During an interview earlier this year in January, producer Jouji Yamanaka mentioned that he wanted to do something big this summer for Bravely Default’s Yahoo browser game version, called Bravely Default: Praying Brage. 4Gamer caught up with Yamanaka and Bravely Default series producer Tomoya Asano to talk about what’s coming soon for the browser game.
It’s already been half a year since the release of Bravely Default: Praying Brage and a lot of players who’ve reached the end-game areas have voiced their opinions on the lack of content for players who’ve done all there is to do in the game. To give these players a new challenge to look forward to, new features will be added.
One of the new features that will be released this month will include GM (Game Master) characters, who’ll be fighting alongside players. Producer Yamanaka and other developers will also be participating in the event.
“It is planned for one of us to be somewhere in the Four Countries as a player. I’ll also be participating, but we’ll be announcing the schedule of who’ll be participating as GMs. Again, we’ll be appearing as a fifth member on the battlefield, and it’ll be fun to battle side-by-side with the players.” explained Yamanaka.
The GMs will have their special abilities, such as First Attack and others that currently exist in other job classes, but they won’t be completely overpowered. They will also be talking in the game chat, where players will get a chance to casually converse with GMs and ask Bravely Default-related questions, but Yamanaka asks for you all to go easy on them and try to not ask anything they can’t answer, or they’ll have to exercise their right of silence.
In addition to the GM events, the devteam of Bravely Default: Praying Brage will also be updating guild features.
Previously, guilds were available for players to communicate and gain allies. The team included Raid Fights in earlier updates, but it still didn’t seem to be enough to keep players participating. For this reason, they’re currently working on a GvG (Guild Vs. Guild) feature.
This feature may seem intimidating to beginner players, so they’re currently looking for a way where novice players can jump right into GvG and naturally learn the basics of what it takes to fight for a guild.
There’s only been two Raid Fights so far, and they plan on doing more in the near future. To put it simply, these fights are extremely tough battles against waves of boss characters which varied in numbers according to the number of parties that challenged. These fights allow players to switch party members during combat and have a damage limit of 9,999, which can be lifted when certain conditions are met.
“The players the participated thought of their own “ultimate set ups” to challenge the event,” said Yamanaka. “The characters and job set ups were quite diverse. People had their own basics, but there were also trending ways to fight, which was quite amusing to watch.”
Yamanaka mentions the “Delta Attack” tactic as one of the trends, that had people casting reflect on their own party members, followed by hitting them with magic to have it hit the enemy instead. Players came up with many other unique strategies to take on these tough bosses.
Asano was quiet for the most part of the interview, but he gave his thoughts on Bravely Default: Praying Brage towards the end.
“Current social and village-style games tend to have particular characters that are limited to the player’s imagination only after increasing their skills,” explained Asano. “However, with Bravely Default: Flying Fairy as the main model of the game, it is a browser game without feeling like a browser game. It is a title that prides itself in being a consumer game.”
He continued, “Even while raising these characters, when you start with their jobs and set ups, it rings out a Bravely Default-like enjoyment. I believe that the players are enjoying that aspect the most.”
4Gamer tried to sneak in a question regarding a Bravely Default sequel, but Asano answered by saying that he cannot reveal anything as of yet. For now, all he can say is that he’s currently thinking about plenty of things regarding the sequel.
Bravely Default: Flying Fairy (temporary title—final name TBD) for Nintendo 3DS will be released in Europe sometime this year and 2014 in North America. We recently translated a start-up guide for Bravely Default: Praying Brage game, which can be viewed here.
