Bravely Default II has a secret ending - but to reach it, you must beat an 'unbeatable' boss
Bravely Default II is the latest big, traditional RPG helping to keep us sane through 2021 - and the game is jam packed with traditional RPG tropes - including that old classic, the unbeatable boss early on who wipes your party without breaking a sweat.
The events described in this article all take place during the prologue of Bravely Default II, but consider this a spoiler warning.
But Bravely Default II's early-game boss fight against the intimidating, heavily-armored Adam holds a secret: this unbeatable boss isn't so unbeatable after all. And if you defeat him, you can have credits roll about sixty hours early.
As discovered by youtube & twitch user Dani Cruz in the embedded video above, you can totally defeat Adam if you just deplete his absolutely enormous HP reserves and somehow, impossibly manage to stay alive.
Adam has close to 100,000 HP, which is pretty much insurmountable at this point, obviously. It's even a pretty tall ask in New Game Plus - in this battle, Adam is ridiculously tough. But with grinding and a careful strategy as shown in the video Adam can be defeated - and doing so prevents many of the story events of Bravely Default II from taking place at all, which means... the story is over.
The secret ending isn't much to write home about, however. A mysterious figure stands in a void and comments on Adam's early defeat... and then credits roll. But nevertheless, it's cool to see that the BD2 team thought about this potential outcome and programmed it into the game, even going so far as to record some additional voice-over covering this eventuality. You can see all of this in the embedded video.
Usually, when an unbeatable story boss has their HP depleted, like Beatrix in Final Fantasy IX, they usually just unleash an instant-death special move on the party to save face. Not so for Adam.
If you're playing through Bravely Default II proper, don't forget we've got some very useful guides on some of the more complicated aspects of its very in-depth combat and character progression systems. If you're not yet playing it and our on the fence, consider reading our review.