If you're wondering why there has been a precipitous drop in SNES Online blog entries, it's because the games I planned on playing through later happen to take a while to beat. Today's blog entry is one of those games. BACKGROUND:
This was another one of those games that I had no idea existed. I'm pretty sure I said something to the effect of "the fuck is Breath of Fire" upon seeing it in the SNES Online library. SUMMARY: In this high fantasy medieval world, there are two warring factions: the Light Dragons and the Dark Dragons. These are humans capable of transforming into powerful dragons, and they're fighting over the favor of the goddess Tyr, who has the ability to grant wishes. The war raged on to the point where the world was almost destroyed, until one Light Dragon imprisoned the goddess using six keys, effectively ending the war. Fast forward to present day (relatively speaking), and the Dark Dragons are still on the hunt for their Light Dragon enemies. As it happens, the last of them are living in a secluded village called Drogen, and are doing so in peace. That peace is upended when Zog, the Dark Dragon Emperor, attacks the village and burns it to the ground. Ryu, our protagonist, is a resident of the village, and in the aftermath of the siege, sets off on his quest to defeat Zog and prevent him from freeing the goddess. The story is your usual fantasy setting + hero's journey + macguffin hunt + fuck up the evil shithead monarch combo meal, so you won't really get any award-winning writing here (especially not from most of the villains). That said, there's no damsel-saving, and that's good enough for me. After you're treated to the game's exposition and opening scenes, you are thrown out into the overworld, Dragon Quest 1 style. From there, it's off to your journey in this RPG. For the early game, progression and exploration is linear, but as you go along and your access to the world expands, your quest will have you moving to and from the decently massive world in short order. Most of the objectives and sub-quests aren't too hard to figure out (given that you talk to all the NPCs), but there are a few "how the fuck was I supposed to figure that out" moments where you might wanna have a walkthrough handy. Once you're far along into the game and you've seen how large the world is, you'll be pleased to know that there are plenty of secrets and hidden areas to check out once you have everything. There are some locations that are inaccessible until you've reached a certain point, and even treasures in previously-conquered dungeons that you can't get until you have the thing to access that section of the dungeon. Exploration and backtracking are rewarded fairly well in this game, and that pleases me. On Ryu's journey, you'll meet allies who will enjoy your party. They're pretty diverse species-wise, as you get at least one representative of each race in the game (majority of which are anthropomorphic animals), and each have their own niche in combat. However, I found that character development for party members can be hit or miss. Some get a bit of an arc (with a few getting solo missions where you control just them), while others just kinda show up and join your squad for whatever reason. I wish those others got some extra screen time, but for the ones that did get a bit of a story, I found their development mildly interesting. You also don't really get a sense of the relationships between the characters, but that's beside the point. Your combat is the typical turn-based RPG action you've probably encountered in some form. You get into random encounters, and you're thrown into the battle screen, where you can select actions for each party member (attack, defend, cast spell, or use item) or perform other actions (flee, toggle auto-battle, check stats, switch members, etc.). If you've played a turn-based JRPG before, this isn't really any different. The party members fill a very specific role that leaves little room for experimentation. Ryu is your damage dealer, while other party members fill other roles such as support (healing and buffs), mage (who has access to offensive spells), a slow but beefy tank, a glass cannon, and more. Some characters are more useful and interesting than others (Ryu, for example, can transform into a fucking dragon), and unless you take the time to get everyone the best gear and grind, there's a good chance you'll have one lineup for most of the game. Outside of combat, certain party members get to shine, as they have what I can describe as the equivalent of HMs (from Pokémon) at their disposal. One character, for example, is able to traverse through typically impassable forests, while another is able to break rocks and cracked walls to access other areas. It's a great way to get everyone to shine, even if it's only in certain situations or in small sections of the game. Each character has their own signature weapon type, and can vary from one-handed and two-handed (a nuance that I found interesting). You can also equip armor, helmets, shields (can't be equipped if you have a two-handed weapon), and special accessories, which boost stats (mostly defense). All this gear has an assigned weight value, which affects your speed in combat, so it becomes a balance of being able to act first vs. the ability to tank more hits. Other than that, gear is pretty straightforward (with very few pieces granting