Thousand Arms' Minigames

Here we go, a game where you're more likely to enjoy the minigames more than the actual plot, due to the whole dating mechanics involved. Well, you don't have to do this, but a whole chunk of the game is much harder unless you date the ladies, since you lose out of weapon power and magic skills. There's several ways to do this, by actually dating, giving presents, and finally, the minigames, oh yes.

Cooking Attack

Sodina's minigame is a simple Simon Says, up to 10 different combinations which start at 2 button presses, then go up by one after every two combinations is finished, up to 6. It's super easy and honestly quite boring but better than some of the games on here.

Hammer Strikes

A whack-a-mole game involving the Playstation's direction buttons and actual buttons, basically hit the corresponding button when a Damashi pops up but don't hit Wyna. There's a few set patterns, so this one is actually save-scummable to get the perfect score. One pattern actually opens every single door at once, with seven Damashi to hit accurately. Not save-scumming this one could make this one of the harder games.

BJ King

This is honestly self-explanatory enough for those who know how to play Blackjack and I'm not gonna say much about it. Except that it's one of two luck-based minigames and that's all there is to it.

Hit Damashi

The worst mini-game. You have to protect Nelsha from Damashi which show up around the screen by shooting at them with a crosshair, but not shooting her or letting them hit her. Problems with this game include the slow crosshair speed, the high amounts of Damashi that pop up before the timer runs out, and the awful hitboxes of these characters. I think this game actually is scored based on how many Damashi you actually kill, but it's hard to remember when you have to protect Nelsha too. The fact that this skill-based game is more annoying than the two luck-based minigames really shows.

Sweeper Blues

This is the best mini-game. Palma has it, and it's a nice puzzle involving cleaning up every single square on the 5x5 board and it's got the nice puzzle element that has some nice thought to it. This one is graded by time but is still surprisingly easy and worth it.

Shell Joint

Kyoka's minigame is a memory game where you have to pick which face is the one that she wants. This is actually the easiest minigame, due to it only being three patterns. Once you memorize those patterns, you can just do it blindfolded. I'm not even joking. They don't even bother to really change locations of the faces here.

Super Rock Paper Scissors

And then we go to possibly the worst luck-based minigame I have ever seen. Yes, it's a RPS game, but you'll notice that the opponent either wins or loses against you, never ties. And then the second round is basically guess which way the robot will turn, one of four cardinal directions, or if you lost the first round you have to avoid it guessing you. Both rounds need to be won in order to gain a point, no partial credit. It's save-scummable, yes, but not fun, and Marion's voice really is grating. Making matters worse is this game is actually required for one quest!

Brain Teasers

This is an easy addition/subtraction of shapes. It's timed but still rather easy and shouldn't even be possible to lose unless you are deliberately trying to lose intimacy

Palace of Knowledge

A trivia game. Save the answers to these ones and you win every time.

So yeah, Thousand Arms has some pretty easy games to figure out. It's actually the most fun thing to do in this game, because this game's battle system although unique isn't really all that fun to get the hang of. And the dating questions are often trick questions, so I often leave actual dating out of the question. Basically, these games are the best ways to go.

Suikoden Minigames: Part 4

So here we are, the final (for now) look at Suikoden's minigames. I of course haven't started Suikoden V yet, and Tactics didn't actually have any minigames so it's automatically out. Oddly enough, Suikoden IV didn't do that badly with its minigames, given that only two are required to recruit characters and the rest are completely optional. So let's see here.

Tops

This minigame can be played with Basil before being exiled from Razril or after you recruit the guy, but thankfully you don't have to play it to recruit him. I hate this game if it isn't obvious, but that may be because I played it via keyboard. Think of this one game as something to do with Beyblades or whatever kids in the 2000's played that involved spinning things, except done with a Playstation 2. It's awkward. The goal is to put spinning tops on a table, you have up to three, and you need to ensure you have the last spinning top standing in order to win. Which is harder than it sounds because you can lose even when you have tops in reserve, and you also gotta ensure that the tops don't either fly off the table or lose their spin. Apparently, it is possible to get a valuable Treasure map for another minigame, but only after twenty consecutive wins. I played this game once and decided not to do it again. Hey, maybe having a PS2 controller would help.

