Bravely Default Sells One Million Units Worldwide

This is extremely well deserved. The game is a class act JRPG (in spite of all of its issues) and definitely does a wonderful job in modernizing the classic Japanese Role Playing Game archetype, while also channelling the old school spirit.

With Bravely Default's success especially in the west (more than 50% of the sales come from outside of Japan), Square Enix must be kicking themselves right now. Hopefully they have also gotten the message, at least.

Onwards to Bravely Second.

https://twitter.com/BDFF_OFFICIAL/status/493668463416582144

And Square just scratches their heads and goes "I just don't understand. I thought everyone loved XIII!"

The second half of the game made me quit. It just ruined it all and made BD an average game that just happens to have a mechanic (the encounter rate and job system) that JRPGs should have had years ago.

Was gonna pick it up last week but alas, Best Buy sold out fast.

Gonna go to The World Ends With You as my handheld JRPG now instead.

I was going to pick this up at some point in the past. Never did. What exactly is everyone's beef with the second half?

I wasn't a big fan of the demo, but it's good news when any game sells well.

Was considering starting it this weekend but decided against it, decided to wait till I have a little more free time. Looking forward to it though. Looks wonderful. And I hope this shows Square-Enix that gamers want these games.

We also want more Tactics and Final Fantasy XII-like games if you're listening, Square-Enix. Keep up the good work with A Realm Reborn. :)

Second half ruined such an amazing game. This padding needs to stop.

Good for them. not like its a good game but still.

Question: Why does Square get the lionshare of the credit for this game? Nothing about their recent work would suggest Square is responsible for the good parts of the game. It's co-developed with Silicon Studios, who after 3D Dot Game Heroes easily deserved some credit as a dev capable of making a solid game. The "old school" gameplay doesn't exactly negate them since 3D Dot Game Heroes is one giant dick riding session for A Link To the Past (and it's delightful for it). So them going to an old school Square gameplay system is just as plausible as this being a Square decision.

Not that I don't want a world where Square makes good games again, but I think it's kind of lame Silicon Studios doesn't get more credit for the good aspects of the game.

@Floppy_Jim: Google "bravely default terrible second half"

Entertaining reads await

@jg4xchamp: I fully agree that Silicon Studios should get more credit, but I don't see very many people giving Square credit for this game in the first place. :p

The only reason why Square would even be mentioned is because they refused to localize this game that their own developers contributed to making. Instead Nintendo picked it up and localized it for the NA fans.

Thank you, Nintendo. Screw you, Square Enix.

Haha, so true...

Square doesn't understand the phrase:

"When something is not broken, don't try to fix it..."

So lets start again after FFX...

I see. They try to make us feel like Bill Murray. Balls to that then. I did like the demo but I can't tolerate such padding and bloat.

The gameplay is what makes Bravely Default and the first half of the game is fantastic. THEN, it suffers from horrid padding in the second. The voice acting is awful, and the story plays it much too safe - both of which can be overlooked to some degree. There's room for improvement.

bad news for gaming. crap like this shouldnt be selling 10 copies never mind 1m. the situation is worse than i thought

Reading that, I understand it.

It's strange and I'm probably reaching, but the last 4 chapters of the game are mimicking the Very First Final Fantasy.

Which in the end (I really don't need spoilers, but just in case)...

You find out that Garland was Chaos the entire time and it's all because the Four Heroes of Light Defeated Garland which set the 4 Great Forces (The Lich, Kraken, Tiamat and Kary) to use their power to send Garland back through time to get the ultimate power for him to start the loop which causes the entire event to unfold anyway. The Game's end is actually the end of the Cycle where Chaos doesn't kill the 4 Heroes rather the 4 Heroes kill Chaos which ends the cycle. So taking that it seems Bravely Default tries to do the same thing, Except it seems like no one bothered to explain that to the Heroes according to many who have played.

If you really don't care about Final Fantasy 1 spoilers go ahead and read.

Yup. Does 1 million mean success?

It was a great game and I'm looking forward to the sequel, but the pacing needs to be improved. I really enjoyed Bravely Default but Jesus the last chapters were a drag til the final dungeon. Still a really good game though.

Just started the game. It's alright. Surprised it only sold a million. Figured it would've done better on the 3ds.

