Breath of Fire Turns 30.
Felt I needed to give a proper shout out to one of my fave childhood JRPG series. Breath of Fire has turned 30 last week on April 2nd. Figured I would make this thread and do a mini overview of the series for people. Why? Because I'm bored and need a break from FFXIII. Enjoy.
True beauty exists in things that last only for a moment.
Current Mood: Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog Where no one notices the contrast of white on white And in between the moon and you, the angels get a better view Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right
So the question none of you are asking is: "What is Breath of Fire, WK?"
It's a quirky epic JRPG series Capcom made when the genre exploded in the 90s. The game was the brain child of a few interesting peeps. Mostly Yoshinori Kawano, who is better known for his works on Mega Man Legends, Mega Man Zero, and Dead Rising franchises. Tokuro Fujiwara, who is better known for his work with Ghosts in Goblins, Strider, the Disney Afternoon series, and every Capcom side-scroller that ever kicked your ass in the arcade. Finally, we have Makoto Ikehara, who ended up being the real daddy of the franchise since he was the main writer for almost every entry in the series, and eventually moved onto being its main director for III-V.
The interesting thing about BoF is that Capcom isn't known as a major RPG powerhouse like Square, Enix, Atlus, or Falcom. Up until 1993, Capcom was better known for their arcade scene with games like Mega Man, Fatal Fight, Strider, Bionic Commando, and of course, Street Fighter. So to say BoF gets unconventional is a bit of an understatement. But unlike, say, Earthbound/Mother where series creator Shigesato Itoi purposely subverts genre conventions, BoF feels like it's trying to be a genuine conventional JRPG, but one made by people who don't really play the genre. It creates something that is unique and stands out among the riffraff of the genre.
BoF falls into the schizo-tech side of the genre, along with Final Fantasy. Swords and Sorcery for sure, but robots, futuristic flying cities, teleporters and other Science Fiction conventions are just as common place. The series is not without its own unique tropes, though. Every game centers around a blue haired boy named Ryu, who has the power to transform into a dragon. He is always joined by a winged blond girl named Nina, and the games are set in a world full of anthropomorphic races. Ryu also likes to fish.
The series has six numbered titles, though counting spin-offs (all mobile) there are actually ten games in total for the franchise. The first three games make up the loosely connected Myria Trilogy, all featuring a similar setting and history. Starting with the fourth game (though some of the fanbase debate this to this day) the series begins to move into more one-shot settings that are vastly different from the established lore of the trilogy. The exception seems to be BoFVI, which, while unfinished, seemed like it was trying to be a real prequel to the Myria Trilogy, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
So let's talk about the recurring elements:
Ryu is the name of the blue-haired protagonist of the series. He is always a different character in each game. He is usually the protagonist, but this changed in the last numbered installment, where he's an important NPC instead. Ryu is usually considered a silent protagonist, but that only applies to half the series; he actually speaks a lot in the first, fifth, and sixth games in the series. Hell, he even gets some dialogue in the fourth entry as well. Ryu's primary character trait throughout the franchise that all incarnations embody is compassion. Ryu usually doesn't fight for his own sake, but rather starts his journey because someone else is in trouble. He's not always the bravest, and he's not always the leader of his group either. But the story does tend to eventually revolve around the fact the boy can turn into a dragon. Sometimes this power is a blessing (BoF1/6), sometimes it's a terrible curse for him (BoFIII/V), and sometimes it's a mystery for him (BoFII/IV). Of course, turning into a giant dragon has its perks in an RPG and likewise, Ryu is often your main offensive muscle for the team. The series usually gives everyone a special ability that can be used on the World Map or in dungeons. Ryu can usually swipe his sword to cut things, but most of the time, he has the power to fish.
Nina is usually the main heroine of the series, and like Ryu, they're never the same person. In fact, only once in the series has two Ninas from different games met each other. Nina follows some traditional tropes of usually being a princess and a spell caster. Where she breaks some trends is that she's rarely the healer, only fulfilling the role once in the series on purpose. Usually she's your hard hitting Black Mage. Nina is usually related to the city of Wyndia, a city state created by the Wing Clan, which is basically a race of human like beings with bird wings. Occasionally, the race has the power to transform into a bird that acts as the series flying vehicle. Nina tends to be one of the first allies Ryu obtains, and in the games where he's a silent protagonist, she usually winds up speaking for him. Her dungeon map skill varies from game to game. In the first two, she's connected to the Great Bird that serves as the game's airship. In III, she can cast spells needed to hit targets from far away and works with magic based puzzles. And in IV, she can fly up to give you a better view of the map. In a twist on series tradition, Nina is the mute character in BoFV, though for twisted reasons.
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The Dark Dragons
Minor spoiler alert, but no matter which BoF you play, you're eventually going to encounter a Dark Dragon who serves as a foil to Ryu's Light Dragon persona. Some entries are very straightforward about it like BoF1 where the conflict deals with the Dark Dragon clan full force, or in BoFIV, where Fou-Lu serves as Ryu's darker counterpart. Other entries save it as a last minute plot twist like in BoFII and III. And some entries like BoFV try to do both. As mentioned before, these characters often serve as a foil to Ryu and help reinforce the main themes of the series and the particular entry. They often tend to be fan favorite characters as well. Expect them to usually be overpowered and great at ass kicking.
Another recurring figure in the franchise is the lazy but powerful sorceress Deis, known as Bleu in the SNES translations. Unlike Nina and Ryu, Deis is often the same character due to her status as a Goddess and her knack for sleeping for several millenia between entries. Though it is still up to debate if the one from BoFIV is the same as the one from the Myria Trilogy. She does still tend to have the same personality of being pretty arogant, a huge tease, and a total badass to boot. Her true form is unknown, but her favorite involves her medusa-esque serpent body form. She has appeared in all but one entry in the series, BoFVl Dragon Quarter being the lone exception, though staff interviews mentioned she was planned to make a cameo before it was cut due to the game's rushed production.
The title given for the various races that inhabit the setting. There are technically 25 Clans in the series, ranging from regular humans, Mole people, wolf people, and Fish people. There are only six clans that are worth talking about, since they tend to have important characters in them throughout the series instead of just one entry.
The Wing Clan
As already mentioned, the Wing Clan is basically a race of humans with bird wings. They are often associated with the Kingdom of Wyndia, and they tend to be a stuffy European style aristocracy that often cares more for how they are seen by others. Wyndia usually serves as a sort of Big Good in the political landscape of the series, but they also tend to raise rowdy princesses that don't like following the rules. Magic is their kingdom's forte. They are the only race from the first game that has managed to have a party member in every game, including the one they don't technically exist in. They have a very close history with the Dragon Clan for better and for worse.
The Woren Clan
Introduced in the second entry, and being a mainstay since. The Woren are basically a race of Tiger People. They are a strong warrior race who usually specializes in speed. Oddly enough, only one entry every gave them a national background. In IV, they are shown to have the qualities of indigenous tribal communities like the ones seen in North America, Mongolia, and feudal Japan. In the other entries, they are usually a rare race, with only a handful shown ever. It's even a plot point in the second game. While they can use magic, they are not especially good at it. The race is very loyal and tend to be one of the most steadfast companions.
The Grassrunner Clan
Also known as the Kemonomimi clan. Grassrunners are basically a race of humans with canine like features, including foxes. Of course, this rule only applies with female members, the males tend to be very much dog people. They were also introduced in the second entry and have been a prominent race in every entry since. In fact, they are one of the few clans to survive and see BoFV. They are also a pretty potent race with decent magical ability. Much like their animal sake, Grassrunners have never been shown to have their own society or national identity, often being heavily integrated into other tribe societies. They are sometimes mistaken for being members of the Forest Clan (Wolf People) but they are two distinct clans oddly enough. They tend to always be hunters who prefer long range weapons.
The Manillo Clan
This one is an oddity. While they have only once ever been a party member in the series, they are easily one of the most distinct races seen throughout the series and tend to stay prominent thanks to the fishing mini-game where they serve as special vendors you can sell fish to. They are a mercantile race that use their natural physical advantages and the oceans to build powerful capitalist merchant guilds. Greed does not even begin to describe this race and their love of money. With all that said, they are not a powerful race in combat, preferring to use coin to do their talking.
Faeries
Not a traditional clan, but a very prominent figure in the series starting with the third entry. Chances are, if you've glanced at artwork from the series, you'll see this race of mischievous nuisances. In a bit of a twist for the non-SMT JRPGs, the Faeries of BoF hold up closer to their European origins of being tricksters who look down on humans and cause problems. They even exist in their own world, which is where their purpose kicks in. While BoFII began the Village building mini-game, it's the Fairy Village most longtime players will remember most. Usually they are in dire straights for one reason or another, and it's up to Ryu and his crew to manage these pains in the ass to build a functioning town.
The Dragon Clan
Also referred to as the Brood. They are a powerful race of dragons who can take human form. Their power is enough to rival the series various deities, which makes them a threat to everyone and often the cause of a lot of conflict within the series. In the first game, the clan managed to split into two different clans, known as the unoriginal Dark and Light Dragon Clans. Despite only being a plot point in the first entry, Ryu always has a dark counterpart he ends up having to face in every entry. Interesting enough, Ryu tends to be an oddity among even his own clan due to his ability to change his elemental and physical properties of the type of Dragon he wants to be. The strongest Dragon within the clan is known as the Kaiser Dragon, and it's usually Ryu's ultimate form, with some exceptions. The Dragon Clan also has their own patron deity in the form of Ladon, the Dragon God, h serves as a save point in many of the entries but he is shown to actually commune with mortals. The Dragon Clan often resides in a city state called Dragonier, which is often not translated right in the series.
Finally...
Themes
Breath of Fire is a series that concerns itself with a few themes, such as free will, racism, and the relationship between people, religion, and god. But the most central theme of the entire series is the Nature of Power. Every entry deals in some ways with the problem our hero has to deal with due to the overwhelming power they possess. The series dwells on ideas such as "Is power necessary?", "Can Power be used for good or only evil?", "Why do people pursue power when it often only brings suffering?" and other philisophical trapings. I feel this is one of the elements that really separates BoF from other RPG series is that it really sticksa to this main theme throughout the series, giving it a unique identity in a sea of other anime inspired RPG series.
Last edited by Wolf Kanno; 05-04-2023 at 10:02 PM.
True beauty exists in things that last only for a moment.
Current Mood: Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog Where no one notices the contrast of white on white And in between the moon and you, the angels get a better view Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right
3 was the best for me. It was my childhood and i rmb I got stuck in the desert for so long until gamefaq came to my life
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.
The Characters
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.
Misc.
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.
Stone Man
As mentioned earlier, Infaune managed to sneak in a Mega Man themed character by basing Goda's monster form on Stone Man.
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.
Blood Relations ~ PrologueNext time, we'll discuss the game's sequel Breath of Fire 2, and watch as Capcom starts to put more effort into their fledgling RPG series.
White Dragon ~ Sara's Theme
Fate
Beginning of Battle (Main Battle Theme)
Secret City
Ancient Song and Dance
God's Footprints
Black Dragon
Return
SNES_BoF_Ending.png
Last edited by Wolf Kanno; 05-28-2023 at 07:04 AM.
True beauty exists in things that last only for a moment.
Current Mood: Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog Where no one notices the contrast of white on white And in between the moon and you, the angels get a better view Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right
We need to sticky this thread. Awesome nostalgic info.
I'd love to see Capcom try their hands at a new BoF. With a traditional turn-based combat system or something similar. With Square abandoning turn-based combat in their flagship RPG series, it seems ripe for the picking for Capcom to fill that void w/ their own flagship RPG series.
And yes, I know Square is still putting out turn-based RPGs and Capcom has Dragon's Dogma for its action combat RPG. But none are "flagship". It'd be cool if Capcom countered FF by reviving BoF. Given how Capcom is nailing everything and has earned back an extremely high degree of goodwill from gamers, NOW IS THE TIME FOR A NEW BREATH OF FIIIIIIIIRE!
- Dr. Cheesesteak
I feel the first step here would be for Capcom to acknowledge BoF even exists. I don't know if they're tracking how much players check out the game on Switch, but with the PlayStation entries still MIA on modern consoles, I don't know if there is any real demand from fans for the series. Even if the chose to reboot it, I doubt they would leave it turn-based. I imagine we would get a new combat system that will be closer to ARPG. Not like Dragon Quarter wasn't heading in that direction anyway.Originally Posted by cheesesteak
It would be interesting to see Capcom at least give us a collection or something. I mean the first two games desperately need better translations, and as mentioned before, the three PlayStation efforts are locked on older systems.
I'll try to get BoFII's entry up soonish.
True beauty exists in things that last only for a moment.
Current Mood: Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog Where no one notices the contrast of white on white And in between the moon and you, the angels get a better view Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right
They've acknowledged it recently in the TEPPEN mobile game with a bunch of cool new artwork and I've seen a few posts cropping up over the internet showing off BoF inspired NPCs in the story mode for Street Fighter 6.
I'm just not sure Capcom currently has the right people on board to really do anything with the franchise, or any real interest in reviving it when they can put out a Resident Evil remake or Monster Hunter spin-off that they know will sell.
BoF 3 is one of my favourite games so with any luck there will at least be some kind of remaster or re-release of that and BoF 4 for modern consoles some day...
I was laughing because SF6 had a rival character named Bosch, and apparently the currency of Metro City and Street Fighter is Zenny. So I see sly references here and there.They've acknowledged it recently in the TEPPEN mobile game with a bunch of cool new artwork and I've seen a few posts cropping up over the internet showing off BoF inspired NPCs in the story mode for Street Fighter 6.
I'm just not sure Capcom currently has the right people on board to really do anything with the franchise, or any real interest in reviving it when they can put out a Resident Evil remake or Monster Hunter spin-off that they know will sell.
BoF 3 is one of my favourite games so with any luck there will at least be some kind of remaster or re-release of that and BoF 4 for modern consoles some day...
The frustrating thing about BoF is that unlike some other dead franchises out there, several of the core creators still work at Capcom, so it's not like they don't have people to make one. I'm wondering if BoF6 ruined Capcom's confidence in wanting to work on the series, but that shouldn't stop them from at least doing a collection or remaster. I don't think anyone's clamoring for a BoF1 remake, just the ability to access the PlayStation era titles on modern hardware, and maybe a proper translation of the first two games.
True beauty exists in things that last only for a moment.
Current Mood: Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog Where no one notices the contrast of white on white And in between the moon and you, the angels get a better view Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right
I had not even looked up who was still working at Capcom, so this just makes me even sadder.
It's the perfect time to capitalize on a long dormant RPG franchise, too. With the 2.5D stuff being released, series like Persona, Xenoblade, etc, being big hits, the apparent 'Second Golden Age of Final Fantasy' with all the hype surrounding the franchise at the moment. Heck, even Konami are re-releasing Suikoden I & II this year and the director of those games is working on a spiritual successor to that series. Live A Live got a 2.5D Remake, yet Capcom can't package and put out a BoF collection?
The least they could do is sell off the franchise to another studio, or license it out and let someone else have a crack whilst still making some money off it.
So in 1993, Capcom released the original Breath of Fire, and to their surprise, it did really well. So this being Capcom, they grabbed what they could have of the original team and immediately set them off to work on the sequel, which they managed to do in one year, as Breath of Fire II came out in 1994. Tokoru Fujiwara returns as producer, Yoshinori Kawano returns as the main designer, but apparently was the sole designer this time around as Yoshinori Takenaka chose not to come back, and Makoto Ikehara was brought back to be the sole writer this time. Likewise, Inafune did not return as the main artist, and instead, the illustrator, Tatsuya Yoshikawa took over the duties as the series main artist.
The music of the original was handled by the company's in-house musical artist/band Alph Lyla, but they got placed on other projects, so Yuko Takehara was added to the team. She was a relative unknown at the time, largely composing music for the Final Fight series and a few of Capcom's licensed games, like The Punisher arcade game and Disney's Aladdin for the SNES. Her biggest fan loved title before this one was Mega Man 6. But she is actually best known for all of her scores in the Capcom Vs. franchise, being the composer all the way back to the original Street Fighter vs. X-Men game. So Breath of Fire II is a bit of a weird title in her resume, but honestly I feel she does a better job creating a fun score here. Capcom also hired J-Pop star Mio Watanabe to write a theme song for the game's commercial called Owaranai Ai (Unending Love), which is actually a pretty killer track with lyrics told from the perspective of Mina Wyndia.
Besides the amount of work done in such a short time with a smaller staff, the real interesting thing about BoF2's development is how it pushed Ikehara and Yoshikawa into the forefront of the series. These two are largely responsible for the franchise in general. Overall, BoF2 is a direct sequel from the first game, with several references to old locations from the first game. But despite all that, BoF2 doesn't really re-use any assets from the first game. Everything is band new from backgrounds, monster sprites, new character sprites, and spell animations. The quality difference is honestly staggering, and while we've seen some huge turnarounds before with FFIV vs. FFV also being a year difference, even those titles still have some basic overlap. I wouldn't be surprised if Capcom probably had the team start work on the sequel during the final development stages of the first game.