Chinchirorin

Yep, it's back, although Gunter (the guy who has it) calls it Triple Toss. It's entirely the same deal as before, completely luck-based, very save-scummable (hey, they didn't find some way to tinker the RNG this time). Only real difference is three 1's, which quintuples winnings instead of losing triple. Also there's this "Down to One" game, but no one played that, seriously. Gunter is an annoying recruit, but not actually because of this minigame, you don't even have to play him in order to actually recruit him. It's just he has to be seen in a few towns before he actually becomes recruitable.

Ritapon

Well, here's the big one. I STILL have no idea how this game is supposed to be played, and the bad news is that you not only need to play it to recruit Rita, but also have to earn a set score, apparently such thing has to exist for this very complex game. It's save-scummable still, but it's complicated nature is really bothersome. What you are supposed to do is get 3 sets of 3 identical coloured tiles, or the 1-2-3 combo ordeal. It's also got these rune tiles which are liable to be used right away to help you or hinder your opponent. My biggest issue is that Rita immediately uses one the moment she gets one, and these things often turn the advantage to her. Not helping is the terminology. I often confuse Ron (a winning condition) with Pon (not actually a winning condition). I can probably picture a few people thinking it's fun, but only after getting into it a lot. I couldn't figure out a lot of it and it was pretty much luck for me.

Cards

I don't know what this game is called, but Noah plays it, pre-recruitment and post-recruitment. But it's not necessary to recruit her by playing this minigame. It's sort of like Blackjack, except the target value is 51 and you can go over, also you alternate turns. There's combos with elements and all that. The prizes for this minigame are really not worth it and this game isn't all that fun. Thankfully it's optional.

Fishing

Well there's two kinds, the net-fishing with Shiramine, which isn't a minigame, and the regular rod one with Ugetsu. This is the more minigame one is and exactly what you expect.

Treasure hunting

This almost doesn't count as a minigame, but it's actually the most rewarding thing I can think of in this game. Basically after recruiting Rene, she can be controlled on some islands, and the treasure maps help in finding the treasures in places. It's nice and free stuff too, high-level runes and equipment are good to get. Only problem is random encounters, which is why I don't necessarily consider this that much of a minigame. Still, the rewards are excellent.

Coin-tossing

Once you recruit Igor this one becomes available. It's also simplistic to a fault due to just guessing which side to land on or to get more heads than Igor (or all tails for some reason). The prizes are not worth it. There's again no need to play this to recruit him.

Mice-catching

This is the other required minigame, for Nalkul and Champo. It's super silly and actually fun, because you are Champo catching the mice in the building and putting them into a cage. Sometimes when chasing mice some will try to free the caged ones, which is easy to tangle with, and it's somewhat funny watching the cat bang into the wall. Afterwards, I think you need to have Champo in the party to redo the minigame, and there are a few good prizes.

Mushroom/Mint wars

The procedures for getting to do this are lame, but like Chinchirorin, it's a purely nostalgic game. A throwback to the original war battle system in Suikoden. Something so fun to see for once, even if it's completely silly. Obviously, it functions exactly how fans would expect, with only marginal differences. No real rewards besides maybe the mushroom/mint, and no real penalties either.

So yeah, only two minigames are required, while the rest are either not fun and not required or pretty good overall and also not required. I didn't include the naval battle system, even though it could count, it's pretty integral as part of the storyline overall (despite being lame). I also don't include the Training Hall or the Confession Booth. One's not an actual minigame while the other, you are really supposed to forgive people anyways, since not forgiving them is actually gonna hurt the chances for Suikoden IV's best ending.

Suikoden Minigames: Part 3

Yep, I am still doing this for some reason. Anyways, Suikoden 3 didn't have a whole lot of minigames, which is both good and bad since I don't generally like minigames but Suikoden tends to be decent overall when it comes to them.

