Bravely Default II comes out in less than a week (February 26) and one of the producers has come out and talked about making the game on the Nintendo Switch. Masashi Takahashi talked to Dengeki Online about everything from transitioning Bravely Default II from the 3DS to the Switch, the difficulty in having just one screen, and, how the development team was able to stay true to the original visual style.
Was Bravely Default II always slated to be a Switch title?
Takahashi: I suppose it was, yeah. We learned a lot developing Octopath Traveler and when thinking about what consoles Bravely Default fans likely own, Switch seemed like the best choice.
Considering that the Switch is far more powerful than the 3DS, did this help smooth out development at all?
Takahashi: We were able to make great strides in everything from the graphics to the music and characters to make it feel like a true sequel. Even with all the improvements though, we felt it was important to make sure it still resembled the previous titles in some way.
As an example, if you look at the towns in the game, previously we wanted to make create a feeling that players were walking on a painting in a 3D stereoscopic view. To keep the same feeling in this title, we decided to create the town as if it were paper craft. Once we prototyped it, things felt right and we decided to fully embrace the idea.
Additionally, to keep the series’ atmosphere intact, we aimed for something more akin to a model train rather something more realistic when designing the fields. We experimented a lot to make the graphics unique while keeping that “Bravely Default” feel.
I think players will get a good sense of this when they see it in action on a Switch screen rather than looking at screenshots. The “final demo” was also recently released, so for those players who haven’t seen the game in action yet, please give it a try.
Was there anything that you felt was made more difficult because the game is a Switch title?
Takahashi: The previous titles were 3DS games which meant we had two screens to work with. This time around, we had to completely remake the UI from scratch. It took a long time to figure out how to fit all the features on a single screen while not having things looked cramped or overly complex.
Bravely Default II comes out on February 26, so everyone should check it out once it comes out. We know we will!