So our journey begins in 1993, at the time of Japan, RPGs were in a 16-bit Golden Age with the release of Dragon Quest V and Final Fantasy V the previous year. The genre was huge, and Capcom wanted in. At the time, they had become kings of the arcade scene thanks to Street Fighter II (91), Final Fight, and Ghouls and Goblins. On video game consoles, Capcom was also dominating, with Mega Man having its fifth entry as well. So with RPGs on the rise, Capcom decided it was time to take a stab at it, but what kind of RPG would an arcade focused developer make? Yoshinori Kawano (Designer), Tokuro Fujiwara (Producer), and Makoto Ikehara (Scenario Writer) are often credited as the main creator's of the series. Graphic design was handled by Mega Man veteran Kenji Inafune, and Tatsuya Yoshikawa handled promotional design (basically all the character art shown in the manual or commercials). The music was handled by Capcom's resident "house band" Alph Lyla, which was composed of future composing veterans Yasuaki Fujita, and Yoko Shimomura. So this game has an interesting pedigree going for it, but as I said in my Blog about this title, BoF1 ended up being a bit of an odd duck for the genre and the series itself.
The Story
Thousands of years ago, a mighty Goddess Myria (Tyr in the Woolsey script) appeared before the various clans of the world, promising great power through her wish granting. This caused a rift within the Dragon Clan, whom was the strongest of all the clans of the world. Thy split into two factions known as the Light and Dark clans and started the Goddess War over Myria's power. The conflict devastated the world until finally a member of the Light Dragon clan managed to seal Myria away using six Goddess Keys, which the hero bestowed to different clans and villages to protect. Unfortunately, the war, caused a major rift between the Dragon Clans and they remained separate. The Light Dragons chose a form of self exile for the crimes they committed during the war. They chose to seal their powers away, so they could never be tempted to use them for war again. The Dark Dragons on the other hand were demoralized by how bad the Dragon Clan's standing with the rest of the clans had fallen thanks to the war, and they vowed to restore the clan to its former glory one day.
In the modern day, the war is mostly forgotten, and Myria is but a myth. The Light Dragons have deteriorated to a handful of people who live peacefully in the small village of Dragonier. The Dark Dragons ha built themselves a mighty empire based in Scande. The Dark Dragons have begun a military campaign to conquer all the clans and obtain the six Goddess Keys. Everything was going great for them, until they chose to attack the Light Dragon clans. The second in command of the forces, Judas (Jade in the Woolsey script) attacks the village. The villagers are mainly powerless except for a girl named Sara who ha powerful magic ability. She transformed the villagers, including her brother Ryu, into stone, so they would survive the fires; and then battled Judas, who defeated her and took her captive. When the stone spell wore off, Ryu is beside himself with worry about his sister, and chooses to go on a quest to rescue her. Ryu soon discovers that the isolation of his clan made them unaware of the sheer terror the Dark Dragons had plunged the world into. Before he knows it, as he helps one kingdom after the next to fend off the Dark Dragons, he is now leading the main offense to defeat them. He even undergoes the trials of the Dragon God Ladon to unseal his natural dragon powers and earn the right to use the clan's greatest power, Infinity. (Anfini in Woolsey script). On his journey, he meets many friends and allies, and together they fight off Judas, and his Four Devas, and their master Zorgon (Zog) who wishes to restore the Dragon Clan as the most powerful of all clans using Myria.