First things first, Chinchirorin is out. I guess this little dice-in-a-cup game didn't catch on in the Grasslands region. Whatever. If you want a luck-based minigame, play the lottery. It's just as save-scummable, although it's liable to take a lot longer. But do it as early as your first few chapters and you'll end up not worrying about money for the rest of the game, or at least until you start spending all your cash on smithing the weapons, since those will take up more than eight times the cash cap.

So yes, there still are recruits that require minigame-winning to get, but not a whole lot of them. Two recruits, Mike and Billy, have card games, which yes you have to beat them once. The game Kabu, which Mike plays, is a little like Blackjack, and, well, it plays like it. I don't remember if there were any prizes to win after beating him the first time and challenging him again. But I do know that Guppo, the game Billy plays, does have prizes. Of course, he has to be beaten the first time, and the game is essentially a High/Low card game. Some of the prizes are unique, but not really game-changing, but hey, that's all fine and dandy.

There's apparently a horse-racing minigame which you can do if you really want. Again, there are prizes for winning. But also you don't even need to do it to recruit the one who hosts it, Kathy. That's great. As a result, this game is completely optional.

There's not a whole lot of things I can actually constitute as minigames. The way to recruit Kathy is by counting horses in the field, made somewhat annoying since you do it in a place with random encounters. Recruiting Kidd involves a lame detective story but you aren't really being challenged to do anything. Ernie just offers a trivia game. And the rest of the optional recruits, of which there are far fewer in Suikoden III, usually just require an item, another recruit, or something like doing a duel which isn't much of a minigame given how it's a Suikoden mainstay.

Perhaps the most unique one may also not count as a minigame, but I feel the need to mention it because it is unique. Yep, the theater. It's quite interesting, you get to pick a play, and pick from your own stars of destiny for the cast. And then you see how it's done, with many characters doing either well or terribly, a lot of humor value can come from these things. And regardless, you still earn money. It's a very nice touch overall.

So yeah, this was the low point when it came to actual minigames, as Suikoden III is considerably more plot-oriented. Not that it's that bad though.

Suikoden Minigames: Part 2

Let's continue this overdrive on some crappy and not-so-crappy minigames, this time making ourselves into Suikoden II, a game where RNG will likely throw itself at you the same way and it's certainly harder to manipulate.

I'm not even sure how it's done, honest. It is still possible to savescum some of the minigames here, as well as the war battle mechanic. Hell, I'll even mention the war battle mechanic at the end of this rant. So about the other ones. Well, there's a rope-climbing minigame easily accessible in the castle. It's probably the only game in which savescumming can in fact win the game easily, all of this involving a dice roll. Actually, since all the prizes are different in the rope-climbing minigame and you'd probably reset multiple times until you find the appropriate prize, you'll actually realize how hard it is to come in second place, whereas it's much easier to be first or last.

Certainly is odd how a rope-climbing minigame involving a die is much easier to manipulate RNG than the series staple of Chinchirorin, where you can't just sit next to who you are playing against and hope they get a different hand each and every time. It's just not exciting anymore. What's worse is that this is a required minigame for crossing a river, again. And it's required two more times, one to get the guy who sailed you across, and another to recruit another guy, both for 108 stars. The biggest issue may actually not be the RNG itself, but the maximum bet limit. For both recruits you have to rake in 5000, the max possible to bet is 3000 and unfortunately there are no consecutive earnings this time around. Congrats on making a game-breaking classic minigame into one I wouldn't want to touch again, Suikoden II.

So any other notable ones pertaining to characters? Well, Yam Koo offers a fishing minigame, entirely what you would expect if you are a fan of the Breath of Fire fishing minigames. But it's much better in those games than it is here. Tony the gardener has some whack-a-mole minigame which isn't really rewarding. Karen offers for you to dance to get her to be recruited, and it's rhythmic, but nothing else exciting.

