Breath of Fire III

"When the going gets tough, remember the reason why we are here."

Ever since the boom of role-playing games back on the SNES console, Capcom, most renowned for its fighting games, have started to give their interests in this genre through their Breath of Fire games, which is now known wide for its tradition of having a hero transforming into a dragon. Enter the 32-bit era, now we have the Playstation console. Capcom shows the results of their RPG development projects by releasing Breath of Fire III. This time, however, packed with a lot more originality.

Obviously scrapping the original Breath of Fire ideas used in its two previous installments, Breath of Fire III shows itself as an attempt to break away the Dragon Quest-Final Fantasy influence, which had, um, “stained” its previous predecessors. Taking place in a whole new world where magic is common and technological achievements are rapidly being discovered once again, Breath of Fire III tells the travels of Ryu (this time, him being a lost dragon-child) and his companions in discovering the true fate of what had happened to his missing people. The story itself progresses much slowly compared to the previous installments and takes a highly different direction of events compared to other role-playing games in general. The main theme is not about saving the world. Not exactly about protecting something, someone, important either. Breath of Fire III's general idea is about a journey to seek out the truth, but while also having a great deal of character development along the way. A part of the storyline's originality can be seen from how nearly all the characters in the game are simply driven more or less only by their personal motives, rather than for the sake of a lot of people in general. This is something we don't see much at the time this game came out. Also, the idea of starting out a great journey from simple, yet undeniably fateful, encounters, and result in a more character-driven storyline than any other RPG I've seen so far. I have to admit that storyline is one of Breath of Fire III's great achievements.

Then, talking about the more technical stuff, I'm delighted to say that graphically, this game is quite satisfying. It uses a three-quarter bird's eye view with rotable camera angles and bright, vivid colors which appeal to the eye. Although there are no screen changes as battles commence, our characters and enemies are nicely animated, which blend neatly with the visually impressive magic spells, putting full use of its stunning colors and 3D effects.

Sound wise, although the BGM tracks aren't exactly grand and breathtaking, they all sound pleasing as they fit perfectly into the game's atmosphere. Our characters are voiced (with their original Japanese voice cast) during battles, and this certainly makes the game livelier. Practically, I don't think this game has any problems concerning sounds at all.

Moving on to the gameplay, apart from the ordinary RPG routines, the game also offers quite a number of action elements, such as block moving and temporary mini-games. Like before, each character also has their signature action move. For example, Ryu slashes obstacles with his sword; Rei can pick locks, and so on. The use of these things are more integrated than before, resulting with more interactive puzzles and environment.

The battles are played out using the most basic turn-based system. However, with the addition of Ryu's transformations, the option to learn enemies' abilities and the long-term benefit of being under the tutelage of Masters, the normally tedious turn-based system doesn't turn out as tedious anymore. For starters, we can learn useful enemy abilities by using the ‘Examine' command on them. When one uses a particular learnable skill and we have him being Examined, we then learn that skill and may use it for ourselves! It may not sound interesting if not for the fact that there are a great number of enemy skills which can be learned. Then there are the Masters. If we decide to be under the tutelage of one of them, the parameter bonuses we achieve during Level Up are modified, depending upon which Master we are learning from. After several times of leveling up, the Master may teach us new skills which, of course, are to be used in battles. At last, there are the Genes which are scattered throughout the world. Ryu's dragon transformations depend solely on which Genes we choose to use during the ‘Accession' command. We may choose to use a number of Genes up to three at once; with the consequence of using a lot more of the AP we need in casting our abilities. These dragon transformations may drastically change Ryu's parameters, making it somewhat a decisive factor during battles. Not forgetting to mention that all of the possible dragon forms are neatly designed.

Finally, the world map is somewhat as interactive as the field itself. We may find items lying around, we may camp anywhere we want (where we are allowed to organize are skills), and there are quite a number of hidden places which can be found here and there, along with the regular fishing spots where we can take a rest to play the fishing mini-game. Note that the fishing mini-game may also contribute quite a lot to the gaming development, as the fish we catch are not only useful as items, but also may be traded for some rare items of powerful equipment.

It's a bit hard for me to decide what flaw exactly Breath of Fire III has, since everything is actually very well done. The problem might solely lay only the slow progress of events and the unusual atmosphere it has. It surely is different from entire RPGs in general, most comparable only to titles previous in its series. Unique it may be, but it does get quite tedious when we are looking for something extravagant. Nevertheless, Breath of Fire III is a great improvement concerning Capcom's hard work, a lot of kudos to their staff for being able to make it.

Pity I don't think a lot of people are able to enjoy it. But if you think you can enjoy something slow and memorable, I'd say that it's worth a buy. Just remember that hardly anything goes on during the first few hours.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/14/06