Game Design
Usually when it comes to game design of JRPGs, especially ones from the 90s, there are two schools of thought on the design. Either Dragon Quest which contains: tiered abilities and equipment with set parameters that become the focus of getting stronger, First-Person perspective battles, episodic stories where all locations have their own unique problem and characters, cutesy art design, upbeat music, silent protagonist and an overarching conflict that ties all the story bits together. The other school of thought is Final Fantasy: Third-Person Perspective combat, heavier emphasis on stats and levels to get stronger, a more proactive antagonist who might have henchmen, but is always present throughout the plot, a more melodramatic soundtrack, heavier emphasis on cool graphics, more character driven narrative with locations serving the overall narrative than being episodic stories within the narrative, and generally a more fleshed out main character or POV character who is separate from the player. There are of course some exceptions within even the main series of both franchises, but I find most games in this decade pull from one of the two schools. Lufia is a prime example, with the first game being heavily inspired by Dragon Quest, while Lufia II takes more cues from the Final Fantasy camp. Breath of Fire tries to split the difference. Mechanically speaking, the battle system takes most of its cues from Dragon Quest, with spells having very strict tiers of usefulness and equipment often being far more important for power than levels. The story itself is also more from the Dragon Quest camp, with each town and kingdom having its own unique troubles and problems the team has to resolve before moving onto the next location. What makes it feel more FF is the fact the game has such a large cast, that many of these places involve resolving a story issue for the playable cast. Likewise, the battle system may be pure DQ, but the game takes its visual cues from FF's design with a third-person perspective and a heavier emphasis on fluid sprite design. Enemies also split the difference, with early and iconic enemies like Goo and Beak being on the cutesy side of things, whereas bosses and late game enemies fall more into monstrous and nightmare fuel design. Of course, with Inafune as the min graphics designer, occasionally something very Mega Man inspired slips through as well, but that's more of a treat than anything.
Musically, Capcom up to this point is very much an arcade powerhouse, so the music is much more punchy and upbeat, but BoF manages to have a nice mix of standard arcade fare with an occasional intimate dramatic piece. The game's opening is very dramatic for something from Capcom. Overall, the series music is very upbeat and triumphant sounding, and this is par the course for the franchise in general until the PS1 era.
The characters are interesting, if a bit one and done in some places. Characters like Gilliam, Builder, and Mogu only really get attention in their introduction sequence. Danc has a whole subquest that adds to his mystery, but he and Manillo largely stay relevant throughout, since they often serve as comic foils in the story. Nina's introduction is one of the more bombastic in the game as the perspective switches to her being the only playable cast member along two knights from her kingdom. She also gets an odd rivalry with Deis, and eventually gets a funky side quest towards the end of the game that involves time travel. Ryu waffles between being a silent protagonist and being an actual character. Unlike the more popular Ryu's from the series, he has a bit of dialogue, but unlike the two Ryus who drop the silent protagonist shtick, he's surprisingly quiet for most of the game as well. This helps make the cast standout a bit better, especially compared to some of DQ's cast, but the party feels a little one-note and undeveloped compared to their peers in Final Fantasy IV and V. It's likely due to the cast being a bit on the large side, making it hard to give everyone constant screen time.
Gameplay
With all that said, Breath of Fire still manages to have elements that make it unique to other games. Easily the coolest thing about BoF1 is how alive the world map feels. Day and Night cycles with different enemy spawns, fishing spots for Ryu, and animals that Gilliam can hunt. One of the unique traits of BoF is the Field Ability mechanic. Almost every character has a unique field ability that can be used on the World Map or in dungeons and towns to help unlock secrets, or give you items to help strengthen your team. Ryu can fish and Gilliam can hunt to net you additional healing items. Nina and Manillo become the resident flying and sailing transport vessels, Mogu can dig around certain spots in the map to find treasure. Danc can break locks and dodge traps, and Builder can move heavy objects and break down weakened walls. Danc alone can break the game if the player bothers to backtrack a little, as he can net you mid-to-endgame gear by backtracking and using his skills to unlock all the sealed doors you kept stumbling upon before he joins. Manillo also has a secret mini-game where he can open up shop at a few bazaars in towns and can sell or buy unique gear, including most of the party's final weapons and armor. There is an interactive element to the world that is surprisingly missing in bigger franchises like DQ and FF, and that helps to keep BoF feeling unique.
The other unique element is Fusion, which is strangely a major gameplay, and sometimes story element in almost every Breath of Fire except VI. Danc, the lone human of the party, has a strange power to fuse with other party members, which gives him a massive boost to his stats and allows him to often eclipse even Ryu as the most powerful character. That is, until Ryu learns Infinity form and can fuse the whole party into one powerful godlike entity. Once fusion enters the gameplay sphere, you've effectively won the game, as nothing is really going to stand much of a chance against your party.
