Bravely Default

Bravely Default is a role-playing video game which features a party of four characters navigating the fantasy world of Luxendarc. Navigation in towns, dungeons, and the world map environments are presented in an angled, third-person overhead view: the character remains still, the camera zooms out to a distant view. These environments are displayed on the top screen of the Nintendo 3DS system, while the bottom screen displays maps of environments, party stats and other information such as item menus. On the world map, a day–night cycle alters the types of enemies present, and after a certain point in the story, an airship can be used to speed up travel and access previously inaccessible areas.

In towns, players can interact with non-playable characters (NPCs), purchase items or magic at specialized shops, buy or sell weapons and equipment at an armory, or rest at an inn to restore health points (HP) and magic points (MP). In all environments, the party can find chests containing items, weapons or equipment. During certain points, a Party Chat option appears, giving players the option of initiating conversations between the party members. During exploration, standard enemies appear through random encounters.

Luxendarc is thrown into chaos when its four elemental crystals are consumed by darkness. Agnès Oblige, vestal of the Wind Crystal, escapes. Meanwhile, a chasm opens below the town of Norende and destroys it. Its sole survivor, Tiz Arrior, investigates the chasm and meets Agnès and her companion, the fairy Airy.

The group is attacked by forces of the Duchy of Eternia, who seek to prevent Agnès from awakening the crystals. After defeating the forces, Tiz travels with Agnès as her protector. Back in Caldisla, the group is joined by Ringabel, an amnesiac vagabond with a mysterious book, and Edea Lee, a soldier who defects from her army. Airy instructs the group on how to awaken the crystals, and the first three crystals are successfully awakened while having Eternia's forces on their trail.

According to producer Tomoya Asano, Bravely Default began development as a sequel to Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light (2009), and would have been part of the Final Fantasy franchise. After completing The 4 Heroes of Light, Asano considered what he wanted to do next. Despite having the option to developing something within Square Enix's core franchises, he voluntarily established a new intellectual property. During this initial phase, the original development team reached out to Silicon Studio, whose previous work was mostly related to development middleware.

Silicon Studio developed a well-received demo for the project and were assigned to develop the game. Despite moving away from the Final Fantasy series, it retained a battle system and world setting in common with many Final Fantasy games. According to Asano, this was both a leftover of the project's original form and a conscious choice to give players from the Final Fantasy series a sense of comfortable familiarity. In later responses to fan questions, Asano confirmed that he designed the Final Fantasy-style story so players would have little trouble entering the world.

Bravely Default received "generally favorable" reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic, with 81% of critics recommending the game according to OpenCritic. Flying Fairy HD Remaster also received "generally favorable" reviews according to Metacritic, with 89% of critics recommending the game according to OpenCritic.

The story was met with positive reviews. Famitsu was highly positive about the story, although the reviewers did not go into specifics. Edge Magazine called the narrative "rich and detailed", enjoying the twists put on the present genre tropes and the darker narrative elements despite the experience being undermined by the writing quality. Andrew Fitch of Electronic Gaming Monthly found the story and characters enjoyable, and in some cases "stellar", while Ben Moore of GameTrailers noted the story's aversion to take risks despite interesting twists, and found that it was bogged down by advanced foreshadowing of major plot twists.