A look back at: Breath of Fire 4

It's often debatable which is the better game, this or 3. I could care less, since both games have enough good and bad to talk about.

Well, not too much different gameplay-wise. I did forget to mention world navigation in the previous game does away with random encounters entirely, you can just opt to fight enemies in a field. The same here, more or less. Masters return, which is nice, and this time having to switch characters into and out of battle is also nice. What isn't nice is that if the front 3 fall, it's a game over even when the back 3 are doing fine. Also divided experience meant a bit more grinding on my end, which I'm never a fan of. And loads of minigames too, but despite there being more than the previous game, these minigame's aren't bad for the most part, thank goodness.

So this story is pretty much divided into two parts entirely. But notice that the bulk of the story involving Ryu mostly involved Nina's quest to find her sister Elina, and let that sink in for a moment. This is what she's doing along with Cray, who serves mostly as Elina's lover. Sure, there's a whole slew of other characters, with Ursula and Scias technically being on the enemy side of things, as well as Ershin's obviously strange role in everything, not to mention the dickery that Rasso and Yuna continually employ, and then you get to the other side of the continent, wait, were we still trying to find Elina? I get that Ryu's a dragon and all, and that's a big deal for the series as a whole, but just look at the quest we were first brought with.

On the other side of the plot we have Fou-lu, a playable character on his own path. He's trying to find his other half, Ryu, and merge with him considering his premature awakening has actually disturbed his own empire. It's quite amazing how while Ryu is with good friends and generally sees the good in people, even when his emotions start to swell, Fou-lu never has much to rely on, so as he is continuously being haggled by Yohm (who is yet another general who is hellbent on destroying dragon-kin type people for god-knows-what) he starts to realize just how hopeless humanity is in acknowledging his own kind.

So you can bet things do get interesting when the two plots finally intertwine, but the outcomes of the intertwining are not pretty. For one, Nina and Cray finally find Elina, only for Cray to have to put her out of the apparent misery she had been put on. On the other side, the one person who cared most about Fou-lu was Mami, who was put to death in a particularly devastating fashion which had completely made Fou-lu lose his hope. Both atrocities were committed by Yuna, a character who never actually seemed to have faced the consequences of his own actions, almost as if he was hoping both Ryu and Fou-lu would eventually fight. And they would, should you get the ending where it involves the idea that Ryu still has his friends to rely on and doesn't consider them scum like Fou-lu did. It still kind of sucks that during the whole quest to save Elina, not only was it unfruitful in the end, but it almost completely fell by the wayside for other subplots and Ryu's dragon abilities. Even if this sort of quest seems cliche now, Breath of Fire 4 did it well enough for me to like it, and the series still does a good job at giving players a sense of dread when they realize what atrocities rear their ugly heads in.

Breath of Fire 3's minigames

Good grief, help me out here. This game was the first to make me loathe minigames, especially when most of the annoying ones are required to get through that plot that falls apart the more I look at it. Look, I like most aspects of this game, already mentioned in my look back at post, but these things make me not enjoy this game as much when I have to do them. Great game otherwise, but still.

Let's start positive. The fishing minigame is the most prominent and a huge step-up from its previous incarnation in Breath of Fire 2. It's real nice that you can even see the potential catches to get, as well as a nice ranking system, making this game literally its own thing completely let loose from the main plot.

The faerie village I can actually imagine being just as unique as the fishing minigame. But since I never actually done it in this game, I can't really comment on it. I did this game in Breath of Fire 4 though, and it's pretty mild.

So the bad minigames? Let's start. I'm not fond of that wood-chopping one, although it's really all about timing, the frames can be off at certain points. Nice that the guy who sponsors it actually teaches work skills though. Hide and seek is fine too, and it's even more advanced when your characters are grown up. Momo's Tower is surprisingly devoid of minigames for such a zany place. The first really annoying minigame, may not really be a minigame since it uses standard battle mechanics, it involves training Beyd, which naturally took up quite a few minutes of my time. It's like if I was playing Final Fantasy II, I gain in stats by being hit in stats or using other stats. That's literally how it is. Right after that, you go to a lighthouse and have to sacrifice a plot item known as a Flame Chrysm to program a main valve. It's a simply "hit x at the right moment to win game" and it's dumb. First try I got it, but only after staring at it a few times just to make sure I don't screw up. These two are significantly less annoying than the next few I'm about to put on here which happen after the time skip.

