
Bravely Default HD Remaster shows the party potential of Switch 2's mouse controls
If I had to describe 2012's Bravely Default , the very last term I'd use is 'party game.' In fact, the Nintendo 3DS RPG is the anti party game. It's a long, winding adventure that requires a tremendous amount of patience to get through. So it came as a bit of a surprise when the first thought I had after demoing its upcoming Switch 2 version, Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster , is that it really sells the party potential of Nintendo's new console.
That's not because the RPG has changed in any way; it more has to do with its new side content. During a hand-on demo, I tried my hand at the remaster's two new minigames, which are available as bonuses from the main menu. Both are designed to use the Switch 2's mouse controls in incredibly clever ways that left me even more eager to see what developers can do with the unique two joy-con scheme.
I only had a brief amount of time to try the remaster, so I opted to jump straight into the new content rather than the main game. If you're curious, though, expect more of a straight remaster than a remake here with one big caveat. Everything has been reworked to compress the two-screen game to one. Otherwise, you're mostly getting smoother visuals that clean up the 3DS' jagged edges. That brings it much more in line with 2021's Bravely Default 2 . Squ
But enough of that: Let's talk minigames. The first one I tried, Luxencheer Rhythm Catch, was a music game built around mouse controls. Here, I wasn't simply pressing buttons on beat alongside music from the game. Bubbles popped forward and I'd have to more or less pop them at the right time by sliding my two controllers around. A line linked my pointers on screen and I'd need to make sure that it cut through the bubbles to pop them at the right moment. When colorful flowers appeared on screen, I'd have to slide my corresponding Joy-con over to it and hold the trigger to hit the beat. And when a line appeared on screen, I'd have to drag both of my controllers to the center of it to properly hit the beat.
All of this felt like a great Mario Party minigame. I had to move my hands carefully, as the Switch 2's mouse controls are remarkably precise. One false move and I'd risk sliding a hand up too far, causing the line between my pointers to miss a bubble. It's a clever spin on a traditional rhythm game that makes for a refreshing little diversion from a dense RPG.
The second minigame, Ringabel's Panic Cruise, gets even more mileage out of the mouse controls. Here, I had to pilot my airship through a set of rings. Simple enough. I controlled the vessel from a cockpit view, using a wheel to steer and a lever to rise up or down. I could control each independently with my mice, sliding them around to steer the ship properly. That task is complicated by the fact that my crew occasionally asks me to manage the ship by using a control panel around my wheel. At one point, I need to replace a fuse by grabbing one from the side of the screen and replacing a dead one. Later, I'm asked to make sure some switches are working, dial up a specific number on a panel, and grab a flyswatter to fend off some pesky flies – a bit of an homage to Mario Paint perhaps. Of course, I need to do all of that while steering the ship. Square Enix
It's a bit like a single-player version of Spaceteam combined with Wii U hidden gem Affordable Space Adventures . It's a juggling act that required me to do two or three things at once, creating some comedic chaos as I rushed to complete a task and quickly steer the ship straight again. It's only a small side-game, but it's one that really sells me on just how much creativity developers could pull out of a two-mouse control scheme if they're willing to experiment.
I especially want to see that pay off in party games. At the end of my demo, I asked if I could try to play the rhythm game with two players operating one set of Joy-cons. I grabbed the left and a friend controlled the right. We both had to work together to position our mice as we tried a song on hard mode, a difficulty that increases how quickly the prompts pop up on screen. It was about as silly as you can imagine, as we both tried to work around one another's movements when the other was out of position.
I hope to see that energy carry over to series like WarioWare, because there's some real co-op party potential in these two minigames. I'd love to see experimental games in the vein of Snipperclips on Switch 2 early in its lifespan, showing us exactly what the platform can do that no other can. Until then, Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster will do as a small appetizer pinned on to a beloved RPG. These small games may not be enough of a reason on their own to grab the double dip, but they're fun launch day extras that will get your imagination buzzing early.
Bravely Default: Flying Fairy HD Remaster launches on June 5 for Nintendo Switch 2.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Forbes
15 minutes ago
- Forbes
The Nintendo Switch 2 Should Get Its Most Important App Soon
Switch 2 The Nintendo Switch 2 is out and has sold millions of copies already. Its game roster is mostly reprised hits, with only a few truly new entries (Mario Kart World), but owners also want the handheld to be able to do more than just play games. As it stands, there is no YouTube app on the Nintendo Switch 2, mirroring the issue that the Switch 1 had for a long while. The original Switch was launched on March 3, 2017 and it did not get the much-requested YouTube app until November 8, 2018, over a year later. Nintendo and Google are apparently both trying to avoid that kind of lengthy wait this time around. The YouTube team app responded to a fan asking about the issue, and got a response: I'm not sure a list of other devices that play YouTube is helpful here. The timeline here is 'soon,' which I take to mean less than a year like we saw with the Switch 1. I am amazed that Nintendo has been making this console for probably half a decade and once again it launched without key dedicated video apps, YouTube included. I'm not clear on how they can get CDPR to tireless work on making Cyberpunk 2077 work well on the Switch but they can't figure out how to get YouTube or Hulu on the system for launch. It's bizarre. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Right now you can transfer the old YouTube Switch app to the Switch 2 but…it doesn't work, so that's not any sort of workaround. This is one of those things where I think we give Nintendo too much slack about, the fact that the console can launch with almost no actually new games and not even a ton of standard apps that it should have for day one. But hey, it's Nintendo and Nintendo always gets passes. Hopefully we hear more about this soon from a source other than what a help account bot, but I have to believe it's a priority on at least Google's side, if not Nintendo's. There's no way it can take as long as it did last time, right? Right? Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram. Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.

