YMMV / Bravely Default II

• Accidental Innuendo: Adelle's "More! More!" when she's expending Bravery sounds like it out of context. Especially if Seth's "I'm going all in!" is said before or after.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Folie murders a little girl, brags about how fun destroying Musa was, uses blood as paint to brainwash people, all for the sake of a twisted form of "art", and is completely unrepentant about it? Yeah, you're gonna feel REALLY good killing that disgusting little bitch. She even has the gall to get mad at your party for "not understanding her art".
  • For some, getting Swordmaster. Not only does it involve getting to beat up the self-righteous Helio and forcing Gladys to confront the truth of what she's been doing, but you get counterattacks. If the player has disliked people like Bernard, Castor, Glenn, or Folie countering literally everything the player seems to do, you can finally throw that back in the face of the bosses, and the aggro mechanic from Bravely Second has been refined to where those counters will come out hard and often. There's nothing quite as fun as setting up Counter-Savvy on your Swordmaster, taking Vanguard as your sub-job, and countering every counter and attack thrown at you.
  • For the same reasons as above, combining Counter-Savvy and Turn Tables, gained from beating Lily and Marla. If it's not enough to counter bosses, using their counters against them will make anyone happy. Turn Tables gives the player BP when they dodge an attack. Counter-Savvy auto-dodges any counter if that counter isn't specifically a spell, like Stonera or Banishga. Most counters aren't spells. And yes, dodges performed because of Counter-Savvy count for Turn Tables. Especially cathartic considering some bosses have a counter ability that raises their BP, too - you're stealing their gimmick!
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: In the interest of making the game easier, there's generally going to be a few passive abilities players stick on every character and never take off.
  • Solar Powered and Lunar Powered are earned at level five from two of your earliest classes — the White and Black Mage, respectively — which all but guarantees you'll get these first. These skills give passive buffs depending on the day/night cycle, most notably the ability to regenerate 4% of your MP after every turn. This makes them invaluable in dungeon crawling, where MP is precious, and on top of that they slightly boost your healing and luck, meaning you can save on valuable items as you explore. Better yet, the day/night cycle halts when you enter a dungeon, meaning there's no need to equip both at once or constantly stop to switch between them. They're useful throughout the entire game, and odds are you'll have one or the other equipped at all times.
  • Counter-Savvy, learned from the Ranger at level six, is the second-earliest passive you're likely to get that'll you'll never take off, as the benefit is simply too good. If you're Counter-Attacked, you dodge the counter with 100% success every single time, with the only exception being spells. 90% of counters are physical blows and abilities, 5% are spells, and the last accursed 5% is Counter Any Ability, so you're effectively removing the grand majority of counter attacks made against you. This is especially poignant in boss fights, where Counter-Savvy will trivialize almost all of them. The further you get into the game, the more dependent bosses become on cold-cocking you with counters when you do anything to them to pose a challenge, to the point you can't hit Lonsdale without the annoyance countering with Corporal Punishment. For added hilarity, in one boss fight, being able to invalidate counters makes the boss die faster, because all of Adam's counters eat away at the boss' HP without the boss doing anything to you.
  • The Berserker's Unshakeable Will. It specifically makes you immune to every status ailment that takes control away from you while your character has it. This is unsurprisingly the majority of ailments, and renders both random encounters and many, many bosses (looking at you, Lily. You too, Hall of Tribulations Roddy.) utterly incapable of threatening you. The only reason a player would ever take it off is to use the rage mechanic of Berserker, which, while potent, is still a niche option as a result of it being locked to Berserker in a game that encourages you to try out all the fun jobs you get. Unshakeable Will is often combined with Counter-Savvy to create a combo that allows the player the most control over a battle possible. The only downside is it's not unlocked until level nine, meaning you probably won't get it until late in the game if you're constantly switching up jobs.
  • Freelancer's JP Up and JP Up and Up. While not useful in combat these two stacking buffs make getting other useful skills a breeze by massively boosting job exp earned after battles. While they will eventually be dropped from every character that's only after they've mastered every other job.
