Three Things Bravely Default Does Better Than Final Fantasy XIII

It’s almost a unanimously agreed-upon fact that Final Fantasy XIII is a terrible, terrible byproduct of a once-shining corporation now consumed with greed. It is because of this very game that many Final Fantasy loyalists thought Square Enix bit the dust. But in February of 2014, something amazing happened: The JRPG giant brought to life a fantastical masterpiece of epic proportions. This game, dubbed Bravely Default, was like a love letter to Square Enix loyalists worldwide. Hearkening to an era long gone by, it featured all the micromanaging and strategizing that Final Fantasy players had come to know and love. And now, it gives us even more reason to abandon the intellectual property that once turned heads and emptied wallets. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves for a new age in gaming, because Bravely Default is here to stay. If you’re not convinced, here’s three reasons why you should trash that copy of Final Fantasy XIII on your shelf and start playing your 3DS more. (After the break, of course).

Environments in General

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Bravely Default treats you, the player, to a veritable feast of lushly painted, hand-drawn locales that—although they look like concept art watercolor paintings—can nonetheless be traversed at your leisure. These towns and cities are oftentimes nothing more than eye candy, but hey, you should be glad that you’re at least given the option to have something that isn’t an action scene while you’re playing the game.

Final Fantasy XIII, on the other hand, has literally zero places to rest. No towns, no cities, no villages. Nothing. Of course, it’d be kind of boring if I kept reiterating synonyms for what amounts to an empty set, so I’ll talk about its dungeons, just to be fair.

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In essence, when it comes to exploration, Final Fantasy XIII tries to impress and wow its audience with sophisticated machinery, flashes of light, and explosions… But sadly, at the end of a day’s gaming session, there’s a sinking feeling that you’ve done little more than walk down a high-definition hallway. Every dungeon is literally a tube—a tube that has the occasional bend and twist in it, which, if you’re impatient, can be completely ignored because Lightning or someone else just jumps over it. Sometimes the game even reuses previous twists and turns; in my experience, I’ve found that if there’s an S-shaped obstruction, I need only turn left, right, and left to continue on my path to the boss or the next cutscene. Oh, well, at least there’s the battles, right?

Battle System

Bravely Default is named after its battle system, which allows both you and your enemies to take extra actions in exchange for being unable to do anything during later turns. Conversely, you can also opt to do nothing so that you can save up actions for future use. In doing so, an extra dimension of strategy is added to what used to be a boring grind: You’ll often find yourself wondering, “Should I go all-out on this boss and launch sixteen spells at once, or should I go on the defensive so I can heal multiple times once my teammates are sliced to ribbons?”

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In contrast, Final Fantasy XIII’s very first tutorial serves to teach the player how to auto-battle—which, unsurprisingly, happens to be your main character’s default action. (If reading that didn’t make you cringe, then you either played the game already, or you should steer clear of the RPG genre). This essentially reduces your interactive experience to waiting for a gauge to fill so that you can press X, which causes your character to attack (or something). Did I mention you can’t control anybody outside of the main character? The rest of your party runs off A.I., which, I’ll admit, isn’t that good in this game. What’s more, you have to go out of your way to delve into the main menu and toggle an option should you—God forbid—want to perform manual actions. Thinking and strategizing in an RPG… What a novel concept! Oh, speaking of “thinking and strategizing”, that brings me to the next section…

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Resource Management

Bravely Default is a fairly involved game by typical RPG standards. In addition to the random encounters that wear your party’s HP down and give you negative status effects (like poison or blind), the world itself is also out to get you. Poison marshes, bursts of sand clouds, blazing lava surges—all of these are active dungeon elements that can hurt your team of four, lowering your chances of fighting the current lair’s boss with an intact party. When playing Bravely Default, you will very often ask yourself, “Should I use this Hi-Potion now, or should I wait until my character’s closer to being dead? And should I use my MP to cast Esuna so I can get rid of this poison, or should I save it for casting Cura during the next random battle?”

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In deep, deep contrast, Final Fantasy XIII does away entirely with the sense of dread and item management by completely restoring your party members’ HP and MP after every encounter. Oh, and don’t worry about status effects, because those vanish, as well. What this all boils down to is that the player need only survive the current encounter, which can be done even if your party members leave with but a sliver of their original health. There is no need to manage your items, which you will only ever be using in-battle anyway, and there is no sense of tension or fear involved whenever a random encounter approaches—because let’s face it, either you plow through them and act like nothing happened, or you die and start over from the last save point… And then you plow through them.

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So, in short, Bravely Default is the Final Fantasy that we deserve, and the Final Fantasy that we never had (well, kind of). I could go on and on about how Final Fantasy XIII only gives each character two stats and two equipment slots, or how Bravely Default’s job change system allows for near infinite customizability. But I’ll just leave on this note: I honestly think that Square Enix should leave Final Fantasy. It’s had its day, for sure, but now is the time for newer gems to shine. Square Enix, please crank out more Bravely Default games; it is a very promising IP with loads of potential, and I’d hate to see Final Fantasy’s name get dragged even more into the dirt.