When Masashi Takahashi, a producer from Square Enix, started working Brave default, he had a very specific audience in mind. Takahashi grew up playing classic role-playing games in turn – he clearly remembers seeing his older brother play Final Fantasy III while he was still in kindergarten – and felt that many modern RPGs had become too complicated, leaving older players behind.
“It seems to be impenetrable,” he says of modern games. ‘I thought if I could make a game that could make [older players] remember things they liked about games when they were younger, and create a game for that type of audience, it was one thing that propelled me forward. ‘
The first Brave default launched on the Nintendo 3DS in 2014, and it was an experience clearly inspired by earlier Final fantasy games, with a ragtag group of heroes traveling through a fantasy world, powered by four magic crystals. Its distinctive feature was also the reason why it had such a strange name: in battle, players could choose to be ‘brave’ or ‘standard’, to launch an attack or the chance at a more suitable time to enlarge. This was followed by Brave second: final layer in 2016, also on the 3DS, and next week the series will make its debut on the Nintendo Switch with Brave default II.
The sequel takes place in a new fantasy realm and plays a new cast of heroes, but the formula is largely the same. The strange naming convention, Takahashi says, was inspired by other iconic Japanese RPG series. When a new, numbered Final fantasy or Dragon Quest coming out, fans know it’s going to be a brand new adventure. Takahashi wanted the same kind of clean slate for the next Brave default.
One difference that Eagle Eye fans may notice is that the first two games in the franchise were developed by Square Enix and a studio called Silicon Studio, Brave default II is led by a relatively new company called Clay Tech Works. However, there is not much disconnection between the games, as Clay Tech was founded by some of Silicon’s key staff. “While the public may be hearing from Clay Tech Works for the first time with this game, it’s people we’ve been working with for a long time,” Takahashi says.
Coincidentally, Shota Fukebaru, director of Clay Tech, also she started in RPGs with Final Fantasy III at a young age. And both Fukebaru and Takahashi say it Final Fantasy V. and its working system – which gave players the ability to adapt their fighters by assigning specific roles, and an important feature in the Brave series – were extremely influential on their careers. “I remember playing that game and thinking, ‘Wow, this is something I want to do one day,'” Fukebaru said. “This is where that dream came to me.”
The development of the sequel faced some challenges. Like most studios around the world, the 50-year-old Clay Tech team had to adapt to homework and find ways to communicate effectively with each other over Zoom meetings. There was also the process of taking a series that was originally designed for a dual-screen device and adjusting the interface to work on the single screen of the Switch. Of course, the change in hardware was mostly beneficial; Takahashi says the team was able to create more detailed characters and a soundtrack that was not limited by the 3DS ‘small speakers.
Takahashi also says that the team was able to learn important lessons from each version and apply them to the subsequent titles. The original Brave default were criticized for poorly defining characters, for example, something the developers tried to correct in the first sequel. And when Brave Second players complain that the story is a bit too YA, called a sequel Cruiser exclusively focused on adult characters and themes. Finally, while Octopath had an ambitious story with eight different characters – hence the strange title – it meant there was no clearly defined protagonist, something the team wants to rectify Brave default II.
The new game also starts at a time when classic JRPGs are experiencing a renaissance. Outside the Brave series, Square Enix studio Tokyo RPG Factory is steadfastly focused on the genre, while indie creators explored new ideas through games such as Undertale. When the creators of the classic series Suikoden last year put together a spiritual successor, it was a resounding success. For Takahashi, who has been thinking about the genre since he was five years old, it’s rewarding to see so much new appetite.
“It’s something I’m very happy about,” he says. “Of course I really enjoy making these games, but I also like playing them.”