Ryu
A member of the Light Dragon Clan, Ryu is a formidable warrior and the second member of his clan to regain their draconic powers. He begins his journey to find his sister and eventually decides to help bring down the Dark Dragon Clan. He mainly uses swords, but the DQ inspiration also allows him to use boomerangs which are surprisingly his best weapons since they have stupidly high attack power and can hit all enemies on the field. His field ability is fishing, which let's him fish in shoals, lakes, and wells for fish that can be used as healing or status restoring items. He can also ind the dragon equipment with this ability which he needs to enter the various Dragon Shrines to undergo the trials to unseal his powers. In battle, Ryu's unique ability is to transform into a dragon, usually of an elemental property, to fight for the rest of the battle as. He begins with Dragon Pups which are weak, but cost powerful single target elemental spells, his second tier are their dragon forms with better stats and elemental breaths that strike all enemies on the field. He eventually unlocks his two ultimate forms: Kaiser and Infinity. Kaiser is a powerful non-elemental form, while Infinity is the ultimate fusion form of Ryu with his party. This form maxes out his stats and is required to obtain the game's best ending. Ryu is a mainstay for any good party. His stats in his dragon form are based on the one-time AP cost to transform, so you're often best left keeping him in his Thunder Pup/Dragon forms until Kaiser and Infinity are unlocked. The lone exception to the Holy Dragon form, which does grant him better stats than the Thunder Dragon, but due to his breath attack only working on undead, it's mostly useless.
Nina
She is the tomboyish princess who begins her journey when she sneaks into a Dark Dragon stronghold to obtain a cure for her father who was poisoned by the Dark Dragons for not cooperating and bending the knee to them. She is a bit unique among Nina's in the series for being a pure White Mage type character (most are Black Mage) and being the only Nina to use a rapier instead of a more magic orientated weapon like a staff. She's not a strong fighter, but many of her weapons can cast magic in battle making them useful in other ways. As the best team medic, Nina almost never leaves the battle field. Her field map ability is the Great Bird transformation of her Wing Clan, that allows her to transform into a... well Great Bird that serves as the global airship of the game. Nina has some odd relationships in the game, having a minor rivalry with Deis, an having a subtle crush on Ryu. It's heavily implied in the sequel that Nina ended up with Ryu after the game which sets up the tragedy of her descendants. Her other unique feature is the fact she has two separate sprites and portraits in this game due to a minor quest at the end of the game.
Gilliam (Bo in the English script)
The stoic Forest Clan hunter, Gilliam is oddly the least developed character in the game, which is weird because he's the third character who joins you. Joining the party during the Stone Robot quest line when the Dark Dragons terrorize his village and his neighboring village to get their hands on their sacred relic. Gilliam meets up with Ryu and Nina when they are rescuing the village chief. Gilliam gets a bit of a bad rep from some players due to the game failing to tell you which equipment is cursed and causes him to take double damage. Gilliam uses bows, but many of them are two-handed, preventing him from using shields. He can also cast low level black magic, making him the first team spell caster. His field abilities allow the party to walk through forests on the map if he leads the party and he can hunt animals that spawn on the world map between battles. Gilliam is also the only party member used in every one of Danc's fusion forms. His name is a Monty Python reference because his best friend getting married in the game is called Terry.
