Here's a look at what's
inside the (huge!) Bravely Default Deluxe Edition box.
There haven't been many
limited edition games on the Nintendo 3DS but the few that were available
tended to be niche, Japanese titles, much like Bravely Default. I suppose that kind of
audience values additional, rare stuff and appreciate things like artbooks and
soundtracks.
Hopefully this game
does sell well so future releases will be localised as well. From my experience with the
demo and a few hours with the full version, I can already see that I'm going to love
the game and would recommend that all JRPG fans try it out.
The biggest selling
point is the whole Brave/Default system. Simply put, Default is
similar to "Defend"
in most JRPGs but it allows the character who Defaulted to accumulate
additional action points. Brave is
the opposite. If you feel your melee character can finish an enemy with 2 (or more) turns,
you can choose to take those turns instantly. The downside is that the character will be
defenceless until he re-accumulates those points. Of course you don't have to use Brave to
attack, it can be used to cast buffs or healing spells.
Initially it doesn't
seem all that groundbreaking but this simple change allows you to get the most out of your
characters when they're most needed. I'm sure every JRPG fan has
wished that a certain
character could attack more than once per turn or that their healer
can do something more useful
than just defend until required. The Bravely Default system fulfils
that wish!
In addition to that,
there's a great job system which allows different characters to take
on a variety of jobs,
learn job specific abilities, then mix and match them to get optimum
results. It will be familiar to
those who have played games like the original Final Fantasy Tactics
and is another neat addition
which introduces some variety to negate the inevitable tedium most
JRPGs suffer from.
Onto the Deluxe Edition
and its contents! As mentioned, the box is huge (32cm x 22cm x 17cm)! It splits in two
but the sticker at the back
holds the two halves together. I'd recommend gently peeling the
sticker back, taking all the stuff out, then
reapplying the sticker which should still be adhesive. There's a lovely little
illustration on top of the box which adds some colour to all the
blackness.
Part of the reason for
the box's size is the large, hardcover artbook. The book contains a
mix of character, concept
and location artwork in colour and black and white. It's one of the
better gaming artbooks I've
seen of late and it's refreshing to see something bigger than a DVD
sized publication.
Also included is a
soundtrack and 34 Augmented Reality cards. These cards display AR
movies
when scanned by the 3DS
camera. I only saw the opening cinematic so far and it was kinda
neat!
According to the game
manual, these cards are available for download from the official site
but it's also nice to
have them pre-printed like this.
Finally we have a
figurine of one of the characters, Agnes. It's fairly big (21cm high) and
heavy.
Unfortunately the paint
finish is not quite up to scratch. This is particularly evident when looking at her
face which just looks odd. From afar, the sculpt and colours look pleasant enough but I
can't help but feel it could be finished better. Maybe a chibi version with a simpler
sculpt would of turned out better and been easier to produce.
Overall this is
probably one of the most impressive collector's edition games ever
released for the Nintendo 3DS but at $130 or so, it
is quite a significant amount of money. This is really only for
hardcore collectors and JRPG fans. For the
rest, this will probably be too costly.
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