Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster

Genre: Turn-Based JRPG

Players: 1

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Review:

While the first game in the Bravely series released over a decade ago in 2014 on Nintendo 3DS, as luck would have it, I reviewed the game more recently in 2022. So with this game seeing a remastered re-release on Nintendo Switch 2 in 2025 as a launch title for Nintendo’s new hybrid console, my memories of that game are fairly fresh, and they haven’t changed – this is an excellent Turn-Based JRPG with a lot of old-school charm, a great job class system, and the wonderful signature brave/default system that adds an excellent strategic element to the largely straightforward turn-based battles.

So with that out of the way, the real question here is what’s changed, and the answer is mostly not a whole lot. The most noticeable change, naturally, will be the dramatically improved presentation. This game’s stylized visuals look absolutely gorgeous on a TV screen in 1080p resolution with smooth 60FPS framerates, with handheld mode also keeping the same resolution and framerate. That said… well, given that this game was released alongside impressive eye candy like Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition, I think it’s not much of a surprise that many players didn’t pay much attention to a remastered Nintendo 3DS game with cutesy squat characters. This game may be stylistically gorgeous, but a graphical showcase, it is not.

There are other changes here beyond the presentation. Some are by necessity – The Nintendo Switch 2 doesn’t have the Street Pass feature of the Nintendo 3DS, so now they instead randomly meet other online-enabled players so long as they’re playing online too. it’s not an ideal solution, but I suppose it’s better than nothing.

Some changes add quality-of-life improvements, such as the ability to speed up battles up to 4X, or unlockable features such as the ability to change the encounter rate.

Finally, this game adds two new many games designed exclusively for mouse mode play using a pair of Joy-Con 2 controllers. Luxencheer Rhythm Catch is a truly creative Music-Rhythm game that tasks you with catching notes using the two controllers in different ways, while Ringabel’s Panic Cruise has you using cursors to directly control various elements of an airship’s control panel, with tons of wacky variety to keep things interesting. I’ve gotta’ say, I absolutely love both of these, and I could see both being built upon to be a full game in their own right… but here, they’re treated as an afterthought. You can access these games from the main menu but can only play through one level of each until unlocking more in the main game!

With all of this being the case, Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster is absolutely the best version of this superb JRPG, but it also feels like a safe and unambitious remaster, one where the most creative new features are minor extras that don’t make full use of their potential. Still, if you never played this game on Nintendo 3DS, this is the perfect time to give it another look, and I absolutely do recommend it!

tl;dr – Bravely Default Flying Fairy HD Remaster is a faithful remaster of the Nintendo 3DS Turn-Based JRPG that improves the visuals and adds a few small improvements, but largely leaves the original game untouched. I wish more had been done with the small additions that did make it in here, but even as-is, this is still the best version of a wonderful RPG, and I definitely recommend it.

Grade: B+

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