Breath of Fire

[Wolf Kanno]

Been thinking about this series for a lot lately and figured it might be cool to have a discussion about this cool RPG franchise created by Capcom. So which game is your favorite? Favorite version of Ryu and Nina? Favorite OST? Favorite story and character in general? Share your thoughts!

[Rez09]

Breath of Fire IV is my favorite entry in the series, with II and III close behind it. The original . . . ehhhhh, it isn't too bad either, but I find it feels very generic now and I have a hard time sitting through it anymore. There's also Dragon Quarter, but while it is technically BoF V, I tend to think of it more like Unlimited SaGa in that series, which is to say it's more like an interesting idea and failed experiment than a true entry in the series.

Regarding my favorite versions of Ryu and Nina, well, Ryu himself is a rather generic silent protagonist so it comes down to transformations, which makes BoF III Ryu the clear winner as BoF I and IV transformations are extremely meh and mixing genes in III makes you feel a bit like a mad scientist. >: D

In Nina's case, I generally either dismiss or dislike her, with the exception of BoF II where she was a character I actually cared about. Her life kind of sucks and she got me right in the empathy. ; -;

As far as OSTs, Bof IV for me.


Looking at my favorite story, well . . . spoilers ahead, but BoF IV is my pick. (SPOILER) When considering just the overall stories, Breath of Fire II, III, and IV are all probably equally interesting on their own to me, but Fou-Lu and Yuna push the scales towards IV for me. In Fou-Lu's case, you have a character who is, though not particularly nice, a force for good twisted by his experiences throughout the game, and, since the player also experiences all of these events with him, there's that level of connection that other series' antagonists are lacking; he isn't just some evil god in a cave somewhere brewing up evil schemes, he's a savior who thought himself above human pettiness and, in the end, is drug down and crushed under it. That's also part of why I like Yuna so much, despite his relatively minor appearance in the overall story. The man is outright twisted, and while most of the game lends itself more to the notion that humanity is, at worst, a bit irritating and in no way warrants outright destruction, he and his work remain a pretty solid reminder that Fou isn't completely off his rocker. Kidnapping and torture for fun and profit? Yuna's got that. A cannon that rips a person's soul out and fires it like a nuclear bomb at their loved ones? Check. Using a cease fire to nab a rival kingdom's princess on a goodwill mission and mutate her into a grotesque artificial 'God' with the sole intention of inflicting endless suffering on her? Got that one too. Likely the little voice in the Emperor's ear that has encouraged the war that's torn the world apart? Yeah, pretty sure that's him as well. Damn he's good at his job. He provides that excellent rotten core to offset Fou, and together I feel they provide the best lasting antagonists in the series and push IV's story ahead for me.

When it comes to favorite character, I'm kind of split. On one hand, Scias is my hands-down favorite character, combat-wise, in the series, with excellent speed, double strikes, and auto-crits via Shining Blade; he also has a design, fairly simply though it may be, that I love to boot. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure Amarant gets more development to him in FFIX than Scias does during BoF IV, which prevents him from being my run away pick since, awesome though he may be, he's really just an aimless tag along. That brings me to Nina II, who is one of those rare RPG characters I actually gave a damn about while playing the game and I feel she brought a good bit to BoF 2. She's wasn't that bad in combat either, now that I think about it, especially after fusing her with people, buuuut . . . still nowhere near as awesome as Scias.

[Wolf Kanno]

I pretty much love the whole series, I think BoF1 is my least favorite as well, not because it was bad but simply because it's a very simple and basic game compared to the more ambitious sequels. Overall, I think BoFIII is my absolute favorite, followed by BoFV and then BoFIV. I think this is because III, to me at least, feels like the most balanced games in terms of gameplay, world design, story, and characters whereas the others had a few nagging issues for me. I also simply love how it changed the way you viewed the first two games.

