Breath of Fire IV

"Near-perfect, but had more potential..."

''Pabu-pabu puka-puka''
- What will be will be -

I received this exceptional game for XMAS of 2000. I'd already played BoFIII, and expected the sequel to be much of the same. I wasn't completely off: both games are great, but IV is much, much better. And, in my own opinion, much better than even FFVIII, and in some aspects, FFVII. First off, it's amazing how Capcom, a company that does not churn out a great deal of RPGs (mostly Street Fighter and Megaman games), can produce something so solid.

Gameplay - 9/10

Positive:

Maybe the best fighting system I've ever seen. You get to rotate any of the six characters into battle whenever you feel like it. And since it's turn-based, it gives the player more time to strategize the next course of action, so you don't have to make complex decisions in microseconds. And since all of your characters travel with you simultaneously, there will always be a level distribution of EXP, and no running back to a Save Point to switch. And very rarely will your team get split up to implement characters you don't care for-the segments are intended to be easy and lighthearted, and the fact that none of the characters are completely useless.
The magic system is very interactive, instead of the ''Select spell, cast spell, wait for other guy to cast spell.'' You can chain magic to create a more powerful spell. For example, Inferno (Fire) + Typhoon (Wind) = Gigaflare, an explosive sphere. Watching them combine for the first time is not only eye-catching, it also aids you in more than a few tight spots, and a sense of discovery arises, too. Finding and learning skills from monsters and Masters is not necessary, but compelling nonetheless, and many of the Master Skills manipulate gameplay to your advantage. (Example: Monopolize allows one character to take all of the EXP from a battle, so you can level him or her up ahead of the others). And the Master's System is not strictly level-based like in Breath of Fire III, so having a certain item or accomplishing a certain goal is required instead of going up 5 or so levels, which made it impossible to learn all the Master Skills in BoFIII.
The Combo System, which counts how many hits and damage is does in a chained spell, gives long-time Capcom players (Street Fighter and various crossover fighting games) something to strive for. Sometimes the combos irritatingly fail for no reason, but since they're not absolutely necessary, it doesn't get in the way for most gamers.

Negative:

The game is very jerky when the analog controller is used, and as a friend of mine said, there are ''vacuum zones'' near doors that pull you through if you get too close. There's no rumble feature, which is a slight disappointment. Bottom line: if you don't care about analog you'll be fine.
Another qualm I have is the unnecessary difficulty it takes to fish. You must get the right lure, the right rod, and find the right fishing spot on the world map to find the fish you want. This is no different than BoFIII. Where it differs bothers me: you must use Techniques (pressing buttons to match the background music to catch the fish you want) to catch the good stuff (darn Whales!!!) It's incredibly simpler in its prequel.
You might not like the various mini-games you have to play to get on with the story. They're kind of bland and unoriginal. It had a lot more potential. As for the world map, it's a ''dotted line'' system, so the entire game feels constrained and your actions and choices feel limited.

Story - 7/10

Positive:

This is not heavy stuff like FFVII, but in that aspect, you don't have to remember every little detail for it to make sense (like in FFVIII). That may be a good or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. There's some betrayal in there, and some sacrifice, death, and heartbreak (especially when you find out what happens to Nina's sister, Elena).
What I liked about this game is the ability to control the villain, Fou-Lu, who isn't really the true evil, though. In his sequences, we get to see the world through his eyes and thoughts, and the experiences that happen to him shape him into the evil that he becomes. It's also cool to play as a godlike-leveled character right off the bat, literally laying waste to everything around you. Simply amazing. It's like playing as Sephiroth in FFVII.

Negative:

Okay, the story's a little rehashed from the past 3 games: Ryu, a half-dragon with no memory, joins with a winged chick named Nina, a half-lion, a robot, a samurai dog, and a fox-lady, to defeat a powerful evil. It's mostly typical fantasy fare. Then there are plot holes that nobody seems to realize (like when the characters are captured after teleporting across an impassible sea, and then sent home - HOW?)

