Bravely Default was Originally an Action RPG

Despite being heavily marketed as a turn-based RPG, Square Enix's Bravely Default originally started as an action RPG.

In an interview with Silicon Studio president Takehiro Terada, he noted how the initial version of the series debut was developed "with action combat", but after trying out direct battles, "we felt it was not the best form for the game so we went to turn based."

Terada explained that the whilst the city design was the same, "an early prototype of the game had players walk around a city and when they touched a monster, the game would switch into an action based battle system." It would involve the solo character attacking enemies with a weapon and use different spells. The prototype only had a single player, "but we stopped developing it at that point so we don't know how it would turn out if we had multiple characters," he said.

With the sequel, Bravely second, the studio are taking feedback from fans into account when tweaking the UI and gameplay systems.

Read our Bravely Default review

Would Bravely Default have worked as an action-RPG?