Bravely Default: Flying Fairy (2012)

I do not like this game. I've heard so many good things about it, from a wide variety of relatively trusted sources. I can't really force myself to go past five hours of play, because this game is just outright bad. The story feels like it was written with 10 year olds in mind, despite it being a nostalgia bait title that is more likely to appeal to older players. It lifts the Skit system wholesale from the Tales series (which is fair play, considering how many things Tales has lifted from Final Fantasy over the years), but every skit just adds more excruciatingly bad childish dialogue. I get stuck between wanting to skip them because they're bad, or forcing myself through them because its the only place the game will flesh out the characters.

The job system mechanics (this is basically a low-budget final fantasy game in all but name) is clearly going to become interesting and provide a lot of customization... in probably about 30 or more hours. The Brave/Default combat system is a really interesting idea and feels great to use. It has a high-risk-high-reward nature that should allow for some creative and tactical play. Unfortunately, since the game is afraid of punishing the player even on hard mode, there's really no reason you can't just give all of your characters four actions on the first turn and win every battle with the enemies having no chance to retaliate, so in practice, it's just an instant win button.

The game is ugly as sin. I know this is very much a matter of personal aesthetic preferences, but it's my review, and I absolutely hate the way this game looks. All of the characters look like weird little dolls with bizarre proportions that follow no logic and dull designs that simply riff off the classic final fantasy classics that have been done a thousand times before. The environmental artists, at least, did a pretty good job with cityscapes that look like paintings from a distance but can be zoomed in on and seamlessly explored, though these tend to be, like, one screen per area.

The music is great. Good job there.

Looking back, I didn't realize quite how old this game actually was, the original launching in 2012. That's during the period in my own personal history when I was convinced we were in a "JRPG Dark Ages," when I felt like JRPGs had completely lost their way and were just churning out low effort fodder that was either nostalgia bait or weeb bait. Being both old and a weeb, I'm not opposed to those things, but I have standards, and it really felt like there was nothing going on in the genre at the time. I eventually realized that wasn't really true of course. There were always interesting things happening on the periphery that I just failed to notice, such as my now beloved Etrian Odyssey series mostly releasing during that period. But if I had played this game back in those days, it would only have fueled my negativity. I really wish I hadn't bought it.