Bravely Default
According to producer Tomoya Asano, "Bravely Default" began development as a sequel to "" (2009), and would have been part of the "Final Fantasy" franchise. After completing "The 4 Heroes of Light", Asano considered what he wanted to do next. Despite having the option to developing something within Square Enix's core franchises, he wanted to do something new, establishing a new brand. During this initial phase, the original development team reached out to Silicon Studio, whose previous work was mostly related to development middleware. Silicon Studio developed a well-received demo for the project and were assigned to develop the game. Despite moving away from the "Final Fantasy" series, it retained a battle system and world setting in common with many "Final Fantasy" games. According to Asano, this was both a hangover of the project's original form and a conscious choice to give players from the "Final Fantasy" series a sense of comfortable familiarity. In later responses to fan questions, Asano confirmed that he designed the "Final Fantasy"-style story so players would have little trouble entering the world. The story-telling and gameplay was heavily influenced by western video games and television series. Asano described the result as a "Japanese RPG with American content thrown in". The main challenge for the team was making "Bravely Default" a traditional RPG without overloading it with nostalgic elements. Despite this, as the team were fans of both "Final Fantasy" and "Dragon Quest", nostalgic features were added for genre veterans and be appreciated by newcomers. Asano wanted to bring together what he considered the three core elements of RPGs (battles, growth, and connection) in "Bravely Default". An important element was creating a casual experience that anyone could enjoy, even if they had never played an RPG.