User Score
8.4

Generally favorable reviews- based on 693 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Negative: 55 out of 693
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  1. Feb 17, 2021
    2
    It's refreshing to see people have the same thoughts and reactions to this game as me.

    It starts off promising with decent story, interesting combat mechanics, and cool character abilities. However,as soon as you get through the main story once... you get to do it 4. More. Times. I spent over 25hours grinding and leveling up just to repeat the same thing 4 more times. This game is
    It's refreshing to see people have the same thoughts and reactions to this game as me.

    It starts off promising with decent story, interesting combat mechanics, and cool character abilities.

    However,as soon as you get through the main story once... you get to do it 4. More. Times. I spent over 25hours grinding and leveling up just to repeat the same thing 4 more times. This game is repetitive with no good story and hours of grinding to stand a shot against the final boss.

    Promising combat but predictable story repeated for hours on end. Buy a fire emblem game or something instead of this.
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  2. Jun 20, 2014
    4
    I feel sorry that many people commented on this game before finishing it. The game is great at the beginning, it's almost perfect. Then it becomes repetitive as hell and I am not specifying how to make the comment spoil-less, but I ended up hating it. Going over and over the same bunch of things reading the same dialog repeatedly with a little bit of something new that is totallyI feel sorry that many people commented on this game before finishing it. The game is great at the beginning, it's almost perfect. Then it becomes repetitive as hell and I am not specifying how to make the comment spoil-less, but I ended up hating it. Going over and over the same bunch of things reading the same dialog repeatedly with a little bit of something new that is totally irrelevant or could have been added to some other part in the game....I also believed it was the return of classic Final Fantasy as much that I called this game Final Fantasy Beverly Default, but I repeat, after the first half, i only wanted to throw away my 3DS to a solid wall and break it. *badwordhere* developers who tough doing that over and over was a good idea, hope you never make a game again..or do, but only make a 'first half' and them just leave it as it is. Expand
  3. Jul 14, 2014
    3
    The game starts out rather interesting and the battle system is a new spin on turn-based fighting, but the dialogue is cheesy, the characters make terrible decisions that alienate them from the player, and the game loses all of it's steam about halfway through. After the halfway mark all boss battles are recycled multiple times and the player is forced to defeat them again and again withThe game starts out rather interesting and the battle system is a new spin on turn-based fighting, but the dialogue is cheesy, the characters make terrible decisions that alienate them from the player, and the game loses all of it's steam about halfway through. After the halfway mark all boss battles are recycled multiple times and the player is forced to defeat them again and again with very few variations, leaving you frustrated and unmotivated. It's very disheartening knowing exactly what is going to happen in the next 10 hours of gameplay. I quite liked the game at the start but ended up absolutely resenting it. Expand
  4. Jun 28, 2016
    0
    This is the first game in my life that made me feel insulted. I am sorry, but if a game developer expects me to play through a game 5 times (with virtually no change at all) in order to complete one, freaking ONE, playthrough then you didn't do your job. It would not be that bad if there was at least something new with each cycle, but no. The characters become even more stupid and theThis is the first game in my life that made me feel insulted. I am sorry, but if a game developer expects me to play through a game 5 times (with virtually no change at all) in order to complete one, freaking ONE, playthrough then you didn't do your job. It would not be that bad if there was at least something new with each cycle, but no. The characters become even more stupid and the story comes to a halt as gracefully as a train wreck. The first half is alright, even though the battle system is somewhat boring. But of course people love it, because it is a Final Fantasy clone. This game is the only game in my life, where I don't understand why it is so beloved, most other games I can see why, but not here.

    I am sorry for the rant, but this made me feel like the developers didn't care and that gamers like anything as long as it is like 'the good old JRPG' (apparently they were correct about that).
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  5. Aug 2, 2015
    1
    I'm not entirely sure why this game has such good reviews. Play it for more than an hour and you'll find it's really, really, really bad.

    In the first hour, the game seems promising, the story seems epic and quite classic, reminiscent of the NES Final Fantasy games, the battle and job system remains fresh with a few new twists to the standard turn-based combat. It goes all downhill
    I'm not entirely sure why this game has such good reviews. Play it for more than an hour and you'll find it's really, really, really bad.