Danc (Karn in English)
An orphan and a master thief trying to prove he's the greatest thief in the world. There is a unresolved subplot concerning him that deals with his ancestry as he belongs to some ancient order that specializes in the power of fusion. Danc is first met in a prison cell in the town of Auria. The team later seek him out in the Thieves Tomb where Danc is seeking the treasure to prove he's the greatest thief in the world. Danc is probably the most well known and controversial character in BoF1. The major controversy for him is his design, which had to be heavily edited in the English version. See Danc is black skinned, but his actual design looks more like blackface since Japan for some reason tends to draw black characters like 1930s racial stereotype. So he gets a race lift in the English version. The other controversy concerning him is how much he breaks the game once he joins. See Danc specialties are opening locks and escaping traps. A patient player would backtrack to several of the doors they couldn't open before, but for some strange reason, the devs put some seriously powerful gear in these places including the best armor in the game. The other issue is that while Danc is speedy and lightly armored normally, his fusion forms dramatically boost his power and he ends up being the strongest character in the game barring the Infinity Dragon form. Danc pretty much never leaves the team once he joins. He's actually a pretty fun character though, having a lot of banter with Manillo and often expressing the most personality outside of the legacy characters. He's oddly missing from the BoF1 mural in BoFIII. Danc is also unique in the fact that he's the only human character to ever join your team in the games that heavily focus on the Clans. His heritage is also never brought up in the sequels, though some fans speculate he's a shaman, but we'll discuss that when we get to BoFII.
Manillo (Gobi)
A member of the merchant Manillo Clan, which h weirdly shares his name with. Manillo is a greedy hustler of a fish a man even for his shrewd, money minded clan. He's currently exiled from his homeland and denied his clans power to transform into a giant whale like fish due to his past dealings upsetting the natural economic order. He takes a shine to Ryu's team, seeing them as an opportunity to make some Zenny and fill his pockets. He eventually winds up back in his clan and winds up saving the town from the Dark Dragon clan. It never stops him from trying to make a quick buck with his wheeling and dealing. He has a hilarious relationship with Danc, who is honestly offended by his greed hilariously enough. Manillo is quirky character overall with a strange design compared to other characters. He doesn't get critical hits, but instead does multi-hits which is essentially the same thing mechanically but just an odd literary quirk. He's pretty useless as a fighter unless he's underwater, in which case he can use his Aquaman style powers to summon fish to strike down his enemies. His field abilities include the power to walk underwater, the ability to turn into a whale the team can ride on which functions as a submarine, and he can open shops in bazaars to trade items. Manillo wind sup being a fairly important character for gameplay reasons, especially the bazaar mini-game. Otherwise, he's mainly useful as fusion fodder for Danc. His race is one of the most recognizable in the series.
Builder (Ox in the English)
A member of the Iron Ogre Clan, which is a race of Bull/Cow people. Buider's Clan specializes in blacksmith work and building things. His village gets raided and the women are all captured to force the men to work for the Dark Dragons. Builder makes a break for it to seek help from the Manillo Clan but nearly dies on the way. The party saves his life and then helps him rescue his pregnant wife. Builder is meat shield more or less, with limited healing magic and big hammer to smash. His main field ability is to push heavy objects and smash broken walls. His fusion with Danc allows him to take this skill up to 11. He's an okay party member but joins around the time the best team becomes available, so his use is limited. Like Gilliam and Manillo, he's best being used as fusion fodder for Danc.
Deis (Bleu in the English version)
A mysterious and powerful sorceress who once helped the heroic Light Dragon who saved the world during the Goddess War in the past. Dias is arrogant, lazy, and short-tempered. The team find her sleeping in a temple dedicated to her and have to face her spirit servants just for the honor to speak with them. Once awoken, Dias decides to join the team to kill some time and gets more invested when she realizes Myria might get involved. There are some major story revelations about her in the sequels, but I'll gt to that when we get to those games. Deis is weird in that she doesn't really have any field abilities. She's also the team's resident black mage, but unlike other mages in other series, Dias is unique in that she gets massive stat boosts from leveling up and actually levels faster than most of the team. She'll hit Lv. 40 (average level you want to beat the game) long before anyone else is close to it. Her magic repertoire is nothing to sneeze at either and she gets enough AP reserves to cast them throughout the dungeon and then some. She has a strange rivalry with Nina, whom she likes to tease mercilessly. She also has a bad habit of going over the top when using her magic to get out of situations, often leading to major property damage. Along with Ryu, Nina, and Danc, she's the final member of what most fans consider to be the best team build in the game.