unique effects), and you'll get by just buying/picking up the ones that give you the biggest numbers. Spell variety is hit or miss, thanks to the characters having a specific role. Ryu's "spells" are essentially the dragon transformations (which turn his attacks from physical to magic), the support character gets almost exclusively support spells, and only the mage gets the bulk of the exciting offensive elemental spells. Other characters either get a limited pool of spells or nothing at all. Some spells are also incredibly situational, so you may beat the game without having using certain spells at all. Enemies come in various shapes and sizes, and can range from complete pushovers to "can one-shot your entire party if you aren't careful." While the monster designs are generally interesting and well-made, there aren't any in particular that I'd say are standout. Some monster concepts (like the Ameblob, which is this giant protozoa-looking things) are more memorable than others, while a few are pretty much derivative (there's a boss that straight up looks like the Dragon Quest golem, and you can encounter blue slimes and red slimes, too). Bosses are a bit more exciting, though not by much. Most boss fights take a bit to get through, as these assholes are quite the damage sponges. For the most part, however, not many of them pose an actual threat unless you're being careless. They also have this mechanic when once you whittle their HP down, they go into this "last gasp" mode. It's a cool idea, but it basically does nothing other than function as a second health bar. I wish they went all in and made it a proper "second phase" where the boss fucks you up with more powerful attacks or something. Every town each has a unique vibe or aesthetic to them, and sometimes that "vibe" has a connection to the story, which I found neat. Boiled down to their essentials, however, most towns function pretty much the same, with inns to rest in, shops to buy/sell goods, save points, and a vault to store all your extra shit in. Dungeons are the same way; each have their own look to them and feature all sorts of gimmicks, but the goal is the same: get all the treasure and get to the end. The game looks pretty good, with well-designed sprites for characters and overworld elements. I think the best showcase of Breath of Fire's graphics is in battle, where you see your party and the monsters in all their glory. They all get a decent amount of unique animations, with your party even changing attack animations depending on what weapon they have equipped. The battle UI opts for a less verbose approach, leaning more towards the use of symbols and animations to denote actions, but you do get plenty of text in places like HP/AP indicators, spell selection, or when shit happens like crits or dodges. You also get health bars for both your party and the enemy, and having played JRPGs like FFVII (which doesn't show enemy health unless you cast Sense), I really appreciated this. The one pitfall I have to point out with the game's menus is the occasional lack of information it presents. As I mentioned, spell names are truncated to the point that you're not even sure what it means, and this extends to items as well. The game gets around this by having a function that allows you to inspect items (subsequently telling you its function), but sometimes the description can be vague, and you're left with more questions than answers. Annoyingly, this function is not present for spells, but I did get some enjoyment from throwing out spells on weak enemies to see what they did, so it's not all bad. The game also doesn't tell you what certain stats mean, though one can easily piece that together through playing the game. Perhaps the bigger issue is the EXP counter, which is virtually useless, as it only tells you how much you've earned in total. As far as I know, there's no way to tell how close you are to leveling up. As frustrating as these menu woes can be, I wouldn't really classify my observations as critiques. This is just how games were back then, and the fact that modern games are much more informative is something I really appreciate. I only point these things out for players who aren't quite used to older games that don't tell you a lot. While the only buttons you need are A and B (confirm and cancel), plus the D-Pad, the game gives you the option to set submenu shortcuts to the remaining buttons. I suppose it's useful if you want quick and efficient navigation, but I personally found no real use to this feature, other than map the main menu to X (which is what I'm accustomed to). VERDICT: It's not the most unique or groundbreaking JRPG out there, but I still enjoyed my 20 hours of playtime with Breath of Fire. The presentation (especially in combat) is great, and the gameplay, while not the most complex the genre has to offer, was engaging enough to keep me hooked. This is a decent entry-level RPG, in my opinion, so I recommend it for people who are fairly new or unfamiliar with the genre. Keep a walkthrough close by just in case, though. If you're a seasoned RPG veteran, I don't think this game will impress you, but I'd still suggest checking out the game, because I feel that it's still a solid experience despite not being a revolutionary title - end -.
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Derryck
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