    In the first hour, the game seems promising, the story seems epic and quite classic, reminiscent of the NES Final Fantasy games, the battle and job system remains fresh with a few new twists to the standard turn-based combat.

    It goes all downhill from there shockingly quickly. The story and character development is utter garbage. Each of the four party members is a one-dimensional caricature and all interactions amongst the characters harp incessantly about their single defining trait. Every single conversation can be summed up below:

    * Main Character mentions how important the mission is
    * Female sidekick gets angry
    * Male womanizer makes some comment about women
    * Female sidekick gets angry again
    * another dude still has no clue why he's in this group

    ...Yeah.

    The battle system is interesting at first. Too bad it gets old extremely quickly with uninspired character abilities as well as repetitive enemies. Strategy boils down to either everyone using "brave" to bum rush the enemies in round one or everyone using "default" three times and then bum rush the enemies.

    The dungeons are extremely simple, boring, and tedious to go through.

    The villains are just as one dimensional as the PCs.

    NPCs and side quests feel like you're playing fetch quests in WOW.

    Seriously, everything in this game is awful. Don't play this game. I'm really and truly stumped why this game has positive reviews... I feel like most of them are from people who played the game for an hour, because it does take more than an hour to see how bad the game really is. I put in 25 myself... for some reason I had no other games to play and wanted to subject myself to torture.
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  6. Mar 28, 2014
    4
    There are a lot of things that this game does right, but a lot it does wrong. Let's start with the bad: Everything in this game except for the combat system and the story itself is completely messed up. The game has the philosophy that "if you did it once, you better do it five times more"! This is ludicrous. The game recycles all the bosses and a ton of dialogue five times over. EvenThere are a lot of things that this game does right, but a lot it does wrong. Let's start with the bad: Everything in this game except for the combat system and the story itself is completely messed up. The game has the philosophy that "if you did it once, you better do it five times more"! This is ludicrous. The game recycles all the bosses and a ton of dialogue five times over. Even Devil May Cry 4 didn't reuse it's game that much. But the recycled stuff is okay because it is worked into the plot itself.... Really? That doesn't make it okay. Artificial padding is artificial padding. All of the dungeons are some of the laziest I have ever seen as well. They just feel slapped together. Did they make them all over the weekend or something? Also, this is a single player game RPG, so why is there multiplayer? The multiplayer comes in the form of a facebook game. The facebook game also effects gameplay as well in a significant way. And that some of the bosses are almost impossible to beat on hard without keeping up with the facebook game so that you can get access to special gear to help negate their attack s. And that brings me to another point, the game's excuse for strategic combat is a boss who just uses a powerful attack (that probably ignores default) and attacks your entire party, wiping it out or almost wiping it out. Sometimes there's no way to dodge it or block it (see chapter 2 boss). Now, I'm not one to really care about fanservice in a game, but this game has a really shameful way of doing it. And that is when the fanservice distracts from a major plot point. Sometime close to the end of the game -and I am not going to spoil anything- but there is something in the middle of the screen. A plot twist. And the player is supposed to notice it, but off to the left of the screen is this chick's a$$ that is just there and hanging out. And being biologically inclined to look at it, you [I] do. And then the plot twist begins to glow, as if you were supposed to notice the thing. So you look up and say, "Oh, it's glowing, how nice." And back down to the a$$ you go! And you [I] miss that plot point, and you [I] are left feeling angry because you feel like you should have noticed it. It's blatant and shameless. I could go into the characters of the game at this point, but believe me, none of them are as good as everyone says they are. Two are intentionally bland and boring as their character and one stops progressing half way through only for their character to be picked back up at the end of the game, and even once that char's characterization is complete you feel like it's lacking. As if there was something else that could have been done. There is the last character who begins interesting, is interesting through the middle, and ends interesting. And there is a problem there. If the entire story has to carry itself on one character then there's an imbalance, It shows that attention and care was given not given to all of the characters as they should have. And the story fails because of that. Another thing, why are there micro-transactions in a singleplayer game? "But, reviewer man, there's only one micro-transaction and is optional, you don't have to get it if you don't want to. And it's not even that high priced! So what's your problem?" Am I the only one around here who feels like there should be no micro-transactions in a singleplayer game; or any internet connection required for any feature to function at all! Also, my last point. Is that the game feels like midway through development the developers figured out that the game was impossible to balance so they threw it upon the player to balance the game for them. This is seen in the design decision to include a meter to alter the frequency of random encounters (and even turn them off). And we see that the decision to include the meter was not originally in the early form of the game. The evidence for this is the spells and items that teleport you out of dungeons. it just...reeks of laziness. Don't get me wrong, it is a really fun game, the good parts are the one good character, the story itself (its just as epic as all other final fantasy games), and the combat. The combat alone should win an award for how well crafted it is! And the inclusion of an auto-battle function makes the grind easier as well, especially for a game whose combat system relies around making lots of moves in succession and can be tedious without it. So that's great. Expand
  7. Aug 28, 2016
    0
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. ** SPOLER BELOW **

