Bravely Second

[peterl0]

I would usually use levels for steam rollering as well, but....

 

Embarrassingly I am 3-4 levels higher than the highest level in the previous dungeon.

 

[Glen-i]

Thanks, some useful tips. I think I may have missed some aspects of the game......

 

How do I put blind on a special move? I had a special move at one point earlier in the game on Yew, but not since. Not sure when it went away.

What's the staff special and how do you get it?

 

I have a locket and plenty of money - based on grinding to try and beat him to no avail. I don't have shield on everyone though - love those two handed weapons.

 

I suspect killing one of the two guards but not the other might well be the key to beating him.

 

 

No problem, I'll explain it!

 

First of all, you have been rebuilding the moon base as you go, right? Some of the shops give you Special Moves when you rebuild them and level them up. Other shops give you what's known as Custom Move Parts. You'll need some of those as well.

 

(BTW, once a day, you can talk to the save point guy and select "update data" to get 5 extra people to help with the moon base. Get in the habit of updating once a day.)

 

The Special Menu

 

Right, open your menu, open Special. Then choose a character. The screen should look like this...

 

Sorry for the Japanese, can't get on Miiverse to post an english one.

 

On this screen, you can customise the special moves to give them extra bonuses.

There are 4 categories, Offensive, Recovery, Enfeebling and Support.

If you select Offensive, you'll be taken to another screen with 4 "Slots" You can apply some of those custom parts you got from the moon to these.

 

- The top slot lets you add an element (Fire, Water, etc.) to the attack.

- The second slot lets you boost the amount of damage the attack does.

- The third slot lets you add a part which will do extra damage against certain enemy families (Insects, Plants, etc.)

- The bottom slot lets you add a status ailment to the attack.

 

As you can imagine, you can make all sorts of combinations.

But as an example, let's add a Blind status effect. (I'm assuming you have it from the Moon Base. If not, hop to it, maybe put the game on sleep mode overnight if you can't be bothered to wait)

You simply choose the bottom slot, select "Blind Touch" and that's it! It's very simple! While you're at it, go ahead and fill up the rest of the slots, no reason not to. (Well, except for the element slot, sometimes you'll want to leave that blank, depending on the enemy)

 

Oh, and descriptions of custom parts will appear on the bottom of the screen, so look there to see what parts do.

 

Getting more Specials

If you've been neglecting the Moon Base, then you'll only have the Level 1 Sword Special, Hack and Slash.

 

You see, each weapon has it's own set of Special moves. So there's 4 Sword Specials, 4 Axe Specials and so on.

Like I said before, you get more specials by developing the shops on the moon.

 

So in order to get the Level 1 Staff Special, first you have to unlock it by rebuilding the appropriate shop on the moon, I can't remember which one it was, sorry.

 

Once you've unlocked it, then any character that has a staff equipped will be able to use it once their Special move is charged up.

 

Which brings me to the "trigger condition".

 

Trigger Condition

 

If you look at the screenshot I posted just above, you'll see an option underneath the 4 categories called "Use condition", well it's called "Trigger Condition" here and it determines how you charge up Special moves.

The default option is called "Victor" and it charges up whenever you win a battle.

 

This trigger condition blows! You should change it to anything else.

You can get more trigger conditions by, yep, you guessed it, rebuilding shops on the moon! The shop that gives you trigger conditions is on the left hand side of the screen.

 

There are many different Trigger Conditions. Here's a few examples

 

- "Brave" triggers whenever you use the Brave option, Brave 10 times to get your Level 1 Special.

- "Default" triggers whenever you spend a turn Defaulting, Default 5 times to get the Level 1 Special.

- "Heal" triggers whenever you perform an action that recovers HP, Heal 10 times to get the Level 1 Special.

 

Personally, I like the Default option as my strategy is more defensive, so I rack up Special moves really quick. But nothing's stopping you from experimenting with the others. Find one that works for you.

 

I hope that helps. Special moves can really turn the tides in your favour. So don't neglect them.

Oh, and don't forget to apply custom parts to every character, you can use the same part on multiple characters, so feel free to put blind on everyone!

