Tomoyo Asano apologized for Bravely Second, but Bravely Default II feels like an apology for the series as a whole. 

 From the very start, Bravely Default II (BD2 from here on) tells you up-front that it's not Bravely Second. If anything, it's going to be Bravely Default: Again. You've got your protagonist forcibly divorced from their past, a last-of-her-kind woman with a sacred duty, a rascal with a heart of gold, and another woman with a connection to one of the "villains" who puts up with said rascal and eventually falls in love with him. You're given a Knight-like, White Mage, and Black Mage straight from the get-go and thrust into a journey to retrieve the 4 crystals from an authoritarian evil-ish dictator. You start in a humble country kingdom, and your second visit is to a desert. The third world is still a big forest-land like Florem was in BD1. The first third of the game or so is full of what can only be surprised as anti-surprises. Yup, I got the Thief job in the desert world. Yup, there's a Red Mage and an Archer in the forest country. We've seen it. You've seen most of the game, really. BD2 tries so hard to distance itself from Bravely Second that the majority of the content -- especially the job classes and abilities -- are taken wholesale from BD1 with few changes.


There is one thread throughout the first act that hints at something greater, something sinister, something new: the Asterisks (the job-crystal simulacrums) seem to influence the behavior of the user. The Knight and White Mage are almost exact copies of Barras and Holly from the first game, until you take their Asterisks and they start to show a different side of themselves (through an optional sidequest). The Berserker of the story, Prince Castor, was supposedly never so aggressive or scheming until he had possession of the Asterisk. The Red Mage asterisk (and some other influence) compels the wielder to perform grotesque experiments. Could there be some strange effect of parallel universes from the first game? Do the Asterisks do more than just give you powerful abilities? Well, don't think about it for too much longer, because the writers didn't. Immediately after Wiswald all hints or mention at this being a plotline are completely dropped. We're back to just a Get-The-Macguffins story in no time flat.

Speaking of dropped plotlines and crystals, the desert kingdom of Savalon initially presents another interesting idea. The kingdom is being slowly drained of what little oases and underground waterways it has left, and for generations the kings have simply focused on how to prolong their kingdom's survival. Once he's given an asterisk, Prince Castor tries to take matters into his own hands and take the Water Crystal from Musa to bestow water to his desperately needy people. When you thwart his plans, he gives an impassioned speech about how without the water from the crystal, their kingdom will just continue to die. What did the crystal-bearing kingdom of Musa even need it for? This is a compelling question, and the side characters in the game corroborate that Savalon is on a path of slow decline. It's even brought up again in Rimedhal's story, albeit briefly; were it not for the use of the Fire Crystal, the kingdom may have been eventually frozen out by worsening conditions. Once the party recovers the Water and Fire crystals, this is never brought up with or reckoned with again. Sure, in the ending the crystals go back to "restoring balance" to the world, but Savalon and Rimedhal were already declining when they were doing that. So... good luck to them, I guess. I should mention now that in Rimedhal, chapter 3 of 7, your party is given access to most of the tools of the game's most powerful character build: Swordmaster and Vanguard. You can already hit the "physical attack" stat *** of 999 here with just a little time investment. Keep this in mind, we're going to come back to it later.

The 2nd act doesn't add much and the "resolution" of Adam's stint of the main villain are wholly uninteresting and boring so I won't even talk about them. How you expect it to go, it goes. I'd be lying if I said Act 3 particularly shook it up either. In Act 2 we're introduced to a 2nd "main villain" Edna and the true Big Bad, the Night's Nexus. In Act 3 you fight them and win. There's a lot of padding in there, but I've basically just revealed the rest of the plot to BD2 to you. Edna's motivations aren't ever even explained outside of "something bad happened off-camera and now she's evil." Now you may be thinking to yourself -- especially if you've played BD1 or Bravely Second -- that I've left some key plot twists out. BD1 and Bravely Second prided themselves on bringing something new and refreshing to the JRPG story formula. BD1 has a time loop heralding the end of the world and your key companion revealed to be a liar the entire time. It's even in the title of the game, Bravely Default: Flying Fairy. Even her wings on the menu are a hint of this, secretly being a countdown the whole game. Bravely Second has you using New Game+ and an actual battle mechanic to literally re-do the story of the game, but with better outcomes. It's a fascinating mashup of gameplay elements and storytelling. So where is BD2's secret? What magic trick does BD2 have up its sleeve?

There isn't one. Not really. The game attempts to fake you out with a credits sequence as if the game is over, but it's so telegraphed that it's more annoying than it is surprising. Then it does it again later. And then a third time. In each "ending", you already know the gag. There's no curtain concealing the magic trick. It's about as compelling as playing peekaboo after you've learned the concept of object permanence. The final dungeon tries to merge gameplay with story and capture the Bravely Default magic, but it's completely devoid of impact. The final dungeon itself isn't anything new -- it's literally just re-used world map assets from the rest of the game -- including the music! (Side note about the music... a lot of people were excited to see Revo on the soundtrack again. Unfortunately, Revo seems to have been directed to make everything as stale and unadventurous as possible, not unlike everything else.) The attempt to bring gameplay into it is just a popup that clears an obstacle in your way, and your party just uses the same voice "Huh? That's weird." each time. It has none of the emotional impact of the previous entries in the series. And then it's over.

And that's it. That's the problem with BD2. In a series that was previously about defying expectations, nothing is unexpected. You spend the back half of the game waiting for the Twist but it just isn't there. This is even mirrored in the game design. Remember that Swordmaster/Vanguard build I mentioned earlier? It's still the best damage build at the end of the game. The "optimal" gameplay is the same for 4-5 of the 7 chapters, and the only room to improve is rounding out your defenses if you feel like it. You've hit the soft damage ***, and nothing in the game can stand up to it longer than a couple turns. There's a few more risky gimmick builds available, but there's just no reason to go out of your way. The game is designed to discourage you from trying anything new. And it's very sorry that Bravely Default and Bravely Second did anything new too. It's afraid of itself.