The biggest sore spot for this title is its infamous translation. The first game had been handed over to Square to translate and release in the Western markets, but someone at Capcom decided that this wasn't good for them, and opted for them to translate the game in-house instead. Here's the thing, Capcom has never had a great track record for translating their games, often changing elements for little rhyme or reason. The other issue is that the whole reason they asked Square to handle the translation of the first game was because the studio was unequipped to translate something as long as an RPG. I mean, they can barely translate their arcade titles. So to say the translation is a botched job is an understatement. While it is decent enough to remain mostly intelligible, it has so many weird issues that it has reached meme status in modern times. Not helping anything is that the game's opening has this text scroll that is actually in English in all versions, and it's actually on point. The ending credits are also weird because Capcom followed the protocol of the time and didn't list actual development credits. Instead, the game lists every story chapter of the game and all the important characters featured in there. What makes this weird is that they retain their actual Japanese names, so characters like "Katt" are listed in the credits as Rinpoo Chaun. Granted, the name changes are often a result of the SNES's stingy character limit for dialogue boxes. But for some reason, the devs chose to shorten everyone's name to four characters or fewer in English, despite some characters retaining five character names.
Set a few hundred years after the first game, the Dragon Clan has disappeared from the annuls of history and new clans have flourished to rebuild the world after the Dark Dragon War. In a small mountain village called Gate, a young boy named Ryu lives with his younger sister Yua, and their father Ganer who runs the St. Eva church of the village. Several years ago, when Yua was but a baby, demons had attacked the town, pouring out of the caves of the mountain that stood nearby. Ryu's mother died that day, and would have likely claimed his family's life as well if not for the mysterious appearance of a white dragon that destroyed the demons and then fell on top of the mountain to sleep. Its body covering the cave entrances the demons came from and sealing them up. Yua likes to sleep by the dragon, as she often has dreams of her mother that she never met. When Ryu tries to sleep nearby, he has a terrible dream of a demon calling him the Destined Child. When Ryu wakes, he finds that his father and sister have disappeared and no one in the town remembers Ryu or his family. Believing him to be an orphan, he is sent to the church where he meets an orphan Grassrunner named Bosch Doggy, who sneaks into churches to steal their stuff. Striking a quick camaraderie with Ryu, Bosch talks him into leaving with him for the next town. The two are caught in a storm and escape into a nearby cave, where they encounter a demon called Barbaroi that attacks the two and leaves Ryu with some PTSD.
Ten years later, the game picks up in HomeTown (I'd use the Japanese name, but it is equally stupid and on the nose, apparently Ikehara missed the point of immersion) where Ryu and Bosch have grown up together and work as Rangers, a mercenary service that does everything from monster extermination to house cleaning. The two are tasked with hunting down the pet of a visiting princess named Mina Wyndia, who frequents the town to visit the magic school. Fearing the pet wandered towards the monster filled mountain pass nearby, the two look for the beast, only to face off with a group of Harpy sisters that are responsible for all the missing pets. With no luck finding Mina's pet, the two camp out in some old ruins nearby, which is home to an old man named Niro who managed to capture a pig for his supper. Ryu discovers a collar taken from the pig that reveals the animal is in fact Mina's pet. Rescuing the pig Suzy and a job well done, the two return home when a stranger knocks on their door that night. When Ryu wakes up the next morning, he discovers the town guards are in an uproar looking for Bosch. Apparently, he had broken into the mansion of a local noble named Trout Barm. Returning home, Ryu finds Bosch hiding out and reveals he was asked by another noble, Kilgore, to sneak into Trout's mansion to steal back an item that Trout had stolen from him. Not resisting a chance to use his old thieving skills, Bosch accepts the job, but botches the mission when he gets to the vault and discovers another thief with bat wings named Patty has beaten him to it. Now blamed for a crime he didn't commit, Bosch ends up taking residence in the abandoned ruins with Niro while Ryu sets out on a quest to capture Patty and clear his best friend's name.
From here, Ryu's journey has him meets many new friends and allies including Rinpoo, the series first Woren Clan (Tiger/cat people) member who works as a gladiator at a nearby Coliseum, where her boss is getting ready to have her murdered to up the entertainment value. Her friend Rand, a member of the Shell Clan (Armadillo people) who ran away from his country home to find excitement in the big city. He investigates a girl who goes to the magic school of the Hometown, but discovers she is Mina's estranged older sister who was exiled from their home due to her black wings. They encounter a traveling con monkey from the Highlander Clan named Sten, and finally help a prince named Tapeta from the Creeping Clan (Frog people) who was first placed under a curse by a witch, and then later discovered an imposter had taken over his kingdom. Ryu also gets dragged into an experiment using special people called Shamans, who have the power to fuse themselves with people to draw out their power. Ryu instead discovers he has the mysterious power to temporarily transform into a dragon. Throughout the journey, Ryu encounters the spread of the St. Eva faith, as well as people transformed into demons who serve some dark god they are waiting to be resurrected. One of these people turns out to be Trout himself. With Bosch's named clear, the two are asked to investigate the rapid death of a forest near the town of Gate, but access is difficult without the help of someone from the rare and mysterious Grassmen clan that has connections to the World Trees scattered throughout the lands. The Grassman in question is a being named Aspara who guides them back to the demons and their connections to the St. Eva church. Ryu finally discovers what happened to his family ten yeas ago, and even discovers the truth about his mother and his connection to the lost Dragon Clan.
While the plot has a bit of a run around, with Ryu always seeming to be sidetracked by some nonsense, the plot of BoF2 is a step up from the more generic plot of the first game. While evil churches are a dime a dozen in JRPGs, this was one of the first ones to reach the West, and surprisingly didn't get censored by Nintendo of America. The cast is more fleshed out, with each character having more spotlight time. Likewise, the hub town of Township (the ruins Bosch and Niro stay in) allows the player to chat with the party between story beats to hear their insights and also expand their characters a bit more. The bad guys also have more nuance despite sticking to all being chaotic evil,but at least they get more screen presence that Dark Dragon General #59 being the boss battle. The game also has a more well developed supporting cast like Patty, Ray, Niro, Mina, the resistance forces, Rand's mother, and Tepata's sister. BoF2 feels more memorable overall. BoF2 also lays the humor in thick. The first game had it's moments, but was largely a serious business type deal. BoF2 is filled with wacky scenarios and and eccentric characters. Swimmer Castle alone is just one giant gag quest where Ryu and company are trying to help Tapeta reclaim the throne from an imposter, that everyone knows is an imposter but just don't really care, including Tepata himself who would rather be an artist and lover than a prince. The game is a riot. Yet at the same time, the narrative is much darker than the first game. The opening prologue of Ryu's childhood is downright sinister and some of the demon commanders are ruthless and far more malicious than the villains in BoF1. The last few chapters of the story after the Grassmen Quest are largely tragic and heavy on the drama. The game even features three endings, with one being a bit of nightmare fuel when you think about it, and the main ending a player is likely to get being absolutely tragic. The plot jumps back and forth between these two extremes which is a bit of a hallmark for Ikehara's writing style.
On the gameplay front, BoF2 is a massive overhaul, feeling much denser and being more aligned with traditional RPG design in some ways, while retaining the fun quirks that set the original apart from the rest of the pack. If BoF1 was borrowing heavily from Dragon Quest, BoF2 is taking its cues from Final Fantasy IV. In addition to field abilities, every party member now has a unique skill to use in battle that gives the player more options and expands the character's usefulness. Likewise, the overall mechanics are much richer with better use of resistances, item drops, new status effects, and more complex algorithms for game mechanics in general. Hunting has been overhauled, with the original game having animals appear on the over-world map that could be interrupted by random encounters. Instead, grasslands appear that can be entered to show a hunting field where the player can hunt with Rinpoo, Bosch, or Deis a their leisure unless there is a bear or Gonghead present. Fishing has also be turned into a more skill based mini-game with Ryu requiring different baits to capture different fish, a stamina gauge to see if the lien will break, an more nuances like using Coin bait to capture Manillo merchants who open up shops. Not ot mention some fishing spots have treasure to be excavated.The overall balance of the game has also been fixed with game-breakers like Danc's Fusion forms and Ryu's dragon transformations being retooled for better balance. Ryu's dragon transformations function more like FF's Summons with the damage algorithm being determined by how much AP Ryu currently possesses with his his Dragons doing max damage when he has full AP. This was a controversial change to say the least, and I think only BoFV's dragon mode is more divisive. But on the other hand, it greatly fixed some of the balance issues from the first game. Danc's fusion magic is no longer restricted to one character, instead the game introduces the Shaman System. There are six elemental Shamans in the game that you can recruit and use at a facility in the Hub town to garner stat boosts and even transform the characters into super versions of themselves. there are restrictions of course with Ryu and Deis being unable to use the system, likewise characters have elemental affinities that mean they'll never be able to fuse with certain Shamans. Likewise, the Shaman forms are neutralized if a character is knocked down to 25% of their max health or are killed. Even more annoying, and an issue not fixed from the first game, is that cutscenes that require the characters will often remove the fusion form as as well, with a notorious one being in the games final dungeon. One of the best gameplay additions to the title is Township, a side quest where Ryu and his allies transform the ruins from the game's beginning into a full fledged town. Its probably one of the first incarnations of this mini-game in the West, but it offers a ton of replay value with three different town designs with their own unique strengths. You get six houses to find residents for, but there are a total of four residents that can potentially take the house, meaning you have to choose six people out of twenty four options and they can really make this game easier or more fun depending on your choices. Residents range from ones that open various weapons shops, a guy who teaches magic, a cat only Rinpoo can talk to, people with access to secret hunting and fishing spots, someone who allows you to customize the game window, another who lets you listen to the soundtrack, and even some people who don't do anything. It's easily one of the most fun parts of the game and it's even the secret to getting the secret happy ending.
One interesting element of the game is that since it's made as a semi-direct sequel to the first, you get to revisit some locations from the first game like the obnoxious Tune Land, and the series staple of Wyndia, but there are some interesting secrets as well if you compare the maps of the two games. The Sky Tower still exists in the game, but is now mostly under the sea, the small St. Eva Church where people are being brainwashed and kidnapped to the Church's main city is located in the area where the Ruins of Scande would be. Most fun of all is that Gate is located in the same spot as Dragonier which serves as a very subtle clue to some plot revelations later. Deis' home is also in the same general area along with the Thieves Tomb that Danc confiscated and reworked in between games. The game has some in-story nods to the first game as well with Nina's backstory being heavily influenced by things, and references to the Dark and Light Dragon clan split, and of course Myria gets named dropped as well.
The other oddity of BoFII is its legacy among the series, specifically within the Myria Trilogy. Part of this may be due to the game's faster than usual development, but BoFII has quite a number of unresolved plot elements or inconsistencies between the second and third game that is never cleared up. Perhaps Ikehara was unsatisfied with the way the story turned out, which may have influenced the next game, which pulls more from the first game, while ignoring a lot of the stuff in the second game. Among fans though, BoFII has a pretty big fan base within the series. It also launched some fan favorite Clans like the Woren, expanded on popular game features like fishing and hunting, and even introduced the series staple town building mechanic. Despite it's meme worthy bad translation, the game still hits hard and there are still die hard fans who will tell you that Nina and Rinpoo from this game are the best representatives of their respected clans. It's an interesting game due to the fact that its rare to see a long lasting franchise like this not get completely supplanted by the PSX generations entries unlike other franchises. Only FF and DQ really managed to pull this off.
So here's a rundown of the game's cast:
Ryu Bateson
Special Skill: Guts ~ Chance to restore a percentage of your health.
Field Skill: Fishing
Element Affinity: None
The orphaned and series first true mute protagonist, Ryu Bateson is unique in the series in that he not only has a last name, but he's the only Ryu for whom we meet his whole family through the story. Ryu is also the only Ryu in the series to not be a full member of the Dragon Clan, being half-human on his father's side. This is often why fans make the excuse for his dragon transformations in the game, saying his human side prevents him from maintaining the form longer than a few seconds without serious consequences. He actually gets access to a few healing spells and has a lot of customization options. Ryu also has the highest Guts rating, which allows him to survive a fatal attack and get back up with 10% of his health. He is also one of two characters that can Counter Attack among the party. This Ryu is probably best known for his kind nature and the fact he's involved in a bit of a love triangle between Nina and Rinpoo. He's also known for his Dragon Tear necklace which allows him to know the intent of people based on the color his pendant changes to. Ryu is also known as the Destined Child, by both the Dragon Clan and the Demons. It's never really stated where this legend of a destined child originates, but both groups agree that part of his destiny is to open the sealed gates of Infinity where Deathevan rests. Though the Dragon Clan adds that Ryu would defeat and re-seal Deathevan as well.
Bosch Doggy (Bow in English)
Special Skill: Shot ~ Either does one damage or instant kills a non-boss enemy/ Spray ~ Deals regular damage to all enemies on the field.
Field Skill: Hunt
Element Affinity: Light and Dark
Bosch bis Ryu's trouble-making best friend who's inability to quit his thieving ways kick-starts the plot. He's a bit of a skirt chaser and has a massive crush on Mina Wyndia. He also knows all this and spends a good chunk of the game after he is allowed to join you trying to make up for all the hardship he's given Ryu over the years. He's the team's best healer with access to all the healing magic and even defensive spells. He gets some unique weapons as well like one that hits all enemies and another that allows him to attack twice. He's not much of a fighter outside of his Fusion form. That form boost his overall stats and changes Shot to Spray. Sadly, it requires both the Light and Dark Shaman to use which means denying you some of the other uber powerful transformations in the game. So I'm not a fan. He's a quirky character for sure whose only other issue is the fact he's sidelined for the first third of the game.
Rand Marks (Suppose to be Land, but you know Japanese with L/R sounds)
Special Skill: Wake ~ Does light damage to a party member allowing him to wake them up from sleep or unconscious states.
Field Skill: Roll ~ Picks up the party and rolls into a ball that allows the team to travel without enemy encounters.
Element Affinity: Earth
Rand is a simply guy and the team's big brother/dad figure. He's always looking after people, especially the rambunctious Rinpoo. He has an overbearing mother who owns a farm he used to work on, but Rand grew bored with that life and ran away from home to see the excitement of city life. He eventually found work at the Colosseum where he met Rinpoo. He is the team's other medic, but he doesn't get defensive magic or the final healing spells, but he does get a unique earthquake spell and he's a much better fighter than Bosch. Rand is a monk style fighter with high stats in everything but speed. He's also a decent mage with better AP growth than some characters, making him prime for customization options. His fusion form requires the uber powerful Earth Shaman and while it doesn't offer much in terms of new skills, the added boosts to his already impressive stats makes him one of the few fused forms that isn't going to go down easily from an enemy's lucky strike. Rinpoo Chaun (Katt in English, her name is also likely meant to be spelled as Lin Pǔ)
Special Skill: Dare ~ Makes Rinpoo the target of enemy aggro, also drops her defense. Keep ~ Charge for one turn and then attack an enemy with damage between 200-300% more power.
Field Skill: Staff Strike ~ Breaks obstacles and can be used to hunt animals as well.
Element Affinity: Dark
Rinpoo is a fan favorite airhead brawler who is often the butt of many jokes. Rinpoo works as a gladiator for Augus' Colosseum where she's often sparring with local lumberjack Bunyan for top spot. Ryu and Rand discover Augus is planning on killing her in Ryu's fight with her which prompts him and Rand to try and save her. She is very kind, but also very simple, something she is painfully aware of. She is a member of the rare Woren Tribe of whom their numbers seem to be dwindling which becomes a plot thread later on when the party encounters Tigger, leader of the resistance and a romantic rival for Rinpoo's affection. She gains a massive crush on Ryu if you make the right choices in the game. She managed to teach herself the three best spells in the game which she can learn ridiculously early in the game, but due to her abysmal AP stats, he can't cast any of them until very late in the game without some side quest shenanigans. She is the game's fastest (well almost) and physically strongest characters, and also the only other character that can counterattack besides Ryu. This is balanced out by her low health and terrible defense. Her special skill is also nigh useless until you get her Shaman form. Rinpoo is an amazing fighter, which is likely why she's incompatible with all of the Shamans until you acquire the Dark Shaman in the final dungeon. Course her fused form is one of the strongest in the game so...
Nina Wyndia
Special Skill: Willpower ~ Regenerates AP with her chance of success depending on the difference between her current and max AP / Banish ~ Forces random encounter enemies to flee from battle.
Field Skill: Float ~ can dodge most pitfalls by flying / Summon the Great Bird ~ Summon the global airship
Element Affinity: Wind and Light.
Probably the most famous and beloved Nina in the series. This Nina was banished from her home due to being born with Black Wings. According to Wyndian superstition, Black Wings are a sign of misfortune, and if one were to be born from within the royal family, they would bring calamity to the Clan. Unable to bear killing their daughter, Nina's parents instead banished her from the kingdom and faked her death. She resides in Hometown where she is the best student in the magic academy. Nina is pretty melancholic because of all of this, but does her best to protect her homeland and her beloved sister Mina. It turns out her Black Wings are caused by a genetic quirk due to a certain ancestor getting it on with someone outside of her Clan. Nina is the party's premier black mage, learning all of the offensive spells and even some debuff magic. Her Willpower skill allows her to regenerate AP meaning you can fire off spells with impudence. Like Rinpoo, she can fall in love with Ryu if you make certain choices in the story. Nina is also one of the few characters that has an intermediary form for fusion that cause her to have a color swap of her sprite. These tend to give her good boosts. Her fusion form is an angelic form with big boosts to her stats. She loses her awesome Willpower skill for Banish, which makes enemy encounters flee. Considering how high the encounter rate gets by end game, it's more useful than you think.
Sten Legacy
Special Skill: RIP/Play Dead ~ Sten plays dead so he won't be targeted in battle.He can still attack in this state. Switch/Sweh ~ Changes the enemy group encountered in battle.
