Majority of games I like to play are driven by narratives and a personal favorite of mine is Bravely Default. It’s an rpg turn based game that was inspired by a game from the Final Fantasy series (same company, different series). So far it has one direct sequel and another addition to the series.
Gameplay is about as simple of a turn-based rpg gets, but it can be heavily exploited. The main characters fight bosses that have the game built upon story arcs and backgrounds in order to gain jobs that will help out later in fights. There is the function of stopping times. Stopping time in fights allows characters to break the damage limit from 9,999 to 999,999 and even send that damage to other players through the street/spot pass system the 3DS has. Sending and receiving different versions of the main characters would later be important in the story, but in the early game it’s seen as a handy tool to have when needing extra help on a boss.
Bravely Default takes place in a fictional world of Luxendarc where there are 5 main areas with 4 of them housing a crystal of either water, fire, earth, and wind. The main characters are made up of Agnes, Tiz, Edea, and Ringabel. Their main goal is to awaken the 4 crystals in order to prevent world destruction. At least that is what Agnes is told by a fairy named Airy. I personally started gaining emotional attachment to these characters as they face personal struggles as well as enjoy comedic turn of events. The game values character relationships and character thoughts through the use of party chat in which you can watch a short conversation between the main party about either a boss you had just defeated or events that had occurred throughout the game. It gives a sense of what the world is like through the character’s eyes and provides background on the area without needing to leaf through a glossary. It builds up into the final few hours of the game when it starts to get repetitive and the feeling of “if what you are doing is correct” starts to settle in. Beginning of the game, you have a journal that have strange passages and drawings in them with no correlation to the main casts. The game will start giving you more information about Airy’s true nature, how to break the crystal and that the notes in the journal were confirmations of the information holding true. At this point the player is left to either act upon this information or to follow through with whatever Airy says. Hence why there are two endings, a true ending and the idealized ending.