And then the meat of the minigames that truly end up unique is culminated in something culinary. I'm talking about the cookoffs, which are unique in nature due to their outlandishness and Iron Chef-esque presentation. It's not just a minigame, but an entire sidequest revolving around Hai Yo, with recipes to win, one chef which is hopeless to win against because he cheats, and a storyline involving characters and a sacred recipe. So where's the RNG? The judges, picked from the character's own recruits, constitute the four judges, and they all have different tastes, so you are definitely not going to get a fair game each and every time. This is especially true for some characters, so imagine you have a vegetarian like Nanami as a judge, combined with a meat lover as well as a judge who's harsh. Good luck, because as soon as you input which recipes to cook, it's all dependent on it. There's no control over the characters (your own or the other team) once the recipes are decided, and there's pretty much no control over which judges you get and what their scores end up being. I give them credit for the overall presentation but will not tolerate the random factor of actually winning.

And so I get to the war battles, which of course consitute its own minigame and is integral in the Suikoden series. Also it changed from the boring rock-paper-scissors variant from the first game, well, somewhat. Parts of it still do apply but it is often not entirely noticeable. Thing is, RNG can really be nasty in this game, especially if you lose a unit with a character that can be permanently killed like Tuta. The battle system here is quite Langrisser-esque, go towards the character you want to attack and let the game take over. Sometimes nothing happens, sometimes a soldier or two on a side goes down, sometimes half of them (which is a sword's worth of damage), and well, you know what happens after that. Sometimes, luck really does have a factor in that a really powerful unit gets run through by a unit that's not as tough. There are ways to inflict some good free damage on units, and there's not too many instances of war battles that are really awful. Perhaps what I really hate is how you don't have full control over most troops in war battles until the midpoint of the game, where many allies are computer controlled and often are defeated easily (not to mention recruiting Gilbert). With such nastiness in RNG that often can't be manipulated, I say Suikoden II's war battle system is the worst. I get this game is a classic, and really shines in its overall gameplay as well as just about everything else apart from horrid translation, but really these minigames are a major source of frustration should I be tasked with doing them.

Suikoden minigames: Part 1

Yay more minigames. Yay more complaining about stuff in Suikoden. Yes, I still like this series anyways, but things must be said. I'm still not a fan of most minigames, although some aren't too bad in this one. I'll only cover ones that originated in the original Suikoden though.

Chinchirorin (Triple Toss)

So this is the "toss three dice in the bowl" game that is pretty much reliant entirely on the RNG. Wonderful. I'm really not too much of a fan of it, but in Suikoden 1 you can bet a good amount then bet your winnings, scum this game and be rolling in the money. You can't do that in 2 or 4 though, as the maximum bets are lower and you can't get consecutive bonuses for wins. Heck, in Suikoden 2 they made it harder to savescum (but it is still possible to do). The game's rules are basically throw the three dice into the cup, if for some reason a dice falls out, it's an automatic loss. If it's a pattern of three, it's a triple win except if it is all one in which it's a triple loss. 4-5-6 is a double win, 1-2-3 is a double loss. Otherwise, when you have two same numbers and a different, the number on the other dice is your value. Higher wins of course. No score on three rolls automatically gives a score of 0. This game makes the opponent go first. Overall though, there's nothing really important out of this game, and I can't understand of all gambling mini-game opportunities they went with this one. Suikoden 4 has the "Down to One" option, but you bet no one actually played that due to the nostalgia of playing the original "Triple Toss". Having to recruit Tai Ho, Gaspar, and Shilo with this did make it the most memorable minigame. I don't believe you actually have to play against Gunter in Suikoden 4 for him to be recruited though.

Memory cup game

Along with the Chinchirorin above, this one is quite the time-waster. It's exactly what you expect, three cups, one is hidden under a coin, shuffle them around. First time you play this with Marco, it's super easy. When it comes time to recruit him, it's computer-flash speed which is impossible to figure out even with a human eye, but you'd still likely savescum it just the same. Somehow, it fairs better than Chinchirorin because of the fact it is shorter. Still though, who would actually earn boatloads of money doing this? Sometimes I like to keep it real.