Associated Press
17 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Nintendo's Switch 2 soups up the graphics, but does it deliver the games?
WASHINGTON (AP) — I'm cruising around Bowser's Castle with my old pal Toad. It's not exactly relaxing, what with all the lava pits and banana peels and turtle shells littering the road. Add 23 other characters — is that a cow driving? — who are trying to get to the finish line first, and it's chaos. The hectic, high-speed insanity of any race in the new Mario Kart World would have caused the eight-year-old Switch console to wheeze a bit. And that's why we've got the Switch 2 ($449.99), the souped-up sequel to Nintendo's popular home-and-portable hybrid. It looks prettier, too. The 7.9-inch portable display (up from 6.2 inches) boosts the resolution to 1020p (from 720p), and while the LCD screen isn't quite as sharp as an OLED screen might have been, it's much cleaner than the original recipe Switch. It looks even better when connected to an HDTV since it now supports 4K and HDR. Nintendo has always stood apart from the technological arms race that fans of Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox obsess over, insisting that first-rate games don't necessarily depend on high-powered computer chips. But you could feel the strain in 2023's The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, with its at-times blurry graphics and sluggish framerate. The Switch 2, with a faster framerate of 120 fps, corrects much of the fuzziness. That's not to say it comes close to matching the high-definition performance of the PlayStation 5 or the Xbox X/S. If you're expecting the jaw-dropping graphics of, say, Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Shadows ... well, no. There is good news for those of us who have gotten weary of the old Switch's dinky 32 gigabytes of internal storage. The Switch 2 multiplies that by eight, for 256 GB. Of course, flashier games take up more space, so if you want more room you'll have to invest in a microSD Express card — which is a bit pricier than the standard memory card used in most portable devices. Magnets, how do they work? The Switch 2's Joy-Con controllers have undergone some tinkering. As before, you can attach them to the sides of the screen if you're playing on the go. If you're at home, you can attach them to a doohickey that feels more like a traditional joystick. Either way, they're now more firmly connected with magnets, which provide a satisfying snap. Both the left and right Joy-Cons now include an optical mouse, which you can use by placing the controller on its edge and rolling it around on a table. (Nintendo says you can also use it on your pants, but I prefer using a clipboard on my lap.) It remains to be seen how many Switch 2 games will call for a mouse, but 2K's port of Sid Meier's Civilization VII seems like a good candidate. What about the social options? And then there's a new button labeled 'C' on the right-hand Joy-Con. That calls up GameChat, which lets you start up a conversation with other players — provided you've all taken the time to register yourselves as friends. (Eventually, you'll also need to subscribe to the Nintendo Switch Online service, but that requirement doesn't kick in until March 31, 2016.) The microphone is built into the Switch 2, though if you want to upgrade to video chat, you'll need to buy a separate Nintendo camera. Finally, there's GameShare, which lets you play selected titles with other Switch users even if they don't own the software. Nintendo has been emphasizing the new social features in its marketing, though it feels like it's catching up to the competition. The kids I know who play Fortnite or Minecraft on competing consoles seem to have figured out long ago how to chat with their pals. Welcome to the 2010s? Who's got game?As with any console launch, the driving question is: Does it have the games? There are just a couple of Switch 2 exclusives out now: Mario Kart World and Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, a $10 demo package that really should have been free. There are some new-to-Nintendo ports of excellent titles like Split Fiction and Cyberpunk 2077. You can get upgrades of classics like the last two Legend of Zelda adventures. And the Switch 2 is fully backward-compatible, so you can play everything that came out for the Switch as well as a substantial library of older titles. There's no other machine that will let you play future installments of beloved franchises like Zelda, Super Mario Bros., Super Smash Bros. and Animal Crossing. None of those have been announced yet, but some marquee names — Donkey Kong and Kirby — will star in Switch 2 exclusives later this year. There's plenty of competition out there, though, and not just in the TV-connected console market Switch shares with the PlayStation and the Xbox. Nintendo no longer has the portable market to itself, thanks to Valve's SteamDeck. Some models of that device cost less than the Switch 2, and it already has a huge library of PC games. Meanwhile, Microsoft announced over the weekend that it's teaming up with Asus on the ROG Xbox Ally, a handheld that will be out before Christmas. Honestly, we'll probably have a better idea of the Switch's quality a few years down the line, after developers get a handle on what the new hardware can do. If you're dying to get back behind the wheel with Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach right now, though, you know what you need to do.

Business Insider
44 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Why Nintendo is so expensive
For about 15 years, big-budget Nintendo games cost $60. In fact, that was the standard game price across the industry. Meanwhile, Nintendo's consoles are generally cheaper than most competing gaming systems, such as the Xbox and the PlayStation. Its consoles have never cost more than $300 — until now. At $450, the Switch 2 is Nintendo's priciest console. Mario Kart World is priced at $80 — the most expensive first-party title Nintendo has ever released. Some fans are outraged by the price increase. But some industry analysts say a price hike was overdue, considering the rising costs of game development and inflation, among other factors. So why is Nintendo suddenly so expensive? And what does an $80 game mean for Nintendo and the entire video game industry?