My biggest complaint with both Bravely Default II demos remains the removal of turn-round combat. The new quasi-ATB system found in the “Final Demo” is a mild improvement from the first demo, but it too fails in its attempt to incorporate the Brave/Default mechanics.
Turn-round combat afforded the player the ability to properly strategize, to employ Braving/Defaulting (as well as other buffs/debuffs) effectively and to build effective combinations of skills. It worked perfectly in the 3DS titles and there was no valid reason for removing it now.
Another glaring flaw is the redundant combat dialogue. It gets so bad after a few hours that many players are likely to turn off the volume during combat. A shame because what I have heard of the soundtrack thus far is very good.
Removing random encounters, along with the player’s ability to control their frequency, strikes me as yet another unforced error by the dev team.
BD II was the title I was most looking forward to going into 2020. The first two games in the series hold a special place for me and I have told countless people that I consider Bravely Default to be the best ‘Final Fantasy’ game since IX. Sadly, these demos leave me convinced that BD II will fall far short of the mark left by the earlier entries in the series.