I'm also not a fan of Bravely Second's melodramatic dialogue. As the character you followed from beginning to end in Bravely Default, Tiz was an excellent lens through which to view the story; he was hopeful and more often than not the group's voice of reason. But he also felt emotions very deeply and was quietly strong when he needed to be, making him a well-rounded protagonist with a good balance of flaws and strengths. Yu, by contrast, is a mess. He's juicy and emotional in sappy ways, often more anxious than ready to fight. He exhibits sporadic moments of courage, but they fade away quickly as he demonstrates he is unable to really take care of things on his own. I'm not that far into the game, so I can only speak for the first several hours of Bravely Second, but I hope his character development is significant.

Another annoyance I encountered with Bravely Second is something that Japanese players have been complaining about since launch. Bravely Second has its own version of Bravely Default's Norende Village restoration, in which you use online features and 3DS Street Pass to rebuild a destroyed village. In the previous game, you could swap items and builders with other players, allowing you to help each other in the process. In Bravely Second, in order to access the restoration project, you need to register or login to the Square Enix member website. This means if you're not a Square Enix member, you can't do anything with the project. It's a pretty crappy thing to do, considering restoring the village is ultimately helpful to you in the long run. Sticking it behind a registration wall is inconvenient and unnecessarily limiting.

If you enjoyed Bravely Default, Bravely Second is just more love. So far, it feels like the same game with new characters and a few small tweaks. However, some of these changes drag down the experience; the absence of the random encounter slider in particular slows down leveling, one of biggest pillars of the JRPG experience. Despite that, I'm still enjoying combat and fighting alongside old friends from Bravely Default. I'm enjoying seeing how the new job classes work, and if you were invested in the story of Tiz and Agnes, you won't want to skip this game when it, hopefully, gets a worldwide release.