Field Skill: Reach ~ Sten can stretch his long arms and carry the party across chasms as long as their is a pole to reach.
Element Affinity: Fire and Wind.
A smooth talking, womanizing con monkey. The party meets Sten outside of Wyndia where he performs a magic show that makes Ryu disappear so he can spend more time with Rinpoo and Nina. They and a I were not amused. In truth, Sten is actually a famous hero of the Highlander Clans mercenary forces who is dealing with survivor's guilt from the last battle he was in. Using the cover of his supposed death in the battle, Sten is now wandering the lands, making money with parlor tricks and chasing anything missing a Y-Chromosome. Course his past eventually comes back to haunt him and you'll discover he's in a bit of his own love triangle involving a princess and his best friend Trubo. Sten is a jack of all stats type, focusing mostly on speed. He's a decent fighter and learns some good offensive magic, but he lacks AP and his attack power is lacking behind Ryu, Rinpoo, and Rand. He has better defense than Rinpoo but not by much, so he sort of loses his niche not long after he joins. The issue is that he's one of a handful of characters who gets a solo section of the game, so beware of not leveling him up. His fusion form is pretty cool, and the potentially first ultimate form you'll unlock since both the Fire and Wind Shamans are earned through the narrative. It boosts all his stats, but he loses his field ability. It's special skill is useful for item farming from specific enemies. Someone on the dev team must love this guy, because his field ability is the only one that has a use all the way to the final dungeon, with several quest lines utilizing it. He's one of the weaker characters game play-wise IMHO, but he has the most utility of any party member.
Ekaru Hoppe de pe Tapeta (Jean in English)
Special Skill: Jab ~ Attacks all enemies on field, but does less damage with each additional enemy on the field / Chop ~ charge for one round and either miss or instant kill all non-boss enemies on the field.
Field Skill: Giant Frog Transformation ~ Changes to a giant frog and carries the party over water. Reduces encounter rate in this form.
Element Affinity: Water and Holy
Tapeta is the laid back prince of the Creeping Clan, who would rather spend his days painting, making fine cuisine, or serenading his crushes with his singing. When the party meets him, he has been transformed into a giant frog thanks to his recent crush, the boy-crazy witch Nympho Manic. Breaking the curse allows him to keep the transformation, but when he returns to his kingdom, he discovers an imposter is masquerading as him, and the only person who seems to know is his sister Tepate. Even Tapeta doesn't seem to care as he never really enjoyed being a prince anyway. Later we discover his whole clan is laid back like this with most of the residents knowing the other guy was an imposter, but not really caring. Tapeta has a reputation as one of the worst party members, but he's honestly a bit of a lethal joke character. His magic is a weird Hodge podge of debuff spells, instant death magic and one lousy ice spell. In fact his most useful ability is Warp, which most players use to take him back to Township and replace him with someone better. But instant death magic is actually really good in this game, and he's one of only two party members who learns both spells. His attack power may be less than Sten's, but his critical hit rate is higher due to his better luck stat. Likewise, Tapeta has some funky weapon options that have some unique elemental properties and stat boosts. His fusion form is a powerhouse as well, with a great random encounter clearing attack, and better stats for dealing with endgame nasties. He's honestly one of the better characters to bring to the final dungeon. Course, I may just have a soft spot for the frog.
Aspara Gus (Spar in English)
Special Skill: Nature ~ Calls upon nature to help Aspara in battle (think geomancer skills)/ Sleep Powder ~ Sprays the enemy field with sleeping powder to put asleep, sometimes backfires on the team isntead / Bud ~ Sacrifice one turn to power up and spend the next four turn doing 2x damage to random enemies.
Field Skill: Forest Walk ` Let's you walk through forests on the map. Talk to World Trees
Element Affinity: Dark, Earth, and Water
Aspara is first met early in the game if you decide to venture into the traveling carnival tend and pay the zenny to see the show. They are the main attraction of the event, but when the party learns they need a Grassman Clan member to help them commune with a World Tree to se what's happening at Gate, they return to the carnival to get their help, only to learn the ring master is going to feed him to a monster instead to get better sales since no one cares about seeing a Grassman anymore. After saving their life, you learn that they could have escaped at any time and the whole quest to save them was a test of character to see if someone outside the clan was worthy to help them with the sinister forces affecting nature. Their clan are logical only with no real wonder of emotions. Aspara is the last story character to join your team an at first, feels like a major let down. They primarily learn buff/debuff magic with a few healing and elemental spells to round them out. Their stat pool is terrible, with most of their stats going towards HP/AP, and Wisdom (Mag. Def.). This leaves them feeling a bit underwhelming when they join. Not helping matters is how useless Nature is, since it only works in four environments and most of the post recruitment dungeons are in built or unnatural environments. So hat's the point of this character? Aspara is pretty much here to make the Shaman system look cooler and to annoy the player by how much potential the game doesn't live up to. In addition to an intermediary form like Nina and Sten, Aspara has three completely unique fusion forms. Their first form is the infamous Mushroom Nymph, which is honestly more popular than their base form. It is magic focused and changes Nature to Sleeping Powder instead. Their Snap Dragon form works like most party members Fusion forms, being a jack of all stats improvement and even keeps their Nature skill. Their most interesting form is the Seedling form, which likely served as the inspiration for another character in the next game. This form boosts their defense and attack power and gives them the Bud skill, which sounds useless unless you're in a boss fight. So you get some cool customization options here. Aspara is also one of the best characters to teach some of the potential spells in the game to. Partly because they have the AP to use it well, and partly because their base attack power and weapon pool is not great, so teaching them magic can offset this.
Deis (Bleu in English)
Special Skill: Shed ~ Restores all health for free, but inflicts Def. Down on her for the rest of the battle.
Field Skill: Char ~ Uses magic to kill all hunt targets on the field. Only gives you Charcoal as an item.
Element Affinity: None
Deis is actually a hidden party member you can recruit in this game. Unlike the first game, she is completely optional and doesn't factor much in cutscenes. She still gives you her thoughts in Township, but most of the time she would rather sleep. You recruit her by finding her old home in the desert near the Thieves Tomb Turns out she woke up and wandered off somewhere to learn about the world. Returning to the Magic Academy in Hometown, you can discover that she's infiltrated the school disguised as a regular student. Deis is a bit of an oddity as a party member. She starts off in her mid-thirties range and starts with all of the mid-tier magic, debuff spells, and the Death spell. She'll learn all of the game's final spell in the next four to five levels, meaning she'll likely be tossing Bolt X spells long before Nina can properly. The real clincher here is that Dies' stats are funky. You see, most characters get the bulk of their stat before Lv. 50, and then the increases after that are incredibly negligible. We're talking like getting five to eight extra point per stat between Lv. 50-99. You're better off using the cooking service to make stat boosting items. The exception to this rule is Deis. It's unknown if this is a bug, but Deis will get huge stat gains all the way to the final level. Hell she'll start hitting the cap on most of the stats when she reaches lv. 60 and by Lv. 99, she has more health and AP then Aspara and Rand. So she's quite a beast. The only real issue here is that she shares her niche and equipment pool with Nina, and there is only one set of their ultimate armor and weapon, so you'll have to decide who to bring, unless you're weird like me and use both.
The Other Important Characters:Mina Wyndia
Nina's younger sister and the source of Bosch's infatuation. Though she knows that Nina is her blood related older sister, she is not in the know about her exile or the superstitions surrounding her sister's black wings. She plays quite a bit of a role in the early game surrounding Ryu's first Ranger mission, and later when she gets kidnapped and is responsible for Nina joining the team. She doesn't appear again until later when Nina returns to Wyndia to undergo the trial to awaken her Clan's birthright of the Great Bird power. It seems that due to breeding outside of the clan, in addition to creating the black wing situation, it has also weakened the clans ability to use their Great Bird power as well, and turning into the bird is now a one way process that strips the person of their personality and makes them just a giant bird. After discovering the truth of Nina's situation and feeling bad about her ignorance of her sister's hardship, Mina ends up doing the ritual instead of Nina. This scene is so powerful, that it's the basis for the Japanese commercial for the game, and the pop idol song I mentioned earlier is more or less written from Mina's perspective. She's also the only non-Nina from the Wing Clan to gain character art in both the original and GBA port. So yeah, she's pretty popular in her own right.
Patty the Thief
A talented thief who likes to steal from bad people and prove her skills. Her most obvious physical feature is her bat like wings, which are bit of her trademark until her name is found. She is the cause of the original situation with Bosch when she beats him to Trout's treasure. The whole first third of the game is quest to find and capture her which ends in Swimmer's Castle, where she was caught and forced to help harvest the bugs and worms used for their food. She is later rescued from Trout by Bosch and Ryu who decide that Trout is the real enemy here. It is later revealed that she's the primary benefactor for the Resistance that is fighting the St. Eva Church and all her loot she steals is used to fund them. The party encounters her again in the Thieves Tomb where she gets caught in a trap but manages to escape with the tomb's main treasure anyway. Finally, it's revealed that she has a strong connection to the town of Gate and the Dragon sleeping there. Though never confirmed in the original game, but in later supplement materials. Patty is actually a teenage Yua, and thus Ryu's sister. Though neither Yua or Ryu ever discover the truth.Babadel/Bunyan
Though a minor character in this game, this guy is mainly here because he's sort of a legacy figure in that he appears again in the next two sequels. Babadel is called Baba in the English script and then renamed Bunyan in the sequels. He's a lumberjack who likes to fight. Ryu has to beat him so he can take his place at the coliseum so his role is pretty one-note in the game. He does appear in Rinpoo's intro sequence where you get to see the two fight.
Tigger
The only other member of the Woren tribe we see, and likely the basis for the Weretiger form in BoFIII. Tiga is the leader of the Resistance who has a fear of small spaces due to a childhood trauma. He's infamous among BoF veterans for his duel where he's an unwinnable fight that for years was rumored to be winnable. It's not, his HP i a funky number the game registers as infinite and he can only be killed by hacking the game. You don't get anything for it either. He ends up becoming infatuated with Rinpoo and almost convinces her to leave your team to help his, but eventually he realizes that he really has feelings for his subordinate Claris. His final moments in the game are both badass and terribly tragic.
Gigli Ziz & and the Shamans
The old Shaman with a new generation to research. It's unknown if Gigli is blood related to the other shamans or not, or simply if the Granny moniker they call her by is just used for affection by her students. She sends the Fire Shaman Sana to Capitan to find a schmuck to help with their experiments. Course Sana likes cute boys, and her proposition sounds much more like something Vice would arrest you for. Regardless, testing the fusion process on Ryu accidentally awakens his draconic powers and end sup burning their home to the ground. Undeterred, Gigli forces Ryu to set up their new home in Township. From there, the party begins to find the other shamans and send them to se good old Granny. Sana is the Fire Shaman and joins with Granny. Seso, the Water Shaman, is found turned into stone at Nympho's castle and will be freed once the party deals with the witch. Spoo, the Wind Shaman, is found in the Sky Tower and is the cause of the heavy fog in Fog Valley. Seny, the Holy Shaman is captured in Bando. You can either use a trick to reach her cell on the first trip through (stand on the switch for five minutes) or you can return after the evens at the Grand Cathedral and find her in the first cell. Solo is the Earth Shaman, the only one who looks different from the others, and the only missable one. When the party is tasked with going to Namanda to pray for a good harvest, the player needs to donate 2000 Zenny before they leave. After the events at the Grand Cathedral, the party can return to Rand's mother's farm to find her in the fields. Shin is the Dark Shaman and found by entering the final dungeon through one of the side entrances instead of the main one once the dungeon is accessible.
Nympho Mani
A boy crazy witch who scares most men. Her only real admirer is Tapeta to her disgust. She transforms people who upset her into stone, including a certain Shaman. Even after being defeated, she still plays a role in Tapeta's story line where the party has to reach the Wildcat Restaurant to meet her and discover she was trying to find a boyfriend to bring to the school reunion being held there. She's one of the more amusing side characters, even if her circumstances are pitiful.Gandaroof
The wisest and oldest of the World Trees, Gandaroof is being attacked by the demon Aruhamel to lose his memory which can be used to stop the demon invasion. He sends Aspara from the Grassmen tribe to find a valiant hero who can save them. He's a precursor to Yggdrasil, who plays a much larger role in the sequel. His memory dungeon is also a callback to the memory dungeons in the first game. His name is meant to be Gandalf and is a reference to the famous wizard.
Ganer Bateson
Ryu and Yua's father and a member of the St. Eva Church. He was stationed in the small town of Gate when he met the mysterious Valerie and fell in love. When the town was attacked by demons, Ganer fought them off but lost his wife. He then spent the next few years raising their children. While Ryu slept in the prologue, a dream demon invaded the town named Aruhamel, who captured Ganer and then erased the towns memories of the him and his family. He was then placed in a machine that drains life-force energy under the Great Cathedral of St. Eva. For the next ten years, his powers were drained to supply Deathevan with sustenance. Blinded and broken by the ordeal. He meets Ryu and his party ten years later when they infiltrate the basement. Begging to be killed, the player is given the option to save him by slowly dismantling the machine or killing him to make the fight easier. Saving him is needed to obtain the Golden Ending.
Valerie
Ryu and Yua's mother, and the wife of Ganer Bateson. Valerie is a member of the Dragon clan that live in the hidden city of Dragonier that lies under the city of Gate. The Dragon Clan, long since dedicated to stopping the birth of Deathevan into the world, sends Valerie to discover why the demons in Infinity are growing stronger and helping Deathevan to be born. Instead she falls in love and starts a family in Gate while still investigating the cause of the demonic power. She soon realizes that her son Ryu may be the Destined Child. When the demons attack Gate, she realizes their power had grown too strong and they were able to breach the seal her clan placed on Infinity. So she transformed herself into a dragon to reinforce the seal, but at the cost of keeping her in this form and sleeping forever. Despite being asleep, her magical powers allow her to sill occasionally communicate as she does with Yua through dreams, likewise she was able to keep track of Ryu's accomplishments as well.
Kaiser and Infinity
The return of both these powers. Kaiser get s face lift and takes on his most iconic form that he'll carry for later installments. His design gets the cool full wings and his head gains a more western full faced form than the very serpentine one from the first game. The form is granted when Ryu battles Ray to a battle to the death. The form max damage to all enemies on the field and his breath attack is much nicer version of the one seen in the first game.
Anfini is still considered the ultimate power of the Brood, but it doesn't create some badass fusion form in this one. Instead it has the power to bring the dead back to life based on the connections Ryu has with them. You gain this power by undergoing a trial in which Ryu is tasked with sacrificing one of his teammates. Choose wisely...
Villains:
Trout
A rich noble living in Hometown known for his greed. The theft of an item he stole from Kilgore kicks off the entire story. He was transformed into a demon by Deathevan due to his extreme greed. His boss fight even introduces the iconic Pilfer skill where he likes to steal Zenny from the party. He can actually be fought by Bosch alone if you make certain choices, or Ryu can help as well.
Aruhamel
A dream demon enlisted by Deathevan to help with the eventual invasion. Aruhamel is responsible for the people of Gate losing their memories of Ryu and his family as well as Gandaroof's memories of the demons themselves. He is finally battled in Gandaroof's memory dungeon where he reveals the truth about what really happened at Gate.
The Demons
An army of supernatural creatures that can feed on people's vices to transform them into monstrous creatures. Some demons are natural born like Aruhamel, but others like Trout, Augus, and Joker were once humans whose avarice allowed them to transform into the dark army. The demon race is different from monsters in that they are born from the malice of Myria herself. The creatures strive to give energy to their dark god Deathevan, who shall lead them to conquer the world and let the demons run amok. The nature of demons appears to be inspired by Shinto beliefs in the power of strong feelings that can be used to transform people into yokai or vengeful spirits.
Habalq V
The founder of the St. Eva Church. He is secretly a demon in disguise who uses the promise of eternal happiness to get people to pray to his master Deathevan. He is also Father Halq, the man who replaced Ganer as Gate's priest. He is a powerful sorcerer whose true form is a Mindflayer like entity. He found Ray Bradoc as a child and raised him once he discovered his true nature. Though he appears late in the story, he's responsible for a lot of the horror that plays out in the game's final chapters.