• Complete Monster:
  • Chapter 2: Folie, the wielder of the Pictomancer Asterisk, was a Lonely Rich Kid empowered by Edna who used the chance to start pursuing her artistic ambitions. Folie took part in the destruction of Musa, reminiscing fondly about how "fun" the slaughter was, and for the duration of the chapter operates as a Serial Killer in the city of Wiswald, murdering several noted scholars in the city all for the sake of using their blood in her artwork. In her cruelest touch, Folie murdered a young girl named Mona, then brainwashed Mona's parents into her slaves by using her cursed paintings to drive them insane with the belief Mona was still alive.
  • Chapter 3: Helio, the wielder of the Spiritmaster Asterisk, is the true power behind the corruption of the dragon-worshiping theocracy of Rimedhal. A spy from Holograd sent to destabilize the entire nation from within and eliminate anyone who could stand up to the conquest, Helio manipulated his fellow Asterisk wielders Dominec and Gladys into setting up the "judgments". As chief inquisitor of these judgments, Helio has any innocent people who stood up to the church made out to be fairies and forces them to plunge into a frozen ravine called the Jaws of Judgment to "prove" they're innocent, a regular process that had led to countless deaths over a decade. When the time finally comes for Holograd to invade, Helio murders Domenic himself and pauses in his escape to cruelly mock the dying Gladys that he was the one who killed her parents and set Gladys off on her path to begin with by pinning it on the fairies.
  • Chapter 4: Vigintio, wielder of the Arcanist Asterisk, was a deranged sorcerer in life killed by his prestigious rival Lady Emma after he turned to experimenting on innocent people. Before he died, Vigintio perfected a formula that allowed him to become undead, a formula he uses to whip up a massive undead army in the pursuit of his revenge. To spite Lady Emma's name, Vigintio intends to have the entire city of Wiswald massacred by his army and converted to their ranks, all after he's tied up his old colleague Roddy from the highest point in Wiswald to ensure he sees every moment of the slaughter.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Anihal is very well liked by fans for her cute design, sympathetic backstory, being one of the few Asterisk holders who's not evil, and helping you find the Water Crystal. It also helps that the Beastmaster is considered one of the best jobs in the game once you get the hang of it.
  • Lonsdale receives quite a lot of praise for being a humble badass who toughened up through all the misfortunes he experienced by his superiors. His talk to Seth at the bar serves as quite an Establishing Character Moment.
• Fan Nickname: When discussing the fight against Prince Castor, people tend to call the boss "Berserker", after their Asterisk, likely to avoid spoiling their identity.
• Goddamned Boss:
  • Galahad, pretty much by design. He's a Shieldmaster, so he's extremely tanky. He can use Reprisal, which causes anyone who damages him to take damage equal to half of that. And he's accompanied by three paint spirits who have decent HP and are immune to almost everything. Hope you captured enough Petunias with the Beastmaster and/or got the Direct Sunlight items from sidequest 39 (or have a Bare-Fisted Monk or two handy), because otherwise, the fight will go from a slog to a straight-up Marathon Boss.
  • The three-headed flower monster in Miasma Woods (fought as part of sidequest 44). One head can heal, while another can inflict Contagion (before you can get any accessories to prevent it, too). But worst of all, each head can revive the others, and with a pretty good chunk of HP to boot. And they can counter party-wide attacks, so trying to hit all of them at once results in taking loads of damage in return.
  • Hoenir, the demon fought during sidequest 73. The sidequest is inexplicably only rated a 4/10 for difficulty, but the boss, which comes completely out of nowhere (why is there a unique demon guarding a random diary in an abandoned mansion?), is a nuisance. It has high evasion and can use Veilga to buff it even higher, including as a counter to magic. It counters physical attacks with Curse, which debuffs the attacker's attack and defense. And it can freeze the entire party in place with Stopga (which can easily be negated with Unshakeable Will, but without it, good luck). While it doesn't hit that hard, it takes forever to defeat if you decide to do it shortly after beginning chapter 5.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: One of the introductory trailers for the game admonishes players for recklessly spamming Brave. After the game's release, making gratuitous use of Vanguard's Gift of Courage to spam powerful attacks like Thief's Godspeed Strike became one of the most popular ways to deal with bosses on Hard Mode.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • While generally well received by critics and fans alike, many have noted that very little of the formula established in the prior two games has changed, despite that being a widespread criticism of Bravely Second. Combined with the fact that, as a Nintendo Switch title, it costs 50% more than the first two games, and that criticism is proving harder to shake than it was for Bravely Second, which did at least offer some changes to the formula and actively improved elements criticized from the first game.