 

It's worth noting that Shields not only boost your defense, they also boost your evasion! This means that enemies that focus on Physical attacks will get less hits on you, meaning much less damage. If a boss is doing too much physical damage, consider using shields.

Edited March 15, 2016 by Glen-i

[Ike]

Managed to beat the Chomper enemies, remembered there's a move that gives you the pierce def. ability which let me get some good hits on them.

[Debug Mode]

Cheers. I was actually referring to the ending of the side quests themselves - hard to be specific because I am avoiding spoilers.

 

The suggestion was that if you chose the wrong side in some side quests that someone could die (characters from the sidequests I think) and that these 'bad consequences' had been removed from the localised version.

 

Ahhhh

 

This I definitely cannot answer without spoilers, but all will become very clear to you soon.

[peterl0]

So there were changes to the side quests in localisation, but only in the way that the party reacted to the choices made.

 

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/03/nintendo_issues_statement_on_side_quest_changes_in_bravely_second

 

Regarding changes made to Bravely Second: End Layer for worldwide release

 

Based on feedback received after Bravely Second: End Layer's release in Japan, the development team at Square Enix, in conjunction with Silicon Studio, decided to implement a number of revisions to the game for the purpose of improving its quality and creating a more enjoyable product.

One such change affects the game's optional side quests, where players encounter a conflict between two opposing parties and choose which party to side with.

When the game was released in Japan, each side quest would end with the team lamenting the decision they made, regardless of the player's decision. This was intended to help players empathise with the characters' situation, but overwhelming feedback from players indicated that they felt an unsatisfying disconnect between their intentions and the characters' reactions. In response, these side quest endings were amended to show the party readily coming to terms with their actions in a manner that does not cause the player undue regret for their decisions.

These changes do not affect the gameplay or the course of events in the game, and were made with the intention of improving the game experience for players.

 

Think I am fine with that.

[Glen-i]

Wait, in the Japanese version, the characters were never happy with the choice you made?

 

Yeah, European way is better.

 

Anyway, just finished Chapter 4.

 

Did they seriously pull a New Game+ fakeout!? That's Genius! Going back to that unwinnable battle at the start and cheating with Bravely Second felt so ridiculously satisfying! This game man, this game! Bravo! Truly masterful fourth wall breaking! Just as clever as Bravely Default's final boss' "Saved by your 3DS friend list" moment

 

[peterl0]

@Glen\-i I finally got around to playing the game again over the weekend and I beat the Patissier with the charm bracelets and only killing one of the side dudes - cheers for that.

 

After that the next boss was a walk in the park.

 

I have also stopped neglecting the moon and so now have a fair few more specials.

[peterl0]

So, I am now at the start of chapter 6. Whilst I like the battle mechanics and the bosses, I feel that the story leaves a lot too be desired. It like it doesn't know whether it wants to be serious or light hearted half of the time. Also, what is it with Japanese RPGs and food jokes at the moment? I thought Xenoblade X was bad but this can be awful. I cringe every time one of the characters uses the phrase 'coup de gravy' or variant thereof. (This can't have translated directly either surely).

 

As someone who has not played the first game, what they pulled seemed pretty cheap to me. If you want all of the jobs you have to go back into all of the side quest dungeons you have already beaten, as well as a few of the main ones? Granted, it is probably not as bad as the first game, but it still feels like artificial padding.

 

Also, I spent most of the part of the first game making what I thought were the best decisions I could have made. I now find out that the whole world was reset and I have to make the exact opposite choice (in what I am presuming is the final world) to get the other job classes! That pissed me off.

 

 

[Glen-i]

As someone who has not played the first game, what they pulled seemed pretty cheap to me. If you want all of the jobs you have to go back into all of the side quest dungeons you have already beaten, as well as a few of the main ones? Granted, it is probably not as bad as the first game, but it still feels like artificial padding.

 

Also, I spent most of the part of the first game making what I thought were the best decisions I could have made. I now find out that the whole world was reset and I have to make the exact opposite choice (in what I am presuming is the final world) to get the other job classes! That pissed me off.

