I am overjoyed that Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster exists. Even though YouTubers convinced themselves that the game’s reveal in the Nintendo Direct: Nintendo Switch 2 presentation was the oft-rumoured Final Fantasy IX remake, I was excited to learn that Silicon Studio‘s exceptional RPG has been unshackled from the Nintendo 3DS at long last.
The game was playable at the recent Nintendo Switch 2 Experience: London event, with adventure-loving attendees free to choose between playing the game from the start or loading save data that was many hours in. Seeing as it’s approaching 12 years since I last played the game, I decided to refresh my memory first. From its opening credits, the Tokyo-based Cattle Call was immediately confirmed as the developer behind this remaster.
I forgot how bleakly Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster begins. After darkness shrouds the four elemental crystals that once maintained peace and balance in the world of Luxendarc, a Great Chasm opens in the earth and swallows Norende up in darkness. After waking in a nearby inn, Tiz Arrior, a kind shepherd and the sole survivor of such a tragic event, returns to the chasm that engulfed his hometown with the hope of discovering other survivors. There he meets Agnès Oblige, servant and vestal to the Crystal of Wind, and her fairy companion Airy, and together they journey to restore the crystals and seal the Great Chasm.
Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster looks resplendent, with sharpened character models running around the game’s painterly picture book-like backgrounds. The visual jump from 240p to what I assume is 1080p is also considerable, as is the developer’s effort to condense the game’s setup from its original two screens to a single one. I wouldn’t say that this is a game that is particularly stretching the Nintendo Switch 2 hardware, but it retains its magical charm.
It is in combat that the experience excels. Gameplay mechanics introduced in the game’s battle system are where its unusual name derives. Each turn, you can ask a party member to Default to let them defend and take no further action to store up Brave Points (BP). Brave then lets you make up to four actions in a single turn, whether using the BP you have accumulated or taking future turns in advance. It is high-risk, high-reward, and your enemies are free to do the same. Do you go all-out but leave your party vulnerable to a counterattack, take your turns normally or play it safe to bank BP but let the battle drag out for longer?
Jobs play an important role, too. Every character starts out as a Freelancer which is a good all-rounder role, but you will eventually have access to Jobs such as Monk, White Mage, Knight, Ranger, Summoner, Ninja, Dark Knight and Valkyrie. To unlock new Jobs, you need to acquire their Asterisk, which are collected from toppling the many bosses that are regularly scattered throughout the game. It’s great to experiment with different Job combinations across your party, and I’m sure that everyone will have their favourites.
Square Enix has confirmed that, as with the original game, battles can play out up to four times faster, and this has now also been similarly applied to event scenes when autoplay is selected for those revisiting the game. You can also change the rate of random encounters from the field map, between 50% to 200%. There was an option to turn them off entirely (0%) in the original game, so I’m not sure what’s happened to that.
The StreetPass content, which tasked you with reconstructing the village of Norende, hasn’t been removed, either. It has been retooled, now seeing you find Passing Souls in town locations, who will be automatically invited to become the village’s residents. You can assign them to build or work at shops, rewarding you with new items, equipment and experience over time. It was an element that I really enjoyed in the original game, so I’m glad the developer found a way to make it work and didn’t have to cut it.
There are also new optional minigames to participate in for bonuses, Ringabel’s Panic Cruise and Luxencheer Rhythm Catch. These both use dual mouse controls with the Joy-Con 2, and, as much as Ringabel’s Panic Cruise was disorientating at first, regularly made me laugh at just how panic-inducing the experience actually was. With Tiz, Agnès, Edea and other characters barking orders at you to make repairs, cool the temperature and swat flies, you have to flick switches, pull levers and blow whistles to score points. This led to a boss encounter with a dragon, where you have to balance pulverising it with your cannons and bringing the two Joy-Con 2 together to form a shield to deflect incoming attacks. I had fun, and I’m sure this will be a welcome distraction from the main quest.
Throw in an unmissable, adrenaline-pumping soundtrack from Japanese composer and singer Revo, and I am more than excited to return to Luxendarc for Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster. One of Nintendo 3DS’ all-time greats looks set to reach even greater heights on Nintendo Switch 2, I just hope that it doesn’t get lost in what is already a busy launch line-up for the portable home console successor.
Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster will be released at retail and digitally on the Nintendo eShop for Nintendo Switch worldwide on 5 June 2025.