  • The plot has also drawn criticism, given Square Enix's throwback to 90's RPGs (including the Bravely series and Octopath Traveler) have been viewed by some as having dull, formulaic plots that are so predictable that they actively detract from the solid gameplay at their core. That Bravely Default II barely changes on that front, after years of criticism, and even replicates things from Bravely Default that were viewed as cliche at the time, has led to it being viewed more negatively than prior games.
• Les Yay: Martha seems to have a bit of a crush on Adelle, both for her looks and her strength, and Adelle's responses mirror her responses to Elvis' feelings.
• Low-Tier Letdown: While you'll hear a lot about how good Godspeed Strike is, you won't often hear much said positively about the Thief job itself. This is because of its second specialty - 'Up to no Good.' In return for not getting BP when you default, all Thief abilities that cost BP instead cost MP. This is a horrendous trade-off, and it can't be turned off. There are a lot of points where it's simply in the player's interest to defend and gain some BP to use later. That's the most basic aspect of Bravely Default's gameplay, and having no way to build up BP means another job needs to be used to supplement the Thief. Since there's a large gap in time between when you get Thief and when you get the only faster job, Phantom, it's generally advised you purposefully hold back when traveling through new areas, just so you don't build up so much JP you 'master' Thief. There is an accessory to prevent gaining of any JP, but it's not acquired until late in the game.
• Moe: Anihal and Martha are widely beloved for just how adorable they are. Anihal's tragic backstory made most people leap at the chance to protect her, while Martha's playfulness, feisty nature, and genuine friendliness to the party make her lovable as well. Mona also elicits this reaction, though her minimum screen time makes her less popular than them. Her death sure does make beating on Folie all the more cathartic, though.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Folie chronologically crossed it by killing Mona just to get Roddy to do what she wanted in making the blue paint. On-screen, it becomes clear she's irredeemable when the party explores her lair and discovers a pile of corpses she killed to make red paint.
  • Helio commits a number of atrocities in his chapter, but it’s when he gleefully admits to a dying Gladys that he’s the one who killed her parents that the player realises that there isn’t a shred of good in him.
• Narm:
  • Every time Adelle performs a special attack, she finishes by spouting off a one-liner while staring blankly off to into the distance with an utterly emotionless face, a complete contrast to the rest of the game which takes great care in each character's facial expressions during cutscenes.
  • The Night's Nexus has a... very strange reverb that defines her voice. While meant to sound creepy, it can also be seen as very goofy and it sort of sounds like someone has grabbed her and is shaking her very fast.
• Questionable Casting: A common complaint about the game, both with the demos and final product, is the casting choices for the English version. Similar to Xenoblade Chronicles 1, the voice actors are European based rather than North American based like the previous games were. The quality of the acting though is inconsistent due to odd casting choices and direction; the main characters generally sound good, but characters like the Asterisk Holders have ones that range from pretty good to rather poor in direction, such as having the White Mage Asterisk owner talk in a mild German accent, while paired up with the Vanguard Asterisk owner who has an over the top Australian voice complete with Australian slang.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Newly introduced to the Bravely series in this game is arbitrary counterattacks, an addition that has been base-breaking at best and despised at worst.
