Topic: What's this Bravely Default game all about?

So I have a friend who keeps telling me about how cool this game is. He always tells me about it's like Final fantasy, which is basically why I don't like it. JRPG's like Final Fantasy haven't been my thing, although I like games like Dragon's Dogma or Pokemon, because they are open world. I wanna know, is this game like Final Fantasy 13, which is basically "walk down hallway,fight monster,kill monster, repeat" or is it open world free roam like Final Fantasy 3 was? Plus,is there character customization?

It's all here: https://www.nintendolife.com/games/3ds/bravely_default

Thanks mate!

From what I understand (hasn't been released in the U.S. yet), it's a lot like the older Final Fantasy titles. Meaning more traditional FF gameplay, as opposed to FF13, which is completely linear and, frankly, quite boring. Customization comes in the way of an extensive jobs system, allowing you to specialize characters in a variety of ways. Think FF 3 and 5 with their jobs systems.

In addition, it has an interesting turn on traditional turn-based combat where you can save up or wager your combat turns to move multiple times at once. There are options for customizing the random encounter rate and battle speed as well.

There is a free demo you can download from the Nintendo Shop with maybe 7 quests or so that you can play through in an hour or two.

If you like Pokemon then you will love this game it is open world and you can explore in any order you like (but will die if you just go straight for the hard stuff of course)

It's super linear. There are sidequests I guess, but you want to be doing all of them since that's how you unlock new classes. Also, the demo is not much like the full game - the demo has MMORPG style kill/collect/fetch quests which aren't in the main story.

edit: what AcornHead says applies for the demo but it doesn't apply to the main game. Agnes will stop your party from entering caves which aren't explicitly relevant to your main quest. There's no chance for sequence breaking, the game ensures you have exactly one location to visit at a time. I guess it's in an effort to preserve the story and make sure the player doesn't get lost.

Aww, that's too bad. The demo reminded me heavily of the Tales series with more traditional turn-based combat. I was so interested, but this kinda makes me rethink my interest in it.

Don't get me wrong, it's a wonderful, well designed game with good writing and intelligent gameplay. You just won't have as much freedom to explore as some other titles.

Actually, it can be compared to FF3, the actual FF3 especially. I think @JollyKarp is comparing it too are games like World of Warcraft, where there is no real storyline. Anytime you employ a storyline of any sort, you will have to have trigger points, locations and tasks that progress the story along. But you can revisit old locations, you do get to actually explore dungeons, and there are a lot of choices you get to make which are not made for you.

Compare it to FF10, where it was completely linear, no going back, no straying from the path, no real choice in what to do ... Bravely Default is nothing like that. It's more comparable to FF6 than anything, but with a job system much like 3.

oh sad. why would they do away with drop quests? (to me they make grinding a little more enjoyable)

I don't think they needed drop quests in the end. 4x speed fights, autobattle and the reward multipliers make grinding significantly faster than any other RPG, except maybe Earthbound.

Also @KittenKoder there's no point in revisiting old locations because there's nothing there for you anymore. Exploring dungeons is well and good, and the design is simple and effective. You actually don't get to make many choices which aren't made for you - a clear theme of the game is duty and following orders. You will be on a rail for the entire _firsthalf of the game. Spoilers below

@JollyKarp, I don't think you are really understanding the comparison, Bravely Default compares to FF3 and 6, and I know of no RPGs where returning to an old location is ever useful for more than EXP and money mining. Even if the story itself is linear, the game is not, if you can revisit old locations then it is not linear as a whole. But I have seen no decent VRPG without a linear story. Sure, many have multiple endings, but the story is still linear, because it still has planned endings.

For anything to truly be non-linear in a story, you need tabletop RPGs, once the ending is planned it becomes linear.

It's about a man getting mauled but a cute kitty in the back alley. Never take the back alley.

So whats the complaint towards the end of the game? I was reading this whole needing to do the same thing 4 times for the true ending.

Who cares?
Its a Squeenix RPG with good reviews.