Square Enix is bringing Bravely Default: Flying Fairy to the Switch 2 on the console’s launch day via an HD Remaster, and we’re pretty happy to see the first entry in this delightful series make the jump to home consoles. But it’s being launched as a Game-Key Card game, which has definitely put a bit of an asterisk on what should be a celebration.
Now, there might be another wrinkle to contend with, as a Square Enix blog post has highlighted a number of new and returning features from the 3DS game.
The big thing that has people worried is the “Encounter Rate Settings” section, where the blog specifically states (along with a screenshot, below) that “You can set the rate of random enemy encounters at 50% intervals to anywhere from 50% to 200%.”
Yet, in the Western release of Bravely Default, you could reduce the encounter rate to 0%, meaning you could turn off random encounters entirely. It was such a good feature that allowed players to customise their experience, and that appears to be entirely gone here.
There are some caveats here, of course — this remaster may well be based on the original Japanese release of the game, titled Bravely Default: Flying Fairy. The Western 3DS release is actually based on an enhanced rerelease of the game called Bravely Default: For the Sequel, which added tons of quality-of-life features.
In the original Japanese release, there was no way to amend the encounter rate at all; this was added in For the Sequel and stuck around as a feature for the follow-up, Bravely Second: End Layer.You can’t turn off encounters for Bravely Default 2, but enemies are visible on the overworld, so there are no random encounters.
If this has been removed, it seems like an odd choice given its popularity, and other features such as fast forward have remained. Plus, Square Enix is adding new content in the form of two new minigames. So it’s not like this is just a simple, straight port with nicer visuals.
We’ve reached out to Square Enix to confirm this information, and we’ll let you know if there are any updates.