    To summarise, the game is a straight spit in the face.

    True, the first part of the game is amazing, but that's where it stops. The developer apparently ran out of money and decided to just have you repeat the same four bosses four more times. When I got to this part I stopped playing for a month before I decided to actually bother with finishing it. As it turns out, this was a big mistake as after killing the bosses 4 times you meet a boss that is literary impossible to beat. Even with all my characters at lvl 65 and beating everything to this point without too much trouble I literary get one/two shotted in the second phase of the boss. There is nothing I can do, and you can't go back to levelling up. You're stuck with no way to finish the game. Note that this is on EASY difficulty, don't even want to think about Normal or Hard. I wasted hours doing the repetitive part to be faced with this...

    Do yourself a favour and stay away from this game. It simply ain't worth it.
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  8. Mar 26, 2014
    4
    Rather good for quite a while, though the game falls off from being one of the best games of the year, to utter trash about halfway in. That and due to the poor implementation of customization (you'll be hard pressed to ever find skills that synergize) makes it not as good as it could be.
  9. Dec 12, 2014
    3
    I would describe this game with a single word: "repetitive". And it's not about lvl grinding. It's because you do the same stuff, beat the same bosses and keep reviving the crystals until it is painful and boring to death.
    This game was very promising during the first chapters: graphics are very nice, all dialogs are voice-acted, battle dynamics are good, and the job system is somewhat
    I would describe this game with a single word: "repetitive". And it's not about lvl grinding. It's because you do the same stuff, beat the same bosses and keep reviving the crystals until it is painful and boring to death.
    This game was very promising during the first chapters: graphics are very nice, all dialogs are voice-acted, battle dynamics are good, and the job system is somewhat traditional but you can live with it. There are some awesome skills to obtain and everything was going so nice...
    But as you progress in the game, everything gets recycled and monotone. The end is extremely dissapointing. I completed the game but I really cannot recommend it.
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  10. Sep 10, 2016
    0
    There are 2 possible reasons this overrated trash got such high metacritic scores from so called "professionals":

    1) They never completed this game. After all, this game is huge, and we all know reviewers play their games on easy and never spend more than 2-3 hours before writing a review. I suppose if you look only at the first few hours, this game is a blast. It managed to deceive me
    There are 2 possible reasons this overrated trash got such high metacritic scores from so called "professionals":

    1) They never completed this game. After all, this game is huge, and we all know reviewers play their games on easy and never spend more than 2-3 hours before writing a review. I suppose if you look only at the first few hours, this game is a blast. It managed to deceive me too.

    2) They were bribed, or scored it highly because of Square and Nintendo

    The game has good production values, nice visuals and really nice music. It is a blast to play early on, and the gameplay system is not bad at all.

    But, the problem with this game is that:

    1) It is a boring grindfest. It is very long to properly complete, very repetitive with tons of backtracking. And most random encounters are boring, you can disable them but if you do, you won't be strong enough for the bosses.

