So, the demo is out here in North America. It's subtitled 'The Ballad of the Three Caveliers' and it is allegedly separate from the main game itself. Not unlike the demo for the original Bravely Default. And not unlike that game, THIS game is...just...so good. It's classic Final Fantasy with new wrinkles and is really charming to play.

YOU KNEW THIS ALREADY, DIDN'T YOU.

So, who all is playing this? I've put a bit of time into it myself, and gotten re-acclimated with the battle system. So far, it's not too different from the first game. But that's fine - it worked well then, it works well now. I've got my team grinding for levels, and I've assigned the jobs as follows:

Nikolai: Wizard
Yew: Valkyrie
Janne: Freelancer
Magnolia: Astrologian

The characters are very charming too. I like how everyone has a distinct personality...if a bit trope-y. Magnolia crying out "Allons-y!" actually made me chuckle. It's the little things that go a long way, sometimes.

As I said, I'm mostly just grinding for levels at the moment. What are you all having your party doing?

Got it a few days early and beat it last week. Very fun and meaty for a demo. I never got all rewards but it doesn't seem like you can speed up the town building process in the demo unless you get StreetPasses? And yeah, I know that won't happen. Plus time doesn't move forward unless you have the game running or in sleep mode... so that'll take a while if I want to fully rebuild it.

As for my party, I have a Red Mage/Wizard, Valkyrie, Swordmaster/Cowboy (?) and Astrology/Black Mage.

Oh yeah, I forgot this did have an official thread. So did anyone even pick this up? I was sure there would be a bit more hype for it. But I guess coming off the heels of Fire Emblem (which not even people seem to talk about!), that's a lot of JRPG to take in. I really recommend it so far though. So good! I just hope it stays that way cause despite loving a lot of what the first one did, there was that one moment which felt like it just ruined everything. And if it does stay that way, then this is really just JRPG perfection for me. Doesn't feel overly complex for no reason and retains a lot of what makes me love the genre so much in the first place.

@VofEscaflowne

I got this game in the mail the other day, but I'm not going to play it just yet. I'm still playing Fire Emblem Fates (which is awesome!), and I want to finish a few other RPGs in my backlog after that. One of those games is Bravely Default. I've been reluctant to play it again after reading comments about that moment you mentioned. I want to give it a chance, but I'm not looking forward to that part of the game.

@Octorockin

It sort of depends on how you play it. A lot of it can be skipped if you only do the mandatory stuff but I hated the idea of skipping content. Plus you can easily power level yourself in one area if you're feeling a bit bored with that section. I was also playing on hard so some of the battles, though optional, were actually quite brutal to do.

@VofEscaflowne

Thanks for the tips. I'll probably skip some of the optional stuff and tone the difficulty down to normal. The hard difficulty was kinda wearing me out.

I'm pretty conflicted on Bravely Default because a bag can't be any more mixed than that one. The best and worst parts of the game have an extremely wide gap between them, and it's tough to decide if the worst parts, which can be excruciating, are worth it for the good parts. From what I have read, Bravely Second still commits pretty much all the same sins as the first game. As much as I enjoyed the battle system and trying out various combinations of jobs, I just don't know if I want to go through it all again.

I also have a guess what the title will mean this time, but I won't say it. If it's right, it's a spoiler.