Graphics - 8/10

Positive:

Okay, not the best, but very eye-catching for anime fans. BoFIII was very cookie-cutter, and more medieval in look and feel, whereas IV is very Eastern, right down to kimonos and pagodas. It's not too cutesy, either, so the game doesn't appeal strictly to Pokemon and Yugi-Oh fans and general anime fans under 12.
The graphics do the job, and convey the story effectively and move it along quickly, which shows us in an age with lifelike graphics, there is still a place for simplicity. The best thing: you can skip summon cinemas you've already seen by pressing X! So if you're into using summons but not wanting to watch all of the cinema, this is a bonus.

Negative:

The spells when cast look alright, but most of them pale to graphics-intense games, (like the later Final Fantasy games). Ryu's special dragon attacks are somewhat blocky, but well-animated, and can be skipped if you've already seen them before. When Ryu transforms into a dragon, he always looks the same (like Myrmidon from BoFIII), until you cast a breath spell and see what the particular dragon really looks like.

Sound - 8/10

Positive:

Frankly, many RPGs have music and sound effects that get in the way of the action and what you're supposed to be focused on. Music is supposed to stay in the background where it belongs. And that's just what BoFIV does; stay in the back. The battle and world themes are tight, and depending which half of the world you're traveling through, you hear completely different music for the battle, boss battle, and world themes. The best songs are the boss-battle ''Bastard Sword,'' the atypical RPG Arabian-style ''Opening Theme,'' the hauntingly Oriental-themed ''Landscape,'' and the boss finale ''Battling Gods,'' which is by far the best song in the whole game; it's a shame you only hear it once.
The sound effects do their job, what with typical Capcom hack-and-slashing effects. There are no voice-overs to the dialogue, but that's to be expected from most games on the original PSX. When a spell is cast, the original Japanese voice/grunt/groan chimes in, which you can see as either good or bad, depending on your language preferences.

Negative:

Of course, there's typical fantasy fare in the music, too. You might get tired of the same battle music as it starts up during a random encounter. The songs I mentioned earlier, though, are a small amount of the soundtrack. There are many others, and some are just dull and boring. The powerful magic attacks, while brilliant, don't have the audible rumbling punch they should, and sound muted and far-off.
Would it have really killed Capcom to translate the beautiful opening anime cinema into English? It's only about two minutes long, and we understand a great deal just by what we see (the game is very symbolic, after all), but we partially seem lost. Capcom should have given the player and option to hear the opening in either Japanese or English.

Replayability - 8/10

Positive:

If you love this game, you'll spend hours (I was well over 74 hours in before I moved on to other pastures) trying to unlock every secret, find the most powerful weapons, perfect spell chains, raise characters so they can learn all of their techniques, catch every fish(darn whales again!), get enough game points to evolve Ryu's dragons, and learn every Enemy Skill.

Negative:

However, if you don't want to go through all of what I mentioned before, you can beat this game in about two weeks (about 22 hours of play) if played lightly, or about five days playing heavily, and return it. Everyone should rent before they buy, just to be sure this game is for them.
I adore this game, but if not for the extra techniques, spells, and items to get, I honestly wouldn't play through it again from square one. True multiple endings would have greatly improved this game, or a fully-explorable map. Or even an airship or something like that (asides from Shifting to a location from a list, which isn't as impressive as it could be).

-Final Statement-

If there's any final statement I can give to summarize all of this, it's that Breath of Fire IV is good, but had much more potential than initially realized. We could've had more anime cinemas, voice-overs, better mini-games, and a much larger world to explore in general (it's only 1 CD long, for god's sakes!) Even if it was made in the shadow of Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, BoFIV would still be amazing to many RPGers.
If you're very serious about everything, you probably stick to heavier, ''meatier'' RPGs, like Xenogears and FFVII. If you're lighthearted, meaning you'd rather read a comic book than pour over Astrophysics, then this game is definitely for you. It's incredibly addictive in its simplicity. It's not solely for anime fans, nor Breath of Fire fans, and considering that playing its predecessors seems to be one gigantic step backwards, this game will fill your BoF quota best of all, at least until Breath of Fire V comes out(or if you don't own a PS2 like me).

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/05/03, Updated 02/05/03