    2) The story is typical kiddie anime trash. With some added weeaboo waifu perversion. As an adult gamer, i cringed a lot.

    Also, i didn't like the village minigame it had.

    All in all, a solid 60 game that somehow exploded on metacritic for no reason. Giving it a 0 for balance.
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  11. Jan 12, 2018
    0
    Huh, an interesting looking game that tries to break from the normal style of turn based combat. This might be worth a look.

    -Launched for full price
    -Includes any form of microtransaction.

    Nevermind.
  12. Aug 31, 2015
    4
    This game isn't worthy of the 8.5 it has imo.
    The graphics is stunning and the battle system is cute but the plot is so horrible it pained me to play it.
    The characters are so one dimensional they boarder at satire. It isn't funny but it keeps trying and the princess, the second party member you get, is the most lazily written POS I've seen in a long long time. Vanille from FF13? She's
    This game isn't worthy of the 8.5 it has imo.
    The graphics is stunning and the battle system is cute but the plot is so horrible it pained me to play it.
    The characters are so one dimensional they boarder at satire. It isn't funny but it keeps trying and the princess, the second party member you get, is the most lazily written POS I've seen in a long long time.
    Vanille from FF13? She's worse. She makes no sense and keeps harping on about nothing with a voice that makes you want to throw your 3DS out the window.
    I couldn't get past the 4th or 5th city, it was just THAT bad.
    If you need something to play on a flight or just don't care about the plot at all you can give this a try, otherwise pass.
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  13. Nov 18, 2015
    4
    If you had to finish this game to rate it the score would be much lower. The second half of the game is a major grind that adds very little to the story or game play. I don't recommend this game to anyone of my friends.
  14. Apr 2, 2016
    3
    Grindy, repetitive and has micro transactions. Should I continue? At least the game looks nice... as for the micro transactions, you can somewhat bypass that by leaving the game on in sleep mode - but still, its not a good system and reeks of a cash grab.
  15. Oct 22, 2014
    4
    So I have just completed Bravely Default after 96 hours. Now for my final thoughts about this game, a game that at the start I loved and would recommended it to anyone, but that love quickly turned sour as the game progressed past chapter 5 into nothing more than garbage. Although it did redeem some of its credibility back near the very end, it still felt like wasted potential. But all mySo I have just completed Bravely Default after 96 hours. Now for my final thoughts about this game, a game that at the start I loved and would recommended it to anyone, but that love quickly turned sour as the game progressed past chapter 5 into nothing more than garbage. Although it did redeem some of its credibility back near the very end, it still felt like wasted potential. But all my hopes laid on the ending, if the ending was satisfying I could let it pass, maybe all that hardship could be left behind, but no, bravely default up until the very end managed to stay a disappointment and I would not recommend this game. If I had to rate this I would give it two ratings
    Chapters 1-4 I would give it a 9/10
    Chapters 5-9 I give it a 4/10
    This game had solid characters, combat and fun bosses but then it just destroyed all that build up and made everything you do seem pointless and unrewarding. I hope all is fixed in its squeal Bravely Second, cause that combat and style is the only thing that is keeping me invested in buying it.
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  16. Nov 12, 2014
    4
    I feel terrible giving this game a low score. I very much wanted to like this game. However, the felt quite slow, the art style was a bit too dark at times and the characters were not appealing. I can understand how some players can love this game and I can see the effort and care the developers put into the game. From my perspective, I give it a low score. But, I can see someone playingI feel terrible giving this game a low score. I very much wanted to like this game. However, the felt quite slow, the art style was a bit too dark at times and the characters were not appealing. I can understand how some players can love this game and I can see the effort and care the developers put into the game. From my perspective, I give it a low score. But, I can see someone playing it and falling in love with it. Enjoy. Expand
  17. Jan 2, 2015
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Bought this game expecting a masterpiece RPG, instead what I got was a huge disappointment. The plot, dialogues and characters are poorly written. The world map and dungeons are poorly designed. The job system and music are this game’s only redeeming points.

