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[Baneling]

Bravely Default is a game of the style which might cause it to be referred to as a JRPG. It was released fairly recently (5th, 6th, 7th December, JP, EU, AUS respectively) for the 3DS, by Square Enix. It's a work mechanically comparable to Final Fantasy 5 in the combat system and job system used, with its own twist - a resource, 'Brave Points', can be accumulated during battles. These represent turns that can be taken - 0 BP means a single turn as normal, negative means you can't take a turn, but when you have one or more BP you can spend them to take up to three extra 'turns'  during the course of your own turn.

North American release is set to be the 7th of February 2014. Oceans on the internet. *shrug*

Also, the sequel, Bravely Second, is set to be released in Japan at...some point in the future. Wikipedia says as of this month it's 30% done. Maybe. There's a whole load of not much information I can find about this.

General opinion from people I know who have the game is that it stacks up quite well - high quantity of voice acting, mostly quite high quality, game is fair and balanced while still posing a challenge, high quality music(I would agree on that point)... So, have any of you, my fellow bay12ers, gotten this game, or have plans to get it? Any thoughts on anything you've seen thus far?

Apologies for lack of any meaningful links - the only thing I could find was a very underpopulated wiki page with wonderful statements such as "The game also features cut scenes."

[Aklyon]

It sounds nifty.

[Aoi]

Despite the obvious kind of bias you're going to get, I find that Nintendo Life actually has reviews that are more informative than most: http://www.nintendolife.com/reviews/3ds/bravely_default

One thing of note that I'd like to mention is that it DOES have a cash shop system for consumables. (Alternatively, if you're the type that leaves your unit on, but in sleep mode, you can just set it aside for a few hours.)

[Aoi]

So having tried the demo for ~15min last night, my first impressions are highly mixed, mostly due to 'comforts'.

Graphics are pretty enough, though looking at what other people've said, it's hit or miss as to whether or not the chibi-style characters work out for you. I have no objection, and considering the sheer amount of jobs, each of which have their own appearance, for each of four characters, trying to slim down as much as possible is kind of expected. Backgrounds are relatively glorious.
Audio was off; people were sleeping.
...On second though, I'm going to skip the pretty standard-fare review stuff.

Utilizes the classic FF job system; looks like there's room for ~50 jobs on the wheel. I believe how it works is that you pick a primary job, which influences your current stats and stat growth, and you can take the command skills of another class. You can also equip passives from other classes, though I'm not sure if they have to be out of the primary/secondary you've picked or not.

Pluses:
It's got a pretty generous auto-save option-- appears to kick in every time you transition zones.
Flexible difficulty options: For people doing challenge games (or for who knows what other reasons), you can actually disable character growth entirely. Slider for combat frequency. (Yep, stuff pops out of nowhere in classic JRPG fashion). Combat difficulty.
Language options. (I believe five languages were mentioned, though I only recall English, Spanish and Japanese. Uncertain if this includes voice. Not featured in demo.)
Auto-combat. No idea how intelligent it is; found it on my last battle before sleeping.
Minuses:
For the love of god, if your control interface is on the touchscreen, use the touchscreen! And, if your analog/D-pad isn't being used, give them the same functionality!
No ability to speed up combat. Sorry, I only need to see the basic attack animation a few dozen times. (I admit, I'm probably pretty alone in this-- I spent most of Disgaea DS staring at the tactical map, with all AV options disabled, to the point I pretty much forgot there were graphics...)
Interface feels kind of clunky. I was trying to figure out what my characters' base stats were, to decide what to job them as when I couldn't find their stats from the job selection page. Had to check via the skills page. Seems such a glaring oversight I'll have to revisit this one...
To Taste/Other:
Weird as hell pseudo-sidescrolling map in town.
Mandatory confirmation in combat. Not being accustomed to that, I sat there a few times wondering why nothing was happening after inputting commands.
Has a Streetpass "minigame" where people you meet can be drafted to reconstruct a town. 1 person building the road takes 10 (real-time) hours. 2 people = 5 hours, etc. Supposedly, some rare items can only be obtained here.
Censorship has crept in again. For one, the protagonists have all had their ages bumped up by 3 years, so they now range from 18-20. A bit of change in costumes too. Which is particularly odd, since evidently, they make comments about how skimpy one of them is in-game.

Thinking about it, I might be spoiled by having my last game be Fire Emblem: Awakening, which I find to be pretty amazingly polished...

[Culise]

So having tried the demo for ~15min last night, my first impressions are highly mixed, mostly due to 'comforts'.

Graphics are pretty enough, though looking at what other people've said, it's hit or miss as to whether or not the chibi-style characters work out for you. I have no objection, and considering the sheer amount of jobs, each of which have their own appearance, for each of four characters, trying to slim down as much as possible is kind of expected. Backgrounds are relatively glorious.
Audio was off; people were sleeping.
...On second though, I'm going to skip the pretty standard-fare review stuff.