Mogu
A member of the Dirt-Eating Clan, his tribe was attacked and imprisoned in order to help the Dark Dragons excavate the ruins of Myria's former fortress. Mogu was a bit of a leader of the clan that could unite them, so Judas' Deva Sigmund (Mote) trapped him in a dream world where he divided up his personality. Once restored, Mogu joins the team and helps them reach Scande. His digging skills are also needed to reach the inside of Myria's fortress as well. Mogu is easily the biggest afterthought of the game. He's the last to join, is fairly weak, and his only use is for a few quests used to pad the endgame. He's also one of the few characters not useful for fusion. H does get some great stat boosts after Lv. 50, but it's honestly not worth the effort. He's the other character besides Danc not featured in the mural in BoFIII, and his cameo version in that game also happens to get killed as well along with Gilliam in that game's opening. I wonder if Ikehara has something against him. His clan doesn't appear much in later installments either...
Sara
Ryu's sister and the Priestess of the Light Dragon Clan. Sara is the only member of the clan who possesses any of the powers of her clans birthright, being a powerful mage and capable of transforming into a powerful White Dragon. She saves her clan with her quick thinking, but ends up gettign cpatured and brainwashed by Judas. She can occasionally break free of his hold, but it doesn't last long. She begins a series tradition of battling a former friend who can also turn into a dragon for the series. Fun fact though, there is an item called the Dragon Heart Song that the player can acquire to use on Zorgon to cut his life in half, but if you save it for the fight with Sara, it will knock her health down to 1hp. She's also one of the few bosses that doesn't have a second phase. In the manga adaption of the story, Sara is less brainwashed and more in love with Judas, who himself is written to be more of a anti-hero in that version.
The Devas
Judas's personal servants who are loyal only to him and help his plans to usurp Zorgon, they serve as minor antagonists against the party throughout the game similar to Golbez's Archfiends. Interestingly enough, they don't appear to be mmebers of the Dark Dragon Clan, and are instead part of some monster race that is helping them. Kyura (Cort) is a mad scientist who specializes in biological engineering and making mosnters out of people and plants. He's terrorizing a village that protects the land bridge needed to reach the western continent. Sigmund (Mort) is some sort of dream demon that can alter a persons psyche through their dreams. He trapped Mogu in such a world and later the party must face him within his own dream world to defeat him. Carla (Cerl) is the most tragic of the bunch. She was an orphan in a village where she fell in love with her childhood friend Alan. When her mosnter heritage became apparent, she was chased out of town and wandered alone until Judas found her. Now she has a grudge against the townsfolk from her home village and uses the Time Key to get her revenge. Her story is honestly one of the highlights of the four. Goda, is the strongest of the four and most loyal to Judas. There isn't much to him besides that, except for the fact that his mosnter form is basically Stone Man from Mega Man 5.
Judas (Jade in English)
The second in command of the Dark Dragons, and like his namesake, he's plotting behind the scenes to take the Goddess Keys for himself and usurp Zorgon. Judas winds up being the main villain of the story, but even he seems to be manipulated by Myria behind the scenes when the dust settles. As mentioned before, he's more of a anti-hero in the manga adaption with a Romeo/Juliet style relationship with Sara. The most interesting thing about Judas is that he appears throughout the game as as a cloaked figure who gives the party clues on how to proceed further. He ultimately manipulates Ryu into not only collecting all of the Goddess Keys for him, but also in defeating Zorgon. Judas also continues a weird trend among the Dark Dragons. Despite turning into dragons cutscenes, only one member of the clan actually transforms into a dragon when you fight him. The others turn into weird monsters instead. Judas included who turns into some kind of creature that wouldn't look out of place in Metroid. This has led some clans to speculate that the clans close association with Myria, and the revelations she was manipulating them behind the scenes had tainted the clan and made them more demonic. On the other hand, considering what future installments classify as "dragons", it could just be that Capcom has a very loose interpretation that wouldn't look far fetched in Mesopotamia.
