Nearly fifteen years ago, Square worked on a game that was very nearly a sequel to the DS game Final Fantasy: The Four Heroes of Light, which was eventually spun off into its new IP called Bravely Default on the 3DS. As with most things, it’s been long enough that it’s time for an eventual remaster, and that’s what we have here with Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster.
Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster
Developer: Cattle Call Inc.
Price: $39.99
Platform: Switch 2 (reviewed)
MonsterVine was supplied with a Switch 2 code for review
If you somehow missed out on the original game, it follows Tiz, lone survivor from a town swallowed by a hole caused by the corruption of the crystals that keep the world in check; Agnès, priestess of the wind crystal who seeks to understand why the crystals are being corrupted; Ringabel; an amnesiac womanizer with a mysterious journal that chronicles future events; and Edea, a defector from the army hunting Agnès after witnessing its atrocities. The four of them swiftly find each other and set off to free the crystals from darkness. It can be a bit tropey at times, and while you can definitely feel the original Final Fantasy influences, the cast is incredibly endearing, so that you kind of excuse the typical RPG plotlines/character motivations when they eventually rear their heads.
If you’ve played any turn-based RPG out there, you’ll be immediately familiar with Bravely Default’s gameplay. You’ve got your four party members, and you’ll explore the land, running into battles with monsters while exploring dungeons, all while interacting with the game’s unique battle system: Brave and Default.
You see, combat turns are fueled by BP (Brave Points); so, essentially, one turn costs one BP. Now, what you can do is “Default,” which will put your character in a guard state where you’ll take reduced damage and basically bank a BP for the next turn, where you’ll have 2 BP, which will allow you to take two turns at once. On the flip side, if you’re fighting a tough enemy and you think you’ve got them right on the edge, you can choose to instead “Brave”, which will eat up future turns to use immediately. This comes at the cost of being left defenseless for however many turns you choose to use. On top of this, enemies also operate under this system, so if you notice they tend to Brave a lot after a particular move, you may want to take advantage of them during those moments when they can’t fight back. It’s an interesting system that forces you to pay attention to how enemies behave with it, and juggle whether you should Brave or Default during your turns.
Additionally, Bravely Default plays under the rules of a job system. If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s basically where unlike some RPGs where a character’s class (like black mage) is determined from the start and can’t be changed, a job system allows you to train a character in basically whatever class you want. Want to make Tiz a monk who also specializes in ninja? Go for it dude. Part of the fun is finding classes that blend together well, and with a whopping twenty four jobs to choose from and each character able to equip two job types, there’s some fun experimentation you can open yourself up to.
Being a launch title for the recently released Switch 2, you can expect a few differences and updates from its initial 3DS release. The most immediate change are the improved visuals across the game. Gone are the low-res blurry 3D models and in their place are some crisp shiny ones. You can see a greater amount of detail in them compared to the 3DS, with the towns in particular seeing the biggest change. You can really appreciate the beauty of places like Caldisla now that they’re not pixilated messes.
In addition to visual upgrades, you can expect to see some quality-of-life improvements as well. You can customize the enemy encounter rate to either lower or increase, battles can be sped up from 2x and even 4x, and most importantly you can set up auto-battles commands. This is a godsend of a feature for moments like wanting to grind levels in a dungeon and not wanting to actively think for it. Smaller improvements include being able to press a “heal all” button in the main menu and listing future abilities for job levels that haven’t been reached yet. And finally, there are two new minigames that specifically take advantage of the Switch 2’s mouse controls: one is a rhythm game and the other has you piloting the airship while juggling requests like firing off fireworks.
The Final Word
As someone who missed out on the original release, I’ve been having a blast exploring the world of Luxendarc and can’t recommend Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster enough for anyone looking for an RPG to sink their teeth into on their Switch 2.
MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
