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3DS

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Bravely Default: Flying Fairy

by Danny Bivens - July 1, 2012, 11:52 am EDT
Total comments: 6

Find out how the name of the game relates to the battle system. 

With Bravely Default: Flying Fairy in stores October 11 in Japan, Square Enix is revealing more and more information as the days go by. Just this past week, they released the third demo for the game on the Nintendo 3DS eShop. While the previous demos focused on introducing the game world and AR features, the third installment for the upcoming RPG, Titled Demo Vol. 3 Battle Hen (Battle Volume), focuses on the game’s battle system.

The third demo introduces a new character to the mix, Idea (pronounced id-ay-a) Lee, a blonde 15-year-old girl with a strong will to fight. The battle system contains the menu options of a traditional RPG, including those to attack, use abilities or items, and to run away. What sets the system apart is the concept of “brave” and “default.” During the player’s turn, if they choose to use default, their character takes a defensive position and gains Brave Points (BP). BP is important in each of your battles and ties into using the ability while fighting. If a player opts to use brave, they lose BP; however, they have the capacity to use more than one attack, ability, or item. You can use brave as many as three times in one turn, giving you four total battle options (three from the brave and one for your current turn). Once your BP dip below zero, your character becomes defenseless for the number of turns you selected brave. This adds deeper elements of strategy to the game, as you have to determine the best time to utilize these new concepts. The brave and default system is not only limited to the characters you control, either—enemy characters have the ability to employ them in battle as well.

Tiz and Idea

The demo itself puts you in control of two of the game’s main characters, including the aforementioned Idea Lee and the character introduced in the last demo, Tiz Oria. At the beginning of the demo, you choose one of the game’s jobs (Knight, Monk, White Mage, or Black Mage) for each character. Each job gives Idea and Tiz a unique look. If you choose Knight for Tiz, he wields a sword and shield, and wears armor. If you choose White Mage for Idea, she wears a white dress with robes and a pointy white mage hat. You also have the ability to level up jobs along with the characters, so you could have a level 10 Tiz who is a level three Monk. At the moment, it is unclear how this effects gameplay, or if players can change jobs later on in the game.

The demo includes a few different enemy types, including wolves, zombies, floating lanterns with elemental powers, and a Black Mage boss character named Ominous Crow. In typical dimwitted, boss-like fashion, Ominous Crow figures each encounter with his minions will be enough to best you and your team. After fighting through three battles and getting the hang of the battle system, you move on to challenge Ominous in a skirmish. He’s a pretty powerful opponent with extremely strong magical attacks. Coupled with his use of brave, he can easily bring your party near death as he did with me. Thankfully, the previous battles supplied me with just enough healing potions and items to prevent statuses like poison from destroying me. After defeating Ominous, the demo concludes.

Ominous Crow in da house

I really liked what I saw from the battle system in Bravely Default. The music remains amazing and the visual presentation (both the stereoscopic 3D and the visual style) is sharp. Of course, like the previous demos, the newest also includes a new AR video showing Idea fighting an invisible trainer. You can also skip over events by tapping the touch screen, and even redo the entire battle sequence (perhaps if you weren’t pleased with your performance). You should be excited for this fresh take on the genre, which looks and sounds great. Now that we know what the Bravely Default part of the title references, I wonder what in the world Flying Fairy turns out to be!

Talkback

Evan_BJuly 01, 2012

I really hope we get this game in NA. I will always, ALWAYS welcome good RPGs to any console.

AilingforaleJuly 01, 2012

This does sound interesting, but like most of the demos talked about on this site... I'm just going to assume you mean the JP eShop and not the NA one since I haven't seen this or the demo for Heroes of Ruin up at all :(

PicoliJuly 01, 2012

According to the first screenshot, shouldn't her name's pronunciation be id-ay-a, not id-ee-a?


@Ailingforale, North America is getting the Heroes of Ruin demo this coming Thursday.

ymeegodJuly 01, 2012

Can't wait for this game :).

Wonder if you share BP points with the others or does each character have their own set and does the BP carry over or do you automatically start with a full bar?  Also, when you change classes will you ablilities you learned carry over?

@Picolo You are absolutely right. For whatever reason, I remembered it as イディア. I guess I should have RTFS (read the f'n screenshot), right?!  :P:


@ymeegod Right now, each character has their own set of BP and they don't share it. At the start of each battle, you start with 0 BP, which is neutral. -1 to -3 keep you from moving a set amount of turns. If you default, though, then you'll get between 1 and 3 (depending on how many times you do it) which puts you in a defensive position and could be useful for using brave later in the battle. Status things like poison carry over into the next battle while BP is reset every battle.

ymeegodJuly 02, 2012

Reading a bit more about BP, what different with these BP compared to other games AP point system is the fact you can use BP that you don't even have, causing you to go into the negative score which will mean that character is going be an sitting duck for a few roundest, Dan mentioned this, but also the enemy attacking that said character eats their BP points as well.  It's a great way to launch an last final attack but if you fail you'll end up at the game over screen.

It's a shame the game isn't getting any attention in the West because this one looks like it could redeem Square/Enix's last few offerings.


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3DS

Game Profile

Bravely Default Box Art

Genre RPG
Developer Silicon Studio
Players1

Worldwide Releases

na: Bravely Default
Release Feb 07, 2014
PublisherNintendo
RatingTeen
jpn: Bravely Default: Flying Fairy
Release Oct 11, 2012
PublisherSquare Enix
Rating15+
eu: Bravely Default
Release Dec 06, 2013
PublisherNintendo
Rating12+
aus: Bravely Default: Where the Fairy Flies
Release Dec 07, 2013
PublisherNintendo
RatingMature
kor: Bravely Default
Release Apr 16, 2014
PublisherNintendo

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