Ray Bradoc
A wandering priest of the St. Evrai Church. In truth Ray is a pretty good guy who is unaware of the true nature of his faith's goals. He encounters Ryu several times over the course of the story, even teaches one of his teammates magic. Sometimes they are allies, sometimes they are at odds. When Ray discovers the evil intentions of his foster father, Ray finally reveals to Ryu that he's a member of the Dark Dragon Clan, who had been orphaned and raised by Habalq V. Using his draconic powers, he allows Ryu to unlock the power of Kaiser. He is our next in line for the series tradition of fighting another member of the Dragon Clan, who is actually a friendly fellow. Barbaroi
The demon who haunts Ryu's nightmare and attacked him and Bosch in the cave as children. Barbaroi is monstrous demon who loves nothing more than battle. Despite all that, he's also one of the smartest and most noble of the demons. Sparing Ryu's life as child to fulfill his destiny to open the gate to Infinity. He also praises Ryu if you choose to duel him alone and win, offering up a hint to a great treasure nearby. His cool design and tough boss battle makes him a fan favorite among the demons. Interestingly enough, his name is Greek for Barbarian. For most fans of this entry, he's one of the fan favorite villains who gets more fan art than any other villain. Deathevan
The god of the St. Evrai Church and the source of demon kind. He initially takes the form of a human man named Evan, of whom the church is founded on. But his true form is a monstrous creature that pays homage to Myria's boss form from the first game. Deathevan was born from Myria's malice against the Dragon Clan and the world for rejecting her. He is the cause of the reunification of the Dark and Light Dragon clans, who discovered his existence and chose to seal themselves up in Infinity with Deathevan so they could monitor his growth and keep his spawn from causing too much damage. Due to initially being more spirit than flesh, the dragons are waiting for Deathevan to incarnate in physical form so that they can defeat him. Unbeknownst to them, Deathevan's servants reached the surface world and formed the St. Eva Church in order to foster the negative feelings to feed their god and power him up. Seeing the surge in demons, they send Valerie to the surface to investigate what is going on. Deathevan is arrogant and completely ignorant to the feelings of others, being perplexed by Ryu's party opposing him and then completely outraged when they dare strike him, but then defeat him as well. Deathevan is a major loose end within the Myria trilogy, and the subject to a whole number of fan theories and speculations. You see, Deathevan is implied to be one of those immortal types that can perpetuate as long as evil exists, yada yada type deals. The ending of BoFII revolves around the fact that he can't really be permanently put down, so sealing him is the only solution. The issue is that BoFIII, the finale of the Myria Saga pretty much doesn't even acknowledge his existence. This has lead some fans to speculate that people forgot about him and his race and thus he's still growing stronger under the surface, and even though Myria has been dealt with once and for all, he would return instead. Others theorize that he may have been re-absorbed or dealt with by Myria herself when she returned. The issue is we don't know, but it keeps him interesting considering how generic he is compared to other villains within the franchise.Misc:
Royal Sword/ Emperor's SwordOnce again, this weapon is Ryu's strongest sword in terms of raw damage, and once again, there is debate on whether it's Ryu's best weapon since the Dragon Blade gives +5 to most of his stats. On the other hand, the weapon has crazy high attack power (160 compared o the Dragon Blade's measly 125). The weapon casts S.Boom when used as an item, and BoFII begins the trend of making the weapon's association as Electric elemental with it's lightning spell and innate electric elemental typing. The sword is easily missed because it can only be found in a treasure chest located on a small strip of land northeast of where Township normally lies. You need Nina's Great Bird ability to land there since the Township can't fit, meaning you have to acquire this weapon before reaching Gate, the final town in the game. Secondly, that chest is stupidly heavy, so you'll need the Charm Rod to even be able to fish it out of the spot. This Rod can be found in a dresser by a small Inn outside of the Holy City of Evrai, which you won't be able to reach until nearly the end of the game.
Life ArmorThe strongest Armor in the game, and unlike the first entry, Sten and Jean can wear it too. It sill regenerates HP like Loto's Armor from Dragon Quest, but here the armor has a few hangups hat make it not as good as it could be. It has natural Holy defense, but Holy is the only elemental type most enemies don't use, so it's a waste. Likewise, the armor has a weight of 30, which makes it the fourth heaviest armor in the game and likely to significantly drop the agility of whoever wears it. As opposed to the Dragon Armor that has 2 less defense, resists fire, and has a weigh of 0; we can see that the Life Armor isn't quite as good for Ryu or even Sten. Jean on the other hand is a pretty decent choice since his Agility is abysmal anyway. This Armor can be obtained in a fishing spot located between Gate and the cave where Baruabry attacked child Ryu and Bosch. Like the Royal Sword, you'll need the Charm Rod to even stand a chance of lifting it out of the ocean.
Dragon TransformationsRyu will gain his ability to transform into Dragon Whelps due to a story event, and his ultimate Dragon form of Kaiser is attained in a similar way. What some players may not know, and lord knows I missed this myself my first playthrough is that Ryu has a second set of dragon transformations hat allow him o change into the adult forms of the Whelps. They work the same way as all other dragon forms and heir attack is set to a specific threshold that gets weaker the less AP Ryu has when he transforms. What some people don't realize is that the forms are bugged and are all non-elemental despite their names. This is both a curse and a blessing as all three forms are basically the same, so just use the one who has your favorite animation, but this also means you don't have to worry about wasting the attack on a boss with the elemental defense. On the other hand, this also means the Whelps have a little more longevity, because if you happen o know the bosses elemental weakness, then the Whelps end up doing comparable damage.
To obtain the Dragon Forms, you need Jean and his giant Frog transformation. Use it to climb the waterfall near Simafort and you'll discover a cave with a mysterious man connected to the Dragon Clan who will grant you the form. What's amusing about this is that Simafort is the literal next location you visit after obtaining the Whelp forms. So you can actually acquire the better transformations and never even touch the Whelp forms.
Town BuildingFirst introduced in this entry. Ryu and Bosch meet an old man in some ruins early in the game, and when Bosch is on the run from the law, he stays with him to help rebuild the shack. Later, due to Ryu discovering his Dragon powers and burning down the Shaman's homes, you are given the option of finding a carpenter in Capitan to help build them a new home next to your base of operations, and from there he builds a town for you as well that you can fill with various NPCs who open special stops, raise stats, teach abilities or do nothing at all. You get three options for the design of your town, but only one is often cited as the best. Which carpenter is available is determined by how many residents you save during the initial visit to Capitan and each one gives a different look to your town and grants a special feature. The Normal House Carpenter opens a kitchen where his wife can cook items to make stats boosting and rare healing items. This one is considered the must have option. The Mughal Carpenter who builds Taj Mahal looking buildings opens a bar where the various NPC there with tell you cool statistics about your playthrough. The Tree house Carpenter builds a gambling hall where you can use the Tolen items to play a game that's reminiscent of Othello for special equipment.
You can later have a total of six houses put up that you can place one NPC in. The trick here is that only four specific NPCs can go into a particular house, and once the house if filled, you're stuck with them. Likewise, if you check the well in the town, you'll discover a strange machine. If you recruit two specific NPCs that are not associated with the Houses, you can turn your town into a flying fortress you can use to roam the map similar to the Gardens in FFVIII. This is required to get the Golden Ending, speaking of...
Breath of Fire II begins the trend of giving the games multiple endings based on choices you make and quests you complete. The game has three endings. Spoiler warning.
Multiple Endings
The Bad Ending - Tell the Dragon Clan you're not ready o break the seal to stop Deathevan. Ryu's party gives a slight reprieve from Deathevan's influence but Ryu waits too long and the seal is broken by force in a later generation. With no Destined Child o save them, Deathevan transforms the world in a hell on earth for demon kind.
The Normal Ending - Battle Deathevan without completing the Township quest. Ryu and the party manage to kill Deathevan, but as Ryu leaves the entrance to Gate, he realizes Deathevan can't be permanently put down, so instead Ryu takes a chapter from his mother's playbook and permanently transforms into Kaiser and enters a deep permanent sleep resting on top of the mountain that seals Dragonier and Deathevan to seal it away forever. Your party you brought for the final dungeon will then react to Ryu's choice and Katt and Nina will both have gut wrenching admissions to the sleeping Ryu if you brought them along and maxed out their Dragon Tear meters. I personally prefer this ending the most and it sort of aligns better with the series tendency to have bittersweet endings.
The Golden Ending - Complete the Township quest line by exploring the well in Township to discover a strange device at the bottom of it. You then need to recruit Eichichi from the optional town of Guntz by telling her about the machine. She will come to the town to study it. When the party raids Evrai, you'll encounter a blind and weakened Ganer in the basement, who is hooked up to a machine and being drained of his life force. He asks the party to kill him, bu if you destroy the machine instead, you can rescue him and bring him back to Township. Eichichi will then discover that the device in the basement is similar to the one at Evrai, and Ganer will volunteer o use his life force in the machine that allows it to fly, giving you a different global airship. Finish the game as normal as to get the normal ending. Before Ryu can make the sacrifice to seal away Deathevan, Ganer takes control of Township and crashes it down on top of the mountain, sealing Deathevan in Ryu's place. From here Ryu is allowed to continue living a peaceful life with his friends.
References and Cameos:
- The obvious is the return of Deis who is a hidden party member in this game.
- The monstrous Chiroru creatures that have taken over Capitan and possessed the villagers are an obvious reference to Alien and the face huggers.
- Danc and Gilliam can be found on Monster Island which begins our tradition of BoF cameos.
- Monster Island itself is a reference to the same island made famous in the Godzilla franchise. The giant versions of the monsters usually start with an A initial that is suppose to mean Atomic.
- Gandaroof is meant to be Gandalf, and a homage to the characters. In fact, many of the supporting cast are named after famous characters from other Sci-Fi/ fantasy novels.
- The teacher at the Magic School is called Yoji, but his Japanese spelling is the same used for Yoda in the Star Wars films.
- All of the members of the Resistance are named after the cast of Winnie the Pooh.
- Nina from Breath of Fire 1 makes a cameo a herself and for actual plot reasons in the Ft. Wyndia story arc.
- The Riddle Man in the traveling circus takes all of his riddles from J.R.R. Tolkein's The Hobbit.
Next Up: Ryu is a good dragon!
Last edited by Wolf Kanno; 01-02-2026 at 12:16 AM.
True beauty exists in things that last only for a moment.
Current Mood: Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog Where no one notices the contrast of white on white And in between the moon and you, the angels get a better view Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right
So in 1994, Capcom popped out a quick sequel to a surprise success known as Breath of Fire II and the game did modestly well. It even managed to get a cult following overseas despite the botched translation. So Capcom does what Capcom does best and told the team to start working on a third entry. On September 11th 1997, the world finally got to see Breath of Fire III at the beginning of the global RPG boom started earlier in the year by the release of Final Fantasy VII.
There is not a whole lot to know about the game's development, in fact we don't even know when it actually started as some sources say it started development in 97, while the team mention in another interview they started planning for the game in 94 after BoFII's release. I imagine it was the latter as what we do know about the development is that it was a bit troubled and had several delays. These were caused by story and character design changes that happened all the way until late in the game's development. This becomes fairly obvious as the official artwork and the sprite designs are not similar at all except for Momo and Peco. Nina and Garr get hit the hardest. Likewise, there are a few weird plot elements in the early game like Ryu's dream where he sees Adult Teepo and how Teepo knows his name that are never really explained. If I had to make a guess, I have a feeling the changes likely occurred due to the influence of Final Fantasy VII, at least for the art direction changes. Tatsuya Yoshikawa returned as the main artist for the game from II and looking at his early designs for the game that several of the sprites are based on, it's obvious he was pulling from his design work from BoFII with more intricate armor and clothing design and almost shojo inspired designs for the three main kid characters. Then you look at his official designs and we see something that feels sharper, more streamlined, and with a heavier emphasis on strong silhouettes and maturity. There's no proof about this as interviews don't really say much about these changes.
Makoto Ikeharu comes back as the main writer once again and has now taken over as director. From here on, the series is now officially his baby as he would continue to direct and write the next two installments. He's pretty coy in interviews when asked about his process, largely saying he only wants to make the game's fun and says he'll rewrite the script to work around any of the great ideas that Tatsuya Kitabayashi, the game's main programmer, and his team come up with. With that said, Ikehara and the team talked about the struggles with using a silent protagonist and the tough choice to give Ryu a voice (the game introduces minor voice acting in battles with yells and attack names) as well as mentioning the game being a conclusion to the Myria cycle of the first two entries. Likewise, it is here he reveals that part of the reason this game kind of makes the trilogy feel a bit disjointed is due to a choice to make the game more accessible to new players, so direct references to the previous two installments are very few and far between in order to not alienate new players into thinking they have to play the first two installments to understand the plot, though he did make sure to leave several nods for long time fans. Also, BoFIII leans more into the darker elements than the previous installments and actually brings up more philosophical discussions on the story's themes. Though Ikehara is mum on why he went this direction, but I feel as we look into the future installments that this might have been something he always wanted to do with the series.
The game is set some untold time after the events of Breath of Fire II, in the distant past, known as the Age of Machines, God declared war on the evil Dragon Clan, now collectively called the Brood. The war devastated the world but in the end God and her servants the Guardians managed to wipe the dragons from the world. But even though the Brood are no more, they still influence the world in the form of the crystal Chrysm their corpses transformed into after their death and decay. Chrysm is a major power source of the modern era that is now being used to power the machines the world is slowly beginning to being back after centuries in medieval stasis. When our story begins we meet two miners named Gilliam and Mogu who are a shout out to the same characters from Breath of Fire 1. While digging in the mine of Duane, they come across what they believe was the corpse of a baby dragon frozen in the Chrysm. When their equipment sets it free, they discover to their horror that the dragon welp is very much still alive as it proceeds to burn the two to a crisp and causes a panic in the mines, killing several miner before it is apprehended. The dragon is captured and to be sent away to be studied but the dragon welp managed to knock its cage off the rail system it was one and crashes into Cedar Woods, just outside of McNeil Village.
Here we are introduced to a young orphan from the Woren Clan named Rei who comes across the cage the dragon was in and an unconscious, blue haired, naked boy about to be eaten by wolves. Rei saves the child and brings him back to his small makeshift fort in the woods where he lives with another orphan named Teepo. The unconscious boy has a dream where he is spoken to an older version of Teepo who knows his name as well as an angelic woman who pities the poor child. The boy awakens, remembers he is named Ryu thanks to the young Teepo, and joins the pair of orphans who make their living robbing the local villagers to survive. The trio are not well liked by the locals, but they put up with the trio due to understanding they are orphans. Their luck changes when the village has to deal with a monster damaging the crops and terrorizing the village itself causing a scarcity in food and money. The trio try to rob a local lumber jack named Babadel (Bunyan in the English script and essentially the same character from BoFII) who lives nearby. Bunyan opts to teach the boys a lesson about earning an honest living by sending Rei off to deal with the monster terrorizing the village while Teepo and Ryu help chop wood for Bunyan. Defeating the monster changes their relationship with the town and the three start to feel like local heroes for a bit. This gets used against them when a local con man convinces the three to rob the local mayor McNeil who he claims taxes the town too much. But this act completely backfires because the high taxes are due to an extortion fee the town pays since McNeil has connections to the settings mafia. Not happy about the boys playing Robin Hood, the mob sends their resident leg breaker Balio and Sunder of the Horse Clan to burn their home down and kill the boys. Ryu barely escapes with his life by falling unconscious into the river. Distraught, he tries to look for his friends, who he believe are still alive somewhere, but he runs into the pair and transforms into a dragon before being defeated and captured.
Hoping to make a quick zenny off their discovery, the two try to sell Ryu in his dragon state to the King of Wyndia, but by the time they try to show him off, Ryu has awakened and returned to his human form. Thinking the three are charlatans, he has all three put in jail. The king's young daughter, Princess Nina feels sorry for the boy, feeling like he was bullied into helping and takes it upon herself to free him but is also tricked into freeing Balio and Sunder as well who decide to kidnap and ransom Nina. Ryu manages to distract them long enough for the two kids to escape and Nina, after hearing Ryu's story, decides to help him look for his friends. Unfortunately, the two are chased across the kingdom of Wyndia by the pair of gangsters hoping to capture Nina. Along the way, they meet a machine researcher named Momo whose father built the Chrysm factory used to grow crops for the kingdom and helping her deal with a mutant plant there, the group encounters a strange onion like mutant named Pecoro who also joins them. Finally the group are forced by the Balio and Sunder to enter a fighting tournament run by the mob where the team faces off against the champion, a Guardian named Garland who easily defeat the group but after seeing Ryu transform, chooses to go with the team to help Ryu understand his Brood nature better by going to a holy site called Angel Tower. Here it is revealed that Garland had been a participation in the Brood's genocide and plans to kill Ryu, who he believes is the last of their kind, but Ryu in his anger at the betrayal transforms into the Kaiser Dragon and easily defeats Garr before disappearing.
The game jumps several years later with Garr traveling to the Duane Mines on rumors of another dragon sighting, and sure enough the dragon turns out to be Ryu who has now grown into a teenager. Garland apologies for the incident years before and asks Ryu to help him with his crisis of fate. This is because Ryu proved to Garr that had the Brood really wanted to, they could have easily overpowered the guardians and wiped them out and instead allowed themselves to be hunted to extinction. Now Garr wishes to speak with his God to learn why the Brood really had to die if they weren't actually a threat. From here the second half of the game occurs as Ryu and Garr try to get the band all back together and we even get answers to what happened to Rei and Teepo. The group also encounter series favorite Deis who fills them all in on what really happened back in the great Brood War. The group uncover that the world is being kept in a bit of stasis by the Goddess Myria, who has changed from her manipulative chaotic evil child self from BoF1 into a manipulative, controlling mother figure who feels she has to save the lesser races from destroying themselves with machines and dragons.
Being on the PlayStation and the first CD-ROM entry, the staff was excited that they could seriously flex their muscles more in the design portion. While the team certainly ventured into 3D like a lot of developers did in this era, the team opted to stick to their strengths and chose 2D models over 3D backgrounds a la Xenogears over FFVII and Resident Evils 3D models on 2D backgrounds. This works really well for the game as Capcom's sprite work is pretty much at it's zenith during this time frame even when looking at other games in their repertoire like the Mega Man franchise or Street Fighter Alpha. 3D was largely used for backgrounds and spell effects giving the game a curious pop to it from the juxtaposition of the two art styles.
