Bravely Second: EU website open, more footage

Bravely Second: End Layer comes out in less than two weeks, and Nintendo thought now as the perfect time to open the official website for the game. You can click here to check it out, and get plenty of details about the game, its story, its battle system, its various jobs, and even the StreetPass / SpotPass features.

First, let’s start with some gameplay footage:

Overview

This section briefly introduces the various elements of the game, including the story.

World

This section introduces some of the important locations of Bravely Second: End Layer, such as:

• Al-Kahmpis: a center for higher learning (and particularly the study of magic), where scholars and students from all around the world gather.
• Gathelatio: a deeply religious city, which is the seat of the Crystal Orthodoxy. It grew so big due to the pilgrims coming to visit the nearby Temple of Earth. When the Duchy of Eternia and the Crystal Orthodoxy were at odds, the city was mostly isolated from the rest of the Eternian continent. It’s where the Treaty between the Duchy of Eternia and the Crystal Orthodoxy is to be signed.
• Glanz Empire: realm of Kaiser Oblivion, who commands a formidable military force. The day the Peace Treaty is to be signed, his floating fortress appears above Gathelatio, and he kidnaps Agnès Oblige.
• Yunohara: a hot spring resort which kept culture and traditions of a lost kingdom which vanished centuries before. It’s an oasis of comfort and cordiality, ruled by the “Lord of the Baths”, where weary travelers and soldiers can take some time to rest.
• Chompshire: a mysterious village found deep in the woods. It flourished as new people came to live there, while many chompers went to explore the world.

Head after the break for the rest of this post!

Characters

This section introduces the main characters:

• Yew Geneolgia: a Crystalguard knight from Gathelatio, that he joined right after his successful studies at Al-Khampis. He became Lord of the esteemed House Geneolgia after his father passed away under strange circumstances. He’s one of the bodyguards assigned to Agnès Oblige for the signing of the Peace Treaty.
• Agnès Oblige: in Bravely Default, she travelled all around the world in order to save Luxendarc. After that, she became the spiritual leader of the Crystal Orthodoxy, which had fallen into a shaky state, and worked tirelessly to sign a Peace Treaty with the Duchy of Eternia.
• Kaiser Oblivion: a mysterious man, who suddenly attacks and kidnaps Agnès Oblige during the signing of the Peace Treaty. Nobody knows who hides behind that mask, and why he just keeps sowing discord around the world from his floating fortress.
• Magnolia Arch: a mysterious and courageous young woman, who is said to hail from the moon itself. She’s apparently the only survivor of a devastating attack by the Ba’al (fearsome creatures). She’s pretty friendly, but also odd, and prone to switch personality in an instant.
• Edea Lee: in Bravely Default, she travelled alongside Agnès Oblige. After that, she went and re-joined the army of Eternia, in order to rebuild the Kingdom: she’s the head of Eternian Ducal Guard. She has been working tirelessly with Agnès Oblige, in order to secure Peace. Naturally, when she hears that her friend has been kidnapped, she rushes in order to see what happened.
• Tiz Arrior: another member of the group of warriors who saved Luxendarc in Bravely Default. After the event of the first game, Tiz fell to the ground, as if drained of life. He was then taken to a facility within Eternian Central Command, where he spends the next couple of years in a deep slumber.

Battle

This section introduces the battle system of the game, starting with the various jobs: they each have their own abilities and skills, and finding the right combination is key to victory. One of the new features of Bravely Second are Favorites: it allows you to save different sets of your party’s jobs, commands, abilities and equipment. That way, you can easily switch from one to the other at any time in just a few taps!

Next, the Brave and Default commands are detailed:

• Brave: you use BP to perform various actions;
• Default: you wait your turn, and get some BP to use for Brave.

Using Default, you wait a certain amount of turns, and then use your BP with Brave in order to perform several actions during the same turn. This allows you to go all out with attacks, make some combinations (like using an ability that makes an enemy weak to a specific element, and then using a spell of that element), heal some teammates, and more.

You start each battle with 0 BP, and you have to get some by using Default or some specific skills. Alternatively, you can force Brave even without BP,  but then, your character will be stuck with negative BP and will have to wait until they get back to 0 BP before they can do anything. When using Default, the defense of your characters increases, but when they’re stuck because of negative BP, they’re open to attacks.

