What Is Bravely Second? Everything You Need to Know

What is Bravely Second: End Layer?

WARNING: This article has spoilers for the original Bravely Default.

Bravely Second: End Layer is a direct sequel to Bravely Default: Flying Fairy, picking up two years after the original game. It features the same gameplay style both in combat and outside, but adds on a few new wrinkles to the formula. The series has been directly inspired by Final Fantasy, and even uses a lot of the same systems and story ideas.

Bravely Default started with a traditional story of a group of characters on a quest to save the world by visiting the four elemental crystals that protect it. Even the art style of the game matched some of the older Final Fantasy titles, especially the Four Heroes of Light and remake of Final Fantasy IV. Systems in the game match traditional JRPGs as well with battle, equipment and exploration. The battle system plays out with turns and players have varying choices of attacking, using magic and items.

Bravely Default and Second both try and streamline the JRPG formula by adding new options like fast forwarding combat or reducing enemy encounters, allowing players to speed through battles to get to story moments.

Bravely Second is developed by Square Enix and Silicon Studio, the same studio that worked on the original and 3D Dot Game Heroes. Everything about both this game and its predecessor emulates traditional Final Fantasy games, and Bravely Second tries to expand on the formula established with the first game. Let’s look at a few important elements from the game like story, gameplay, the job system and its length.

Story

Bravely Second takes place takes place in the same world as the first game, Luxendarc. At the end of Default, players could watch a special teaser for the second game after completing the final chapter. The main character Tiz Arrior collapses at the end of Bravely Default and wakes up some time later, studied at a facility inside a strange restoration tank. Here, he’s saved by a woman named Magnolia Arch who tells him they’re going “somewhere nice.”

Bravely Second starts off two and a half years after Tiz and his friends Agnes, Edea and Ringabel defeat Ouraboros and bring peace to the world. Agnes has recently become Pope of the Crystal Orthodoxy, after which she’s quickly kidnapped by a mysterious villain named Kaiser Oblivion. Agnes’ protector Yew Geneolgia sets out on a quest to rescue her along with Edea and Tiz, as well as Magnolia. The theme of self reliance and following your own path carries over into Bravely Second from Bravely Default.

One of the major complaints with the story in Bravely Default was its repetition. To get the true ending of the game, players had to complete the four dungeons and bosses of the game, five times in a row while mopping up various sidequests as well. The idea was that time would reset after each one and the party would have to try and fix the world over again. Luckily, this kind of repetition is gone from Bravely Second.

Sidequests still play a large role in Second, and the game retains the idea of having a “true” ending. Square Enix has addressed the complaints this time around, and made content more diverse. Players visit many of the locations from the original game like the Kingdom of Caldisla and the sandy city of Ancheim, while also traveling to brand new locales in the world of Luxendarc.

If you’re looking to play the second game without having played Bravely Default, you may want to at least read a story synopsis of the first game. The into of Second tries to catch you up to speed with the major events and plot twists, but there’s still plenty of nods and callbacks for anyone who’s played the first.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Bravely Second is immediately recognizable to anyone with experience in turn-based RPGs. Players control the main character and travel around cities and a world map, going through various story moments and conversations in the process. Battles happen randomly on the world map and in dungeons, switching into a battle view with your characters on one side and the enemies on another.

Battles revolve around turns where players choose actions for all four of their party members at the start of their turn. The usual attack and item commands appear along with abilities specific to whichever class a character has. Bravely Default and Second’s big change to combat comes with the addition of two commands, brave and default. Players can use Brave Points to stack up to four actions for one character each turn, but a character needs at least one BP to act. Stacking actions can potentially put a character in negative BP, meaning they’ll need turns to recover.

Defaulting puts the character into a defensive stance to reduce damage and accumulate BP. Another ability called Bravely Second allows you to freeze time for the enemy, giving a character a chance for four actions without a cost. This ability uses SP which is replenished when the 3DS is in sleep mode, or by buying a regenerative drink through microtransactions.

The same battle system from Default returns in Bravely Second, and a new feature called “Consecutive Chance” has been added. This allows you to stack multiple battles one after another, with the battles becoming subsequently more difficult but yielding better rewards.

Second also sees the town rebuilding minigame from Bravely Default return, that allows players to enter a destroyed town from the menu and rebuild it to gain rewards. Rebuilding is all done on the touchscreen, and other players met online and through Streetpass help players rebuild the town more quickly. Players can also seek advice on the world and where to go next from Agnes throughout the game.

Sidequests play an even more important role in Bravely Second, and are centered around Edea. Players will have to make decisions by solving disputes between two different groups of Asterisk holders, who you gain the items you need to select different jobs from.

Job System

Bravely Second features a job system very similar to that of the Final Fantasy series, with tons of different classes that can use varying abilities. Players get jobs by finding items known as “asterisks,” which can be obtained by completing sidequests or beating certain bosses. Bravely Second features almost all of the jobs from the original along with some new additions.

Some of the more notable job additions include the Catmancer, Patissier and Astrologian. The Astrologian uses Astral Magic to support allies with defensive and status boosting spells, while the Patissier uses the Confection ability to debilitate enemies with deadly desserts. The Catmancer is basically the equivalent of a Blue Mage and can learn enemy skills, but uses up cat food whenever they want to use one.

Each job in the game has different strengths and weaknesses with a unique set of skills. Each character learns abilities from whatever job they have selected, and when they switch jobs, they can equip one set of skills from any other job they’ve learned. In addition, a host of support abilities can be set from any job. This gives players the freedom to mix and match abilities as they see fit, for each of the four party members.

Bravely Second also provides a new feature called “My Set” to help streamline the ability selecting process. This feature allows players to save their configurations for equipment, jobs and abilities in order to reduce the amount of time spent in menus.

Length and Demo

Bravely Second is comparable in length to Bravely Default, if not a little shorter. Because Square Enix continued to streamline things, especially the story, this game ends up as more of a focused experience. Playing with normal encounter rates and battle speeds, the game should take players anywhere between 35-50 hours for only the main story. Sidequests will of course add on to this length, while reducing encounters might shave a bit of time off.

Similarly to the first game, Bravely Second has a demo available on the Nintendo eShop. The demo tells an exclusive story not featured in the game and and focuses on Yew Geneolgia and his two compatriots in the Crystal Orthodoxy. The demo clocks in at about 10 hours worth of gameplay, and functions essentially as a prequel to Bravely Second. Additionally, players can unlock bonuses for the main game by meeting certain requirements in the demo. These bonuses are mostly usable items that will gave players a head start at the beginning of Bravely Second.

Are you picking up Bravely Second: End Layer? Have you been eagerly anticipating it since you beat the first game, or are you looking to jump into the series for the first time? Let us know down in the comments.