“In the beginning, Bravely Default was an action RPG. We switched to a traditional JRPG style by selecting commands and without action,” Takehiro Terada, president of Silicon Studio explained to Siliconera. Silicon Studio developed Bravely Default: Flying Fairy for Square Enix and also made 3D Dot Game Heroes. I asked Terada why they switched game designs, especially since Silicon Studio has developed an action RPG before. “We did a prototype that was up and running,” Terada replied. “We played it and discussed with the producer if it was fun or not, and we decided to make a traditional JRPG.”
Source
I think this is quite interesting and am interested as to what it would have been like had they went with an action RPG.