The game has been out since October 2012 in it´s major market and since last year in the west and only now it has sold 1M units worldwide?
I´m sorry,but for the hype that game had and considering that several sources including SE were saying it was a big sucess,1M in almost two years isn´t impressive at all,especially when we live in a time where certain "niche" indie games sell as much or more in a month.

Still need to try it out

It's good that a handheld game did well, I want to see more of them doing well. So people don't go 'handhelds are dead, mobile gaming is the future' like some publishers seem to think...

Cool. I just got it for free last week. Looking forward to playing it.

Never heard of it.

its a weaboo game

That's nice.

Now for Square Enix to get back to making mobile games.

Congrats. Though iv never had any interest in buying this game. It doesint do anything for me.

@Nanomage: if it did poorly anywhere, it did poorly in Japan. It sold well for an exclusive, handheld JRPG in the west.

How many indie games sell over 1m units? The only one that comes to my mind is minecraft. I think your completely overexaggerating on indie game success.

Your attempt at trolling is incredibly weak, try harder next time kid.

Look at you flinging that word around, it was just a few of days ago that you had no idea what it meant.

weaboos would dig the game though even with the terrible second half.

are not most of JRPG (not name dark soul) a weaboo game? like animes??

not bad at all.

the game has the best victory music ever. it is my ring tone :P.

good game but i havent gotten around to finishing it. it does a great job of streamlining a lot of bloat in JRPG game mechanics without compromising on the basic idea.

the voice acting is poor but at least not tales of symphonia poor.

@bbkkristian: Actually Nintendo can go **** themselves when it comes down to localizing video games, remember the bullshit they pulled With Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story...

People had to petition that shyt to get Nintendo to release that stuff overseas .

How many independent games sell over 1Million? Just in the last few months DayZ(wich is already closing on 3 Million at this point),Rust(sold 1Million in one month),Starbound(same as Rust),Chivalry just passed 2 Million,Terraria over 4 Million,Torchlight 2 over 2 Million as of last year,Amnesia The Dark Descent over 2 Million,and these are just fairly recent examples,I could stay here mentioning quite a few more.

These are all also exclusive games and they only really sell in the west.

Also,BD sold 400k in Japan and 600k in the west,so it didn´t even do that poorly in Japan,almost half the sales come from there.

Idiot much? Without diversity in gaming, the hobby would lose itself. Are you so narrow minded that you think the whole world only exists from your view point?

@Ballroompirate: Well we did get all three games in the end. Even if two of them were from XSEED. But Xenoblade Chronicles sold above expectations in NA which i believe led to the immediate announcement for Xenoblade Chronicles X localization and Bravely Defaults localization as well. Xenoblade's success showed that there is a JRPG market in the states. And I don't think we will have localization problems when it comes to Nintendo's JRPGs. Also look at Fire Emblem Awakening, which sold so much it saved the series in the west. If we're to thank anyone, we should be thanking each other, those who supported these niche titles.

@Nanomage: you know what, I'm not shocked at all considering steam sales. Lol

Yeah,but to be fair some of those barely got through any steam sales like DayZ and Rust and when they did last summer sale the discount was like 15% off,so not one of those huge discounts or anything,games on steam sell well even when they´re not on sale.

But yeah,my point was that,while some people may consider BD selling a million after all this time a great thing, to me it just doesn´t sound all that impressive,I mean if you look at all those articles with people saying that when SE gives them what they want,they buy it,it sure looks like they did,however the SE games that people hate so much recently(especially the lastes FF entries)still sell way,way more and in a much shorter time span. It´s just that the small minority is very vocal.

That's also another thing that pisses me off is the whole Fire Emblem fiasco.

i wish art style wasn't as loli, i'd buy a 3ds just for this game

Hooray but lol at Square-Enix.

To put it simply (without spoiling anything): redundancy.

The game still deserves the praise and sales success, though. Minus the awful (I repeat: awful) second half, it truly is a milestone for JRPGs. I can't even go back to older turn-based games, because they just seem so tedious and slow by comparison.

Good for the game. Was an awesome throwback to classic JRPGs. I enjoyed it immensely.

Congrats to them on 1 million... But surely a hyped game on a system with a large install base over 2 years should get more than that in sales?

A niche game that is a new IP in a dead genre crossing 1 million is very good news.

For reference- Persona 4 Golden still hasn't crossed a million worldwide.

Take that Final Fantasy XIII-3!

not bad square....

lets see how final fantasy explorers does.

oh wait...theres a seuel coming too right?