Emperor Zorgon (Zog)
This beef-cake version of Kain Highwind is the leader of the Dark Dragon Clan who seeks to restore the clans glory to the world. He's pretty much the cause of all the game's problem before his subordinate makes it all worse. Though he only has like two scenes in the game, he leaves a lasting impression. Helps he's a graceful loser who sees Ryu, another member of the Dragon Clan, defeating him as still accomplishing his goal to restore the clans reputation, even if he did have to play the villain. Unlike other despots with backstabbing minions, Zorgon doesn't seem to be aware of Judas' treachery. He's also the only member of his clan who turns into a dragon for his fight, becoming a massive dragon so large that only his head is seen in the fight proper. He's a one note villain, but pretty fun regardless.
Myria
The evil goddess herself. While I've talked extensively about DQ and FF's influence on BoF1, I never spoke about Shin Megami Tensei's influence. Myria's initial design is a dead ringer for Alice from SMT1. While it may seem a coincidence since creepy blonde girls is sort of an established trope that predates both series, I still like to think someone over at Capcom was sliding this in as an Alice reference. Myria hides behind a facade of being a scared little girl who has godlike powers that evil people are fighting for, but transform into Infinity and she'll quickly show her true colors and transform into an eldritch horror that will make Lovecraft proud. Sadly, Myria is also a bit one note in this entry, and her final boss fight is fairly boring if you have Infinity. Myria gets more interesting in the third entry but like Dio Brando, she has a tendency to cause issues when she's not even directly involved either as we'll see in the sequel.
Kaiser
A recurring "ultimate" dragon form within the series. This game debuts the series staple, though he won;t obtain his more ionic form until the sequels. He was named Rudra in the English script, likely because of the five character limit for names. He's pretty cool in this game but hardly the game breaker he will become in the sequels. His breath attack involves summoning a Macross missile storm of fireballs shaped like mini-dragons to pummel all the enemies for non-elemental damage
Infinity
A recurring power within the series, though one that changes its properties almost every game for some reason. In this game, it is a power that allows Ryu to fuse with all of his power members to become a godlike creature that can match Myria's power.
The Royal Sword
A recurring "Ultimate Weapon" for Ryu, the weapon tends to give Ryu the biggest pure damage boost in the game. The Royal Sword of this game was called the EmpireSD in the English translation and can be found behind Judas' throne just before the final battle. Unlike other incarnations of the sword, this weapon is very light weight and casts a mid-tier fire spell.
Life Armor
Based off the Loto Armor from Dragon Quest, Life Armor is the game's usual best armor with great defense and the ability to restore HP while walking. It also tends to give some status protection as well. The armor is found hidden behind a pillar in the floating tower that Myria is sealed in. While you visit this tower early, half of the tower is blocked by locked doors. Once Danc joins, you can reach the top and find this armor as well as a mid-tier weapon for Danc himself.
Cameos
One of the fun things about Capcom is that they often like to sneak in cameos in their other games. Breath of Fire is no different.
Arthur
It's no surprise that he makes a cameo seeing how the game's producer is the creator of Ghosts and Goblins. Arthur mainly shows up as a portrait hung up in various houses in the game.
Chun-Li
Of course Capcom wasn't going to miss the chance to sneak in one of the most popular characters from one of their most popular franchises. Chun-Li appears twice in the game. The first time is in the thieves village of Bleak where a con man asks you to place money on the table and then turn around so he can perform a trick. You have to refuse to turn around twice and then look the third time he asks, Your party will see a different room where Chun-Li is performing her Lightning Kick. The second cameo is easier to miss and only happens in the Super Famicom/SNES versions. If Ryu equips the Broken Sword during the final battle with Myria (made easy by the fact Infinity doesn't factor in his weapon) then she'll appear in Dragonier during the ending using her kick to destroy rubble in the village ina blink and you'll miss it scene.
Music
Breath of Fire is not a series I would say is well known for it's musical scores. With that said, Bretah of Fire had a pretty strong group working on the music and it's easily one of the more underrated scores in the series. Here's a few bangers to lsiten to.
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