At The Game Awards show last year, Square Enix announced Bravely Default II, the third entry in its series of RPG games that"s so far been exclusive to the Nintendo 3DS. The latest entry is coming to the Nintendo Switch, and while the company didn"t reveal a lot of details at the time, Nintendo has shared some more information during today"s Nintendo Direct Mini presentation.
The plot of the game takes place in the continent of Excillant, which is comprised of five large kingdoms. The story begins as the main character, Seth, washes up on a beach in one of these kingdoms, where he meets Gloria, princess of the Lost Kingdom, and two travelers, Elvis and Adelle. The four characters are the main protagonists of the story, working together on a "grand mission".
During the adventure, players will encounter enemies known as Asterisk Holders, which, unsurprisingly, hold items called Asterisks. These items grant them special powers, or jobs, making them much stronger, but defeating them lets players take the Asterisks for themselves and attach any job they prefer to each of the characters. These jobs can also be combined with each other at will.
Just like in previous entries, a major strategic element of the battles in the game is the usage of Brave Points. Using the Brave Points allows users to perform more actions during a turn, but to stack up these points, they have to use the Default option, which doesn"t let them move during that turn. Balancing the use of these strategies plays a major role in battling.
If you"re unsure of how this works or haven"t played the previous entries, Nintendo has announced that a demo version of the game is available now on the Nintendo eShop. The developers will be looking for feedback from users through a survey later on this year, helping them shape the development of the title. This strategy seems somewhat similar to what Square Enix did with Octopath Traveler, where the first demo was released almost a year in advance, with a more finalized demo available closer to the release date. Bravely Default II is still set for release this year, but we still don"t have a specific release date.