Card matching game

This is one that is likely played only once, and then never again because it is terrible. All this just to recruit Georges, a pretty much useless character otherwise. It's a weird card game where you have to match cards under some record time he sent, except that upon a match, adjacent cards get turned over and several other matches disappear. It's pretty interesting in how it is programmed, but it sucks gameplay-wise. I don't know if you actually earn anything important for winning besides recruiting the character.

Spinning wheel game

Yes, this counts. Yes it is probably the worst Suikoden minigame. Yes, it is unfortunately required. Though to be fair, all the minigames I listed are required, but at least those are mostly for recruiting characters. This one though is in the middle of the subquest for the Kirinji to get Lepant's attention. For some reason, there's this huge wheel right outside the Kirinji's room, and stepping on it spins the character in whatever direction it takes you. The problem is, you really only want to get from the south end to the north end, and it will likely take 10 rounds to go through it all. Sure, the ultra-rare Dragon Seal Incense is a possible prize for landing on the lucky treasure spot. But what about those other ones? So you like a random battle for landing on the wrong spot? What about losing experience? Being at the full mercy of the RNG once again. Except there's just no fun in doing that. In fact, the next time I do a blog post involving Suikoden series minigames, I'll once again mention RNG-related things, because it seems that almost every minigame here is going to involve that.

Breath of Fire IV's Minigames

Oh joy more freaking minigames! Like I ever wanted these. And they are from a Breath of Fire game! Only IV did a better job in not making the majority of them annoying, so that's good. What's bad is that almost all of them are still mandatory.

So the mainstays of fishing and faerie village are still around. The latter seems to be done well, but don't quote me on that since I didn't know much about the faerie village in the previous game. Here, it's somewhat easier to understand, having them do jobs to keep themselves alive and all. Hunting, by the way, can be a minigame in place of regular random battles sometimes, where you help the faeries by using Ryu's sword or Ursula's gun to hunt animals, and it's harder than it sounds since you leave one animal wounded, it's actual meat value drops, and heh, just watching them run away is a pain enough.

As for fishing, meh, I liked it a lot better in Breath of Fire 3. There's a difference between different kinds of fishing locations (there's river fishing in this game) and being able to see which kinds of fish you will be able to catch. Breath of Fire IV has the former. The overall mechanics for catching fish are still the same and still not too tough to do though.

So what about those other minigames? Well, there's one where you gotta feed an old man, forcing the player to be distinctive of what food and drinks are bought. It's pretty easy, all you need is money. Afterwards is a lame betting minigame, again having a ton of money really mitigates this one. There's an extremely dumb shovel game where the shovel actually breaks upon too much use. As someone who's used heavy duty shovels before, that's really not how shovels break.

The first real awful game is that sluice gate thing. It's one where you have to be rather slow at first when rotating a wheel but have to speed up later on until you hit the O button upon the high pitched noise. It's a bit reminiscent of the valve minigame from Breath of Fire 3, except at least you are not sacrificing a plot item, but rather trying not to get Ryu tired from the spinning.

Hide and Seek? Eh, I'll pass. This minigame is even stupider than the one in Breath of Fire 3 game mostly due to the new ability to change camera angles only making it so that finding the kids is hard because of the camera angles. Meaning it's not really hard at all. Also not hard, stopping a thief by blockading something. The cleaning of the storeroom minigame is actually pretty neat. Although timed, it's pretty good, because you remove barrels and properly get items placed and crates stacked. There's a chicken herding game really late without a time limit, and it's not too important either.

Not a whole lot of minigames happen afterwards. The one with the river rafting is way too fast, but at the skin of my teeth I did it on the first go. The sandflier one is okay. The one where Nina has to knock the sailor off the mast is the other really bad minigame, one that almost entirely can be cheesed if you know how, but is extremely difficult otherwise. And another really dumb sailing minigame comes afterwards! If it isn't obvious, anything involving water tends to be the worst minigames of the whole bunch. Hey, Breath of Fire 3 had two awful ones involving Garr, pulling something from water, and getting something from a water well.