The gameplay is also completely overhauled with several new mechanics that build off of elements from BoFII and expanded in some amazing ways. BoFII had a town mechanic where you could recruit towns folks who could teach the party spells or raise their stats permanently and this became the basis for the game's new Master System which fundamentally works like a better thought out version of FFVI's Esper system. The party can encounter Master's around the world and apprentice themselves under them. This will alter the character's stats on level ups allowing squishy mages to get some needed HP and defense or fighters some needed spells and magic defense. Likewise you could also apprentice them onto someone with a similar stat growth and watch as they become even more specialized. Some masters even grant secondary bonuses like improved accuracy, boosts or weaknesses to certain elements and status protection. In addition, the Master's also teach the apprentice a skill every few levels that often correspond to the Master in some way. The most infamous being the pacifist Durandel who teaches only non-lethal attacks. Some masters teach formation skills as well. In BoFII once you got a full team, you could go into the menu and change the party formation to one that offered more defense or one that improved offense. This mechanic is expanded in III with the aforementioned ones from II but also new one like one that makes the party speed the same as the point person or one that grants the team a regen bonus.
The other two new mechanics introduced in III was Examine and EX Turns. Examine is a move where a party member sacrifices their turn to watch an enemy and potentially learn a skill from them similar to a Blue Mage in FF but not as a passive ability. Master's only cover about half the spells and abilities in the game, but the other half can be acquired by observing monsters and learning the skill though it’s never guaranteed and powerful skills or ones from Master's tend to have lower odds of being acquired this way. You can also use the new camp function to trade skills among the party offering the series best level of customization. The camp also lets you rest and talk to the other party members to get clues on where to go next and hear their thoughts on the plot.
EX Turns is a new mechanic where if a party members speed is higher than the monsters then that party member gets a second attack after the initial turn to do a follow up move. This is why the Speed formation is useful as you can take a character who naturally gets EX Turns like Rei or Nina and give them to slower characters like Garr and Peco, allowing for maximum damage. It's also the reason why Speed is often considered the best stat in the game and why Meryleep is often considered one of the best masters. Besides agility, the weight of your gear also matters. Weight was a minor mechanic in the previous installment where some equipment would drop your agility due to being heavy. The same applies here, but EX Turns gives this mechanic more weight (pun intended) and there are some heavy gear that gives good bonuses like the Midas Stone that increases Zenny earned in battle but will likely drop your character to zero agility. Garr's Beast Spear is another infamous example, being his strongest weapon but also his heaviest.
Finally, we have Ryu's new Dragon Gene system. The system tries to find a nice balance from the first two games with making dragon forms powerful and useful like they were in the first game, but giving them a handicap like in II to balance them out. The way it works is that Ryu can find special dragon genes left in Chrysm around the world and use them to alter his base dragon form. There are elemental genes that let him change his element to one of the game's six major elements; there are support genes that alter the stats granting more emphasis on attack power, defense, or magical abilities. Finally, there are specialty genes that either cause unique effects or transform Ryu's into unique forms. In fact there are several unique dragon forms and variations on a few of them that alter stats or abilities for Ryu. Each gene come at a cost and Ryu can only use three at the same time with the costs stacking to the final cost of the form. Once transformed though, Ryu stays in the form as long as he has the AP to sustain it, so every round of combat ends with Ryu losing a tenth of the total transformation cost. If Ryu runs out of AP or gets knocked into critical or unconscious states, he will also lost the form. The forms boost his stats dramatically and they all come with unique breath attacks and special spells and skills giving Ryu a plethora of abilities. The only downside of the system is that it does make Ryu a bit of a game breaker by himself, especially once Behemoth and Warrior forms become available as these forms can pretty much solo the game if you've developed Ryu well enough with the Master system. Still its one of the more fun mechanics of the game and gives Ryu III the most customization options out of any Ryu from the series.
Mini-games have also been overhauled with the town building mechanic being transformed into the infamous Faerie Village side quest. During the game, the party encounters a village of faeries that need saving and afterwards you can help them rebuild their home with a poor man's Sim City builder where you assign faeries to hunt for food, build houses, and come up with job. As long as you can keep the food up to stabilize the population you can eventually give the faeries jobs like opening specialty armor shops, a free inn, a music test, and other fun things. Its really fun to play around with and is more flexible than II's Township quest since you can always change around all of the jobs whenever you feel like it.
Fishing is also more robust and frankly could be considered a full-fledged game for its complexity. The Manillo Shops have also been overhauled with the Manillo now trading fish for items instead of taking Zenny so it feeds into itself where fishing more can be beneficial for free healing items and as currency to buy better items. To give you an idea of how robust it is, the best rod of the game only unlocks after you beat the final boss and load a save, because the developers were confident players would come back just to play it. It really is one of the best versions in the series. Oddly enough BoFIII doesn't bring back hunting.
The game has other challenges and mini-games as well that are usually locked behind puzzles in dungeons or in some infamous cases, story points. My favorite is a game where you have to train a wimp to fight his bully by kicking the crap out of him to raise his stats. The most infamous is one that involves making a Japanese delicacy for a picky eater. This one involves hunting down the ingredients including some fish and then you have to make it using prompts. Passing the quest to move on with the story is challenging, making it perfect to acquire the best prize the one time you do it is a nightmare.
Finally, we get to the musical score of the game, and surprise, surprise the game received a new composer, again. This time we got Akari Kaida as the main composer whom cut her teeth on Capcom's arcade ports to consoles, namely Street Fighter Alpha and Darkstalkers. She was assisted by Yoshino Aoki who had previously worked on the PS1/Sega Saturn ports of Mega Man X3 as an arranger for the original score.. Kaida has said that she took one look at Breath Of Fire III's designs and gameplay and felt that it would work well with a more experimental soundtrack. Her background was in jazz piano and so she opted to bring those skills to the game. Aoki's background was in more classical music but she was a prodigy playing various instruments since she was a child including piano, flute, and the synthesizer. The idea was to go against the grain of what their contemporaries were doing in the genre and move away from big orchestral arrangements and instead make a more pop and jazz lounge vibe to the score. It was a controversial decision and ended up being one of the more hated aspects of the game at the time. Thankfully, time has been much kinder to the score and modern fans appreciate the score more because it was so different from the norm of the genre and it gave the game a very mellow and laid back vibe that fit the visual style very well. The duos are also the singers on the game's vocal track Pure Again.
In the story department, BoFIII is a bit more poignant and has more to say on its themes and characters than previous installments thanks to the hardware boost of CD-Roms and the PlayStation. Ikehara might be coy about his writing, but I feel it was obvious even back in BoFII that he wanted to take the series into a more serious direction and now that he was in the director's chair he could make the series how he wanted. BoFIII has some similarities to another older franchise that exploded during the PS1 era, and that's Metal Gear Solid. Both games took the mythos of their previous installments that were often a bit goofier and re-contextualize the events with a darker meaning through their current scenarios. This of course retcons some stuff, but overall I feel its better to see Myria be seen as a person who saw the power of the dragon clan and was terrified of their power so much she tricked them into fighting amongst themselves rather than just a chaotic evil demon child playing tricks on dragons. It also gives us closure on her threat of returning to the story in a big way. Along the way we deal with themes of the nature of Power and what is it even good for, while addressing minor story beats like GMOs and using science to manipulate nature, does progress for the sake of knowledge justify the potential consequences it can enact, and questions about the nature of life itself and the justification for existence itself. Yet Ikehara still does his best to keep the story with the same comical tone as the earlier entries as well. As heavy handed as that all sounds, the game usually has a gag scene or some silly quest to pull you back to the fun part of gaming; the game doesn't take itself as serious as the next two installments do.
Breath of Fire III's legacy is as the high point of the series which it earned by just being a pretty well done game with a lot of content to play with and also by being released in the first year after FFVII kick started the global JRPG Boom of the late 90s. Interesting enough, BoFIII was originally not even going to get a number and just be called Breath of Fire since the devs knew a lot of gamers would be going into the game blind and not be aware of the 16-bit era titles. To further this, BoFIII is unique among the series for being the only entry without a subtitle in Japanese. It's simply just called Breath of Fire III worldwide.
So let's look at our cast, which is the second smallest in the series.
The Party
breathoffire3_conceptart_SpBsY.jpg
Ryu
Clan: Brood (Dragon)
Field Skill: Sword Slash - Used for cutting grass to find items.
Combat Role: Combat Medic
Abilities: Ascension (dragon transformation) and healing magic.
Best Masters: Any, but special mention goes to Bunyan, Deis, Ladon, and Giotto.
The heir and last of the Brood, or at least he's told. We get to really spend time with this Ryu as he goes from a child to a teen over the course of the whole game. My favorite aspect of him is that when he a child and first getting into combat, he's afraid of fighting and will just flail his sword around, it's only after he loses his friends that he gains the confidence to fight more seriously. While he is still a mute, this Ryu has a lot of personality as the devs let him emote more than previous incarnations and they like to add funny bits if you watch him in the background of scenes where he's not the main focus. Ryu takes after his previous incarnations and is defined by his selflessness and ability to forgive others. He saves Nina's life several times in the childhood arc and is willing to forgive Garr for trying to kill him. Unfortunately for this Ryu, he's also put into a lot of situations where he has to make questionable choices and learns a lot of hard lessons, which I feel gives credence to the choices he ultimately makes at the game's end.
In game, Ryu is the true all-rounder of the team. While his stat spread leans slightly towards defense and melee options, he can actually be built into anything the player wants, his stat gains are so high compared to the other party members that he's not as badly affected by steep stats decreases like other party members can be. His ascension ability is broken as hell but get balanced a bit by making Ryu the best healer in the game ironically. So you sometimes have to decide if keeping the team alive is more important than just letting him dragon out. Your best bet is to send Ryu down the offensive melee route, so Master's like Bunyan and Hachio are good for him. Due to the nature of Breath skills, and HP/AP values in Dragon form, Ryu actually benefits from using Giotto who will tank all your normal stats for boosts to HP/AP without too much damage to his other stats. By endgame though, Ladon and Deis are his best options. I also recommend giving him the Steal ability from D'lonzo as Ryu is always in your party.
Teepo
Clan: Brood (Dragon)
Field Skill: Kick - allows Teepo to kick items out of trees and kick rocks and other small objects around the field for puzzles.
Combat Role: Sword Mage
Abilities: Fire and Ice magic with access to the powerful Wind Fire spell Simoon.
Best Masters: Mygas
Teepo is an incorrigible rogue who doesn't really mind being a petty thief. He loves his two "brothers" Rei and Ryu and will do whatever it takes to help them. He likes to act tough but in the child section of the game, he's usually just as scared as Ryu when dealing with ghosts and things. His mouth usually gets him in a lot of trouble. In a twist of the Dark Dragon parallel the series loves to use where Ryu will eventually have to face off against a dark counterpart to him, Teepo is that figure and he's playable to boot. While Teepo has the best stat growth of any character, his stats in the early game are similar to Ryu's just with more points in strength than defense. Likewise, Teepo specializes in offensive magic whereas Ryu specializes in healing. He only get access to Mygas in his section of the game but the boost to AP is welcome due to how powerful magic is in the early game. Teepo is also the biggest victim of the story changes made to BoFIII. Early demo screenshots and unused voice clips in the game's code show that Teepo was meant to have survived with Ryu after the battle with Balio and Sunder and would have accompanied Ryu and Nina as far as the Eastern Checkpoint due to the screenshots, an likewise, while he does get two mid-tier spells at high levels for his portion of the game, his unused voice clips show that he was meant to use some other spells and abilities that are not available to him anymore. We can only speculate what his role would have been in the early game. Interesting to note is that while Ryu is looking for him and Rei, the clues we get about them being potentially alive strongly point to it being Teepo that they are following the trail of.
As for his role as Ryu's dark doppelganger in the second half of the game, Teepo is a tragic figure who ends up losing his brothers; Teepo goes looking for them and winds up falling into the hands of Myria herself. We know from his brief flashback at their reunion that Teepo also awakened his dragon powers after the battle which is how he survived. Likely being afraid of what he is, he was easy to convince by Myria that his powers were evil and to allow himself to be raised by her in Caer Xhan. Teepo also seems to have some access to dream magic as he was able to trap the party in a dream world when he first encounters them again, and the opening of the game has his adult self-visiting young Ryu in his dreams. This is never really explained unfortunately. His dragon boss fight is very tragic, especially if you bring Rei along as well and Ryu can steal the series staple Dragon Blade from him as well. His Dragon lord form is also bad ass and a bit of a shout out to Emperor Zorgon from Breath of Fire 1. In both his child and adult forms, his sprite is the same as Ryu's just with a different head and color palette.
Rei
Clan: Woren
Field Skill: Lockpick - Allows Rei to open locked doors.
Combat Role: Thief
Abilities: Pilfer, Weretiger, Lighting and Death magic.
Best Masters: Bunyan, Deis, Ladon.
An orphan tasked with raising two other orphans. Rei tries to make the most of every situation. He has a fun catch phrase in the form of "Doesn't that beat all" when dealing with situations he doesn't understand. Unbeknownst to Teepo or Ryu, but known by Bunyan, Rei has the ability to transform into a Were-tiger that greatly increases his power and speed at the cost of him losing himself. This is why Bunyan sent him to fight the Nue alone in the early part of the game and why he's not happy to see Teepo or Ryu since he's too afraid to use the form in case he attacks the kids. After losing both of them to the mob, Rei has a break down and begins to embrace this power so he can get revenge on the mafia while he tries to uncover who their boss is. He's shocked when he later reunites with Ryu as adults and even more disturbed when he discovers his Brood powers. Rei questions his power and why he has it throughout the game, his were-tiger form being a source of fear and anxiety for him. He's less optimistic in his adult form, being made pretty hard over the years from his quest for revenge and dumbfounded when he witnesses Ryu's power and how effortlessly he helps defeat the crime boss Mikba. Funny enough, if you team him up with Momo for story scenes the two bicker constantly which is a fun allusion to the fact his Woren Clan are cat people and her Grassrunner clan are dog people.
In battle, Rei is a fragile speedster having the highest agility of the party. His offense isn't bad and he actually has a pretty good spell selection as lightning magic is very useful for the robot heavy second half of the game and like BoFII, Death magic is surprisingly more useful than you would think. He also gets a few useful buff spells that he speed helps to get on the party quickly. His HP and defense are not great though, as even in the child portion, Teepo and Ryu will quickly catch up and surpass his hp and defense once they reach similar levels to him. He does come with the pilfer skill which is very nice for thief lovers and I find it often has a better success rate than Steal. In terms of Masters, Rei gets the most mileage out of offensive masters like Bunyan and Hachio who give nice boosts to HP and defense without sacrificing his speed too much. With that said, his magic selection is actually nice, so I feel Deis is another good option to raise his strength and AP but it does double down on his fragile part of his build since his defense and a will tank. Rei often get s a bit of a bad rep with some players as he is one of the earliest playable party members but then is MIA for half the game leaving some players to bench him for other players. I feel the devs knew this would happen which is why his recruitment section is dungeon heavy and the final dungeon requires his lock picking skills. Rei's biggest gameplay feature and his trump card is his Were-tiger form which massively boosts all of Rei's strength and HP and transforms him into essentially Tigger from BoFII. The form does have a catch though, Rei can't control it really well and will usually go berserk and start targeting everything on the battle field, including the party. This can be mitigated if you bother to learn the enemy skill Influence which allows another party member to choose a confused or berserk characters target for them. But this does essentially remove a third character from doing anything but that. It is still powerful enough to be useful though. If you put the time into him, Rei is honestly one of the best party members and great with the Chain Formation in offensive builds.
Nina
Clan: Wing
Field Skill: Magic Shot - Used to hit switches from a distance or power up machines.
Combat Role: Battle Mage
Abilities: Elemental and debuff Magic
Best Masters: Yggdrasil, Mygas, Hondars, Deis, and Emitai.
BoFIII's Nina is one of the most divisive in the western fanbase. It doesn't help she has to follow up one of the most beloved Nina's in the series and followed by one of the more even tempo incarnations. Nina as a child can be kind of grating if you're not talking to all the NPCs and looking at the situation from a big picture perspective. Nina is constrained by her controlling parents, especially her mother who confines her to the castle in fear of her being hurt or taken from her. This has lead Nina to see herself not as a person but as an object to be protected. So Nina wants to be recognized for being herself and not just seen as a princess. Unfortunately, being trapped in the castle all her childhood surrounded by adoring good natured spirits means that Nina is dangerously naive about the world which plays a large part in her holding the idiot ball throughout the childhood arc as her actions often come at the expense of the party despite having the best intention. She's also the main cause of a lot of shenanigans the party finds themselves in due to her wanting to help others. Her adventures with Ryu and the others in the childhood arc serves her well because by the Adult Arc, she has become more confident and proactive with her role within the kingdom as she's reunited with Ryu and the others while arresting Mayor McNeil while working on breaking up the mob. Her revelations in the dream world sequence at the end also shows how much she's grown by seeing how she only latched onto Ryu and his quest for her own selfish gain to feel better about herself despite being way over her head. Like Teepo and Ryu, Nina is a victim of the some of the design changes made halfway through the game's development as her sprites look nothing like her character illustrations outside of the early ones. Her adult form is the most blatant example. Lore wise, Nina has the distinction of being one of the last Wyndians to have wings as the only other member of her clan who has them is an older servant who remarks how no one has obtain them since hi generation. Likewise, Nina's wings are too small and weak to let her fly with them. Fans have long speculated this was a result of the ancestors of the clan mingling with the dragon clan.
