Want to know a bit more about Bravely Default? This interview's for you...

Attention everybody who is interested in the western release of Bravely Default (gosh, I hope that's more than a handful of gamers): last week, the guy who runs the lovely KameDaniRyuu tumblr published a translated (from Japanese into English) Famitsu interview with the producer of this impressive-looking 3DS RPG series, Tomoya Asano.

The interview is chock-full of intriguing comments and information, of course, I found the following questions and responses (about Bravely Default: For the Sequel, the follow-up of sorts that will be released in Japan at the end of this year and will be the version localized for other regions) to be the most interesting:

Famitsu: In addition to four-times battle speed and auto input, are there any other changes that have a large effect on gameplay? 

Asano: Another improvement for this game is the ability to change your encounter rate. This is an important point and when you think, “I just don’t wanna do any random battles now,” you can set the encounter rate to zero. When you think, “I’m gonna level up here,” you can then instead make the encounter rate high. You’re able to do that in this game. Players are able to match the game up with their play style and play. That’s really convenient.

Famitsu: I didn’t think you could set it to zero. 

Asano: Of course, if you leave it at zero and progress through the game, you won’t gain any levels, so I recommend fighting when it’s necessary.

Famitsu: It’s something like making it the player’s responsibility or like leaving it up to them to balance as they see fit. 

Asano: We were able to make it so “you can match everything and anything to your play style.” Of course we are concerned with balance and the recommendation is to not mess with the encounter rate and not run from battles. The concept is that experienced players can play more effectively by changing around the encounter rate. With the last game it took me over 70 hours to beat it, but in this game we’ve made it so you can beat the game in around 30 hours or so.

Famitsu: What! Only 30 hours without transferring over your levels and starting from the beginning? Cutting the time in about half is amazing. 

Asano: True. We want everyone to beat this game.

If you're at all curious about Bravely Default, I highly recommend checking out the entire Q&A at kamedani.tumblr.com.