Steel Beach, a ways into the game from the time skip, is the location of a really annoying one involving Garr. Here, it's a two-person towing minigame where this monkey has two flags and you and some other foreman have to pull this thing out the water when the correct flag is up. The problem occurs when the same flag shows up and you or your other guy end up behind. It really does make me quite mad when it happened frequently. And to make matters worse, what you pulled up turned out to be a boss fight. Absolutely delightful, not.

Then there's the whole idea of the Shisu quest, an actually required quest that is just awful. Finding ingredients basically involves collecting multiples of horseradish, vinegar, shally seeds, and mackerel. Well, they all don't seem so bad, especially the mackerel which can be done with the fishing minigame pretty easily. All except vinegar that is. Once again, a rope minigame involving Garr and some EXACTING button presses involving the same amount of presses to lower the bucket and raise the bucket. Again, I somehow did manage to do it on the first try, but having read on how to do it, I can safely say I never want to touch that again. Then, of course, having to actually cook and prepare the shisu is a game in itself, one that is pretty easy if you read instructions, but eh, after that vinegar bit, I'm definitely worn out and want no more of it.

If you thought that was the end of it, you're wrong. There's more. Finding the Legendary Mariner of course is pretty much a waste of time especially after you meet the guy to find out he's a pooper, pretty much. But having to navigate the tides in twenty-five seconds is a rough go, especially since I want treasure too. At least the Legendary Mariner does allow you to reach the Black Ship. There's one other exacting minigame involving that, with a counter that you examine which counts up every second, and you have to talk to Momo on the control panel exactly when it hits 100 to get the ship moving.

If you thought my annoyances with everything not-standard-Breath of Fire 3 gameplay ended there, give yourself a pat on the back, because I obviously have not talked about the Desert of Death yet. It's another thing that pretty much qualifies as its own game, and isn't even a minigame, but unlike the fishing and possibly unlike the faerie village there is NOTHING fun about this. You have to navigate the desert in the nighttime with only the stars as the guidance, and naturally you also have to keep water with you all the time so the dehydration doesn't ruin your max HP values. Three infuriating things here. One is that it's another long portion of the game. Another is that it's a long REQUIRED portion of the game. The last? The fact that you're apparent in-game guide gave you the wrong directions to the oasis you need to go. Oh yeah, and a few really good pieces of equipment could be found here, and I went for them, but obviously didn't like the treks.

Do I hate Breath of Fire 3 because of these things alone? I don't want to, because if you take all the required minigames and annoying quests out and just leave the faeries and fishing in, it would have definitely been my true favorite amongst the entire Breath of Fire franchise. Everything aside from the minigames is pretty good and I enjoyed the aspects there, but not these dumb quests and minigames that were actually necessary for the plot when they popped up.

A look back at: Breath of Fire 3

Yep, another Breath of Fire game I look back on. Hey, it's the first JRPG series I ended up playing a lot of games from, certainly NOT gonna be the last. A look back at this is gonna be quite broad, because as a whole, this game has a ton of stuff to talk about.

