Late To The Party: Bravely Default
GeorgieBoysAXE
et’s face it; we’ve reached a point where the cynical, yet-unavoidable truth concerning the relevancy of the JRPG couldn’t nearly deafen the opposing dissention to the contrary anymore like it has in 2014. Every new batch of titles that are hazardously published by the brave publishers who endorse them continue to dangerously escalate the degree of pandering we've slowly come to expect over the years. The same monotonous exercise of tired conventions and obnoxiously antiquated visual designs that do very little, or nothing, to break the repeating slump of circle-jerking that’s been plaguing the genre for the better part of ten years.
Sure there are the few exceptions that break out of the trappings of the stale mold that’s been defining the type. Lost Odyssey and Valkyria Chronicles are just a few worth naming and they have truly reinvigorated the same sense of charm and phantasm that the JRPG label once held, but these gems were few and far between the frequency of sub-par titles, and even garbage contemporaries released, within entire generations worth of time it seems.
That’s why it’s uplifting that Square-Enix, the arguabley, the giant of JRPG distribution that’s also seen its fair share of criticism for contributing the stigma associated with this kind of game, but then, there are moments like Bravely Default, that can surprise us all. Not only does Bravely Default stand as one of most criminally underrated champions for JRPGs at the moment, but it's easily one of the best games released in 2014 period.
