Breath of Fire IV

"'ugh' A more proper review"

When you think Final Fantasy 9 was the last ''masterpiece'' RPG, out pops Capcom and Breath of Fire IV.

Capcom have done a fine job, showing to Squaresoft that they are still in the battle for best RPG on PSone. Is BOFIV worth it?

Story - 8/10
You start off as Nina, along with her friend Cray, looking for her sister. It seems that she was spotted in a town so called ''Synesta''. But, while crossing the desert a big raging dragon(it dosent look like one) comes out and destroys there only transport. They are stuck in the desert, but now, Nina thinks shes all macho and wants to prove shes strong all by leaving Cray to get parts to repair the Sandflier. This is where Ryu the character you play comes into part. Nina finds him in a massive crater naked(!). Nothing is known about him. So Nina desides to help him. As the game progresses you find out Ryu is in fact a dragon(and related to Fou-Lu) The rest writes itself.

Gameplay - 9/10
BOF4 gameplay is majorly improved over BOF3. There are loads of mini games which makes the game lots more fun. There are total 6 characters with all different stats, like Ershin, strong but weak magic and Nina, whom is vice versa. Theres also a sorta-nemisis-thingy who goes by the name Fou-Lu that you can control at certain parts of the game. He is basically like Ryu, beat WAY stronger.

There are plenty of new monsters as well as some old ones from BOR4 prequels(eye goo, gonghead)
A new feature, instead of examining enemies for skills, you can guard and wait till they cast magic/skills on you. I like this design because your guarding while learning(2 for 1!) unlike BOR3 where you examine. there are plenty more features but I wont fit them all in.

SOUND - 8/10
I really cant say much, its way improved as usual. Nuff said.

Graphics - 8/10
Still the same cartoony style but(again) improved from BOF3. The opening fmv is eye candy and has real voices.
All up, the graphics are clear, colourfull and nice to view.

Lifespan - 8/10
hmm, I haven't finished the game yet, but from what I can tell, there are 4 chapters and the first onbe took me 13 hours to complete. And its all fitted into 1 cd.

Fun factor - 10/10
Theres just so much fun to have in this game. A nice fun game is fishing. You buy certain fishing rods goto a fishing spot(there everywhere) and start catching 'em.
The minigames help alot and learning new magic/skills is also fun!

Overall - 9/10
A must have for RPG fans, and a solid choice for new comers to the RPG genre.

Review by JZE

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/23/01, Updated 01/23/01