In battle, Nina is a character who peaks early and unfortunately, a lot of the game's newer mechanics combined with some of the older ways they kept put her an unenviable position. Magic is a great asset early on in the game and even still has uses when dealing with large groups of enemies, but due to magic having poor scaling with intelligence, Nina will start seeing diminishing returns the further you get into the game. This isn't to say Nina is a bad character, as mentioned she's a powerhouse in the early game and as long as you protect her AP growth, she can stay that way for most of the game. Nina learns most of the elemental magic in the game and is extremely useful in places where elemental weaknesses can be exploited like the volcano dungeon or the robot heavy third act but weirdly enough she doesn't learn fire magic, instead she has the Fire-Wind spells like Simoon and Sirocco which are both fantastic spells but not great if an enemy resists one of the elements. Thankfully you can teach her a few fire elemental skills to balance this out with the Examine mechanic. A disproportionate amount of enemy skills tend to be fire based. She also gets some debuff spells but I find they are less effective than enemy skills like Bite or Mindflay in inflicting the status effects in addition to doing some damage. Nina's best spell option in the game is Mind Sword, learn from Emitai, due to the spell scaling better with Intelligence and attacking an enemy’s defense stat instead of intelligence. Even then, Nina's is mostly useful for softening up enemies for your serious damage dealer. Her best Master options are Yggdrasil, Emitai, Hondara, and Deis since none of them hurt Nina's agility stat and all grant some great AP boosts. It might not be a bad idea to have her spend time with Fahl for a few levels just to give her some better HP and defense.
Momo
Clan: Grassrunner
Field Skill: Gun Blast - Uses her bazooka to blow up walls and obstructions on the field.
Combat Role: Combat Medic
Abilities: Healing, Support, and Earth Magic.
Best Masters: D'lonzo, but also Deis, Bunyan, and Ladon.
Momo is an interesting character due to her own subplot often hijacking the story before it eventually gets revealed that it is connected to Ryu and Garr's journey. She's a Grassrunner like Bosch from II, but as we'll learn, female Grassrunners tend to have human appearances and an animal feature strapped on them that isn't too distracting. In Momo's case, its her fluffy ears most people mistake for being feathers in her cap and her canine like button nose. The only daughter of the scientist Repsol, Momo grew up studying machines and having a love and faith in science, but she has no real interest in anything else and easily gets distracted when she finds a new machine to tinker with. She's very much an absent minded professor type, but also one sporting a bazooka that fires magic. Her father developed the Plant in his youth which uses Chrysm to enhance crop yields; but problems keep arising at the Plant as strange mutant plants start appearing. Momo takes it upon herself to save her father's legacy and to help his old research partner who runs the place. She's not exactly prepared for what she finds or the betrayal that is coming for at the end of her personal story arc. She has to spend part of her time rectifying the fact her father was involved in some unsavory acts of science in his youth and this begins to alter her own views on what science is good for. Momo's other reasons to help Ryu is because his journey will take him past steel beach, a place where machines wash up on shore that people use to enhance their lives. She hopes to find the origin of machines by traveling to the other side of the Outer Sea. Momo is also accompanied by her friend Honey, a small robot she's had since she was a child and is her closest friend that only she understands. Honey winds up being very important to both Momo and Ryu's journeys due to her connections to the ancient civilizations of the past. In the dream world, Momo also feels out of depth with Ryu's journey and instead focuses on her own journey to discover where the machines come from and see if it is possible for people to reclaim the ability to create machine son their own again. She's overwhelmed as well by the ruins of the old world like Caer Xcan and Station Myria. As mention before, if you have Momo and Rei working together with you on the Black Ship, you'll get a scene where Momo's impulsiveness and tendency to blow up problems she doesn’t have time to figure out causes a disaster that Rei never lets her live down and causes the two to bicker a lot when together, though this is likely a reference to their clans effectively being dogs and cats respectively. This has not stopped fans from using these elements to ship them together.
In battle, Momo is easily the second best party member behind Ryu. This is due to her versatility and being able to use the full force of the skill system to build her however you want her. While she doesn't have the best HP or natural defense, she can equip heavier armor than Nina and even Rei which offset this. She uses a damn bazooka as her weapon, which hits as hard as Ryu and Garr's normal attacks unless you really push their strength stats. And unlike all the other characters, her different ammo she uses for weapon upgrades doesn't affect her speed stat which is third behind Nina. She also gets a very robust selection of spells being the game's second healer besides Ryu and she gains a few really good support spells. In addition she also has exclusive access to Earth magic which very few enemies have access to. To add insult to injury on why Nina gets saddles with being the worst character, Deis teaches all of Nina's endgame spells which work great with Momo and along with all her other strengths largely makes Nina set out the rest of the game. You can pretty much build Momo towards a strong support mage with some good crowd control powers, or you can focus her on being a powerful melee fighter along with Garr and Ryu. She honestly gets great benefits from any Master though due to her weapons high base damage, I tend to send her down a mage path personally. With that said, D'lonzo will likely be the Master you'll keep her with when you reach the end of the game. This is due to Momo's one glaring weakness which is her abysmal hit rate. Most party members have hit rates in the high 90%^ range but Momo's is stuck at 70% which is why you'll likely give her an Artemis Cap to raise it to 80% and apprentice her under D'lonzo for the other 10% to hit rate bonus she offers just to get Momo slightly below everyone else's base line. Also, like Nina, Due to her weapon being a ranged attack, she's not capable of performing counters like the most of the party which does hinder some of her melee options. Overall though, most players swear by Momo's abilities and she's well-loved in the fanbase overall, being one of the most popular characters from III, which the next game will make obvious...
Pecoros (Peco in English)
Clan: Mutant
Field Skill: Kick - Same as Teepo.
Combat Role: Tank
Abilities: Healing magic, elemental and status breath attacks. High counter rate, regenerates health every round, and is weak to fire.
Best Masters: Fahl, Giotto, and Bunyan.
Pecoros or simply Peco in the English dub due to the six character name limit is easily the biggest oddball of the party. He doesn't really talk for most of the game, instead just makes weird chirping noises and gets harassed by Honey or kid Ryu and Nina. During the Plant sequence in the Child Arc, the group encounters a new plant lifeform known simply as the Mutant who has gained sentience from the Chrysm experiments performed on it. After defeating the creature, it sees it's life as a mistake against nature and asks the party to kill it by dropping it in a lava pit. Afterwards, Peco appears being born from the creatures remains. or at least that's how Momo theorizes. From there, Peco is the mute on the team and even when speaking with him while camping, we actually hear Ryu';s thoughts about Peco instead of Peco's thoughts. Peco is fascinated by the various Yggdrasil Trees found around the world and once he joins, the party can commune with the tree and gain him as a Master. In the Adult Arc, Peco is sticking around with Momo and joins along with her and continues to just be a background character. There is a big twist with Peco, and this spoiler territory for those who care, so just skip to the next paragraph is you want to stay oblivious. During the Dream World sequence when Ryu gets to hear the thoughts of all his comrades we finally get Peco's thoughts and it's revealed that Peco is a Mutant incarnation of Yggdrasil itself who joined the party so he could help stop Myria. He eventually speaks out loud for the rest of the party to hear when they finally confront Myria herself and it's heavily implied that Peco sacrifices himself in order to give humanity a chance to stop the desert of death from sweeping across the rest of the world as we see a plant sprout in the desert and it's implied to be Peco finally becoming a Yggdrasil Tree. So some neat 11th hour revelations but it does make second playthroughs interesting when you start to pay attention to him more and get little glimpses of the truth.
Peco joins at level one around the time most of your team is around level 15 or 16. This tends to trick some players into thinking that Peco is some blanks slate character you can build into anything. That is not true. Peco comes equipped with some interesting quirks. Due to his plant nature, he is naturally weak to fire and take more damage from those types of attacks. If you put him in armor that increases fire weaknesses he will be OHKO by just about any fire based attack unless you seriously grind his HP or Intelligence. With that though, Peco also has a [passive regen ability that restores a tenth of his maximum HP every round. He also has the highest counter rate of the entire party with a 50% reprisal rate while most characters have 10% or none. If you put him at the head of the party in an Attack Formation, his reprisals rate shoots to 100%. He also has natural resistance to death magic. Likewise, his two best stats are HP and defense at the sacrifice of having terrible agility and intelligence. He's like a weird mix of Spar and Rand from BoFII with Spar's design from his angry onion shaman form and Rand's fighting style and stats. So with his defensive tanky stats and ability to regen health and the best counter rate, Peco is obviously built for a melee tank role. Even his offensive Breath abilities have their damage calculated by his Max HP meaning he's one of the rare party members who benefits from being tutored by Giotto. Due to joining at such low levels though, many players tend to bench Peco so they can take advantage have him apprentice under one note masters like the four Hide and Seeker Masters that grant new Formations instead of skills, or apprentice under people like Deis and Ladon who require anywhere from twelve to fifteen levels to unlock every skill they have. For the tank route, Fahl is easily Peco's best master as he doubles down on Peco's HP and Defense. Peco's weapons also usually have some status or elemental attribute to them with one of his best weapons, but not necessarily his strongest, being the Death Claws hidden in the Desert of Death, which you can guess what they do. Peco is an interesting character who tends to either get overlooked by casual players or sworn as legitimate awesome by veterans.
Garland (Garr in English)
Clan: Guardian
Field Skill: Push - Garr can push around heavy objects like crates and statues.
Combat Role: Battle Tank
Abilities: Fire and holy magic, some melee abilities
Best Masters: Bunyan, Fahl, Hondara, Deis, and Ladon.
Garland, or Garr as he's known in the English script might only appear about a third of the way into the plot, but he is essentially the true main character of BoFIII. Ryu's along for the ride and important to the plot, but the story doesn't really get true direction until Garland appears in the story and focuses it on the Brood War and the journey to find his god so he can ask her why the Brood had to die. Garr is first met as a background character when Balio and Sunder have captured them and left them in the care of the bartender Fahl. The kids sneak out of the pub in a funny scene while Garr notices and just watches without a word. He's met again later when the party is recaptured and forced to enter the Contest of Champions where he is the reigning champion. After witnessing Ryu's dragon powers, he takes an interest in the kid and claims Ryu and his friends as his prize. He is later confronted by Balio and Sunder who have spent too much time trying to get these kids for their big score and ambushes them. It is only here that the party is finally able to defeat the terrible duo once and for all. From there, Garr lives up to his Guardian namesake and escorts Nina back to Wyndia and ask for passage to the eastern lands so that Ryu and him can uncover more about the Brood. This goes a bit south as Nina runs away from home again and follows the group to the eastern lands making them fugitives in Wyndia since they mistakenly believe they kidnapped her. From here Garr is a guide and mentor who leads the party to Angel Tower where he takes Ryu into the inner sanctum alone so that Ryu can learn the awful truth: Guardians are humans transformed by their God to be Dragon Slayers, and Garr is not only one of the last active members of the group, but also the deadliest. He attempts to kill Ryu but is instead defeated by Ryu who flees. He spends the next several years trying to track him down in an attempt to apologize and to discover the truth. In his battle with Ryu, Garr learns that the Brood were more powerful than they let on, and could have easily defeated the Guardians if they had wanted to, but instead they chose to be slaughtered. Now, for the first time, Garr wanted to learn more about his ancient enemy and so he and Ryu take journey that brings them across the ocean to the ruins of the old world where Garr's god, or I should say Goddess resides. It's shame his answers will cost him everything. While Garr is a serious mess for the whole game, he is comically serious like intimidating a border guard into believing Nina is his daughter, or getting his ass handed to him by Deis when she finally gets unsealed. Not to mention Garr suffers from the infamous "face in the dirt, butt in the air" unconscious sprite which is usually reserved for a lot of the more arrogant party members in BoF such as Gilliam and Rand in the previous installments.
In gameplay, Garr plays like he looks, he hits hard and he can take hits like a champion, but he is slow. He's tied with Ryu in strength and is only just behind Peco in HP. His AP and intelligence stats are some of the worst among the party with Garr largely being an inverse of Nina's stat spread. oddly though, Garr is the lone user of pure fire magic among the party but his intelligence and AP are usually not good enough to cast his spells more than once. He does get the awesome Kyrie Exorcism spell for dealing with undead. True to his role as a Guardian and dragon slayer, Garr comes with innate fire resistance and can be made completely immune to it with other fire resistance gear. Garr's specialty really comes down to taking advantage of his melee stats and building him around hitting things really hard as much as possible with skills like Double Blow or Blitz. For Masters, Garr does well with most physical based masters like Bunyan, Hachio, and Ladon, but most players agree that he should spend some time with Meryleep to build up at least thirty agility, which will help him get turns before most enemies. I also like putting him under Hondara sue to him being the only master from his homeland and because he does give Garr some nice bonuses to his lacking magic skills for a minor handicap in his strength stat. Likewise, Garr has a few interesting weapon option by endgame, with the two most often discussed being the Beast Spear and the Refad's Spear. The Beast Spear can be acquired fairly early and is Garr's strongest spear but comes with several drawbacks such as a staggering 15 weight that will likely drop Garr's speed to dead last. Likewise, the spear drain a portion of his health every round. On the flip side, you have the Rufad Spear which is not nearly as strong stat wise but is one of his lightest weapons and comes with the Holy property to it which can be powered up by apprenticing him under Hondara. The drawback here is that the weapon is a rare drop from the second hardest enemy in the game that is essentially a repeatable super boss known as the Berserker. Garr is a fun fighter to build if you know what your options are.
The Other Important Characters
Bunyan
Returning from BoFII and now with a more expanded role, we get to meet Babadel a.k.a. Bunyan in the English script. While he was just a bruiser who liked fighting in the Coliseum in II, here he's presented as a mountain man who lives alone in Cedar Woods outside of McNeil Village. He keeps to himself but is respected by the villagers all the same. He is also the bane to Rei and Teepo as he tries to help the orphan boys survive without resorting to crime. He's initially met when Rei and Teepo try to teach Ryu how to pickpocket people on Yraall Road but becomes more active in the story when the boys try to rob him and he puts them on the quest to hunt the Nue. He also informs the boy in a hilarious nonchalant way how bad they screwed up when they robbed the mayor's manor by discussing with his cow how the mayor has ties to the mob. He finds and saves an unconscious Ryu after the fateful battle with Balio and Sunder and from here he can become a Master who specializes in physical growth. He also teaches the super useful Focus and Super Combo skills and overall is one of the best melee focused masters due to only hurting AP and Intelligence growth while giving excellent HP and Power upgrades and good Defense boosts. He also doesn't hurt your agility, which is always a bonus. For a lot of players, he may end up being the first Master you unlock. About the only downside of Bunyan is that he requires a whopping ten levels to acquire all his abilities and once Nina joins the party, you're locked out of the Yraall Region until Garr joins the team so you won’t be able to come back to have him teach you the next skill in his list. This incarnation of Bunyan seems to be Ikehara's favorite version so he retains this personality for his next appearance as well.
Loki
Loki, Zurusuru in the Japanese which is the sound a snake makes, is a minor character who makes a huge impact on the story. He's essentially the town bum of McNeil Village who doesn't want to work anymore and is always looking for an easy way out. When he overhears the orphan trio looking for another good deed to do to earn the town's love, he tricks them, like his namesake, into breaking into the mayor's house and stealing back all the tax money to give back to the towns folk. Loki doesn't realize the mayor has ties to the mob and that's why he taxes the village so high until after the boys accomplish the deed. He flees the village with his zenny and disappears for the rest of the Child Arc. He's encountered again in the Adult Arc where he's cooperating with a Wyndian investigation into the mayor. After Ryu and Rei have their reunion, if you return to the town, you'll find that Rei has taken revenge on Loki for tricking them so many years and has beaten him to a bloody pulp in his were tiger form. That's essentially the end of his story. His greed ultimately kicks off the events that lead to the start of Ryu's journey.
The McNeils
Mayor McNeil is the thirteenth generation of the glorious McNeil family that has run the region since the first generation. He is also petty, cowardly, bad with money, and a dirty old man. He also works for the Crime Syndicate run by Mikba that controls a lot of the western lands. The party initially meets him when they break into his manor and discover he's so cheap with money that most of his guards don't do their jobs properly allowing the boys to easily sneak in with a few bribes and his manor is almost completely empty because the servants have mostly quit. About the only people who do care about the intruders are the other McNeils, by which I mean their spirits that still linger in the manor. Disgusted by the current head of the family name, they take it upon themselves to deal with the orphan trio. Once they are defeated, the boys humiliate McNeil and steal the tax money causing him to inform the mob of what happened and setting the story into proper motion. He's not seen again until the Adult Arc when the party returns to his manor to find Nina and the Wyndian guard arresting him for his connections to the mob. Afterwards he can be found in a prison cell in the Wyndia Castle for the rest of the game.