    The story is not just cliché, but also a poorly told cliché. The world is crumbling and no one seems to be doing anything except the 4 main character. The sea has become rotten and everyone just casually mentions it like nothing. There is no chemistry between the party members, how the party came together is also rushed and sloppy. The dialogues, most of the times are painful to listen at.
    Cities are beautiful but lifeless, the world map and dungeons both seems generic. Cities or countries are not explained at all, kings acts like fools with no regard to the rest of the world.

    The hometown can be rebuilt simply by assigning people to construct buildings? And seems to only serve the party’s shopping benefit. When I tried using the SP in a battle, the main character actually said some promotional words which is sad instead of funny.

    Auto battle function is clumsy, enemy’s information is hidden by a left analog stick toggle which is very unnecessary. Weakness must be examined. Brave and Default mode does bring something new to battles but that’s about it. To acquire new jobs you must go through various sub-story which only means more nonsense dialogue and plots that hurts your common sense and sense of humor.

    Played until chapter 2 in which the party decides to enter a beauty contest? That’s all I can bear. I guess the plot might develop and twist as the game progress but from what I’ve seen in the first 2 chapters, I want no part on what is about to happen next in the story.
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  18. Feb 7, 2021
    4
    I will admit, I'm very picky about turn based RPGs and hardly ever play them. There are some that I like but this one hit and doubled down on pretty much every gripe I have about this genre.

    On top of tons of job grinding, this one has time management mechanics and even a pay to win microtransaction they threw in there, how any of that is supposed to be fun or enhance the gameplay in
    I will admit, I'm very picky about turn based RPGs and hardly ever play them. There are some that I like but this one hit and doubled down on pretty much every gripe I have about this genre.

    On top of tons of job grinding, this one has time management mechanics and even a pay to win microtransaction they threw in there, how any of that is supposed to be fun or enhance the gameplay in any way is beyond me.

    Even if you do get a good party going, the late chapters have battles and boss fights so unbalanced that you're forced to loop the same actions until the boss is dead, somtimes for over half an hour. If you step outside of that loop even for one turn then you're probably dead.

    I can usually stick with an RPG of this size if the story is interesting enough but I barely remember any of what happened. I think I cared less about the characters the further I got.

    This is one of those games that is so confident the player wont mind it's endless repetition that it continuously adds more and more ways to be a slog on top of it. After dragging my feet to the end of the story, I find out they want me to go around the world and beat all the major bosses again, not once, but like six more times before I can access the final dungeon and true ending. No thanks.

