Revisiting BRAVELY DEFAULT FLYING FAIRY HD Remaster: Being on PC helped
This review is for the HD Remaster version.
Took over a decade; but finally, the game is beaten. It only took getting some QoL fixes to get past some of the nonsense efficiently.
TL;DR: It's a shame that a game with a decently compelling story is held down by its last 30% of gameplay.
Clear memories of the first time playing Bravely Default. It was highly recommended. And in truth, there were a few fun things about it (Holly Whyte, for example). But it was and is a slog to play.
Bravely Second, for all of the unfair flack that it got, was a vastly superior experience all around. It streamlined a lot of the nonsense and better focused on what it was trying to do at the expense of not being quite as good of a story.
Bravely Default II is an abomination of a game, at least the version that was released. The demo was decently good; but the developer (who mostly specializes in mobile games) seemed to lose the plot in terms of the experience; things like removing maps inside of dungeons and what clearly was a touchscreen-intended navigation. It was also significantly easier to "break" Bravely Default II compared to the predecessors. Default II had arguably worse character development, step-back battle engine, and clunky UI in exchange for a better overall "world" than the other two.
Back to Default 1. If you can't be arsed to slog through, here's the bottom line, otherwise keep scrolling.
The "friends' you connect with are intended to be representations of their parties as they play the game; meaning their four characters are traversing worlds as they help you. The end sequence has the "big bad" destroying all of the worlds down to these remaining four, whose parties then help you fight back to beat the dude. The "unlocking" of the Crystals is basically linking these worlds in a way that empowers both the big boss and "Lying Airy" to make them immortal. For illogical reasons the only way to stop this immortal is with another immortal, who helps you weaken the guy enough to defeat him. The "angel" (Agnes) is never visibly revealed, but is presumed to basically be a version of Agnes that had died from one of the worlds that was previously destroyed.
Meanwhile, the game suffers from "Kingdom Hearts Syndrome" in that nobody really dies. Which is also infuriating.
Saying "No" to the recommendation isn't because it's a "bad" game. It's because when you get to Chapter 4-ish, the remainder of the game is an exercise in tedium unless you really, REALLY like boss rushes in games. It's obvious why they did it the way they did, but it went on way too long. It actually reminded of the Star Trek: Next Generation episode where the ship gets stuck in a temporal anomaly that causes a loop, and keeps exploding because they keep following bad advice.
This final sequence is arguably worse than Final Fantasy XV's infamous Chapter 13 (especially post patch) because at least there, two or three of the Chapters were clearly UNFINISHED to the point of being pointless such that the slog was really only one chapter long. Default 1's sequence made sense but overstayed its welcome, in other words.
If you played it before, know that it's CENSORED, as well. There are obvious available patches to rectify that, just forewarning.
Summary
Again, if you like boss rushes the game is perfectly fine. And it's a decent story. It's just that you need to understand that the last third of the game is a complete and utter slog.