For some reason, I felt compelled to finish this after dropping it somewhere in chapter 3 earlier this year.
Pros:
Battle System - At first it was weird, but once it clicked, it clicked. I liked the different stuff you could pull off, and everyone loves job systems.
Convenience - Being able to turn off encounters is great, as is speeding up battles and setting macros for filler battles. Kind of makes you wonder what you're actually doing in the game, though.
Individual Character Writing - This is a little tough because the characters aren't very good for the first half of the game. However, they eventually became a pretty fun cast. This is mainly just dialogue I'm talking about, mind you. Some of the bonus boss fight conversations between the asterisks were really great.
Art: This game is really beautiful, and I love the art style. It's a very cohesive package, and I'm all for it.
Music: The soundtrack is so incredible, it might be the best part of this game. Easily in my top 3 favorite OST's from 2014. Heck, this might be the sole reason I felt compelled to finish the game.
Cons:
The Story: It's borderline offensive near the end. The characters outright talk about what's going on, and they KNOW who's behind it. Yet, to get the best ending, they still go on with their mission. It seems very, very backwards to have your game repeat the message "have the courage to disobey", and then tie the best ending to a path where you are constantly obeying, despite knowing what's going on. Whole story felt like they wrote the twist first and then scrambled to get a story behind it. Every plot point that was revealed made the main characters look even dumber. As someone else mentioned, the story gets bad long before the twists start popping.
Padding: Y'all know what I'm talking about, so I won't harp on it. I knew you'd have to repeat stuff, but I didn't realize just how many times you would have to do it in the end. I was OP by that point, so it didn't take too long... but it was still pretty outrageous. Leaves a pretty horrible taste in your mouth. Didn't really help that there was severe asset reuse in later dungeons. I also felt like maxing out jobs felt a little unnecessarily padded.
Honestly, the cons are so close to outweighing the positives. The game does so much right, but also so much wrong. Also, all the time/friend/money based systems seemed really unnecessary and kinda sketchy, but I barely used them so I'm not throwing it in there as a con. Really, it's like they made a solid framework for a game but then only made half of a game out of it and tried to pass it off as a full one by using some weird tactics.
Can't quite say for sure if I'd be incensed to get Bravely Second after the feeling this one left me with.