    The only big positive I would give Bravely Default is that it's beautiful to look at. I think seeing all the diverse locations and set pieces was the driving force for me to keep playing as far as I got. It's just a shame the rest of it had to be so tedious.
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  19. Mar 3, 2020
    2
    Xenogears. THis game reminds me of xenogears.
    Because it starts off exceptionally ~ the intro isnt awful, the characters seem okay.
    Gameplay isnt bad. The scenery and towns look great.It LOOKS like this is going to be a great journey. An hour in: Alright the combat is getting old. Its free to sleep in the first Inn, so this feels like a pokemon game ~ just keep going back to town after
    Xenogears. THis game reminds me of xenogears.
    Because it starts off exceptionally ~ the intro isnt awful, the characters seem okay.
    Gameplay isnt bad. The scenery and towns look great.It LOOKS like this is going to be a great journey.
    An hour in:
    Alright the combat is getting old. Its free to sleep in the first Inn, so this feels like a pokemon game ~ just keep going back to town after a good grind. Repeat. Repeat.
    The story gets so much worse. How did we get that airship? Whats with the terrible stereotypes? He wont stop talking about womanizing.. but in a non-charming way.
    She wont stop trying to get rid of us. The fairy always chimes in with 'BUT YOU SUCK SO INCREDIBLY BAD AT NAVIGATING! You got lost on a path that literally has no wrong way to go.'
    Grinding. Grinding.
    The job system is kinda.. not good at all. FFT and Disgaea really spoil someone for other games.
    I beat xeno gears once. If I knew then what I knew after beating it.. I would have never started the second disk/second half of the game.
    Knowing that, I quit after the final boss. You. and I. Have better. Things to do. Than believe. There is. A true. Ending.
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  20. Feb 22, 2021
    2
    The job system is very cool as it lets you customise your character and build the party you want and think up strategies with how in character help one another. The Brave/Default system though is just game breaking. It's dumb. The usual Final Fantasy "Defend" command now gives you an extra turn to move later and the Brave command lets you use up to 4 turns st the same time. Simply broken.The job system is very cool as it lets you customise your character and build the party you want and think up strategies with how in character help one another. The Brave/Default system though is just game breaking. It's dumb. The usual Final Fantasy "Defend" command now gives you an extra turn to move later and the Brave command lets you use up to 4 turns st the same time. Simply broken. The story. Amnesia, girl who slowly realises she's wrong, 4 crystals of the elements. You played any Final Fantasy prior to 7? You've played this game basically. I know it's a throw back, but honestly, I'd rather go back to the old school Final Fantasy for the 3rd or 4th time again than play Bravely Default, it won't be as repetitive. And here is the game's bigges problem. Basically, the game takes about 15 hours to beat but...MINOR SPOILER HERE ALTHOUGH IMPORTANT TO KNOW BEFORE BUYING!!! OK, so you finally awaken the last crystal, you've done it! Well, something happens and without saying too much, the world is reset. You need to redo what was the 1st half of the game 8 MORE TIMES to finally see the ending, which is nothing even good. 8 MORE times you'll need to go through the bosses with very little change in dialogue. They basically make you play the game 9 times to see the ending. RPGs are repetitive and it's something I accept from my favourite game genre. But this is absolutely ridiculous. The plot twist is not even shocking. You see it coming very early on. This game is just not worth your time. Repetitive and mediocre. If you want a game like this though with a deep job system, I highly recommend Final Fantasy 3 (DS version) or Final Fantasy 5, any version. Bravely Default was made by the same team and uses the same artstyle as FF3 DS (sole reason I boughy BD) but do yourself a favor, go play FF3 DS instead. You'll thank me and yourself later. Expand
  21. Mar 25, 2021
    4
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. So I missed this game originally, bought it as prep for Bravely 2.

    Are you kidding me? How can this game get any more than a 7!?
    Repeating the same bosses again and again? Are everyone just plain stupid?
    Have you ever heard about works of fiction/art/video games, that had time travel, and/or parallel universes? You know how, like, they weren't repetitive, annoying, lacking originality, and super frustrating?
    Yes. What the hell is wrong with this game? same bosses four times!? What's going on??? BAD GAME DESIGN!
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  22. Jul 15, 2023
    0
    I would say this game ruined my life but that would be an understatment. My wife adored this game, though I didnt understand what the fuss was about. Unfortunantly within the hustle and bustle of my busy life and demanding high paying job (6 figures a year) I did not notice that she was starting to develop an addiction. A few years ago, she was driving back from work. Playing this on herI would say this game ruined my life but that would be an understatment. My wife adored this game, though I didnt understand what the fuss was about. Unfortunantly within the hustle and bustle of my busy life and demanding high paying job (6 figures a year) I did not notice that she was starting to develop an addiction. A few years ago, she was driving back from work. Playing this on her 3DS, she was so absorbed she was not paying attention to the road. She crashed... The medical bills she endured were so large she was practicly dead to me. I divorced her within the week and grived the relationship like she was dead. This game ruined my life. Expand
Metascore
85

Generally favorable reviews - based on 67 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 64 out of 67
  2. Negative: 0 out of 67
  1. Apr 14, 2014
    100
    It sounds like a lot, and it is, but not in an overwhelming way but in a fantastic, three in the morning, I can’t stop playing this game kind of way. When it all comes together and you destroy a boss that gave you troubles just a few job levels ago, it feels great.
  2. Apr 8, 2014
    70
    It's got a lovely fresh coat of paint, but underneath that Bravely Default is the same old thing.
  3. Feb 16, 2014
    90
    Bravely Deafult is the best game from Square-Enix in a long time and a must for fans of classic Final Fantasy. The battle and work system, as well as the history and the graphics is natural progresses of a gamemaking many deemed nostalgic.