Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster

Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster was provided by Square Enix for review.

Having grown up with RPGs, with a few of my first being the ever-approachable Pokémon Yellow, Final Fantasy IX, and Breath of Fire IV, it wasn't until I was much older that I experienced how some of the even-earlier RPGs felt to play. They're often difficult, holding your hand enough to not let you get lost, but not enough to stop you from getting poisoned half a dozen times in the opening moments of the nearby, dank cave in the opening areas. It was rough. Grand in scope for the time, but rough. Enter Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster, a remaster of 2012's Bravely Default on the 3DS, which is a clumsy amalgamation of the two different design methodologies, albeit this time all the prettier on its new home, the Nintendo Switch 2.

As a franchise, Bravely Default isn't new to me per se, I just happened to start on the 2021 sequel, Bravely Default 2. Granted, I put in a few hours and moved on for some reason or another, but I had a rough idea of what to expect when I booted up Flying Fairy. It's the Square-Enix (and even Squaresoft) formula: 4 would-be heroes come together via various circumstances and situashionships for the eventual greater good, fighting the baddest of baddies, equipped with nefarious plans aplenty. There's very little that will surprise you with the plot itself. Still, the cast of characters throughout is enjoyable enough to keep everything moving along, if not entirely unpredictable themselves. 

Tiz, voiced by the incredible talent of Bryce Papenbrook (Seven Deadly Sins, Demon Slayer, Attack on Titan), is a natural hero seeking to right the world's wrongs after an unknown energy destroyed his village. Meanwhile, Agnés Oblige (Erin Fitzgerald) is assuredly less sure of her role and competency in her quest to awaken the crystals. Ringabel (Spike Spencer) is an amnesiac (ha) with a singular character trait: a pervert. On the other hand, Edea (Cassandra Lee Morris) is the daughter of the Grand Marshal of the Eternian Forces and was initially tasked with capturing Agnés before joining her.

It should be clear by now that Bravely Default does not shy away from the copious tropes deemed necessary by early JRPG storytellers. Although initially endearing, it grates massively until midway through the game, after some changes and revelations.

What keeps you going in the earlier hours, then, is the combat. It feels rooted in nostalgia, happily throwing enemies at you from the get-go, equally content in applying adverse status effects that contemporaries would introduce to you at a slower rate. This feeling harkens explicitly back to the earlier Final Fantasy titles, as but one example, and it's refreshing to see a modern implementation. Stock up on those Antidotes and Eye Drops, you're going to need them.

The job system is paramount in how combat is experienced on a player-by-player basis, too, with multiple jobs available during opening hours. At risk of sounding samey, the expected assortment of roles is available, such as Knight, Black and White Mage, Thief, etc. Sink another half-dozen hours in, however, and you'll find a more colourful collection of jobs building up, such as Merchant, a job that revolves around money being spent or gained for various buffs, debuffs, and attacks, and Spirit Master, a job that specialises in support by boosting elemental resistances, granting immunity to the aforementioned many status ailments, and so forth.

Your potential enjoyment and outright viability are somewhat ordained by your party composition. Whilst bringing 4 Time Mages into the fray may seem fun (and look ridiculous), you're unlikely to deal the same damage and have the same utility that you would were your party set up to focus on covering not only each other's strengths and weaknesses, but those of any potential foes, too.

The other side of combat is the game's namesake: Brave and Default. Actions spend 1 Battle Point (BP), and Defaulting acts as both a guard and a skip turn, earning you another BP. Meanwhile, choosing Brave lets you queue two actions for the relevant character in a single turn, opening up the possibility of various tactical combinations or an outright damage-focused approach. It is possible to queue more actions than you have available BP. Still, your character will skip the following turns until the deficit has been restored, leaving you vulnerable to successive attacks with no appropriate retort.

Considering the Normal difficulty steering closer to the more challenging side of JRPGs, such a gamble isn't always worth it, as most battles require some forethought. Granted, there will be areas where queueing 16 successive actions to be spent in one turn will end the battle prematurely, but it's not always the case, or enjoyable, should it be successful.

The Nintendo Switch 2 remaster of Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster is a cleaner, prettier offering than we had on the 3DS. That's it. And not prettier as in "hey, look, they've redone everything!". Just prettier in a higher pixel count, retaining the gouache aesthetic the 3DS utilized so effectively, all whilst keeping everything substantially simple. It's beautiful in a stylistic way, unlike a technically impressive way. Still, with textures across the board now appearing infinitely more legible, it's easy to appreciate the product that we do have, even if that product could have and should have gone further.

結論

Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster is a modestly updated package of one of 2012's breakthrough JRPG hits, on 3DS no less, warts and all. It's clichéd, archaic, and nostalgic, complete with positive and negative connotations of all three core traits. It's endearing, approachable, predictable, and often uninspired. Granted, the lower-than-expected price, $39.99, does help set expectations, alleviating the disappointment at the lack of bells and whistles in such a remaster, but, ultimately, there was no reason why Bravely Default didn't receive better treatment. As such, it isn't easy to come away from such an experience, which is still grand at its core, nevertheless, without the yearning for something more. 

このレビューはNintendo Switch 2版に基づいています。

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