DJ Chapman: My favorite video game of 2014 is Bravely Default (3DS). The Japanese Role Playing Game was released in North America in February and was met with much applause. This was due (in no small part) to the deep job system, rich story, and diverse settings and characters. What makes Bravely Default such a great game is how polished it is all around. The combat system keeps a lot from the classic JRPG genre while adding enough nuances to make it feel fresh. The game does a great job of catering to fans of the classic JRPGs, like Final Fantasy, but still remains accessible and enjoyable to newcomers. Specifically, the Brave/Default system is an engaging mechanic, allowing a player to attempt and deal a lot of damage up front, allowing the possibility of leaving themselves wide open for an attack later.
The greatest asset of Bravely Default is the job system. Being able to switch between jobs and setting the secondary skills earned from them allows for a wide variety character customizations. Many JRPGs will usually give a set roster of characters with different skills sets to choose from. This is to allow the player to form the kind of party they want. On the other hand, Bravely Default gives the fourth player – and only fourth – characters and allows them to shape those characters to how they deem fit for their style. This is also useful because the player can easily change the party dynamic for different dungeons and bosses. Since we’re only following four characters, deep character development is possible since there are so few characters you need to know; the interactions can be a lot deeper.
Finally, the story for Bravely Default might be the best story in a game that I played all year. Not only is it compelling with a lot of twists and turns along the way, the final twist is a real jaw-dropper, and one you never see coming until right before it happens. All of these reasons are why Bravely Default is far and away my favorite game of the year.
[php] wp_link_pages(array(‘before’=>’
‘)); [/php]
============================================================================================================================================
Comments are closed.