Why you’ll be able to belief TechRadar
We spend hours testing each services or products we overview, so that you may be certain you’re shopping for the most effective. Find out more about how we test.
Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster is a bizarre Nintendo Switch 2 launch title, one thing of a time capsule in each method the phrase might indicate. As a sport, it’s stubbornly unchanged, and but by being so acquainted, it stays simply as pleasing because it was on its preliminary Nintendo 3DS launch.
Evaluation data
Platform reviewed: Nintendo Change 2
Accessible on: Nintendo Change 2
Launch date: June 5, 2025
As the sport’s producer Tomoya Asano famous forward of this remaster’s launch, Bravely Default was designed as a throwback to the basic 2D and 16-bit period of RPGs.
Its success each at dwelling and overseas impressed the corporate to develop its HD-2D titles, similar to Octopath Traveler and the Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake. It emulates basic Final Fantasy with a grand globe-trotting journey to avoid wasting the world, splendidly consultant of the Nintendo Leisure System and Tremendous Nintendo Leisure System eras of the storied franchise.
Someday, an incredible chasm all of the sudden opens within the earth beneath the village of Norende, with Tiz the only survivor. The 4 crystals driving the pure stability of the world have been plunged into darkness. When he runs into one of many Vestals (priestesses of the crystals), Agnes Oblige, he’s impressed to guard her and search a approach to reawaken them. Over time, you might be joined in your travels by Edea Lee and Ringabel, and these 4 warriors of sunshine got down to rejuvenate the world.
It is a turn-based RPG, enhanced by a deep job system and far more. The consequence evolves this primary framework into one thing extremely partaking and, even all these years later, wholly distinctive. The titular Courageous and Default mechanics carry a captivating risk-reward thrill to troublesome fight: you start with 0 BP in every battle, with any motion consuming one level. You may act a number of occasions in a single time period by utilizing Courageous, consuming further BP, however you’ll be unable to behave once more till you recuperate to not less than zero.
Default is that this sport’s time period for defending: you received’t act, however you’ll achieve an additional BP and take much less harm, permitting you to behave twice subsequent time with out skipping a flip. By build up BP throughout a number of characters and tying it to particular strikes it permits for some intense all-out assaults in the event you strategize appropriately.
Fairy-ly Strategic
And strategize you need to. Success towards bosses hinges on appropriately using this method, in addition to the roles. These are the varied lessons you could already be conversant in, similar to mages, thieves, and knights, alongside extra unique jobs like retailers.
Mastery of those lessons means that you can inherit a few of their skills to different lessons, primarily permitting a personality to embody the most effective of two jobs without delay. Battles require not simply good technique however figuring out your limits, all whereas profiting from this job system to craft a mage with the pace of a thief, and so forth.
One typical frustration relating to turn-based RPGs is that fight can quickly really feel sluggish or repetitive. These techniques mix to keep away from that. When you do really feel the necessity to grind to extend your degree, earn cash, or enhance a personality’s class proficiency, you’ll be able to assign actions for characters to soak up auto-battles or change encounter charges and battle pace.
Finest bit
After first struggling to beat a boss, stepping again to regulate your jobs and gear earlier than tackling it with the appropriate stability of offense and protection takes benefit of each facet of the battle system, and makes victory really feel oh-so candy.
It’s laborious to seek out a lot to complain about relating to Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster. It was praised in its time for being one of many best RPGs, and that is still true in the present day. The script and characters attraction, the battles thrill, simply as they did earlier than. Subsequent to nothing has modified.
The character fashions and world are the identical low-polygon 3D fashions because the 3DS launch, bar a number of upgraded textures, a truth solely extra obvious within the fashions for minor characters or the stiff, restricted animations in cutscenes. It’s a testomony to the timeless artwork type of the unique sport that the cities and choose areas stay at occasions beautiful and by no means really feel garish when blown up on a bigger display screen.
A lingering legacy
The one actual variations in Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster are extra of a necessity than the rest: the outdated sport made heavy use of the community options of the 3DS, encouraging gamers to ship fight assist to different gamers whereas strolling out on the earth through StreetPass, or linking the talents of your occasion with mates. These have been tailored to the Nintendo Change On-line ecosystem considerably awkwardly, the enjoyment of encountering strangers whereas strolling outdoors changed with a lot much less attention-grabbing ghosts in cities.
There are two new minigames, however these really feel like they exist primarily as an excuse to justify Nintendo Change 2 exclusivity. They every use mouse controls, however not very successfully. Luxencheer Rhythm Catch is a rhythm sport timed to some iconic songs from the sport’s soundtrack whereas a personality of your alternative dances alongside. It’s serviceable, however would not really feel as pure as a correct rhythm sport ought to.
Ringabel’s Panic Cruise is well the extra concerned and attention-grabbing of the pair, placing you behind the controls of an airship as you steer round a course and react to instructions by pulling switches and knobs or blowing whistles. I might think about myself having fun with a full sport with this idea and controls, however right here it appears like little greater than a tech demo. With each hidden in submenus, these can be forgotten nearly instantly.
Take these minimal bonus options away, and that is nearly precisely the identical sport because it was earlier than. Excluding a number of high quality of life adjustments and an adaptation from a two-screen handheld to a single-screen hybrid console, that is similar to the unique launch. Typically, titles like Bravely Default might obtain a brand new translation forward of a brand new launch, however even that is still unchanged right here.
This, not less than for me, is okay. In retaining as a lot of this 3DS expertise as doable, Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster stands other than its contemporaries as one thing not like different RPGs available on the market proper now, faithfully making a basic of the style accessible to a brand new era.
Whereas it’s a troublesome promote to those that performed the unique sport upon its launch because of the unchanged nature of this story and gameplay, I’ve personally loved the excuse to revisit it, precisely as I bear in mind.
For all it isn’t pushing the brand new {hardware} to the boundaries whereas the restricted new options are extra of an excuse and obligation to check new {hardware} than improve the expertise, it’s laborious to complain when you’ve among the finest RPGs of the final 15 years on the biggest or smallest display screen you possibly can need.
Ought to I play Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster?
Play it if…
Do not play it if…
Accessibility options
Whereas it’s doable to regulate language and subtitle choices in Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster, and there may be hardware-level restricted button remapping for these utilizing the Change 2 Charging Grip or Professional Controller, there are not any different accessibility options for these needing options similar to colorblind mode.
How I reviewed Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster
I performed 20 hours of Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster and tried all options, together with city rebuilding and bonus minigames.
This introduced me partway into the second chapter of the sport, though I did full the sport upon its preliminary launch on Nintendo 3DS and in contrast the expertise between the 2 titles.
A lot of the sport was performed on a Nintendo Change 2 in handheld or tabletop mode, in addition to on an ASUS VG27AQL1A gaming monitor. Audio was utilized in a mixture of the system’s inner audio system, Apple AirPods Max related wirelessly to the machine, in addition to Denon audio system related to the monitor through a Yamaha A-S301 Amplifier.
First reviewed June 2025