Breath of Fire III

"Capcom What Were You Thinking!?"

Capcom themselves has a RPG series known as Breath of Fire. The series was off to a poor start with a painfully average first game. Then Breath of Fire II came out and it improved over Breath of Fire 1 in every single way. Capcom then decided to make Breath Of Fire III for the Sony Playstation and I still wonder to this very day Capcom What Were You Thinking!?

Graphics:5/10:If you've played the famous Squaresoft RPG Xenogears, the Graphics style used in Breath of Fire III will most likely be familiar. Breath of Fire III uses a 2D/3D Graphical approach. Sprites used to represent character/enemy designs are done in 2D. While surrounding areas are pre-rendered in 3D. This graphical style doesn't usually look too good, and Breath of Fire III is no exception. Enviorments are boring and so are the dungeon designs. Almost every dungeon in Breath of Fire III is designed with a extremely bland style that tends to repeat itself. The character designs as kids are fine, but were disappointing later in the game when they grow up and become adults. Overall the graphics are a disappointment and could have been much better. With Graphics covered, it's onto storyline.

Storyline:4/10:A boring concept that if executed correctly could be a quite interesting concept. Breath of Fire III uses the generic two certain races had a major war and one race became extinct as a result of the war concept for the backstory. While this concept is generic, it can be interesting if done well. Unfortunately, Breath of Fire III does not execute this generic idea well. You find out nothing related to the main plot until your about halfway through the game. Until that point your simply caught in a bunch of uninteresting and cliche sub plots. When you find out about the main plot you only discover little regarding it. Most players would normally get their hopes up anticipating the main plot to expand as they play further into the game, but the main plot never does expand. You barely learn anything regarding the main plot and antagonist until near the end. Then once you reach the end, your group simply travels to confront the antagonist to discover their motives for what their doing. Along the way your of course bombarded with more boring sub plots to distract you further from the main storyline. Breath of Fire III not only fails to deliver with the plot but also with its cast of characters as well.

Characters:2/10:Yes a 2/10 I can do that. Breath Of Fire III has to have the most uninteresting cast of characters in any RPG of all time. The characters have no personality or development at all. Very little interaction is shown between characters and the little interaction there is to be found in the game is very boring. Of about the seven characters you get in the game only two have any backstory. How can I even care about a storyline if it has terrible characters and a horrible plot to go along with it?

Music:7/10:The town songs in the game are fine. Dungeon songs in Breath of Fire III are adequate for the most part, but nothing impressive.If anything, the strongest part of the soundtrack is the battle/boss songs. Which were all done great, and I would consider the battle/boss songs in the game to be one of the better ones among all the RPG's I've played. Overall the soundtrack is average. Town songs are nothing special along with dungeon songs. Fortunately, the battle/boss songs are all excellent in the game. Music is important to a game, but Gameplay is the most important aspect. Can Breath of Fire III redeem itself of all it's massive flaws in it's other departments by containing excellent gameplay?

Gameplay:4/10:Breath of Fire III is a standard old-school RPG. You walk around towns upgrading equipment and resting at Inns. Then triggering the next storyline event and heading off to the next dungeon. Each character outside of battle has their own ability to help solve puzzles. While that sounds good you can only have three characters in a party. Some dungeons require a certain character for a certain puzzle. This means if I brought the wrong character along with me I have to exit all the way out of the dungeon and switch characters. That is just unacceptable and clearly shows how terrible the gameplay design in Breath of Fire III is. Battles are standard old-school turn based RPG fare. Game is quite easy due to a formation you can put your party into that allows one party member to annihilate anything they attack, but it leaves the other characters almost useless and it gets to be extremely annoying after a while. EXP and Zenny the currency of Breath of Fire III is also sparsely rewarded for winning battles. Which leads to not being able to buy better equipment in towns without a insane amount of grinding being done. So. with all these problems Breath of Fire III proves to be a extremely hard to enjoy game.

Overall:3/10:Breath of Fire III is a terrible game especially after how good Breath of Fire II was. This game has a terrible storyline? Check. Boring characters? Check. Poor gameplay and difficulty balance? Check. Mediocre music? Check. Disappointing graphics? Check. With all of these problems I cannot imagine anyone even thinking of playing this game. I don't even know how Capcom failed so badly when it came to creating Breath of Fire III. This is the only logical outcome I could come up with, to explain why Capcom created this atrocity. Clearly this is what the developers were thinking "Oh, let's make a terrible game! Even though we know we can do well we'll just make a terrible game!" Do yourself a favor and stay as far away from Breath of Fire III as you can.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 06/16/08, Updated 07/20/09

Game Release: Breath of Fire III (US, 04/30/98)