Balio and Sunder
The main antagonists for the bulk of the Child Arc, Balio and Sunder are supposed to be named Balius and Xanthus after the two horse sons of Zeus in Greek mythology. The two are from the Horseman Clan which is introduced in this entry and their fighting skills make them very useful to the mob as enforcers who deal with problems. Beyond that, the two are also greedy and not exactly the smartest but they have tenacity and lots of connections through the mob which makes them a threat. They initially appear when McNeil informs the mob about the theft and they answer it by torching the orphans home and then attempting to murder the three of them as a lesson to anyone else in the town who tries to cross the mayor and the mob. Through various circumstances they encounter Ryu again on his way to Wyndia and discover his dragon powers. They try to sell him to the king but the plan backfires and they are all arrested instead. Nina tries to help Ryu escape since she felt he was a victim here but her naivety lets the two horsemen trick her into setting them free as well in which they try to kidnap her for ransom money. Ryu rescues her and the two escape only to be chased throughout Central and Eastern Wyndia by the two who still hope to get a big score from the two. They eventually recapture the kids thanks to their connections in the region, but before they can enact their ransom scheme, they are occupied by running the Contest of Champions which is a major business deal for the mob thanks to the gambling involved. Here Nina tricks the two into letting her and Ryu enter the tournament with either Peco or Momo to earn their freedom. Seeing this as a good opportunity to stack the odds in their favor, the two allow this knowing fully well the group won't be able to beat the current champ Garr. What they didn't expect is Garr choosing the kids as his prize and intimidating the two into letting them go. Not to be perturbed, they call on all of their agents in the region to ambush Garr and the kids in hopes of stealing them back, but Garr makes short work of the army of thugs. Desperate, the two challenge Garr and the kids directly and reveal a fusion power that transforms them into a Ultraman expy that ha been censored in more recent releases. It's here the two are finally put down for good, but their legacy lives on in the various mafia members and townsfolk you can talk to afterwards that remember them. They are the longest serving antagonists of the game and were the source of a rumor like Tigger in BoFII where the BradyGames Guide mistakenly made players believe it was possible to beat them with the orphan trio at the beginning of the game. Like Tigger, it's impossible to do without cheats and you get nothing for the trouble. It is possible to beat them at Wyndia when Ryu distracts them to allow Nina to escape but it can be a challenge and requires a lot of prep and exploiting Sunder's low willpower/intelligence to use the skill Influence to make him do most of the work of killing his brother and himself.
King of Wyndia and Queen Shelia
The King and Queen of Wyndia are initially met when Balio and Sunder try to sell them Ryu as a baby dragon and the two are horrified to see a child in a cage instead being terrorized by two bullies instead. This has the trio arrested but Nina accidentally sets them free and is almost kidnapped for her trouble. She decides to help Ryu look for his friends Rei and Teepo and then spends half the game being chased by the mob instead. Unbeknownst to her though, her parents believe the three had used the dragon child thing as a ruse to get into the castle and kidnap Nina instead so Ryu, being counted as being in league with the horsemen is branded a criminal by Wyndia and not allowed back for a while. Once Garr brings them back and sorts out the situation the King grants the group passports to enter the eastern lands. Nina is not allowed to go due to her mother Shelia. It is here we learn that Shelia is overprotective of her daughter and had a full breakdown while she was missing. She refuses to let Nina leave the castle, but Nina accidentally does when she discovers Honey is still there and tries to return her to Momo. Once again the queen collapses and the king blames Ryu and his cohorts. The two are not seen again until the Adult Arc where Nina tries to get Rei a passport to the eastern checkpoint but Rei mistakenly mentions Ryu who is still considered an outlaw by the royal family. They try to capture Rei and Nina helps him flee where they discover thanks to Honey, that the basement of the castle possesses an old portal drive from the era of machines. It is here where Nina finally breaks her ties with her controlling mother who has gone mad from the idea of Nina leaving her again. The two are minor characters but Queen Shelia plays a big role in Nina's character development if you spend the time to really explore the castle and chat with everyone. It's an interesting switch from BoFII's King and Queen of Wyndia who have to pretend their first daughter is a stranger and refuse to let her into the castle.
Yggdrasil (Tree of Wisdom in the Japanese)
Yggdrasil is a complicated figure in BoFIII's narrative due to a lot of circumstances. The World Trees are still found around the world like in BoFII and in this game they are named after the tree from Norse Mythology, which is only amusing because the trees are simply called the Tree of Wisdom in the Japanese, so kudos to the English script for coming up with something better. Yggdrasil plays a huge role in Momo and Peco's story arcs as it is the sap from these trees that Palet is experimenting on for his dark research that inevitably creates the Mutant and inadvertedly Peco himself. Yggdrasil's Sap has some funky properties that are very potent but cause radical mutations. Once Peco is recruited, he can allow the player to commune with the Yggdrasil Tree near the Plant where he can be unlocked as a Master in exchange for a Wisdom Fruit. He is considered the best mage focused Master in the Child Arc due to having the same bonuses to AP and Intelligence as Mygas but with bonus to defense as well. Shield is the only worthwhile spell he teaches though, and Yggdrasil also gives a character an inherent weakness to fire, so be careful, especially if you apprentice Peco under him who already has an innate weakness.
Palet
The head of the Plant and Repsol's old friend who helped him develop the Chrysm technology to augment plant growth. Palet is not as smart as Repsol or his daughter is so he often calls on Momo to help him keep the Plant running smoothly. Unfortunately for Momo, she is not aware of the fact Palet is continuing the dark research her father and him started years ago to bring back the dead. Palet is obsessed with reviving his mother and has done extensive research into using Chrysm and Yggdrasil Sap to do so accidentally creating the Mutant in his research. In the Child Arc he betrays the party secretly and allows them to get captured by Balio and Sunder so his secret research can stay a secret. In the Adult Arc, the party finally gets suspicious and discovers his secret lab and his attempt to resurrect his mother. He reveals that Momo's father Respol theorized the process in their youth but eventually decided that necromancy was too much against nature and ended his research. Palet couldn't let it go and was one the verge of trying to resurrect his mother when the party stumbled in. Palet uses the Yggdrasil Sap to transform into the Shroom Boss and is soundly killed for his effort. His mother's resurrection is stopped and Palet's actions get reported to the King of Wyndia who has the Plant shut down.
Emitai
Emitai is a minor character and a powerful wizard by his own admission who enters the Contest of Champions in order to win the prize money. He easily wins his first match but discovers that the second match will be a team challenge fought in an anti-magic chamber. Realizing he will be at a severe disadvantage, he appeals to Child Ryu and Nina to throw the match and reveals that he needs the prize money to help his sick daughter. Unfortunately, Nina and Ryu can't afford to lose either as their freedom is on the line. Distraught, Emitai leaves them be and in his match he reveals that his two rambunctious boys he has with him are his trump card because they are secretly golems he created to help him fight. But they are unable to turn the tied for him and he loses. Devastated for his loss, Nina wishes to visit him to see if they can help in some other way where they discover that Emitai was lying about his sick daughter in order to con people into going easy on him and instead is just flat broke and being pestered to win by his nagging wife. In the Adult Arc, he's encountered again if you explore the Duane Region where you'll discover his shack sitting on top of another Portal Drive. His golems are breaking down, his daughter hates him for using her for his cons, and his wife wants him to get a real job because Wyndia's crackdown on the mob has ended the Contest of Champions where he usually makes a quick zenny. He doesn't recognize the party but waxes on how he had it all until he felt sorry for a bunch of kids years ago and threw a match for them because he was such a nice guy. You can apprentice under him if you pay him 10,000 zenny and he's honestly one of the best mage centric masters. He gives the highest AP and Intelligence boost and doesn't hurt your agility or HP. on the flip side, he also hits you with both a terrible power and defense decrease of two, which is the worst among the mage Masters. He does also grant some excellent spells though granting the Barrier and Enlighten Buffs but his greatest prize is the Mind Sword spell which is needed for Nina's tool kit to stay relevant.
Beyd, Shadis, and Zig
This trio are all part of the Rhapala questline where the party needs to get another pass from the Porter Guild to reach Garr's homeland of Urkah. The three are involved in a love triangle where Shadis is the daughter of the current head of the guild who is a hard drinking fisherman who won’t stand for anyone but the manliest man in the village to wed his daughter and take over the guild. Zig, is technically that man, being the best sailor of the entire guild and an arrogant oaf on top of that. He is madly in love with Shadis and feels he is the best candidate to take over the guild. Beyd is the guilds accountant, and desk jockey who knows a bit about sailing but is more comfortable filing paperwork than sailing a ship. Beyd is in love with Shadis as well but no one takes him seriously because he's just a weak desk clerk. The party can help Beyd win a duel against Zig for Shadis' hand in marriage by training him at night. With the right setup, you can make the weakling an unkillable deathblow machine but the bout also gives you the option to help by cheating with cheap shots against Zig when he wastes turns showing off to Shadis. In the end, we learn Shadis was secretly in love with Beyd as well and happy he won. Zig takes his defeat with honor as well. In the Adult Arc, we find that Beyd has turned out to be a great leader for the guild and Shadis gave birth to their daughter. Zig gets recruited to help the party sail the sea in search of man who can tell them more about the black ships that bring the machines from across the ocean. Zig gets special mention here because he serves as the basis for another prominent character we'll meet in BoFIV.
Zombie Dragon and the Voice
When Garr tracks Ryu down at Duana Mines at the start of the Adult Arc his presences in the Brood infused Chrysm Mines summons an amalgamation of the Brood's hatred for the Guardians and it follows the two around the mines while they try to find an exit. When they almost reach the exit, this spirit reaches out and demands for Garr to explain what he's doing with Ryu and the last of their kind. When Garr explains he plans on leading Ryu to his God and the Brood's enemy, the spirit demand Ryu to slay Garr and avenge their people. When Ryu refuses it manifests as the Zombie Dragon and attacks the pair. After its defeat it questions why Ryu won't avenge them and is interrupted by the spirit of a woman who tells the beast to return where it came and it transforms into the Shadow Gene allowing Ryu to access Dark elemental powers and is a requirement for the powerful Tiamat Transformation. The voice then tells Ryu the beast was not a true Brood and tells Ryu to follow his destiny before transforming into the Fusion gene for him. This exchange has fascinated fans for years. While most agree that the Zombie Dragon was a manifestation of hatred and not the spirit of a specific Brood, the identity of the female voice is never revealed but often speculated to be Ryu's mother due to the location they appear in. Regardless, this scene sets a nice tone for the start of the game's second half.
Mikba
Mikba is an antagonist and leader of the Crime Syndicate that played a huge role in the Child Arc. By the Adult arc, his organization is on the ropes due to losing his two best men, Wyndia's crackdown on their operations in Genmal and McNeil Village, and on top of that, his men are being stalked by a ferocious Tiger monster in the road out of Duana. When the party tries to track down Rei, they reach Syn Citry, Mikba's strong hold which Rei beat them to and razes the town by crippling the mafia there. Mikba has already fled with Rei in pursuit and the group catches up with the two at Duana Checkpoint. Mikba is unaware and not interested in Rei's reasons for revenge but is forced to reveal that his true nature is a demon which he transforms into to su7cker punch Rei. The battle with him is annoying due to Rei being mandatory and starting the fight unconscious. Reviving him usually has Rei go straight into Were tiger mode where you’ll need the Influence skill to keep him from killing your own party. Unfortunately, Mikba has a high counter rate as well and since all of Rei's attacks in his transformed state are physical, he's going to be dishing out more damage than you would care for. After his defeat he speaks about the god who granted his power. This is another line that has created a bunch of speculation over the years. With Myria's return in this story, a lot of emphasis is placed on the events of the first game, but one of the biggest lingering questions from the Myria trilogy is the fate of Deathevan from II. This is due to the fact he was said to be unkillable and his defeat simply meant he would have to wait several more centuries to grow strong enough to regain a physical form again. Yet, in III, he and his race are never spoken of. Some fans have used this line to speculate that Mikba is in fact referring to Deathevan and this line is proof that he still exists and is still just biding his time beneath the surface of the world until his next demon invasion. The Japanese though clears this up as the word for god that he uses is almost exclusively used for referencing Myria in III. Still, he has the distinction of being the last true demon we see in the series.
Geist
Mistranslated as Gaist in the English version, he is one of Garr's fellow Guardians and the only one still active. He is responsible for the seal on Deis that keeps her locked in sleep so the party has to seek him out to get it unsealed. Gaist is notorious among the other Guardians for losing faith in their God and abandoning the holy war against the Brood when he couldn't handle the slaughter anymore. Retiring to the Cliffs near Rhapala he has lived out the centuries mulling over his guilt for the action sin the war. He is surprised when Garr stops by with Ryu. partly because Garr seemed to be the most devoted member of the group and was not doubting his actions as well, and also because he managed to find a surviving member of the Brood. Agreeing to help, Gaist asks to speak with Ryu alone about the dangers of going to meet their God, and transforms into a power demon himself to face off against Ryu. This fight can be a challenge since it's one-on-one but as long as you know to destroy the torches around Gaist to prevent healing, Ryu has a lot of options to curb stomp Gaist by this point in the game. Gaist reveals that he wished he could have come along to speak with god, but his own life-force was keeping the seal on Deis and he needed to die. He is happy Ryu could avenge the Brood he slayed and finds peace in death as he crumbles ot dust. If you check the dust pile before leaving you can acquire his weapon the Beast Spear which is statistically Garr's strongest weapon with a few caveats.
Deis
It wouldn't be a Breath of Fire game without everyone's favorite arrogant spellcasting Naga making an appearance. After being relegated to just a secret character with no story purpose in BoFII, Deis comes back with a vengeance in III with some retcons that really change her role and story in the trilogy. So that's your warning for spoilers. Deis is first found in the basement of Angel Toer if you spend the time to explore it before following Garr into the tower. She's a naked woman trapped in a pyramid shaped force field. In the Adult Arc, Garr remembers her speaking out against the Guardians genocide of the Brood during the war and his god ordering the Guardians to seal her up so she can't cause trouble. Believing she may hold the key to his gods whereabouts, Garr and Ryu track down Gaist to release her seal. Deis is happy to be free but her five hundred year imprisonment has zapped most of her power so unable to just directly teleport them to Myria's location, she gives them a special magic spell that creates a light that will lead the team to her location. She also physically kicks the crap out of Garr for his race sealing her away. At the game's conclusion after Myria's defeat, Deis appears before her and we get another bombshell revelation that Deis is actually Myria's older sister. She begs her sister to allow the world to grow on its own and its heavily implied they die together when Station Myria crashes to the surface world. When she transforms into her Naga form, she will ask Ryu and the player if they prefer her Naga form or her naked human form. Being respectful and answering the Naga form unlocks her as a Master and she's considered to be one of the best for the endgame, especially considering there is still quite a bit of game left when she unlocks. She's often considered to be one of the other best mage centric masters due to having the second highest growth in AP and intelligence only behind Emitai but also because she gives a point in strength and agility. Unfortunately, she does have the steepest cost in defense at -3. She teaches all of the final elemental spells for Lightning, Wind, Ice, and Firewind plus the best buff spell in the game Celerity. This requires a staggering fifteen levels under her tutelage though which is why some players leave Peco purposely low level to earn them quickly. While I feel it was unintentional, the devs sort of created a mythology gag with Deis in this entry that is a minor allusion to BoF1 where Deis has a bit of a rivalry with Nina as fellow mages and she's known for teasing the princess. This gag comes in the fact that Deis' spell selection ultimately gives a second character all of Nina's final spells and largely makes her obsolete to the party. It was likely unintentional of course...
Jono
Jono is the elder of the village of Dragonier. We weren't getting out of this trilogy without visiting the Dragon Clans home. To the surprise of everyone once they reach the Outer Continent, the dragon clan still lives relatively peaceful lives in the hostile region and right next door to Myria's home. They survived by giving up their powers to Myria in exchange of being spared from her Guardians, and while Myria has been true to her word, the villager still despise her for it. Jono the Elder though, still retains his dragon powers and stays in special chamber underground that masks his power from Myria. He has managed to obtain the ultimate power of the Brood but is too weak to properly use it anymore and has been waiting for a chosen one to cross the ocean to find them. Jono then explains how the Brood's opinion of the Great War and how they understood their power was too great. They could have easily defeated the guardians and Myria, but it would have devastated the world once again and prove Myria's fears to everyone. For this reason they allowed themselves to be hunted or give up their powers, but the Brood also feel that while Myria's fear incorrect and her actions to quell them were misguided. In an interesting twist, Jono doesn't share the animosity for Myria like the rest of the clan does and instead gives Ryu the power of the Infinity Gene with the hope that Ryu will be able to meet Myria as an equal and talk her out of her mad scheme for the world. Despite his serious role in the plot, Jono is actually pretty hilarious if antiquated humor type of guy. He gets offended when Garr calls him old man despite being the same age as him and after he calls Garr out for it, he refuses to speak to him anymore. To appease him, you have to indulge his dirty old man ways and bring one of the girls in your party to coax him into talking. He will be disappointed with Momo but as a mythology gag of Dragon and Wing clan getting along, bringing Nina and getting her to kiss his cheek will make him your friend for life. It’s an interesting callback but a gag that feels pretty inappropriate these days. Jono is fought as a boss in order to earn the Infinity Gene, the strongest dragon gene in the game. He actually uses the gene to transform into the Elder Dragon and he can be handful for an unprepared party, this is due to Ryu being unable to use his dragon transformation in the fight, and if you've been using them as a crutch up until this point, this fight can be challenging. The Elder Dragon uses all of the best elemental spells and can quickly devastate a party without a good healer. He also has Double Blow for some good melee offense. The only reprieve is that every fourth round the Elder Dragon uses the skill Bad Back (which you can learn!... don't) that makes him lose a turn. The hallway leading to his room also contains the mural of the BoFI party battling Myria in the first game that is seen in the game's intro screen.