So yeah, Breath of Fire 4 did only slightly better in minigames, where there really are only bad ones involving the water or anything associative of it. It had more than Breath of Fire 3, but they were at least decent enough. And the mainstays are still mainstays, nothing too terrible about them.

Final Fantasy VII's Minigames

Ah yes, I wanted to talk more about minigames considering how annoyed I am at a lot of them, particularly in Breath of Fire 3 where some of the worst ones were required. So, what did Final Fantasy VII have in store. Well, a few required ones, some of which thankfully aren't necessarily scored, plus an entire minigame zone which is of course optional. It's not without it's more annoying ones though, but the vast majority of the minigames are actually pretty decent.

I think the best overall minigame is the Fort Condor scenarios, which all have different timeframes for when they become available. It's a real-time tactical battle with several units of advantages and disadvantages, and putting a new unit in battle costs money. Thing is, this is Final Fantasy. I'm liable to be grinding and that gets me in a lot of moolah, so these battles are honestly piss easy. The last one of course is what gets the Phoenix materia in this game, and for some reason it's possible to get two copies of it.

A whole slew of events before the Gold Saucer and Fort Condor have a few minigames to put up. There's only one minigame during the Wall Market subquest, which is squatting and that's actually pretty easy. The biking minigame to escape from Midgard is pretty decent, although it's hard to actually hit enemies here. You're not really scored on it, and characters here have plenty of HP to survive even on a first try, although there is a boss at the end. The ones in Junon are the worst, but for some dumb reason, they made friggin' CPR into a minigame before that.

So the Junon minigames with the ratings are the worst ones out of the whole bunch, both for being mandatory and obnoxious at the same time. Great, put Cloud in the soldier outfit, and have him ready to run into the soldier march, doing the commands just right. Apparently, setting text scrolling to default seems to be the way to correctly do it, but even then, ratings are likely to be stiff. And then there's the sendoff one, which in all honestly takes forever. It amazes me that Rufus is gonna stare at your group while the guy just brings commands, except he does it very quickly and it gets insanely difficult to keep up. Also wrong turns ruin it completely.

Thankfully the Gold Saucer minigames aren't really required, with the exception of the submarine and snowboarding ones, but those are unlocked after story events and you aren't really scored on neither then. Alongside them is the bike game which is also available, this time scored. The other games aren't anything to write home about. Arm wrestling is just button mashing. The ball minigame has a nice timing aspect that's easy to figure out. The Mog minigame is a complete waste of time as is the fortune telling. The 3-D fighter? Would be interesting except you can never beat the fifth opponent ever, which is not a good thing for any minigame. Unwinnable situations are a no-no. The other squares have other things to them, like Battle Square is honestly pretty self-explanatory and is how to get Cloud's last limit break. The other's aren't minigame-esque at all except for Speed Square, which has a very fun shooter, and Chocobo Square.

Now Chocobo breeding honestly is a pain in the ass, but pretty much required for these ordeals known as Chocobo racing. Yep, gotta catch one with a lure, put it to a farm, feed it greens so it can "grow" per se. Or go ahead and catch a different color one because those will be a lot better to use. Pretty much what I do in these races is hold a button down. It seems that I always pick the auto option, and due to my chocobo stats, I win each time. Don't even race against that Joe guy to be honest. All I really do is find the guide for getting the Gold Chocobo and follow it. All I end up doing is getting the Knights of Round summon. I don't even want to bother with the rest.

So Final Fantasy VII's minigames are an obvious mixed bag, but the vast majority of them are not really required. They had to make some of their more annoying ones like the Junon ones required though. The other required ones end up in the Gold Saucer (land of optional minigames, naturally) but aren't scored when you have to do them. And at least some of them were decent enough in my book.

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.