    In the previous two games, only specific bosses could counter the player, usually with counters based on one of their job's gimmicks, such as Kamiizumi and Kikyo in Default and Janne in Second. In Bravely Default 2, however, nearly every boss has at least one counter move, and depending on the boss, any action may trigger a counter, including healing or Defaulting, and there is no way to know what they are until they happen (unless you read a guide). Worse, the triggers are random, meaning that even a savvy player can test the waters with a particular move, be lucky enough not to trigger a counter, then decide to go all-out with it and have the boss counter multiple times in a row, potentially causing a Total Party Kill because the Random Number God was feeling spiteful. Heaven help you if you go up against the Bard or Berserker with a team of mages.
    Additionally, AI-controlled guest characters can still trigger certain counters and there's nothing the player can do to prevent it. It is possible to No-Sell many of the counters later on in the game (or even bait enemies into countering and then taking advantage of the resulting dodge or countering yourself), but if you're still in the first couple chapters (see Difficulty Spike above) or are a new player, they can be a huge hassle to get around.
    By far the worst of these are some bosses who counter any action you take by gaining BP, which effectively lets the bosses hit you with a four-action nova turn every single turn, making what should be a challenging boss into a frustrating slog at best.
  • There's no way to sort the Beastmaster's captured monsters other than by the order they were captured, nor to look up what each monster ability does. Some players simply never used the job except for passives because it's such a pain scrolling through the list of monsters and remembering what each one does.
  • The Spiritmaster's second specialty activates all of the spirits at once, including Purebringer, which dispels status debuffs...and buffs, meaning that you can't keep things like the Bard's abilities on your party. Or the Spiritmaster's own Reraise. And there is no way to turn it off or have it simply skip that one spirit if you have it maxed out and as a main job. This is somewhat mitigated by the fact that you can simply have the Spiritmaster Default up to 2 BP to turn off the spirits, but that also means giving up all that lovely HP and MP restoration....
  • The weight system. New to Bravely Default 2, this gives every piece of equipment a weight amount, and every character has a maximum carrying capacity depending on their job and level. The closer they are to capacity, the less frequently their turn comes up, and going over capacity causes all of that character's stats to drop. No longer can you choose the best weapon, the best shield, and the best armor for everyone in your party. Each character's maximum weight capacity does increase as they level up, but equipment also gets heavier as you progress through the game, so it's essentially Empty Levels for that one stat. Naturally, the tankier jobs like the Vanguard and Shieldmaster can carry more weight, which results in an Unstable Equilibrium as the characters who are less in need of strong equipment due to higher base defense are better able to equip it, while the Squishy Wizards are proportionately even more fragile because their base defense is lower but they also need lighter armor.
  • Several things got nerfed pretty heavily compared to the first games (such as More Money only giving a 10% increase and most buffs having a shorter duration). Perhaps the most annoying of these is item stealing. While there are plenty of good items that are stealable, the rate of success for stealing them is abysmally low. For comparison, the base steal rate was 25% in Bravely Default—or 50% with the Master Thief passive—and 50% in Bravely Second. In this game? Even a character who is wearing two pairs of Thief Gloves and is affected by Lucky Charm won't reach 50%. And if you think you can get around this with Results Guaranteed, nope; that's one of the few things that it doesn't work with.
• Shocking Moments: Prince Castor being the Arc Villain of Chapter 1 caught many players of the demo off-guard, as there Castor was a helpful NPC and gave no indication he was deceiving the party. As seen above, many avoid spoiling this boss' identity on principle.
• Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer: It is very easy to get sucked into B 'n' D, challenging every player you come across and playing them until you've cleaned out their decks. Not helped by the fact that a typical round of cards is faster than a typical battle in the main part of the game.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: A part of Edna's theme has been noted by Touhou Project fans to be similar to Wriggle Nightbug's theme. Also amusing is that this game uses trumpets for the fairy related themes in this game similar to Touhou which also has several fairy characters.
• Tainted by the Preview: The game being set in a new world as opposed to Luxendarc turned off many fans of the previous games due to many enjoying the setting of Luxendarc and finding the new setting to inherently suffer from Tough Act to Follow. As a result, it isn't uncommon to see threads or discussions before release about how if the game doesn't have a connection to the first two games, they wouldn't want to purchase the game.
