Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter

"A difficult game, with a few holes, but a solid, great game nontheless."

Breath of Fire was the series that initially called out to me. As a youngin, I tried this series before I tried Final Fantasy, playing each of the games in order, and I noticed that this series was probably my favorite of all time. The characters were diverse and had personalities ranging from the slick thief Karn from Breath of Fire 1, the wise, unemotional Spar from Breath of Fire 2, the tragic and powerful Teepo from Breath of Fire 3, and the strict, soldierly Ursula from Breath of Fire 4, not to mention the countless incarnations of the dragon hero Ryu and the winged princess Nina. So naturally, when I heard about Dragon Quarter, I was excited and was ready for it.

When I finally got it and started playing with it, I realized something. This was not like the traditional Breath of Fire. I suppose it could've been anticipated by the lack of the number that would've continued the series. However, despite that it's not like the normal pieces of it's genre, it is not a terrible game at all. In fact, it's quite good.

Characters - 8
Unlike it's predecessor, Dragon Quarter does not provide us with a lot of unique and different characters. The traditional 8 men from 1 and 2, or the 6-heroes-1-villain from 3 and 4 have been cut even further. We know have 4 characters that are playable. Ryu returns, this time, he is a Ranger, a police officer type person who kills dangerous creatures, called genics. Certainly not your average Ryu.

Nina also makes her return, but this was definitely not the average Nina. The series progressively had her wings getting shorter, and in this series, the pattern stays with Nina's barely-there red wings. She also cannot speak, save her name in halting syllables. Although her development suffers, Nina's tale unfolds, and she becomes one of the least cliche-ridden characters of all time.

Next, there is Bosch, Ryu's friend. Unlike best-chum Bow from BOF2, this guy is really looking out for himself, wanting nothing more then to gain social position because of his high D-Ratio (Think a fractional number that's a power of 2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 and so on. A low denominator is good.) Bosch's is 1/64, which is apparently very high. The guy is more then willing to screw over the kind-hearted Ryu (with a pathetic D-ratio of 1/8192) to benefit himself.

Lastly, there is Lin. Her style is like that of BOF4's Ursula in that she has cat ears and a tail. She is also soldierly, belonging to an anti-government organization called Trinity that causes havoc for Ryu and initially causes him to start the whole adventure.

Overall, character development is lacking. Other then Ryu and Lin's devotion to Nina, and Bosch's sheer elitism which turns to downright insanity, the characters don't seem to have much emotion.

However, the other characters along to story get their moments to shine. Although Dragon Quarter does not have a host of playable characters to choose from, the other characters that impact Ryu's journey each have their own moments to shine, and shine they do. From Ryu's dual-blade wielding boss Captain Zeno to the enigmatic Trinity leader Mebeth, there are characters that'll make an impact even if you don't control them.

Storyline - 6
This is the game's black sheep. There is a storyline, but's it's just not powerful and it's mingled with subplots. The game takes place underground, and the goal is to reach the surface. Along the way, there are subplots and mini-quests, ranging from a fairy colony to raise to a long extensive search for medicine in a zombie infested sector. But the story lacks emotion. Ryu wants to see the sky, he wants to help the person he cares for, it almost seems like two of the characters are extraneous. However, they pop in from time to time with moments of meaning and importance, and without them, the journey would be way too easy. The storyline overall is drenched in politics and stresses the importance of life, even on one's artificially created life who didn't have long to live.

Gampeplay - 10
Now we're talking. The battle system of Dragon Quarter has been totally redone and it's a severe improvement. The first improvement is that this game is hard, it's not your traditional ''get it and beat it the same day'' game, it's challenging, and strategy becomes the key. One of the biggest reasons why this is so is that there are no inns. You can't rest to regain all your lost health at a haven, and the game is pretty stingy with healing items that mostly must be bought. It creates for another challenge. There are no random battles, they start when you run into an enemy (extra turns are available, slash your enemy with a character to gain an extra turn for that one character, but enemies can bump into you and get a free turn as well), so you must choose your battles, because you don't want to ransack a level and get severely hurt only to run into a boss at the end.

The battle system is similar to a traditional turned based battle system in that you can plan your move on you turn without someone attacking you. However, unlike the stand-still and fire Final Fantasy style, this game goes more along the lines of the obscure Koudelka's battle system. You must move, either to attack, set yourself up, or run away. This consumes AP. Each character gets an amount of AP each turn, and it can save if necessary.

But the advantage is that the game no longer is simple overpowering your enemy but a strategy can be devised. Lin can move the monster backward into Ryu so that he doesn't have to move to it is one of my personal favorites.

Also, each character's abilities, rather then having MP, is determined by their weapon. You can pick up skills, either from enemies, from boxes, and a few even on the weapon's themselves. You assign skills to certain weapon slots, and you use them in conjunction with your AP to combo your attack to do more damage and possible side effects. Different skills cost different AP, and one must be careful in deciding how they strike.

Ryu uses his standard sword and examples of his skills are sword slashes (with names ranging from the basic Slash(10 AP) to the accurate Hazecut(20 AP) to the ultra-powerful and showy Violet Death (30 AP) and a few moves that can't be comboed but rather, are self power-ups (like the Spiritcharge raises Power).

Nina sticks to staves and uses attack magic. She can directly assault them with fire, ice, or lightning ranging in power comparative to AP cost, where different enemies have different resistance. However, Nina can also use trap magic, in which she sets a glowing glyph of magic on the ground and enemies that run into it take damage. Wonderful to use if one doesn't want Nina in battle, or the enemy is too far away to reach. Nina also has some power down skills and even a 30 AP wind spell that knocks everyone away from her.

Lin mainly uses guns, but this girl has more artillery then a tank. Her skills are named by what she shouts out when she does it (she shouts in Japanese). Lin is the master of combos, in that several of her shots can cause status effects. Examples of her moves include ''Hey Hey!'' which is her basic shot, to ''Stay There!'' which makes enemies not be able to move as far, and ''Take that!'' in which her gun shoots a missile that blows up enemies for damage regardless of their defense. Lin's skills are excellent in set ups, because they indirectly effect the enemy in more then just damage. an example is the skill ''C'mere'' which moves an enemy towards her, which can be followed up by the cool-looking ''Shatter!'' which hurts people based on how close they are to her.

Graphics - 9

Gone are the standard cheerful world maps, the airship, and the cheerful towns and inns of normal games. Dragon Quarter's world is bleak and depressing. The developers did a wonderful job of making the place look very uncheerful, the bleak scenery of drab stone walls and frozen ice caves make the place look like a dying world, er, underworld.

The dragons however, are wonderfully designed. Not many dragons exist in this game, but what is there is certainly something memorable. The skeletal looking Odjn (oo-jinn, like gin and tonic) has a monstrous presence that is wonderfully made, and the dragon Chetyre has a certain look to it that makes one say ''it's evil.'' Dragon Quarter also keeps with the dragon hybrids that Ryu and Fou-Lu from BOF4 had, and those are also wonderfully made and designate the good Light Dragon from the evil Dark Dragon.

Replay Value - 10

Another trump, replay is a major point of this game. A lot of the plot development happens here, especially with the dragon Odjn and the final bosses of the game. You get to see into their lives and how they act, and it's certainly worth seeing.

Overall - Not what I expected, but it wasn't a let down. It's certainly worth getting. In fact, this game was rated in Japan as one of the best, it remained #1 in sales for a long time. All those people can't be wrong. Don't get frustrated if you can't get the battle system, it's quirky and different at first, but it's easy to get used too, especially when you receive more skills.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/04/03