Utilizes the classic FF job system; looks like there's room for ~50 jobs on the wheel. I believe how it works is that you pick a primary job, which influences your current stats and stat growth, and you can take the command skills of another class. You can also equip passives from other classes, though I'm not sure if they have to be out of the primary/secondary you've picked or not.

Pluses:
It's got a pretty generous auto-save option-- appears to kick in every time you transition zones.
Flexible difficulty options: For people doing challenge games (or for who knows what other reasons), you can actually disable character growth entirely. Slider for combat frequency. (Yep, stuff pops out of nowhere in classic JRPG fashion). Combat difficulty.
Language options. (I believe five languages were mentioned, though I only recall English, Spanish and Japanese. Uncertain if this includes voice. Not featured in demo.)
Auto-combat. No idea how intelligent it is; found it on my last battle before sleeping.
Minuses:
For the love of god, if your control interface is on the touchscreen, use the touchscreen! And, if your analog/D-pad isn't being used, give them the same functionality!
No ability to speed up combat. Sorry, I only need to see the basic attack animation a few dozen times. (I admit, I'm probably pretty alone in this-- I spent most of Disgaea DS staring at the tactical map, with all AV options disabled, to the point I pretty much forgot there were graphics...)
Interface feels kind of clunky. I was trying to figure out what my characters' base stats were, to decide what to job them as when I couldn't find their stats from the job selection page. Had to check via the skills page. Seems such a glaring oversight I'll have to revisit this one...
To Taste/Other:
Weird as hell pseudo-sidescrolling map in town.
Mandatory confirmation in combat. Not being accustomed to that, I sat there a few times wondering why nothing was happening after inputting commands.
Has a Streetpass "minigame" where people you meet can be drafted to reconstruct a town. 1 person building the road takes 10 (real-time) hours. 2 people = 5 hours, etc. Supposedly, some rare items can only be obtained here.
Censorship has crept in again. For one, the protagonists have all had their ages bumped up by 3 years, so they now range from 18-20. A bit of change in costumes too. Which is particularly odd, since evidently, they make comments about how skimpy one of them is in-game.

Thinking about it, I might be spoiled by having my last game be Fire Emblem: Awakening, which I find to be pretty amazingly polished...

To be fair on censorship, sexual jokes about minors don't really go over well with ratings boards, and the DLC outfits are still plenty skimpy for players who like that sort of thing.  They did cut the speedo costume outright, though.  That was a bit of a shame. 

[Baneling]

Ah, things of note.
Audio: The music is pretty well done. From what I recall of the demo, the music helped the game without being too overstated, as well as generally being of high quality.
Jobs: You pick a job, a job command, and passives are only limited by how many points you have and, of course, what job passives you have unlocked. They don't have to be from the job you're currently using, or a second command.
Auto-combat: You set up a set of actions which are recorded and then repeated. Good for grinding or battles that are long but simple - it doesn't really work for battles which require active strategy, like bosses.

Not sure about what you mean by the comments about the touchscreen.
There is an ability to speed up combat. There's a skip options thing, and the...R button, I think? has a speedup function. It's definitely there somewhere, though.
Can't really say anything about the interface - figuring out stats and things is definitely quite clunky and difficult to do, I found. I got used to it near the end of the demo, though, so I think it's something that you can get accustomed to fairly easily.

Just some notes. Some of this is a bit hazy, since I played the demo about two weeks ago until I had finished it and my memory tends to be somewhat terrible sometimes. Hopefully I'll be getting it tomorrow and will be able to provide more information. Huzzah.

[Aoi]

Well, that was off of about fifteen minutes before bed. I spent more time thinking about what to say and writing it up than actually playing-- will definitely be doing revisions on that post later on. Good to know that combat can be sped up-- the pace was somewhat annoying me, and the face buttons weren't doing anything. Guess I must've missed the shoulders? Could've sworn there was nothing in the options to speed it up though...

[Baneling]

It's an in-combat button. Up/down on D-pad, I think, actually, since the shoulder buttons are used for Brave and a mechanic in the full game called Bravely Second which I have no idea as to what it is or how it works.

[Tellemurius]

i wish, they had some other perspective for the town view than the side. Other than that i see potential in this game though i need to replay it as i screwed up fast

[Aoi]

Not sure about what you mean by the comments about the touchscreen.

Oh, just a gripe about things in general that, if you're programmed for a touch interface, and you have selectable elements on the touch interface, then let people use the touch interface. (Alternatively: If you're got buttons on the bottom screen, then let us tap them, instead of limiting us to the D-pad exclusively.)

I've gotten cranky over the years, I've found. =P