• That One Attack: Not really an attack, but a response to one - 'Counter Any Ability.' The counter system in Bravely Default II is contentious enough when it's being used to steer the player away from specific strategies - this counter is simply there to make bosses unreasonably tough. 'Counter Any Ability' wouldn't be so bad if it was an attack, a buff, or a debuff, but every creature with 'Counter Any Ability' gains a point of BP when it procs. ^note There is one exception. The Superboss Gwdyion thankfully shows a small shred of mercy and counters any ability with an attack or a debuff, depending on if he's flying or on the ground. Probably because the devs recognized how unreasonable it would be for a creature with near status immunity and monstrous HP and statistics to get BP back simply because you fought it. The issue is that 'Counter Any Ability' means counter any ability. If it isn't an attack, defaulting, braving, or using an item (and even then, attack items proc it, too) there is a significant chance the enemy will gain a point of BP. It's bad enough when the Oracle uses it in his boss fight, when the enemy is alone and has poor stats - thus making the counter somewhat reasonable - but the Halls of Tribulation take it to absurd levels - every Asterisk user has it, are fought in groups of three or four, and often have abilities that hit absurdly hard or use BP as a cost, which they functionally don't need to care about or default for. After Bravely Default and Bravely Second made the boss rematches one of the highest points in the games, where you could try out new strategies on bosses strategically grouped together to create new and interesting challenges, the fact that all of that complexity was thrown out in favor of BP spam is both aggravating and boring.
• That One Boss:
  • The holder of the Berserker Asterisk, Prince Castor, the last boss of Chapter 1 is often regarded as this, even compared to the other bosses in Chapter 1. They use an ability that raises their attack and puts them into a berserk state, and depending on your level at this point in the game, they'll one-shot anyone that isn't a Vanguard, even in Default state. They even have attacks that lower your defense, so you pretty much have to buff your defenses constantly and spam Defang to stand a chance. The boss also has a lot of AOE attacks with the power to pierce default, and that when the boss gets low on HP they switch to them and start killing your team faster. Part of the issue with the boss is also how it comes quickly after your previous fight with the Thief job, leaving players to not know they have another boss quickly coming up.
  • The holder of the Oracle Asterisk, Archbishop Domenic. His main issue is his third 'phase', and comes down to his counters. As the fight continues, he changes tactics and what causes him to counter, which during said third phase becomes any ability you use. Healing? He gets BP. Buffing? He gets BP. This results in him racking up high amounts of damage due to being able to stack attack items, while also making it impossible to just tank the fight because of a lack of reflect, something he can freely use. Even if you try to bypass that, he tends to cast reflect on himself and bounce spells off of himself.
  • D-Vergr, a late-game sidequest boss, is extremely frustrating. He summons very fast minions that can reset your ATB guage and charm your allies, and he starts the fight with four of them (and he'll summon more throughout the fight). It's possible to not even get a single turn in before he wipes your party.
  • The many teams in the Halls of Tribulation. It should be noted part of the frustration for each of them comes from the That One Attack mechanic listed above; all of them have Counter Any Ability, and all of them get BP when it procs, so read on knowing that the conditions listed below are some of several reasons these fights are aggravating.
    • Halls of Tribulation III has Galahad, Gladys, and Glenn. Try to kill the siblings before Glenn? Glenn will revive them at full health. Try to kill Glenn? If he is left on the ropes, Galahad will ensure he protects him from every attack until Galahad falls down, but at that point, Glenn goes Turns Red and starts spamming Pure Contagion Agent, which deals fixed damage of over 1,500 HP each time and can outright take down your whole party. And if he doesn't do it at that point, Gladys will. If you do take down Glenn, taking Galahad down becomes annoying once he triggers Harsh Reprisal so the full damage done to him is reflected back on his attacker.