But there’s another command that goes with Brave and Default, called Bravely Second. It allows you to stop time for a few moments, in order to launch powerful attacks or heal your team. Of course, it’s not free: you need to use SP for that. There’s two ways to get SP back:

• wait a certain amount of time (8h for 1SP). You can leave your console in sleep mode in order to get SP back if you want;
• you can purchase SP drinks via the Nintendo eShop

The key to victory is to find the right balance between Brave, Default, and Bravely Second, and know when to go all out or bid your time.

For players looking to get lots of XP, there’s an option alled Bring it on. If you defeat enemies in a single turn, you can chose to immediately begin another battle with a stronger version of those enemies. This allows you to increase the amount of XP gained from the battles, but there’s a catch: you will lose everything if you’re defeated.

What’s more, your BP carries on between battles, so you cannot force your way through by using Brave repeatedly. Of course, you can stop at any time if you feel your team will lost the next battle.

Finally, we have a (partial) list of jobs found in Bravely Second: End Layer:

• Patissier (new) – Uses deadly desserts to paralyse and poison enemies.
• Catmancer (new) – Proficient when it comes to felines, and can learn moves from certain monsters.
• Astrologian (new) – Expertly uses astral magic to boost team-mates’ abilities.
• Guardian (new) – Unleashes powerful strikes and boosts party members’ abilities with soul power.
• Exorcist (new) – Masters of the art of undoing who can revert the states and actions of others.
• Wizard (new) – Skilled at spirit magic and able to adapt spells to serve any situation.
• Charioteer (new) – Physical attack specialists who can make full use of weapons of all shapes and sizes.
• Fencer (new) – Duellists who change stances to make the most of their swords’ and daggers’ attack power.
• Bishop – Uses holy magic, and can double a spell’s potency by chanting it twice.
• Valkyrie – Controls battles with acrobatics and has a strong handle on spears.
• Performer – Sings and dances to boost the party’s morale.
• Time Mage – Wields time as a weapon to control combat situations.
• Red Mage – All-rounders who command both black and white magic.
• White Mage – Clerics who cast healing and support magic.
• Merchant – Capitalises in battle with abilities based around money.
• Ranger – Exposes enemies’ weakness with daggers and bows.
• Black Mage – Attacks multiple foes at once with black magic.
• Pirate – Crushes foes with mighty axe blows.
• Swordmaster – Samurai-style fighters who create opportunities with counter-attacks.
• Templar – Holy knights with good offensive and defensive abilities.
• Summoner – Summons powerful entities onto the battlefield.
• Thief – Fast fighters who can steal from enemies.
• Ninja – Moves swiftly, as only a ninja can, and uses two weapons at once.
• Knight – Excels at both offence and defence.
• Monk – Strikes hard with bare hands.
• Dark Knight – Grim warriors who channel their own suffering to inflict pain upon their foes.

Communication

Here’s the various communication features of Bravely Second: End Layer:

• Rebuild your base: with the help of players met via StreetPass, you can rebuild a ruined base on the moon. Each player met increases the population by 1, which speeds up the various rebuilding tasks. By rebuilding the base, you can get access to vital support items and weapons. Just like in Bravely Default, you don’t need StreetPass for that feature, but it does makes things significantly faster.
• Ba’al attacks: Ba’al are powerful demons that appear on the surface of the moon. If you defeat them, you can get some extra XP or special items. Thanks to your Buster ship, you can weaken the demons, but there’s a catch: you can only have one of those (which can be upgraded by increasing the level of the facilities in the base). You can also team up with friends, and have their Buster ship weaken the Ba’als even further. Some Ba’al appear when you connect to the internet, or share data with players via StreetPass.
• Abilink: thanks to that feature, you can borrow a skill from any player on your friend list. However, you can only link one character per friend, so you need four friends to borrow a skill for every character in your party.
• Summon Friends: during battle, you can summon a friend if you ever find yourself in a pinch. Of course, you can send your character to other players, so you need to set commands that others can use if they summon yours into battle.

Bravely Second: End Layer (3DS) comes out on February 26th in Europe, and April 15th in North America. Don’t forget that the demo (which acts as a prelude the main story) is available from the Nintendo eShop in Europe, and gives a 10% off discount on the full game (if bought on the Nintendo eShop, and from the same Nintendo Network ID). The game will then cost 40,49€/£35.99 instead of 44,99€ / £39.99 Click here for more details!