Bravely Second: The Ballad of the Three Cavaliers
released on Feb 11, 2016
Bravely Second: The Ballad of the Three Cavaliers is a pre-launch prelude to the Bravely Second: End Layer and released as a demo in the eShop. In contrast to the full game, the demo features a unique storyline and simplified versions of some gameplay elements. The prelude focuses on the Three Cavaliers – Yew Geneolgia, Janne Angard, and Nikolai Nikolanikov.
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A very good demo for Bravely Second that introduces some of the new jobs, with other classic jobs sprinkled in. It has its own unique story, with its own set of side quests (for extra jobs, like Red Mage). At 10 hours, it's a pretty sizable experience, and it's basically its own game.
A prologue to the game proper. It acts like a demo, but doesn't seem to consider itself one, as on the 3DS menu it lacks the "Demo" moniker - It also has a completely unique subtitle. If judging it as its own game like this...it's kind of bad. There's little to no actual story here. It's just a bunch of back and forth to the HUB town and a few short (one room) dungeons on the map. Everything is centred around missions gathered in the town (either gather materials from defeated enemies, or go defeat a boss).
So as a demo, even if the game doesn't consider itself one, it works to introduce brand new players to the mechanics of Bravely Default. For returning players it's a nice refresher, but anyone who remembers the original game won't find much new here. There's a total of 9 classes you can get in this demo, 3 of which are new, so those 1/3rd are somewhat nice to try out (they all max out at level 4 so you won't see the full potential of any of them). One of them seemed incredibly basic though, being a single-target buffer, which seems outclassed by a previous job that would cast party-wide buffs...and that job just happens to also be in this demo. The only difference between them is that the single-target buffs by an extra 10%, but since it's only on one unit you're still ending up with far less buff overall. Maybe it'll have more unique abilities in the full game, but for demo impressions it really is the most pointless job I've seen.
The last job you unlock here is probably the one that will involve the most forward thinking, as it lets you reset someones health, MP or even BP to what it was at the beginning of the previous turn. So you could "brave" 4 times with a character, then next turn reset their BP back to 0. They'd still miss out on one turn, but in usual cases braving 4 times would mean missing out on 3-4 turns. Definitely something I can see a lot of interesting combos with.
As far as new mechanics go, this little experience showcases the answer to "all non-boss battles can be easily beaten by just braving 4 times with everyone, getting 12 attacks in before the enemy can get one". If you finish a battle in 1 turn, you have the chance to start a new battle, with the bonus of a multiplier being added to the exp and cash at the end, which increases the more battles you take on in a row. This makes braving on everyone a bit of a risk since if you get everyone to -4, then start a new battle, your enemy will have 4 turns to act before you can do anything. And sometimes the game doesn't even give you the option to for this, and just throws the additional battle at you right away.
This mechanic is great for grinding, and just generally good for balancing what was an overpowered 'strategy'.
So as a demo, even if the game doesn't consider itself one, it works to introduce brand new players to the mechanics of Bravely Default. For returning players it's a nice refresher, but anyone who remembers the original game won't find much new here. There's a total of 9 classes you can get in this demo, 3 of which are new, so those 1/3rd are somewhat nice to try out (they all max out at level 4 so you won't see the full potential of any of them). One of them seemed incredibly basic though, being a single-target buffer, which seems outclassed by a previous job that would cast party-wide buffs...and that job just happens to also be in this demo. The only difference between them is that the single-target buffs by an extra 10%, but since it's only on one unit you're still ending up with far less buff overall. Maybe it'll have more unique abilities in the full game, but for demo impressions it really is the most pointless job I've seen.
The last job you unlock here is probably the one that will involve the most forward thinking, as it lets you reset someones health, MP or even BP to what it was at the beginning of the previous turn. So you could "brave" 4 times with a character, then next turn reset their BP back to 0. They'd still miss out on one turn, but in usual cases braving 4 times would mean missing out on 3-4 turns. Definitely something I can see a lot of interesting combos with.
As far as new mechanics go, this little experience showcases the answer to "all non-boss battles can be easily beaten by just braving 4 times with everyone, getting 12 attacks in before the enemy can get one". If you finish a battle in 1 turn, you have the chance to start a new battle, with the bonus of a multiplier being added to the exp and cash at the end, which increases the more battles you take on in a row. This makes braving on everyone a bit of a risk since if you get everyone to -4, then start a new battle, your enemy will have 4 turns to act before you can do anything. And sometimes the game doesn't even give you the option to for this, and just throws the additional battle at you right away.
This mechanic is great for grinding, and just generally good for balancing what was an overpowered 'strategy'.