294 - 4578 - 7970
SW - 3371 - 1931 - 2042

JaxonH

It's a chibi art style. It's meant to look like that. And it's a zoomed out view so, you're not going to see as much detail.

Sure, I'll agree that for the 3DS, the original games were more impressive in a relative sense, but that's only because most other games looked butt ugly on 3DS, while Switch is running full AAA games in comparison. Compare this to other JRPGs on Switch in handheld mode (not first party games with cartoon art styles and cell shading, which can be leveraged to make almost anything look bad in comparison) and its above average, easily.

Art style is subjective. No sense arguing over that. But I think the art style is drop dead gorgeous and they've nailed it beyond any possible expectation I could have hoped for. Its immaculate. As for res, it's par for the course. At worst it's the same as every other JRPG on the system. At best it's a step above. Certainly looks higher res than Dragon Quest XI S or YS VIII in handheld mode. And those games looked good in handheld mode.

Edited on by JaxonH

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

Tyranexx

I agree that the enemies were pretty unbalanced in the demo, but I did give that a mild pass; I had assumed they were so lopsided due to the intentionally increased difficulty. I did pretty well on the enemies close to Savalon, but I definitely had issues with the wasps and snake-like monsters. No TPKs, but I had one or two members downed in more than one battle.

Both Bravely games on the 3DS look pretty decent to me, especially with the 3D effect running. Granted, unless something is a major graphical mess, I'm not typically bothered by resolution.

Currently playing: Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr's Journey, Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana (Switch)

"Love your neighbor as yourself." Mark 12:31

JaxonH

That's what I figured too. They said they intentionally made the demo more difficult (why I dont know). The wasps destroyed me.

I'm confident the full game will have a much more gradual difficulty curve, and less punishing. Which is why I'm not really concerned about that. It does kind of put me off from grinding the demo, but in no way erodes my excitement for the actual game itself.

Not to mention, the entire purpose of the demo is to garner feedback and improve. Now. If someone just hates absolutely everything, they may as well stop discussing the game now because there's nothing here for them. They're not going to completely change every aspect of the game, nor should they. Most of what they have is top notch. Just a few tweaks here and there and we'll have a defining JRPG masterpiece on our hands.

I'm also pretty sure there will be difficulty levels.

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

Ralizah

The unbalanced battles are probably what I'm least worried about. That sort of thing will often be polished in the final few months of development. It's the artistic aspects of the game I think they need to look closely at.

JaxonH wrote:

Loved seeing enemies on the map. Excellent change. It’s a dated mechanic, and I have little interest in playing games in 2020 where I can’t see the enemies on the map.

Normal random encounters are a bit dated, but the QoL improvements that came along with the international release of BD:FF made it very convenient for the player. Seeing enemies on the map is better than normal random encounters, but fully customizable random encounters grant even more control to the player's experience.

It was an amazing mix of old-school style with modern improvements.

JaxonH wrote:

Love the visual style. One of the closest things to perfection I’ve seen in a visual style to date.

I... we're just not going to agree here. Aside from having better texture quality and a higher displayed resolution, it looks worse, imo, than the original game did on the 3DS. The soft, painterly style worked really well with the low-res 3DS visuals, but the visual design is just messy here.

I do agree with whoever said it's like they've taken a 3DS game and upscaled it for the Switch. The look doesn't work for me.

Also, noses don't mix well with the chibi-ish character designs.

JaxonH wrote:

Love equipment weight. It adds a strategic layer of depth, and there’s hardly a game I’ve played where I hated the mechanic, if not downright loved it.

The original did a perfectly fine job of having strategic depth without adding an arbitrary value to your equipment.

I'm not too bothered by it, though. Maybe they'll balance this well in the full release. Just seems like a weird change to make.

JaxonH wrote:

Music seemed fine. Hardly seems fair to judge the epicness of a game’s soundtrack based on a demo. Especially if the music present isn’t actually bad (which, it wasn’t- and if anything I’d say it was actually above average compared to most games, even if not exceptional).

The original had amazing music. Even the random encounter music was a banger. It was a huge aspect of that game's appeal.

Advertising the return of Revo was pointless if they're going to turn in merely adequate work for the sequel.

Very few games have actively bad music. But when you're a sequel to a game known for the quality of its OST, you had better make sure the music is up to snuff.