What I liked:

The gameplay overall manages to be strong. We cut the party member size from 4 to 3, which I'm not really gonna voice an opinion on, but we also have new abilities that can be learned by examining enemies, plus there's ways to bring on new stat raises via the whole master/apprentice system. Also the idea of members who fall in battle immediately getting back up if the RNG decides so is another fine point, as if giving characters an extra chance (although it might not always work out properly if more than one enemy targets the weaker enemy). The dragon transformation here is the best in the series, being able to pick and combine genes and create different dragon forms is a remarkable effort. You have six characters for the party overall, and each and every one of them has something interesting about them as well, both story-wise and gameplay-wise. Just look at Peco, the onion that seems awfully useless given how he starts, but has automatic regeneration AND happens to tie in the plot at the last moment by actually being a communicator for the world tree. You look at other characters' aspirations, such as Garr's lamentations for his beliefs, Momo's continual scientific studies, Rei out for revenge, and heck, even the intro cinematic is a nice callback to the very first Breath of Fire. Oh, and the fishing minigame? Actually pretty good.

What I didn't like:

Yeah, so I said the fishing minigame is good. Unfortunately, that's probably the only minigame I like. See, Breath of Fire 3 is where I started hating RPG minigames, and this has some of the worst ones. Not to mention most of them are required, and quite a few sidequests* get on my nerves. What better way to get on a ship than train this nerd on how to beat up this bigger guy? Only you somehow STILL don't get the ship until after you go through this lighthouse. What's the deal with this damn rope minigame with the foreman being so balanced it's NOT balanced. Oh, nice boss fight afterwards. And the Shisu quest can go straight to hell, there's even another rope minigame to get from a well, of all things, vinegar. You know what? I'll put my grievances on the minigames of Breath of Fire 3 in a different post.

So the plot of this game is half good and half bad. The whole beginning is amazing, a dragon gets free, turns back into a human, and is taken by the thieves and raised as such. They do their things and all, then here comes Balio and Sunder, two murderous horsemen, completely ruining everyone's lives.

This whole part afterwards up to the Angel Tower? I love it. I love all of it. Most of it is of course trying to find friends and/or running from the two horsemen, but there's that lovely determination you can see in Ryu. He went from being a cowering kid with a small sword to someone who's destined to get his life back on track. He gets Nina, Momo, and Peco involved as he searches and stumbles along, eventually everyone gets captured and forced into an arena, where Garr actually frees them, obviously for his main purpose of slaying the dragon. This is also the last we see of the horsemen, who have been quite the villains for some time now. Eventually, the plot goes to Angel Tower, fighting Garr one last time before Ryu loses it. The time skip that follows shows how much I like Garr as a character in this game, as he's the first to rejoin and actually feel like an atoner. Put it simply, he wants answers to his own goddess as to why his faith wanted to murder all the dragons. The plot then basically involves finding more about the Brood (Ryu's dragon group) and the goddess Myria, and that's where the plot falls apart. From then on, it's reunion with friends who also are convinced to find out more, stupid quests, long-winded story stuff, and this rather sadistic desert. Was it worth it in the end? Well, we do get to fight Myria anyways (or not should you choose the alternate ending) but it's pretty eh overall. So yeah, Breath of Fire 3, very memorable for what it offers, even if it sort of falls apart later on with no getting back up. I'll write another blog post on these annoying quests/minigames later on.

*which aren't sidequests if they are required to proceed in the plot. A sidequest goes AWAY from the plot, and many FAQ writers seem to forget that. An example of a sidequest in this game is running the faerie village. I don't have to actually bother with that at all in this game.

A look back at: Breath of Fire II

Immediately after my Breath of Fire game was finished, I decided to go right into the sequel. Boy did I not know the ride I was in for.

This game I have extremely fond memories of. The gameplay is pretty much identical to the first, although this time we have different dragon abilities, shaman abilities for fusion this time around, and actually battle abilities. So there's that out of the way. But how do you get all the abilities. Some are not really explicit to find, and it is really easy to miss all of them, the earth shaman in particular has the most roundabout way imaginable for getting her. And the dungeons are nastier, and the random encounter rate is at an all time high in the extremely long Infinite dungeon. Every major villain here is a demon of some sort too, all with interesting and nasty abilities.

