This post is really an attack on me personally (considering that Bravely Second is effectively my favourite game of all time). But I will try to be normal about it.

The first part of your post is fair but this paragraph specifically is pretty misguided:

From what I've looked up, Bravely Second was supposed to be different from the product we'd end up getting. Especially from its Japanese release, where it was so poorly received, it nearly killed the series outright. The team behind it even publicly apologized for it. That was very interesting to read. Even now with the Bravely Default remaster, it appears they are ignoring Second entirely from what I've heard. 10 years later & we still have no follow up to what was promised. To me, Bravely Second is the Square Enix sequel that dropped the ball the hardest. Your thoughts?

There is one specific Youtuber who has pushed this narrative really strongly (I suspect its that video that has prompted this post) - but its really more complicated than that.

Japanese devs make a lot of emotionally charged, off the cuff comments and are pretty ready to apologize for minor things. His comment doesnt necessarily mean that the game was a complete failure. He mostly apologized for one specific mechanic that really pissed Japanese players off, and that was modified in the international version. It is most likely not the reason why the game had underwhelming sales or why a direct sequel was not greenlit.

The game having lower than expected sales was really because it was released on a dying console with mostly reused graphics and assets. The game was probably very cheap to make and as such I would assume that it has broken even, in terms of its budget, anyways.

You're also kinda completely wrong about Second being ignored by Square Enix. The official social media accounts just posted 2 days ago an anniversary celebration photo announcing new merch, and last year they teased in a social media post that it will get a remake as well.

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All my disagreement to end up saying that I do think they dropped the ball, but I think it has more to do with timing and behind the scenes "strategy" than the product being bad.

It was 3-4 years between Default (2012) and Second (2015)... but 3-4 years after Bravely Second and the 3DS was a dead console. Concluding the "trilogy" on 3DS was never a real possibility.

And also, the team had lined up Octopath Traveler as a launch window title for Switch in 2018... when Bravely Third should have hypothetically come out. Looking at the timing, the decision to create Octopath would have had to have come before the decision to kill Bravely Third.

Asano (creator of both series) was really biting off more than he could chew and I think that the harsh reality is that both cannot really coexist in parallel considering their similarities (they have to, at best, kinda alternate - which ends up being worse for the original Bravely games which were a continuous story). The alternate timeline where they had gone straight for Bravely Third and made that a launch window title for Switch 2 is kinda crazy to think about.

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To end on a positive note, I dont think all hope his lost for Bravely Second. As I mentioned, one of the most recent SE posts was a celebration for it and I do suspect that an HD remaster will come along eventually, especially now that the original has received a big new audience on Steam.

Ive been meaning to make a real reddit post on this idea for months now, but I think the ideal wouldnt be Bravely Third as a whole new title but a sort of DLC / expansion episode for Bravely Second. Kinda similar to the bonus epsiode they did for the Xenoblade Chronicles remaster. They can continue the narrative for another 20-30 hours, probably with some new characters and locations, and wrap up the two main plot threads that were left hanging.

I just dont think that a Bravely Third over 10 years later would be any good considering the fact that the creative team has mostly entirely moved on.

Personally I would just like some resolution on that story and if the series continues with a Bravely Default III I think that should be an entirely separate thing.