Bravely Second: Tips and Tricks for Beginners

EXPLORE EVERY TOWN AND DUNGEON FULLY FOR LOOT

Bravely Second has lots and lots of treasure to be found. There are of course the red chests in dungeons dotted around each map, but there’s also points you can check in almost every location. It’s in your best interest to explore each dungeon and town that you visit thoroughly.

Besides red chests, many useful recovery items can be found scattered in dungeons. Explore every path you see, and you might find sparkles lying on the ground. These usually contain things like potions or status recovery items. Towns also hold treasures for those who investigate, although they won’t always be obvious. Try and hug walls and check corners or items that look like they stand out. Oftentimes, you’ll be able to search locations in town and find either items or money.

ELIMINATING ALL ENEMIES ON YOUR FIRST TURN LETS YOU CHAIN BATTLES

When you’re fighting random encounters, it’s possible to chain multiple battles together for a big experience bonus. The only condition to do this is that you defeat all enemies on the first turn of the battle. By doing this you can hit the left shoulder button to advance to another battle.

The only thing to keep in mind by doing this, is that any brave points your characters used in the previous battle will carry over. So if you had a character at -4 brave, they would still be at that count at the beginning of the next battle. However, you can chain battles together more than once, increasing the experience bonus every time that you chain. It can be difficult to keep going for multiple rounds, but the chain function is a good way to get a huge experience boost early on.

TRY OUT DIFFERENT JOBS

You’ll start Bravely Second out with a handful of jobs available, and more will open up the farther you get into the game. While it can be easy to stick with one job for a while and level it up, it’s an even better idea to switch jobs out and try different ones. For one thing, this lets you try out the jobs and see how different ones work together.

The real reason to switch your job early on, though, is to learn the abilities it holds. Many jobs have useful support abilities you can then equip to your characters and carry over to other jobs. For example, the Charioteer can learn the support ability “triple wield,” and use it to equip three weapons at once. Putting this ability on a Fencer and then putting three swords on that character, can give you a big attack advantage. That’s just one example of the ways you can mix and match abilities, so make sure to try different combinations out and see what give you the biggest boost.

START BOSS BATTLES OUT BY DEFAULTING

Bravely Second can be a fairly difficult game, especially with its boss battles. These enemies can have wildly varying attacks, and it can be hard to predict exactly what some of them will do. For that reason, it’s always a good idea to start every boss battle out by having all of your characters default for the first turn if not the second one as well.

This allows you to put all of your characters in a defensive stance, reducing damage at the same time you accrue brave points. Bosses can have nasty attacks, so its good to get an idea of what they’re going to throw at you and give yourself some leeway with brave. Additionally, if a boss does any kind of stat boosting move to themselves or stat reducing move to your party, you’ll want to put everyone into default on the next turn. More often than not, the boss will deliver a devastating attack that hits multiple characters or your entire party afterward.

COMPLETE EVERY SIDE MISSION

Side missions function a bit differently in Bravely Second. They help expand the story, bring back characters from the first game, and also give you Asterisks to unlock brand new jobs. Each side mission creates some kind of dispute between two different parties, and two different Asterisk holders.

You may be sent to various dungeons and locations along the way, but each quest culminates with a choice for Edea and the player between the two asterisk holders. You have to pick a side in the conflicts, and fight one of the holders. Whichever one you defeat dictates which asterisk and job you’ll receive. Of course each job can unlock very useful abilities that sometimes can affect the entire party.

The first side quest tasks you with choosing between the Thief and Red Mage jobs. One gives you access to the first few levels of both white and black magic, while the other opens up options for you to steal items from enemies. They both have pros and cons, and can fit into your party in different ways.

MAKE FORT-LUNE’S RECONSTRUCTION A PRIORITY

Bravely Second features the a similar town reconstruction minigame  to the one that appeared in Bravely Default. In this game your tasked with rebuilding Magnolia’s home base on the moon, called Fort-Lune. You do this by collecting villagers and assigning them to constructing different building in the base. The more villagers you have the faster you can build, and the time given is real-world time that goes by as long as you’re playing the game or have it in sleep mode. You can see a full description of the best way to get villagers here.

By reconstructing Fort-Lune you gain access to a ton of useful resources. You unlock setting for your characters special attacks, new special attacks, consumables that you can buy at the adventurer, items used for some jobs abilities, and more. The more time you invest into Fort-Lune, the more you’ll get out of it. Needless to say, the reconstruction should be a big focus for you as you can take advantage of it even when you aren’t playing the game. It’s a great way to unlock a bunch of items and settings, and by the time you make you’re way through the game you should have quite a few nice rewards.

FEEL FREE TO TURN OFF RANDOM ENCOUNTERS WHILE BACKTRACKING

Like many RPGs, Bravely Second comes with its own fair share of backtracking. One of the best features of the game and its predecessor Bravely Default, are how they let you cut down on a lot of the tedious tasks you’d normally encounter.

Bravely Second has an expansive world map that you’ll spend a lot of time on, as well as complex dungeons you have to pick your way through. After the first couple hours, you’ll unlock the ability to reduce or increase the enemy encounter rate.  By tapping the right bumper, the option will appear, letting you fully bump the encounter rate up or down. This is something you should feel free to take advantage of, as it can cut down on a lot of your time spent just retracing your steps. Especially if you just want to get to the next story moment and feel like the game is dragging.

For the most part, if you keep the encounter rate normal on your first time through areas, you’ll be sufficiently leveled for bosses. If you find yourself struggling at any point, you can of course bump up the encounter rate for a while and get a few battle chains going.

Have you started Bravely Second yet? What do you think of the game so far? What other tips do you have? Let us know in the comments.