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.
