Bravely Default -Flying Fairy- Original Soundtrack Liner Notes
Commentary
Revo - Composer
First, let me sincerely thank you for having bought this soundtrack. I am Revo, and I am the composer in charge of all the pieces recorded here. For those who are hearing of me for the first time, I would appreciate it very much if you could kindly remember me from now on. Now we have formally introduced ourselves, is everyone out there enjoying the game already? Are you happily "Full Braving" today as well?
I was lent a playtest ROM during the middle of the development phase, and I recklessly "Full Braved" my way through it. The game balance hadn't been fine-tuned yet to the level seen in the finished game, but never mind... I ended up getting so excited that I started spouting dirty words around such as "This thing is just a normal enemy, but it's f***ing strong!!" without even realizing it... I'm very sorry about that. It seems like I didn't get that silent memo from the development team about why "Examine" is one of the first abilities you learn.
While I was pretty confused at first, I got into the habit of learning the Max HP, elemental weaknesses and attack patterns of the enemies, then I'd confront them "Full Bravely". I continued this "Better Safe Than Sorry" playstyle (aka BSTS playstyle) for a while. However, at one point my knight Tiz-kun got surrounded and an enemy ended up "Charging" one of my party members. The hit was so powerful, s***... I'm sorry, that was so strong I shouldn't have said it... I mean, it was so powerful that I realized first-hand just how useful the "Charge" feature was.
After that, I equipped my knight Tiz-kun with a sword ("Two-Handed Wielding") and the big monk Ringabel with his iron fists (who learned "Charging" and "Two-Handed Wielding"). I had them both "Turn One Full-Brave Charge" (aka "Charging OTK") and trounced all of the normal enemies in one hit. I continued these atrocities for a while and got drunk with power.
This filled me with such ecstasy that I ended giving myself titles such as "God of Braving, God of No Damage, God of OTKs". However, I pretty much invited divine punishment upon myself, right? And that moment finally came one day. While I was in a certain forest, an enemy impervious to physical attacks appeared, and it counterattacked with such a great rage that it ended annihilating my whole party. It was then that I changed my way of thinking, and noticed how reckless I was even to enemies I had never encountered before.
After that, I came up with a playstyle I had never used before, which I called "Dual-Wielding Rod Black Magic Syncro Full-Brave" (aka "Invincible Black Magic"). But it looks like we won't have enough space to talk about the music at this rate, right? Excuse me for omitting further details about my playthrough.
This difficult game balance (in the development prototype, at least) immediately reminded me of playing Final Fantasy II, making me taste once again that feeling of despair of having your entire party decimated by Coeurl's Blaster attack. I've rambled long enough, but I really want to say one thing: As long as there are as many playstyles as the people playing this game, it will be sure to leave many memories behind for them.
Now I have told you that, let us finally talk a little about the music. While I don't really going into too many details, if you all can listen to each of these melodies it will make me very happy. The first thing which I aimed to produce for was "Music that embraced memories of the game". The most important principle for background music is to reinforce the atmosphere of the moment in which it plays. However, I idealized that, in this instance, the melodies would remain in your minds as well whenever you recalled scenes from the game. This is because, even now, the RPGs made by Square Enix have left me with many memories. And likewise, there is a countless number of melodies of that same kind playing in them.
As I advanced through the game, I wrote beautiful melodies that would leave a strong impression in the players. That was my job. What kind of motif should I offer in this melody? With which instruments should I arrange it? Wanting to answer these questions and give all sorts of meanings to them, I accepted the challenge to make these many pieces of music. However, if you complete the game, I believe that my intentions will be clear without me even having to say anything. If there are still some people who haven't yet played, it is my hope that you will someday. Please let this music and the game come together in your heart, a place that will eventually turn to memories. Music for the sake of games. This is my pride and honor as a gamer.
Liner Notes Translated by Gerardo Iuliani. Do not republish without written permission.