Ladon
Ah, poor Ladon, he's reduced to an even more minor character than in the second game as he only appears in two places. One is on Mt. Glaus as a simple statue like in BoFII and one in Dragonier if you examine the wall decor that looks like the title art from Breath of Fire II. He will only speak if Ryu is the one to touch the wall insignia. He bemoans that no one even spares a thought for him anymore but then is impressed by Ryu making it all the way there from across the world. If you have acquired all eighteen Dragon Genes he will offer his services as a Master where he will cripple your HP and AP growth for the ability to raise all of your other stats. This makes him a great candidate for endgame masters as HP/AP will likely be less important for most party members for straight stat growth. In addition he also teaches some amazing skills the most important being Aura, a Holy elemental physical skill that does 2X damage, the crux skill that makes the Warrior gene so broken. Teaching it to Ryu will allow him to use it in Kaiser Form. He also offers the most support abilities of all the masters when apprenticed under him, namely fire resistance, status resistance and death resistance. His other skills are not bad either, but like Deis and Bunyan it takes a lot of levels to master him and Ladon is the final master you'll encounter in the game with only two more dungeons left in the game.
Myria
The big bad herself, obvious spoilers of course. Myria has gotten a major transformation since we last saw her in the first game. Instead of looking like Alice from MegaTen and being a creepy child demon, she's sporting an angelic Goddess form this time around and is revealed late in the game to be the God the Urkah Tribe worship. As opposed to her always chaotic evil incarnation from the first game and by extension her always chaotic evil manifestation of hatred that is Deathevan, Myria has managed to mature quite a bit since her last appearance. In the interim years she witnessed the world achieve technological greatness during the Age of Machines and then watched them use their knowledge to destroy the world. Unbeknownst to the civilized world the game mostly takes place in, the rest of the planet is described to be a terrible scorched wasteland like the Desert of Death on the Outer Continent, and Myria has been using her powers to stave it off for the other races. The history gets a bit muddy here as it seems Myria witnessed the destruction of the world by the people's use of science and came to the conclusion that the mortals can't be trusted. She then created an elaborate system where she confined most of the races to the central continent and has kept them in a cultural stasis to prevent them from attaining the same technological prowess as their ancestors. She slow drips technology to the main land by using the black ships and the enslaved robots and humans in Kombinant to do this. After she started enacting this plan, in order to keep the meddling Dragon Clan from interfering she appeared to the Urkan people as a God and transformed select warriors among them into the Guardians to be used for the extermination of the Brood. Myria has been overcome with a Mother-Complex in the modern era and sees her actions just as a shepherd for the lesser beings and she will stamp out anyone who opposes her designs to save the world from itself, including her own sister. When she finally meets the party, she pities them and tries to convince them to see things her way. She gets rebuked by everyone and Peco reveals that he is Yggdrasil himself in this scene when Myria tries to erase the party's memories. She finally leaves the decision up to Ryu. We then get the penultimate battle of the trilogy where Myria transforms into her own Naga form and this might be the most nightmare fuel inducing fight in the series as Myria's normal attack involves her intestines rupturing out of her stomach to smack you while her unique ability Holocaust begins with her entire face and part of her torso melting away to create a gaping hole into her body where beams of light erupt to wreck havoc on the party. She's a much more interesting and challenging fight than her first appearance. With her defeat, she's left as her home of Myria Station begins to crash back to the surface world. Myria prays to see if there is a real god. Her sister Deis appears instead and convinces her to let go of her control and it's assumed the two perish in the destruction. III does some interesting things with Myria and transforming her into an overprotective mother figure was an interesting choice. In fact its a theme the game explores on several occasions going all the way back to the Nue mother trying to feed and protect her dead babies and then later touched on by Nina's struggles with her mother issues. I feel her role in the story allows a lot of the themes of the game to tie together nicely.
Misc.
Notable Masters
Jumping from the masters that play a larger role in the story there are a few other masters I wanted to chat about:
- Mygas - Potentially the first Master you can acquire if you check the Yggdrasil tree stump area west of McNeil Village after the Nue storyline. He needs money for his travels and offers to teach you magic if you give him all the money you currently have. The funny thing is he will accept 0 zenny if that's all you got. You should definitely apprentice Ryu and Teepo under him so you can learn his skills. Frost doesn't seem like much but it's useful against the Tar Men later and Nina can get some great mileage with Meditation and Magic Ball in the early game.
- Durandel - a pacifist you meet in a small shack along the Wyndian castle walls. He doesn't require any payment to learn under, but he does mention he only teaches non-lethal skills. He offers no stat changes as well and it only takes three levels to learn all of his skills. Two of his skills are useless but Backhand is extremely useful as it deals damage but will not kill the target which is very useful for training Beyd later in the story. Mastering Durandel is also a pre-requisite to apprentice under Hondara.
- D'lonzo - She's extremely valuable to apprentice under early in the game and serves as a good final master for Momo. She requires the party to have fifteen different weapon in their inventory that are not equipped. This is possible to do before you meet her as there are seventeen weapons available throughout the game before you meet her but some will require knowing where to find them (melted blade) and some grinding in battle and fishing to acquire the number when you first meet her. Her stat spread is not the greatest and she really hurts AP growth but she is one of four masters that raises agility in the game and the earliest and easiest to acquire. She also teaches the invaluable Steal and Monopolize skills. Steal is self-explanatory, but Monopolize has the user take all the XP from a battle allowing for quick leveling. D'lonzo is also one of the rare masters that offers unique support functions, mainly a 10% increase to accuracy which is why Momo gets a lot of use out of her.
- Fahl - He's a former fighter and current bartender in Genmal and an alcoholic. He is first met when the Balio and Sunder capture Nina and Ryu and they ask him to watch them. He gets drunk though and the two escape. After the tournament, you can return to Genmel and speak with him about apprenticing under him. He requires you to fight thirty battles without resting before he'll consider it. You don't have to win the battles, you can run away and you may still camp, just don't use the rest function or sleep at an inn. Once the thirty battles are done, he'll become a Master. He offers the best defense upgrade of all the masters and the second best hp gains along with a slight power boost. But he will cripple your intelligence and agility stats. He's a great master for tanky characters like Garr and Peco who already have abysmal speed stats. He also gives a penalty for dodge rates as well. Still, he can be useful for building tank characters or just a quick defensive boost for Momo, though Yggdrasil might be a better option. His skills are not the best unfortunately with resist getting the most mileage if given to Peco for a tank build.
- Giotto - I feel most player sleep on this Master but it's easy to see why. His skill he teaches are not great and situational at best. Apprenticing under him also means that your strength, defense, agility and intelligence will take a -1 penalty every level up. In exchange you get the highest HP boost in the game and the second highest AP. For a lot of party members, this isn't a great trade off but Peco and especially Ryu can take advantage of this boost. Ryu gets a better deal out of this. His stat growth is already above average in most categories so the penalties won't hit him nearly as hard as the others whereas the HP and AP growth will help his dragon forms exponentially. The AP is obvious for the cost of using and maintaining dragon forms plus if you try to use spells or skills in those forms. The HP is more unique because it will affect Ryu's breath attack damage as they are based on how high and full his HP is. With high HP forms like Behemoth or Mammoth, these gains can allow Ryu to even solo super bosses and one shot most enemies. Giotto is found by a beach near Rhapala and will become a master if your reach the rank of Rodmaster in the fishing mini-game.
- Meryleep – She’s a fairy taking a nap in a local pond near the coffee house. She won't appear until after the party rescue her fairy friends and have the means to travel to the faerie world. Afterwards, Peco needs to kick a rock into the pond to wake her up. She's lost her Fairy Jewel that was stolen by a crow and you'll have to backtrack to a ??? area by an assuming mountain and tree in Central Wyndia. There you'll find a campsite and tree. If Peco kicks the tree the crow in it will drop the jewel. Return it to Meryleep to get her as a master. Meryleep gives a -1 penalty to all physical stats except agility, in which cases she gives the highest bonus of +2 making her the best master to apprentice to raise agility. She also has an excellent set of skills including Charm which raises steal and drop rates, War Shout which raises the whole party’s strength by a lot, and Shadowalk, a powerful critical hit attack that is debatably the best physical skill in the game.
- Hondara - Another master people sleep on. He's a priest in Urkah that abhors violence. He'll only become a master if you master Durandel first. Hondara is a great master for mages when you meet him but will get surpassed by others in the long run, nut since he only gives a penalty in power while boosting AP and intelligence and not affecting the other stats, he's actually a better option for Momo than Emitai since her weapons ludicrous power isn't affect as hard by her strength stat. He teaches a lot of useful skills like Kyrie and Benediction that can revive all party members. He also grants a bonus to Holy skills and Death resistance which come in handy if you're using holy abilities or weapons of which many of the strongest abilities and weapons happen to be...
- Hachio - A shout out to the chef from the Wild Cat bar in BoFII, Hachio is a chef at Wyndia castle and won’t be available as a master until the Adult Arc after you open the Portal Gate in the castle basement due to the whole fugitive thing. He requires you to find four rare ingredients: The Swallow Eye, Jerky, a Martian Squid and an Angler which might take a bit if you don’t know where to look. His stat boosts are the same as Bunyan except he gives a penalty to agility but he makes up for it by granting a bonus to crit rates and his skills are actually really good with a defense ignoring Mighty Chop (like the one from II) and the holy skill Demonsbane that does extra damage to devil type opponents.
- The Hide and Seek Club - In the child arc, Nina and Ryu can run into these four kids in the town of Wyndia section. If you play with the four of them, and manage to find them in the town then in the adult arc you can run into their grown up selves and play again, except this time they hide across the world. If manage to find all four you can apprentice under each of them. They all only give +1 in a single stat but no penalties and they each only have one thing to give. Lang gives you a Cupid's Lyre which is an accessory that restores HP as you walk around. He's the most useless of the four. the other three teach new battle formations that raise magic power, raise party speed, or gives a group regen. I often leave Peco under leveled just to grab these skills early.
The Two Endings
Continuing the trend of multiple endings, III gives Ryu a choice before the final battle with Myria where she pleads for Ryu to give up his powers and allow Myria to remain as steward of the world. Agreeing gives you the bad ending where the rest of the team is brainwashed to forget the journey and Ryu takes Teepo's place at Station Myria. Refusing her offer has the party battle her and leads you the true ending where the team escapes Station Myria but not before Garr is turned to stone since Myria no longer powers him. The team is also seen minus Peco overlooking the desertification Myria was worried about but a small plant begins to sprout from amongst the sand implied to be Peco trying to reverse the damage. Both endings are bittersweet for different reasons.
Guest Appearances and Shout Outs.
- Sakura and Chun Li both make appearances at the Coliseum as background characters in the audience if you keep your eyes peeled.
- Mogu and Gilliam are the two miners in the game's intro and Builder is the strongman that tries to stop Ryu before he's finally knocked out.
- Tepate/jean makes a small cameo as an artist living in a cottage under the bridge where you duel Balio and Sunder for the last time.
- Sten and Manillo can both be found in Genmel while the Contest of Champions is taking place.
- Balio and Sunder's fusion form is a shout out to Ultraman. Down to his signature attack.
- Somewtimes when Ryu transformes into a dragon, his face changes to anime icon Doremon.
Kaiser Dragon and Infinity
We're three for three now with Kaiser and Infinity, but in this game they are one and the same. The most powerful Dragon Gene in the game is called Infinity and grants Ryu his Kaiser form. Kaiser is unique for a lot of reasons. For one, Ryu simply goes Super Saiyan and gains yellow hair in this form at first glance. To see the actual Dragon form you have to use Kaiser Breath for Ryu to fully transform. The issue is that using the Infinity gene by itself won't let you as the power is so great, Ryu loses himself and becomes a berserker like Rei's Were tiger form. There are two ways around this hiccup. The first is to use the Failure Gene which will make the form controllable but drops the stat bonuses the form grants to the same as a simple dragon welp. You could also through a reverse gene in there and get slight better stat boosts, but either way, you're better off using Warrior, Tiamat, or Behemoth forms as they'll be more powerful. The best option is you mix Infinity with the Radiance and Trance genes which give you a fully controllable Kaiser with his amazing stat boosts, just at the highest AP cost of any ability in the game. But honestly, by this point in the game, why not? The added bonus here is that since Ryu maintains his human form in this state, he has full access to all of his skills and spells in both the Failed Kaiser and True Kaiser forms. The dragon form is an updated version of his BoFII incarnation but with a new blue and purple color scheme and fire colored wings. The breath attack itself has changed and is now essentially a nuclear blast.
Desert of Death
This is a late game dungeon that is rather infamous among the early BoF community. The dungeon involves crossing a treacherous desert at night by following the stars. You are given water to keep your party healthy but if you get lost and use up your water, the party will start getting maximum decreases to their HP until they visit an inn. The infamy comes from the fact that the guide book by Brady games gave the wrong directions. Now thankfully, the game itself will give you the correct instructions but unless you wrote them down at the time, you probably are going to get lost. Not helping this situation is that there are four really great items that can be obtained in this dungeon, but only after you complete it initially and find the Oasis. The items in question are the Royal Sword, Life Armor, Death Claws and Speed Boots. It is also possible to find rare items like Fish-heads, Swallow Eyes, Moon Tears, and Wisdom Seeds in the battlefield areas.
For those wondering: The correct directions is to spend the first two nights following the North Star (A red star in the sky that doesn't move between battles) for two whole nights. One the third night, head East for about two and half nights. You will know you're heading in the right direction by finding a Blue star, which is the Evening Star that always hangs in the west. Make sure it's behind you when walking. Once the Evening Star falls behind the horizon follow the North Star again, this part can be tricky because the False North Star tends to hang above an Oasis on the horizon this is proof it’s wrong, just follow the North star until you get a cutscene involving Nina.
Life Armor
One again, we have the Life Armor and for the first time in the series, it's actually possible to acquire more than one set. It is the strongest armor for Ryu and Rei. Garr can equip it as well but the Gideon Armor is his strongest armor and unique to him. The armor has a defense power of 80 and weight of 8 making it the second heaviest armor along with a few other pieces that have the same weight. Like the previous installments, it holds to its Dragon Quest roots and restores HP with every step in battle and few HP every round in battle. There are two ways to acquire the armor: 1) is to travel through the desert of death again listening to the story of a merchant who lost it there and using the same star guide mechanic as usual. The second and often easier option is to do a lot of fishing and acquire a Whale, a Spearfish and three Barandy which can then be traded to the Manillo Merchant at the fishing spot near Kombinant for the armor. You can purchase multiple if you like as well if you have the fish for trade. Overall, it's a step up from II's version.
Royal Sword
Like it's previous incarnation, the Royal Sword is an exclusive weapon for Ryu with electric elemental typing and can cast Lightning when used as a weapon in battle. It has a attack power of 158 and a weight of 8, making it Ryu's second heaviest sword. It is amusingly, his second strongest sword as well, but I'll touch on that later. Like the Life Armor, there are two methods to obtain it and they are essentially the same. Follow the instruction of a man who said he dropped something in the desert and leave from the Oasis into the desert of death and you'll find the sword there if you follow his instructions. Or you could play the Fishing Mini-game and collect one Whale, three Spearfish and one Barandy and trade it to the same Manillo merchant who has the Life Armor for the sword. It should go without saying this is the only entry where you can obtain more than one.
The Goo King Sword
New to the series is the Goo King Sword, Ryu's strongest weapon with a staggering 180 power and 4 weight it outclasses all of his other weapons and is the second strongest weapon in the game behind Momo's Atomic Shells. The problem with the sword is getting one. It's a rare drop from the Goo King enemies mainly found in the final dungeon. These guys have a lot of health, are wickedly fast, and tend to flee in the first round... that is unless you steal their Apple item. Unfortunately, this causes the Goo King to go berserk and they will stay in battle, but now they will cast spells like Ragnarok or hit a character with their high strength, but they will at least stick around long enough to be killed. The other issue here is that the sword drop rate is not good, so you'll likely be farming them for a bit. Considering how late in the game the opportunity to acquire one and the grind necessary to do so, most players just stick with the Royal Sword or Dragon Blade.
Berserker and Arch Mage
After getting through the Desert of Death and leaving the Oasis, the party can either go to the final city of Caer Xhan to find Myria, or they can visit this little out of the way place called the Container Yard. It's a very small location and mostly filled with Bots. You can find a Portal Drive here that will let your return to earlier areas, and you'll find the Radiance Gene. What you may also encounter is the Berserker, and the Arch Mage. Two normal monsters that are so powerful they are essentially super bosses disguised as random enemies. Think Brachiosaur from FFVI. The Berserker has 12000 HP, a nasty attack called fire whip, and enough attack power to one shot most characters unless you've been really grinding. He also has the Aries Glove, which is one of the strongest shields in the game that most of the party can use and simply needs to be stolen from him. Ge also drops the Rufad's Spear, a holy Elemental spear that is debatably Garr's best weapon. The Arch Mage is a different beast entirely. He has 3000Hp which doesn't sound like much; until you find out he regenerates 1500 HP per round. Throw in his insane speed, 700 Intelligence stat and liberal use of Myllonir spell and Mind Sword, and you can see how this becomes a problem. Ironically, you can steal Soul Gems off of him which is used to resurrect a party member after getting killed in battle at the cost of the item breaking. He also drops the Holy Avenger, a Holy elemental dagger that is Rei's best weapon and Ryu's fourth best weapon. Unlike Rufad's Spear, this weapon is a 100% drop too. Good luck beating them though...
Next time: The Endless...
Last edited by Wolf Kanno; 07-31-2026 at 05:42 AM.
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