My favorite Ryu is the one from III, followed by his fifth incarnation. I feel like his story and the way he interacts with the world and you watch him grow up made him feel the most complete. Like Rez09 (and most of the BoF community it seems) I feel Nina's BoFII incarnation is easily her best incarnation in terms of story and character development.

Favorite OST, a toss up between BoFIV's awesome Asian influenced music or Hitoshi Sakimoto going back to his MegaTen roots to compose Dragon Quarters oppressive soundtrack.

In terms of story, I think Dragon Quarter might actually be my favorite but I go back and forth between it and BoFIII. I lost dystopian futures and I felt BoFV did a great job of creating one of the most craptastic worlds in a video game with several twists and turns as you uncover more of the story and learn more about the characters. The very theme of racing to the fabled surface before the characters died really translated well into both the story and gameplay. On the other hand III really has a nice twist of taking a story that initially feels like something out of the 16-bit era and then twisting and changing it around to show you that not everything is as black and white as it was before. Myria/Tyr was a plot device turned last minute final boss in BoF1 but III transformed her into a more complex and sympathetic character while also changing the way we really viewed the Dragon Clan. Watching Ryu grow from his troubled but still black and white morality to the morally ambiguous adulthood where he really begins to question Myria and the Brood's goals was a real nice change of pace after dealing with evil demon summoning cults in II and card carrying evil Dark Dragons of the first game. It also helps that III has my overall favorite cast of characters.

In terms of favorite characters I really love Katt from BoFII. I love Rei, Teepo, Momo, and Garr from III; and Fou-Lu, Scias, Ershin, and Ursala from IV. I also loved Zeno Bosch, Elyon, and Vexacion from Dragon Quarter. Honestly this series has too many cool characters. Not to mention mother smurfing Dias/Bleu from the first four games.

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

Good luck.

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[Quindiana Jones]

Can I come round anybody's house and play them? I've never had the chance, but everyone says they're amazing.

[Sephex]

This track hits me like a ton of bricks in terms of nostalgia. This is one of those tracks that not only makes me think of all the main games in this series, but brings me back to when friends and I played a bunch of RPGs in the SNES and Playstation era. Obviously it makes me think of the Playstation times far more, but still...

Not sure what my favorites are or anything, but I do enjoy the games. Probably should replay one sometime...

[Lone Wolf Leonhart]

I've also been listening to the BoFIII soundtrack lately. This game was my first turn based RPG and I had a lot of great memories playing it growing up. For me, it still holds the test of time. The music is definitely a huge factor in that. Some people like to poke fun at some of the world map or woods themes like "this is elevator music" but I connect with it on a deeper level than that.

[Ayen]

I only really played the fourth game, and all I remember is a blue hair guy and a robot with a cape. Or whatever he wore on his back.

[Del Murder]

I like III the best, but II and IV are also great. The original is also fun but behind the others. I hear mixed things about Dragon Quarter. Some people like it, some hate it.

[Wolf Kanno]

I hear mixed things about Dragon Quarter. Some people like it, some hate it.

It's a different beast from previous entries but frankly I feel if you accept it for what it is, you'll find it was one of the more forward thinking JRPGs of the PS2 era. It also has a pretty tight and emotional story.

The main beef most people have with the game is the SOL System which combined with the game's brutal difficulty makes for a very twisted experience. Basically when you die, you have the choices of quitting and going back to your last save, continuing which sends you back to your last save but allows you to keep items and XP gained but docks the Party XP by a percentage, or you can choose Restore, which shoots you all the way back to the beginning of the game but you get to keep all your equipment in your Storage and all thew Party XP you gained which you can use to boost your characters levels and allow them to get further in the game easier. It's a weird mechanic but the most controversial aspect is that if you choose Restore and get ranked for what you were able to accomplish in your first go, it would unlock additional story scenes you couldn't see. Meaning that if you wanted to see the whole plot you would need to replay the game and get higher scores each playthrough. Luckily the game is actually fairly short (you can finish the whole game in under eight hours with proper use of the Restore option) so doing the game over is actually pretty quick and there are a few fights with optional ways to deal with them, in fact the last Boss Rush is set up in a way where you would have to play the game twice anyway to see all the content. The D-Counter is also cited as annoying but I find it is actually fairly manageable, basically Ryu's Dragon Mode is slowly killing him and if his D-Counter goes to 100%, it's an automatic game over. It rises by traveling but also if you use his dragon mode which increases the meter a lot. To compensate for this, his Dragon mode is brutally overpowered and can one shot all but three of the game's bosses so the challenge is to use it sparingly. It's a really clever mechanic actually and ties in very well with the story.

