Breath of Fire III is awesome. It has a lot of likable characters (even a few of the villains are likable in some way) and the story is pretty decent and forgoes much of the traditional "world destruction" story, especially in the beginning.

In the beginning of the game, (much like the other BoF games) you play as a character named Ryu who has dragon powers. In 3 you meet him in a rather surprising way which I will not spoil. He makes friends with two punks named Rei and Teepo. They go around town causing trouble a few times more than what they should and that's when the real story begins.

There are random battles but instead of the flashy camera pans and such of other RPGs you simply meet the enemies right where you stand. What makes this game stand out above some of the other ones are the Master system where you can make your characters apprentices under masters and level up to gain new skills. The fairy colony is another great feature that can't be utilized until later but gives you all sorts of rewards. The fishing minigame is back too and more fun than before. That also gives you some really good items if you play it enough.

The other awesome thing about the battle system is that along the way you get different genes to transform into different dragons (15 in all) but you can combine up to three of them to make a better dragon form.

The setting is much darker than in BoF1 (and BoF2 if you're playing the English versions) but there's plenty of lighthearted moments as well.

Some people say you have to grind levels to beat the game but it's not entirely true. You really just need good equipment and good skills and you'll do fine. The second time I played I beat the game in the low 30s. BoF3 is around 30 to 40 hours unless you do any of the side stuff for a long time.