Bravely Second: End Layer

Bravely Second is a traditional role-playing video game with turn-based action, and retains the battle system of its predecessor Bravely Default. This allows players to build up "Brave Points" (BP), or the number of user turns per character at any given time. On any turn, characters can "Default", or guard, and gain an additional Brave Points, or BP, to act multiple times on the same turn.

New to the game is a chain-battle feature where a player who defeats a random encounter may continue to battle enemies in succession for greater risks and rewards. Players can receive up to three times the amount of experience and money. This also allows the player to level up each character's "Job Points" (JP). Each character has access to many different Jobs (up to a total of 30) by gaining that Job's asterisk. The asterisk is usually held by another character in game world with that class.

Two and a half years after the events of Bravely Default, Agnès Oblige has been elected the Pope of the Crystal Orthodoxy. She and Grand Marshal Braev Lee of the Duchy of Eternia seek to end hostilities between their groups with a formal peace treaty in the city of Gathelatio. The ceremony is interrupted by Kaiser Oblivion, leader of the Glanz Empire, and his cryst-fairy companion Anne, who abduct Agnès and imprison her in their floating fortress, the Skyhold. Yew Geneolgia, leader of Agnès' Crystalguard protectors, awakens a week after the attack and sets out to rescue her with fellow Crystalguard leaders Janne Engarde and Nikolai Nikolanikov.

However, Janne and Nikolai are revealed to be moles for the Empire. Later guided by Agnès through a crystal shard she dropped when she was kidnapped, Yew assembles three companions: Eternian Ducal Guard captain Edea Lee, the daughter of Braev who aided Agnès in their first adventure, Magnolia Arch, a young Ba'al Buster from the moon who is the sole survivor of an attack on her village and possesses an hourglass capable of localized time manipulation, and Tiz Arrior, a former comrade of Agnès and Edea who has been comatose for the past two and a half years. The group is unable to prevent the Kaiser from escaping in the Skyhold.

As early as December 2012, talks of a sequel to Bravely Default arose, with producer Tomoya Asano requesting feedback from fans to be used for a sequel to the game. Discussions of a sequel arose again in June 2013, when game developer Yasumi Matsuno announced that character designer and lead artist Akihiko Yoshida was working on a Bravely Default sequel. In August 2013, Square Enix announced Bravely Default: For the Sequel, an updated version of the original that would implement new gameplay ideas developed for a sequel in the series. The name "Bravely Second" was trademarked as early as September 2013.

The game's title was announced as Bravely Second in a December 2013 issue of Jump magazine, being named after a gameplay mechanic from Bravely Default: For the Sequel. Upon announcement, the game's only announced platform was the Nintendo 3DS. The game was approximately 30% complete around the time of its announcement.

Bravely Second received generally positive reviews. Praise went towards the gameplay following on from the original game, criticism went mostly towards lack of differentiation from its predecessor, and mixed reactions towards its writing compared to that of the prior game.

In their review, Famitsu gave the game the score 36 of 40, consisting of the sub-scores 9, 9, 9, and 9. Siliconera detailed and translated a series of responses from Japanese players including praise for the "Consecutive Chance" feature and criticism for overuse of memes and modern language and slang drawing comparisons to Hyperdimension Neptunia.