 

 

Compared to Bravely Default, it's waaaayyy shorter.

And really, it's not that bad, I actually found it quite humorous seeing Edea just use her prior knowledge to skip a lot of the cutscenes. Also, there's a few new enemies to fight in each of the continents, so it's not terrible. Also, it's still completely optional, and you don't have to do them all at once. Some of the old jobs from Default like White Mage are super redundant now.

 

Anyway, I really enjoyed Chapter 6, that's all I'll say about it. It'll be interesting to see what you think, seeing as you never played the first game.

 

[Debug Mode]

So there were changes to the side quests in localisation, but only in the way that the party reacted to the choices made.

 

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/03/nintendo_issues_statement_on_side_quest_changes_in_bravely_second

 

 

 

Think I am fine with that.

 

I'm not sure what to make of this to be honest, the beauty of those quests were that in most of them, there was no right or wrong choice, it was often a cruel decision to make. By changing the reactions to more positive ones, it negates the cruelty of some of the outcomes.

[peterl0]

On the other hand...

 

...you effectively have to make both choices anyway, if you want to get all of the jobs, so having the game browbeat you for the negative consequences of the decision does seem a bit harsh.

 

(Perhaps I did not have to get all of the jobs....)

 

 

[Glen-i]

Meanwhile, on my 3DS.

 

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For context's sake, Flash in Bravely Second is an attack that hits your entire party for half of the attacker's HP.

 

So, in other words, right when I finally whittled her down to around 30,000 HP (Out of a grand total of well over 700,000, not even counting Comrade, who she's constantly reviving so that it can take all the hits for her.), she decides that it would be hilarious to just whip that out and kill my party in one go.

 

Genuinely got annoyed there, there was no way I could have seen that coming.

It was super cheap.

 

[peterl0]

So I have finished chapters 5 and 6 now and in so doing finished the game.

 

So, not having played the first game, the final chapters and side quests left me slightly nonplussed.

Everything made sense, but it did not have the emotional or character beats that it would probably have had playing through the first game.

The final boss fight was quite anticlimactic. It just seemed to come out of nowhere as the nemesis of Altair and Vega. Some relatively good fourth wall breaking I suppose.)

Did I miss something about Altair and Vega, by the way? Are they supposed to be alt. versions of Magnolia and Yew?

 

 

 

Anyway, as an overall experience I enjoyed the game for the RPG elements (conveniences, battles and jobs), but felt that the story was a bit lacking and didn't really think the super-deformed characters meshed well with the more serious aspects of the plot. (Especially when the FMV showed what the characters 'really' looked like.)

[Glen-i]

Did I miss something about Altair and Vega, by the way? Are they supposed to be alt. versions of Magnolia and Yew?

 

 

As far as I can tell, Altair serves two purposes...

 

- To give Yew advice on his love life.

- To serve as Tiz's soul. At the end of Bravely Default, it was revealed that Tiz technically died at the beginning, and the actual player kept him alive, but when the game finished, you stop playing, so Tiz no longer has a soul.

 

The Celestial Realm, as you no doubt are aware of now, is the real world. So Altair and Vega are obviously a couple from there.

Apart from that, there really isn't much to them.

 

An interesting footnote is that 3 of the B'aals appeared as Streetpass bosses in the international version of Bravely Default. Complete with those weird backgrounds. It was nice for me to see that there was some meaning behind those weird backdrops.

 

That final boss did kinda come out of nowhere, but it's fairy minion, Anne, was actually the first character you saw in the first game. She gets the player to help Luxendarc, and inevitably stop her sister, who worked for another God-like final boss.

 

The only difference was that Anne worked for a God that comes from the Celestial Realm, while her sister, Airy worked for whatever the opposite of that was.

 

As soon as I saw Anne helping the Kaiser, I knew something was clearly up. But you obviously wouldn't have. So that would easily have been lost on you.

That's a problem this game has, it really does rely on the player having played Default. Hence the complete retelling at the beginning.

 

The story in Second is not as strong as Default, which is a shame.