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. The story-telling and gameplay was heavily influenced by western video games and
television series. Asano described the result as a "Japanese RPG with American content thrown in". The main challenge for the team was making
Bravely Default a traditional RPG without overloading it with nostalgic elements. Despite this, as the team were fans of both
Final Fantasy and
Dragon Quest, nostalgic features were added for genre veterans and to be appreciated by newcomers. Asano wanted to bring together what he considered the three core elements of RPGs—battles, growth, and connection—in
Bravely Default. An important element was creating a casual experience that anyone could enjoy, even if they had never played an RPG. During development, the team decided to cater to the core Japanese RPG fanbase, as they did not believe the game viable for Western release at the time. At the early stages of development,
Bravely Default was going to be an
action role-playing game, a genre Silicon Studio had previously worked on with
3D Dot Game Heroes. After developing a prototype build and putting it before Asano, it was decided to make the battle system a traditional turn-based model. The interdependent "Brave" and "Default" mechanics underwent changes during the development process. Initially, Asano envisioned a system akin to the Tension stat used in the
Dragon Quest series, but designer Kensuke Nakahara wanted something more exciting for players. He was also annoyed that the majority of bosses in both
Dragon Quest and
Final Fantasy got two or more actions per turn while player characters only got one each. After some consideration, Nakahara decided on a system where characters could bank points by not taking actions during a turn for later use, or create loan points to act multiple times in a current turn. The concept of "D's Journal", which would offer players deeper insights into the world and characters of
Bravely Default, was inspired by a similar system from
Higurashi When They Cry. During the late stages of the game's development, the team had to make several last-minute tweaks and changes to ensure the game delivered the best possible performance. Due to the game's chosen mechanics, balancing the game became a major part of later development. The core concept of
Bravely Default was defined by Asano as "everyone can play", as he wanted to bring positive elements from the growing social game market into
Bravely Default. The social gameplay was made up of three different elements: the ability to employ StreetPass friends to help reconstruct Norende, the ability to summon friends' characters into battle as a summon, and the "Abilink" option which allowed players to borrow each other's job levels. The initial versions of these functions were not as elaborate as they would become in the final product. Norende village was initially displayed on a single screen, but at a suggestion from Asano, it was enlarged so players needed to slide the display around. The summoning option was initially going to be a simple display of the summoned character, but it was decided to make the summoning sequence more elaborate. The summoning text initially shared fonts with other elements, but as Asano wanted it to have more impact, a more florid font was used. This styling was influenced by a sequence featuring Japanese idol group
AKB48 in an unspecified television drama. The usage of StreetPass was incorporated to differentiate
Bravely Default from other RPGs of the time, forming part of Asano's wish to create something new. A notable feature included in the game were
augmented reality (AR) movies. The AR movies were developed using a software development kit provided by
Nintendo and implemented into the game by Silicon Studio. A unique gimmick included in the game was using the platform's camera to project the player's image into an area of the arena during the final boss battle. The game's music was composed by Revo, the leader of Japanese musical group
Sound Horizon. Asano contacted Revo concerning a collaboration, as he had listened to his 2004 album
Chronicle 2nd. During his work, Revo was able to see the game's
ROM, then discuss the game's vision and development goals with Asano. While the initially agreed track number was between 20 and 30, the number of tracks almost doubled during production as Revo saw situations that needed their own music. Revo aimed for a nostalgic musical style, referencing the music and atmosphere of
Final Fantasy,
Dragon Quest, and the
SaGa series. During recording, tracks were given descriptive working titles, such as "Scene of Normal Battle" or "Song of Asterisk Holder Warfare". Multiple battle songs were created for the game, each having a faster tempo depending on the escalating battle situation. Revo's recording sessions were closely linked with the creation of the game's sound source, so the music would fit onto the 3DS' limited storage space without losing too much of its quality. Once the music was recorded, a sound environment was created so that it could be heard clearly through the 3DS system's speakers. While there were concerns about the 3DS cartridge's storage space limitations, these ultimately proved to be minimal.
Scenario and character design The game's title represented the game's main theme of self-reliance: not blindly following the will of others, and following one's own will. "Bravely" symbolized courage, while "Default" symbolized denial. The subtitle was one of many proposed by the team, and was chosen by Asano after it helped give an official name to the character Airy: prior to this point, she had gone unnamed and was generally referred to as a "
Navi character". The subtitle was also a coded reference to Airy's true agenda and the game's deliberate removal from the
Final Fantasy series. The key words created for the initial draft scenario were "large hole", referring to the Great Chasm beneath Norende, and "parallel world", which referred to the many versions of Luxendarc encountered by players during their journey. The greater majority of the main scenario and side quest storylines were fully voiced, with the main cast having a huge amount of dialogue compared to other characters. The summons were themed after classical elements, modern machinery and multiple world mythologies. The game's script was written by Naotaka Hayashi, a staff writer at
5pb. whose most notable work at the time was
visual novel Steins;Gate. After playing through
Steins;Gate on the recommendation of another staff member, Asano decided that Hayashi would be able to create the appealing characters and surprising scenario needed for the story, and asked 5pb. if Hayashi could work on
Bravely Default. Another reason Asano wanted Hayashi was due to the plot's heavy use of parallel worlds. Hayashi's work on the game involved creating the plot and character settings. While he wrote the majority of the game's dialogue, more detailed work was given to writers at Square Enix and Silicon Studio. One of the supplementary writers was Silicon Studio's Keiichi Ajiro, who wrote the contents of D's Journal. Ajiro also created the initial story outline with Asano. The initial story concept was kept deliberately simple, but its complexity increased during the writing process. During his work, Hayashi was given guidelines by Square Enix about the characters and story: for instance, Asano wanted the heroes and villains to be equally compelling, along with raising the game's targeted age group. Something that Hayashi needed to remember during the writing process was the need to limit the length of dialogue segments. While visual novels had a high leeway for dialogue quantity, Asano would make requests such as a sentence being within a 22-character limit, and to not overrun into multiple dialogue boxes. The main character designer and art director was
Akihiko Yoshida, whose previous notable works include
Final Fantasy Tactics and
Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. In contrast to much of his previous artwork, Yoshida created the game's artwork using a stronger design and coloring style. His artwork for Agnès was designed to represent her solitude and knowledge of her fate while also displaying cuteness and motherliness. Tiz's design was designed not to convey a strong personality, as he in part represented the player. For the game's environmental artwork, Yoshida drew on European children's literature. The in-game environments such as towns and the overworld were created using specially drawn art mapped to a pseudo-3D layout. This style was meant to emulate classic picture books. Finalization of the art style took a long period, going through extensive trial and error. Designs for many of the secondary characters were handled by other artists:
Atsushi Ōkubo, who had most notably worked on the
Soul Eater manga series, designed Einheria and the Valkyrie job outfits. Erutus Profiteur and the Merchant job were designed by Hideki Ishikawa, whose work included character designs for
Lord of Vermilion arcade game series. Kamiizumi and the Swordmaster job were designed by Dorin Makoto, who had most notably worked on the
Sengoku Basara series. Red Mage Flore DeRossa and the Red Mage job were designed by Take, who worked on the
Katanagatari light novel series. Qada and the Salve Maker job were designed by Midori Foo, an artist who had worked on multiple light novels and online games. ==Release==