The other controversial problem with the game, and the one most BoF fans speak about, is that the game's setting is too dark and takes away too many elements of the series identity. The races are reduced to a handful and largely favors the humanoid ones the most, Ryu isn't an actual dragon and actually talks, Nina is not from from Wyndia nor is she part of the Wing Clan, Deis never shows up (she was meant to though) and it's the only BoF that doesn't have a Fishing game element (again, it was meant to but pulled at the last minute) though the Fairy Colony remains intact. The game is also the most Sci-Fi in the series and largely drops any pretense of being some kind of medieval or Chinese Imperial era setting like the previous installments. The game is a pure dystopian future like George Orwell's 1984. It still has fantasy and magic elements but the setting feels very similar to the Midgard sections of FFVII.

If you can get past these elements, you'll find the game is actually really well done ,with a gripping story and some challenging gameplay.

[Polnareff]

Favorite's always been 3. Always. In story, music, and characters. I like how Ryu begins the game as a naive coward who can't even look at monsters when he tries to kill them, but by the time you rescue Nina, he's confident in his own abilities and realizes he wants to save his friends.

My ranking now goes:

3>1>4>2>5 (which is oddly the same order as the DMC games from 1-4 in terms of story lol)

It used to go something like 3>4>2>1>5, but after trying to replay the SNES version of BoF2 again, I have no patience for it anymore due to the level grinding (although I love the GBA version still). So BoF1 ended up overtaking it for me.

1 is a basic game, but I prefer how dragon transformations work in that game, even though they are broken as smurf lol.

BoFVI is coming or is already out, but it's a mobile phone game. Should have figured that would happen. The budget for the games kept fluctuating. It was bound to happen that way. The first game had a decent sized budget because of how long it took them to make it, plus getting Square to translate it. Then Cap translated BoF 2 in-house (big mistake lol), and then spent over 2 years making 3, only to, again, have an outside company translate it. The same company (Bowne Global Services) helped localize the first Phoenix Wright game. 4 came out, and was a watered down game which was basically a giant desert with a bunch of palette swaps, because 3 didn't do as well as Capcom would have liked; still a good game though. Did I mention that Cap translated it in-house too? And then 5 ended up having aspects of RE put into the design (limited save), a limited story, only three characters to use, and that SOL feature, to cover up the fact that the game is only about 5 hours long without it. Of course, it may have also partially been because the same team was also developing MMX Command Mission at the time (it started when BoFV was like 85% done). After V it seemed like Capcom just didn't care anymore. We got some ports here and there, but that was it. And Capcom couldn't clear BoFIII for the PSN because of some legal hoopla with Bowne, so most people who still haven't played it have to pay like 50 bucks for the PSX version or get a PSP and get the European UMD for about 20 bucks.

[Christmas]

Can I come round anybody's house and play them? I've never had the chance, but everyone says they're amazing.

Yes you can. You will sit outside my house on a leash and watch me play!

I like III the best, but II and IV are also great. The original is also fun but behind the others. I hear mixed things about Dragon Quarter. Some people like it, some hate it.

Yes!! I love III the most!! IV is second. Original is third and last is II. I did not play Quarter but I heard it is dog poo. I dun wanna play dog poo.