Been playing on the Raspberry Pi quite a bit lately. Decided to replay the Tetalogy of Breath of Fire: I, II, III, IV. I've never played the 5th game Dragon Quarter, I've heard bad things. Grew up playing this series, and while it isn't as polished as some other RPGs during this era from SNES-PS1 it is still fun. Who doesn't love turning into dragons and laying waste to their enemies? There's some minor spoilers below if you've never played the games, but these are all 23 years old or older so...yeah.
Breath of Fire I - This was the one that started it all on the SNES. Surprisingly ol' Ted Woolsey did some of the translation for the game and he was also the Director for the English version, although there were other translators involved. Some of the dialogue is a little basic. The combat is fun, just simple turn based action for JRPGs at the time. The dragon transformations are nice, and they're the least complicated of the series. There's a one time AP/MP cost up front for transformation and then you're free to attack without additional costs. It could be considered a bit OP, which is probably why they turned it down in future games. The story is a little bland, but there's some gripping moments and some decent characters. The antagonist needed more screen time. Not a bad start to the series.
Breath of Fire II - This one gets a bad rap for translation, but I honestly don't think it's that bad. Woolsey wasn't a part of this project, maybe that's why it's viewed negatively on the dialogue by some. Story wise I've always enjoyed this one a lot, and some of the party members are fun. I don't care for a few, like Sten, Gene, and Spar. Katt, Rand, and the return of Bleu are awesome. For me this has the weakest dragon transformations of the series. You have to spend all your AP/MP for just one all out dragon attack...kind of lame. The attacks often hit hard, but it kind of blows you have to spend all your AP. It felt like they were trying to curb the OP nature of dragon transformations from BoF I and they went too far. For me that's the only real downside to this game, I love just about everything else. The antagonist doesn't get a lot of screen time, but it's a slow build throughout the game so it's kind of worth it. Love the Shaman system and being able to merge with party members to make them more powerful and changing their looks.
Breath of Fire III - This one is probably the best in the series. It's hard for me to choose personally between this one and BoF II, but this one just does a lot of things so well. The Master system allows you to tailor characters and make them stronger based on who you're apprenticing under. The dragon system is by far the coolest in the series. You pickup "genes" around the world and you can create a ton of different dragon combinations based on which genes you splice together. For every gene you use it increases the AP/MP cost per turn for being transformed into a dragon, so it can get costly but it's worth it. It was such a cool upgrade after BoF II's bad dragon system. Aside from dragon transformations which are awesome, you can also learn enemy skills for the first time in the series. This allows you to tailor characters further and give them additional skills that can be helpful in fights. The characters are all pretty good in this one, Peco and Momo aren't my favorites but most fans seem to love them. The story is very good, they're some great bad guys and this game ties in well to the previous two. The fishing is actually pretty fun in this one too, and I don't usually care for minigames. If you never played the series, and you want to play any of the BoF games, this is probably the best one to try first. It does pretty much everything well and is a fun play through.
Breath of Fire IV - Until recently I've never been able to finish this game, and I've tried twice before. Fans like this one quite a bit, not as much as III, and I quite frankly can't see why. This game suffers greatly from camera/perspective issues. It's an isometric view much like III had, but for whatever reason they decided to put a lot of tall buildings and foreground obstacles to impede your view. Sometimes they use this to hide goodies, but more often than not it's just a constant distraction that makes navigation a chore. You're constantly spinning the camera around trying to find a path, often having to do this multiple times just to get from one screen to another. It's a real headache, something that wasn't required in BoF III. Story wise this one is pretty damn bland, although there are a few gripping scenes that are shocking and hit hard. I really didn't like the art direction they went with in this one, it felt like a step back from the previous game's beautiful sprites. The characters seem a little bit more lifeless too. They did do something neat with the antagonist as you play through his eyes at times, but there are also other bad guys you'll encounter. There's a bit of an unresolved story arc with one that really grates on me, a dude deserved to die and he gets away! As far as the dragon transformations, these are probably the worst in the series for me or just slightly above BoF II. You don't shift into a dragon as much as you shift into a half dragon thing and then summon dragons for attacks. It's weak, there's still an AP/MP cost per turn as you're morphed, and it just doesn't feel powerful or inspired. It was a clear step back from BoF III's gene system. Overall, even after finally finishing this game, I just strongly dislike it. It has some redeeming qualities, but I didn't find any of the changes they made to be beneficial compared to the previous game. It was just a clear step backwards and it may be why the series ended up fading away shortly after. If there was one change that might have been okay it was the combat system itself. They allowed you to chain some abilities together into combos or create new attacks all together by allowing two characters to use two abilities to create a new one. It doesn't always fire though, and it's kind of unnecessary.
I'm thinking about returning to another PS1 RPG, Beyond the Beyond, now that I've finished with my BoF playthroughs.