    • Halls of Tribulation V has Castor, Folie, and Vigintio. Castor's absurd Phy. Atk. and self-inflicted Berserk status lets him total the whole party if he is at full BP. And if he doesn't eliminate them, Vigintio will finish the job, or backwards. It doesn't help Vigintio's attacks can heal him and Folie, though Castor's sky-high HP makes the Friendly Fire a non-issue. Then there is Folie herself, who somehow has the Phantom's Rewarding Results to let her act again should she inflict Daub or Death. And with Deface, she can nullify your attempts to weaken either Castor or Vigintio, even if you prepare to nullify her extra turns. Most players tend to just come in with all jobs learned to maximize the Freelancer's Late Bloomer to make the fight manageable at best.
    • Halls of Tribulation VII is a pain in the neck. Dag, Selene, Lily, and Roddy team up. There's no special gimmick to this one - just four badasses with amazing statistics beating you into the ground. Roddy's spells don't only come out fast and hard; he's mastered Red Mage, so he hits you twice now, and the basic status ailments Nuisance inflicts are much more likely to land on you than they were to land on your enemies. Lily is a total Glass Cannon who will wreck even dedicated Shieldmasters in her never-ending barrage of arrow fire, and Dag fights with all the subtly and strength of a truck running down a kitten. The worst part about this fight is that it's effectively scripted. Like previous fights with healers, you have to take Selene down first, or she starts healing her allies and raising them from the dead, but Roddy can heal her, too. Simply targeting her is made a chore due to Dag's ability to enrage your party, and all the BP she's getting means Selene can crank her healing powers into overdrive whenever she wants. If there was a single fight in the Halls of Tribulation that necessitated the need for the 'Phantom / Salve Maker Sub Job Specialty 1 Results Guaranteed' combo, it's this one.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Many fans of the series were very vocal about their displeasure with the new CTB (Charge Time Battle - characters take turns based on their Speed stat, with abilities effecting how soon their next turn will come.) battle system over the previous round-based arrangement used in Bravely Default and Bravely Second.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The Halls of Tribulation were an amazing idea. They are rematches with the Asterisk bearers throughout the game that keep the time traveling implications subdued after Bravely Default was criticized for having too much of a good thing with the loops. But nothing is done with this, and the concept is already base breaking due to the gross overuse of Counter Any Ability. Despite having interesting groupings, like the brother-sister team of Galahad and Gladys or forcing Adam to work with a man he killed in cold blood for failure, nothing changes from the original fights in their transition to the rematches. All the bosses still say the same thing (which is downright laughable when Galahad proclaims the party isn't allowed to enter the clearly magical dimension he has no control over) and in no way interact with their partners. You approach them, there's a battle, you get their stuff, and your jobs update. That's it. Bernard and Anihal don't get to interact, Folie doesn't get to work off Castor as a comparison between two chapter bosses, and there is no Teeth-Clenched Teamwork between Domenic and Helio. After the previous two games had a lot of fun pairing up interesting characters to expand their personalities through rematches, the Halls of Tribulation are a major step down.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: While Helio is rightfully vilified by the narration for his part in the horrors of Rimedhal's Witch Hunt, several other characters who are presented more as victims didn't end up as sympathetic as the plot makes them out to be.
  • The narrative tries to portray Gladys as a tragic Anti-Villain, especially the side-quest at the beginning of Chapter 4, where her brother Galahad is inconsolable over the fact that Gladys died with the whole town hating her. The problem is, a lot of the townsfolk had every reason to resent her. She arrested countless people accused of being fairies and dragged them away to their deaths, based on circumstantial evidence at best and Helio's whims and fancies at worst. While it is sad that she lost her parents, Gladys herself killed plenty of other people's parents, siblings, spouses and children. While she does try to redeem herself after learning the truth, the party treating Gladys as a martyr after karma caught up to her and she was murdered by the brother of one of the people she killed, wasn't the best way to generate sympathy for her.
  • The townspeople condemning her aren't immune to this, either. Father Rhydion—who lost his daughter Margaret to the judgments—himself says that he wanted to strike Gladys down for hounding his daughter to her death, but he that he had no right to, because he was as much part of the Witch Hunt as she was. This is a sound mindset that the rest of the people fail to adopt; during the scene where Margaret was accused, a lot of the townspeople betrayed her and made up lies to satisfy Helio. So they're not one to talk.