Coming from a Kotaku interview iwth producer Tomoya Asano and assistant producer Shinji Takahashi.

Schreier: This game is very inspired by Final Fantasy—there are a lot of Final Fantasy references in the names, the items, the spells, the job classes. I'm wondering: Why is this not a Final Fantasy game? P

Asano: This project was originally planned as a sequel to 4 Heroes of Light, and so you will notice some Final Fantasy flavor here and there as a result of that. But we decided early on that we would like to challenge ourselves with the opportunity of creating an entirely new title that wasn't related to previous games, and we felt like that would spur us on to completely different directions for this kind of game.P

Schreier: You've said that you want to make a Bravely Default every year, and that you want it to become a big franchise. Will this stay as similar to Final Fantasy, and will we kind of have two different Final Fantasy series going on at once, or do you plan to evolve it further and move it away from those elements—the crystals and the Phoenix Downs and the spells and the jobs and all that stuff? P

Asano: Right, we would like to do a new Bravely Default every year, and we've actually already announced Bravely Second in Japan, and hope to be releasing it this year. But I do believe that Bravely Default will continue to evolve in its own direction. It may retain some of the world feel, for example, the crystals being an important story element. But I believe it's going to be generating a lot of its own new terms as well. P

Schreier: What are the advantages and disadvantages of making an RPG on the 3DS as opposed to a console? P

Asano: When we're talking about Bravely Default, this is a game that would take people about 50-60 hours to complete, and I like to think that when you're playing that on a handheld, you can have a much more comfortable experience; you can be laying down on a bed, or playing any time anywhere. It makes it much more convenient and comfortable. P

As far as disadvantages, I suppose that if you're comparing this to console games, then you're certainly dealing with the smaller screen, but in the case of the Nintendo 3DS, you have a stereoscopic display that allows us to do things that are only possible on that system. And we really enjoy the process of going from our concept illustrations and backgrounds to interesting ways to represent that space that I think we could not have done anywhere but on the 3DS.

Schreier: You mentioned the sequel before, Mr. Asano—would you like to bring that to the West also? Have you already made that decision? P

Asano: We certainly would like to release the sequel in the US as well, but we're definitely going to be taking a look at the sales for this one.