While DualShockers has covered some of Nintendo’s localization changes in Bravely Second: End Layer — notably the costume censorship — they haven’t yet touched on the tweaks Nintendo made to quests. The topic first popped up on GameFaqs message boards when players of both the Japanese and English versions noticed something strange about the side quests.
In the Japanese version, players are able to see the consequences of their decisions when forced to choose a side — many of them lamenting over the negative effect this would cause. Ultimately, all side quests lead to resolution between the parties, so players would eventually reach a “good ending” where everyone is happy.
Meanwhile, the English version cuts the middle-man and skips right to the “good ending,” dropping any negative story beats.
In order to placate the minds of would-be purchasers, Nintendo has released a statement defending their action to change the plot beats of optional side quests.
KeenGamer: "To prepare for the challenge of the upcoming JRPG, players might wish to practice with games similarly developed by Square Enix before Bravely Default 2. From game mechanics, story and overall tone, here is a list of 5 games that will prepare players for what awaits them."
The release date and other details have been revealed for The Art of Bravely Second: End Layer.
The official Twitter account for the Bravely series is teasing a new title announcement.
the point in all of these changes or censorship is that different regions are getting different games. All of these reflects negatively on nintendo
"Japan doesn't like it, so we got rid of it."
If they only listened to the Japanese playerbase for every decision we wouldn't have even 1/5th of the games we have now. For example, Japan doesn't like the Zero Escape series and because of that fact we almost didn't get the final game; thankfully the developers and publishers eventually saw reason, unlike Nintendo in this case.