Kotaku Game DiaryA Kotaku employee’s final thoughts on a game we’re playing.Create your party in Brave default II is not so much about the characters you use as the jobs you equip them with. It is a smart strategy To always have basic healers and damage dealers on hand, of course, but when it comes to my party, I don’t expect there will ever be at least one Beastmaster in the wings.
I unlocked the Beastmaster last week, hours after my Brave default II playthrough. While it felt bad to tear the class-delivering Asterisk crystal from the gentle, animal-loving Anihal after her boss fight (a story for another time, perhaps), any lingering guilt I had erased as soon as I changed lead character Gloria away from her duties as a White Magician to the more insulting archetype.
Beastmasters, which debuted in Brave default II, are exactly what they sound like: masters of beasts. In battle, they are able to capture monsters for later use with special task-specific abilities, and each entangled enemy increases the functionality of the task. When used effectively (or, in my case, obsessively), the Beastmaster changes the dynamics of each fight by focusing on capturing as many monsters as possible, rather than killing them outright.
As with most of the game’s courses, I jumped into the Brave default II menu to view the Beastmaster right after it is unlocked. While the paper description and skill progression didn’t grab me, I was quickly smitten with the Beastmaster’s potential after trying it in a few random battles. I started adding every orc and deadly rabbit I could find to Gloria’s virtual petting zoo, each giving her a new ability or spell to use in future battles.
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Gloria quickly became the most powerful, most reliable member of my party. While fight against Bernard in Chapter 1For example, the hordes of Minotaurs I captured in the dungeon prior to battle allowed her to deal thousands of damage points each turn, thanks to their brutal pound attack. Depending on the monster, the Beastmaster can also provide access to abilities I haven’t encountered in any other class, such as Fresh Foliole’s Aerora wind spell, useful for hitting weaknesses that the Black Mage can’t, and the Restless Souls’ Disembody, which causes Stop for several turns. I’m sure future jobs will have parallels to these useful skills, but for now, the Beastmaster is proving to be helpful in expanding my tactics.
But of all the Beastmaster’s talents, what struck me the most was its ability to run Brave default II in PokémonCatching monsters early is a balancing act by depleting their HP as much as possible without killing them. The weaker they are, the easier they are to catch. Leveling up the Beastmaster with continuous use unlocks abilities such as Mercy Strike and Mercy Smash which, like False smudge in the Pokémon series, never kill targets but rather leave them at 1 HP, which is the perfect opportunity to add them to your arsenal. Most of the time, turning an opponent into an ally is just a matter of giving the Beastmaster multiple actions with the Brave mechanic, hitting a monster with a few of these safe attacks, and then catching it all in the same turn.
Brave default II is a huge game in every way. I’ve already spent 12 hours exploring the world and have yet to complete Chapter 1. With all its intricacies, Beastmaster’s track is a perfect microcosm for the Brave default II experience, an example of how just one class can provide endless possibilities in party creation and strategy refinement. And yes, even if the Beastmaster loses some versatility later on, the cute, furry outfits he bestows on the main characters should at least give a moral boost during tough fights.