That's not what makes this game memorable, it's the story. A really harrowing story that made my heart lurch multiple times. I still remind myself just how tragic this game is. On the onset, seems like quite a few places are at peace and this church of St. Eva seems all nice and everything. But oh wait, the protagonist is just a defenseless kid up against this HUGE DEMON OH GOD. You can't win that one. Alright, time skip and find out our main characters seem to be doing fine, but how long does that last? This game deals with an egotistical mastermind of an arena chairman, an even more egotistical frog prince who impersonates Jean, the real prince and promptly makes him fail a cooking competition just because he's evil, and a monkey general who's out her wazoo with her tactics. All of these are demons by the way. Really nasty-looking demons, and they aren't the only ones. Perhaps predictably, the head church guy is really evil all along, and therefore it should be obvious that the deity known as St. Eva is also evil. It's a crazed concept of the corrupt church, and this game is one of many that has done it.

That's not even scratching the surface involving character deaths. While none of the playable ones die, we see a lot of tragic scenarios play out. We watch Rand try and hold two walls together, only for his mother to take his place. That same mother seemed bitchy and unlikeable due to her abuse of her son, but she was still a mother goddamnit. And before that was Ray, a semi-important character who has helped out for a few scenarios. Then he is fought due to his status as a high member of the church. This battle is where he gives Ryu the ultimate dragon spell, meaning he must've realized it was the wrong choice to follow Eva and that this is the best way at redemption, even if it kills him. Of course, I don't want to leave out Nina's decision to become the great bird, while it doesn't actually happen to her, her sister does it instead and the results are equally as tragic. The ending just before the final boss just had me lurched back. Watching Ryu's friends all get killed in crystals one by one, and although he brings them back, it was truly a nasty thing to see. And then the prospect of the multiple endings is sad no matter which one you get. The worst may just be the default ending. Ryu is completely conscious about the open demon portal and has to guard it in some sort of eternal sleep like his apparent mother had done. Some of those flashback scenes involving Ganer don't help much either. This is definitely one of the saddest RPGs I've played, good, but really sad and heart-wrenching.

A look back at: Breath of Fire

Here it is folks, my first ever RPG that I actually played. Well not entirely, but the first one in these modern times I played back in 2014 or so when I decided to go back to RPGs. Yes, I played Pokemon, the Mario & Luigi games, and the godawful Final Fantasy remakes for the DS along with a few outliers such as Spectrobes. But after looking at Breath of Fire, I got right back into turn-based RPG stuff.

On the surface, this really is the most standard RPG I can remember playing. Standard characters, standard magic abilities, standard encounters, standard navigation, standard save points, all of it. The first Breath of Fire has only a few innovative ideas, such as field skills depending on which character you have, fusion spells to fuse one particular character with others, and "second winds" or so where you deplete a bosses health bar and then they get mad or something and are still fighting you. The dragon powers in this game are actually quite cool too, and are often the trump card in boss fights. One of which combines every character in the party. Apart from that, yeah, good luck finding anything truly interesting.

Most of the interesting stuff Breath of Fire really provides is in characters and plot. A nice little civil war between two dragon factions is quite the interesting take, and key characters include Sara and Jade. The idea that not four, but six keys were used to seal a goddess away was better than just four. Oh but Jade does have these four lieutenants. And you can also have only four characters in the battlefield, but can swap them for the reserves in the back. Speaking of characters, hey, look, none of them are really human! It's quite interesting, the most human ones can turn into other species, Ryu to dragon, Nina to bird, and Karn to whatever fusion spell. While some characters do become pointless gameplay-wise, storyline-wise they are pretty decent overall. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for the villain side. Only Jade and Cerl are interesting, but Zog and the other three members of Jade's four are pretty lame overall. So the plot has some of that "war is hell" stuff, especially considering the Dark Dragon's lust for dominance and control. We see towns almost getting leveled, other towns getting destroyed or lost in time or in perpetual freezing moments, and one character apparently is lost in stasis where the party has to go to a psychedelic dream world to help him out.

At the very best, this game is average, and that's about as much as I can say for it. It has some interesting ideas in plot, but not a whole lot in terms of gameplay. Is it bad though? No.