Edited on by Ralizah

Currently Playing: Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re- Boot Camp (NS)

JaxonH

@Ralizah
But again, you havent played the game yet. You havent heard the soundtrack yet. Only a demo. If you want to criticize the soundtrack after the game releases and reviews have had a change to hear it... go for it.

But the eagerness I'm seeing to dismiss Revo as if their talent just evaporated into thin air all because you didnt hear a particular banger in a demo... seems very strange, especially from someone who usually has reserved and balanced opinions. Maybe it will turn out not as good. I don't know. But that's just the thing. None of us do. The game isnt out yet.

You dont judge a soundtrack by a demo any more than you judge the story. For that you have to have the full game in hand.

As for the rest... yes, we'll have to just disagree. This game seems to be everything I loved about the originals but improved in every conceivable way, aside from a few questionable menu and interface decisions which can easily be ironed out (and even if not, they're not a dealbreaker)

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

kkslider5552000

I have no strong opinions about these games (outside of not getting the appeal of the first game's characters at all), but I do have to agree that some parts of graphics in this game seem underwhelming for even a B-tier Switch game, especially the characters. But to be fair, I had some similar issues in Megaman 11.

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kyleforrester87

@Ralizah @JaxonH The graphics are a bit of a turn off for me, the 3DS games are just more visually appealing. Part of that is being used to the 3DS graphics though, and I always (always) come round to the style of a game I previously disliked once I get into it.

Enemies on the map seems a bit pointless to me too when they had such great flexibility with the random battle slider. Just put that back in, make it easy access, and let the player decide if they want combat or not.

Not dishing out all your player moves at the start of the turn is a really annoying difference, hopefully they'll change that.

I don't really like the way the character feels when you're moving round the map, doesn't it seem less responsive than it did on 3DS? Can't all be down to the lack of circle pad...

kyleforrester87

JaxonH

I think people have just played power consoles for so long their expectations of what handheld games should look like has skyrocketed through the roof.

Mega Man 11 was a good looking game. Nothing special, but clean. On Switch it was much more impressive though.

And if I were to look at Bravely Default II through the lens of a new exclusive PS4 game... sure. I'd probably have the same opinion. But its not. It's a Switch game, 7th gen power, and compared to PS3 and 360 games it looks phenomenal. Compared to 3DS it looks like a two generation leap.

The ability to compartmentalize expectations of games on present day power consoles/PC and games on handheld consoles is quickly eroding, it seems. I look at this game and I'm taken aback at how incredible it looks. The graphics are muah! Just gorgeous.

Watching that trailer especially, seeing the characters run through the environments, I was just astounded at how amazing this game looks visually.

So when I hear complaints of everything from graphics to art style to resolution (really?) I'm just flabbergasted.

Edited on by JaxonH

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

JaxonH

@kyleforrester87
Some people dont dig the chibi style, and that I can at least appreciate, even if I love it and think they've adapted to HD perfectly.

But I cant support random battles or sliders any more than I would for a Final Fantasy, Persona or any other JRPG. Why it's a huge step forward when every other series does it, but a detriment when Bravely Default does it, seems questionable to me.

I also love the turn order. It adds depth. Not that I disliked how it was before, but I'm all in for the change. No idea what the big deal is. Plenty of games have similar systems and its never been a problem for those games.

edit That being said they should add the actual turn order so the player can see it, then it would be perfect

Moving around also feels completely normal to me so, Idk.

Edited on by JaxonH

All have sinned and fall short of Gods glory. Wages of sin is death. Romans

God so loved the world He sent His only Son- whoever believes on Him has eternal life. Unless you believe, you will die in your sins. Whoever believes, rivers of living water flow within them. John

kyleforrester87

@JaxonH No problem with the chibi style, certain aspects (the monsters in particular) just looks rather.. unsophisticated, generic and cheap, I suppose. I'll undoubtably come round to it.

Theres just no reason to be able to see enemies on the map when you could have a slider to chose how often you encounter them anyway. Without the easy to access slider.. sure, make enemies visible so you can avoid them if you don't want to fight. I just liked really the slider.

Yes, turn order is a must if they are going to keep it like this.

And as for the movement, it's most noticable in the city - it's fine in the dungeons and on the world map. The momentum just seems a bit off when exploring around town on the 2d/2.5D map (whatever you want to call it)

kyleforrester87

kyleforrester87

Small thing, but I also miss being able to skip the battle intro. Only saved you a second or two, but it was a nice touch when you're grinding.

Edited on by kyleforrester87

kyleforrester87

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