Breath of Fire II

"Fantastic once you look past its flaws"

Every RPG starts you off with a generic mute hero who suddenly realizes he is the key to saving the world. He then goes on to assemble a cast of diverse allies who assist him in conquering the evil in the world and it ends with everyone being happy. It's a good thing Breath of Fire II isn't your ordinary RPG. Now sure, it still retains a few cliche elements but the way it's executed is darn good.

Instead of setting off on your journey straight off the bat, BoF2 turns the tables and starts you off with a different dilemma. Our hero (who we'll call Ryu) is told to look for his sister as it's time for her nap. Clearly, the elder is out of his mind sending a boy no older than ten out in the dangerous wilderness to look for his sister without any sort of help. But you do as you're told and set off into the unknown. You eventually find her sleeping in the wild right next to an enormous dragon claw! She begins to awake when out of nowhere you're attacked by a monster that is clearly to tough for you. Fortunately, your dad saves you and your sister from any harm with his powerful magic (why didn't he just go?). He yells a bit at your sister for being out here where it's dangerous, she responds by saying that she can see mom in her dreams if she sleeps here. While they head back, you rest for a bit and have a strange dream about seeing a giant grotesque eye. You awaken and return to your village but oddly, no one recognizes you. You ask about for your father and sister but no one knows who they are. Scared, you head to the church where they think you are a poor orphan and gratefully grant you a place to sleep for the night.

It is this night where will meet your soon-to-be best friend, Bow. He thinks you're just a thief pretending to be an orphan just like him and asks you to come along after he realizes there's nothing worth stealing there. You agree to go and look for something, anything that might explain why your father and sister are gone. Unfortunately, a storm arises as you set out and you are forced to take shelter in a nearby cave. While inside, you happen to catch a glimpse of a tail creeping to the back of the cave and naturally your curiosity arises. You and Bow chase this thing to the back where you realize it's a monster waiting to attack! After a long and grueling battle, you're fast-forwarded ten years later where you and Bow have grown to be skilled rangers – a group of trained warriors who take up jobs ranging from cleaning ones house to ridding a monster of the west woods, for money of course. Your first mission requires you to find a missing pet of one of the villagers. This won't be an easy task as you're told that it likes to wander a long ways away. Thus beginning you're actual journey in the game of Breath of Fire II.

Oh but where to begin? Perhaps the worst flaw of BoF2 is that you're rarely told what or where you need to go and do that you find yourself roaming the world back and forth. Which will make you frustrated very easily. I can think of numerous times when I believed I walked back and forth throughout the entire map talking to everyone and everything only later to find out that I needed to switch one person around or into my party to enable the rest of the story. Then again, BoF2 did something I never seen in RPG's anymore. They gave certain abilities to different characters if they were at the lead of your party. Ryu has the ability to go fishing if he has the necessary equipment. Bow, equipped with his trusty bow can hunt if the opportunity arises. Other characters that join your party have interesting abilities such as destroying objects in the way, transforming into a frog to cross legs and leap up cliffs, and even fly! Capcom figured out that a sure-fire way to get you to use every character was to make certain areas or activities unavailable to you unless they're with you. And it works, some characters that I found pointless and just plain stupid regained their worthiness once I found out what they could do.

Besides the fact that you are rarely told what to do, the only other thing I can complain about would be the difficulty. And it's difficult in such a weird way. You'll complete one dungeon annihilating every monster with a couple of hits and then move onto a new area and the monsters are now at incredible strengths that can knock out any member of your party in a hit. So naturally, you must level up for a good bit before you can even hope to stand toe-to-toe with them. If you can put that aside, or happen to be one of the few who like to level up then you'll see much fun in this game. And it'll appeal to a lot of RPG fans mainly because it appears to combine a lot of unique elements from all the new RPG's out nowadays. For those that have played the Suikoden series, you'll remember that you can create your own town that plays host to all your characters. In BoF2 you gain access to a small shack early on and throughout the game build it into a magnificent town that grows with each citizen you allow room and board. Some of these citizens help you in your quest by giving you special abilities and items while others merely give thanks to your hospitality. Although it doesn't help that this town is placed far end of the world and everything is on the other side, making you walk a long ways to check out what's new and [usually] advance the story.

It's not only a combination of Suikoden, BoF2 borrows a little bit from every strategic game and allows you limited but effective formations to place your party members in. And as usual, you'd want to place your weaker characters in the back and the stronger ones closer to the action. But, the thing I like most about the battle system, is how they remember the enemies you fight. Thus after you kill one its life bar will get recorded and when you fight it again it'll show in a bar how much life is left after each hit. Aside from those unique aspects, the rest is your normal battle system. You take turns, cast spells, and can randomly deal massive damage.

Your cast of characters to choose from is greatly diverse, none of the characters seem alike in any way as just about all of them are different species and each has his or her own ability. Of course you don't get much character development out of any of them as they rarely speak except for when you first recruit them.

Outside of the normal fighting and story of any old RPG, BoF2 throws a few things in to spice up the game. You can go fishing, which is a whole mini-game itself. After purchasing a rod and bait you must use your skills to reel in a fish offshore and naturally the bigger the fish, the harder it is to reel in. There's wild animals about that you need to approach with care and take them down for precious meat to use or sell. All of which can be purchased and sold in your local item shop – which includes a nice storage center for any extra money or items you have lying about. Other than the item shop, there are three other main buildings you'll see all over the place. An armory to buy the lasted weapons and armor, a church to save your game and find out about pointless info, and lastly a standard inn for you to rest and recover.

But!

Get this, Capcom was able to implant a day and night system in the game. And this isn't your usual system you'd expect in a SNES game. It gradually builds up to night in three different shades of darkness. Meaning, it doesn't get dark all of sudden. You'll be in the broad daylight, it'll darken, then go to dusk, then to sunset, and then it'll be dark. And everywhere in the game will be reflected on the time. Most people and places won't be open during the night. Except for the bars, where everyone happens to conjugate – just like in real life.

BoF2 has the unique gameplay and story so for past experiences, you'd expect that one factor had to be of the lesser quality. This is not the case at all, the visuals are amongst the prettiest I've seen in a SNES game. All expressions are clearly visible, as are all the pieces of clothing of every character. The land is a lush batch of color and the clouds flying over add a sense of flow to the game. And the towns are no exception, each building is clearly shown as a constructed building made of wood as are all churches with their circular pillars and arches.

As we draw to a close, there are a few more minor nuisances in the game. Mainly, if you've grown to expect a few things in every RPG you'll see shortly that they aren't in this. There's no way to use your cure spell for everyone, so you're stuck using it on everyone individually until they're healed. They also decided to price the items in absurd ways, a Life Potion to revive a fallen comrade – which no spell is obtained early on to do this, is priced at a steep 500 coins when you're only making 2-20 in the first few hours. Not to mention that you can get completely wiped out in a few hits once you move on to a new area. And lastly, RPG's are known for their great music scores. BoF2 lacks any memorable ones and even throws in some annoying themes in quite a few areas.

You're either gonna love it or hate within the first half-hour. I got addicted off the bat and was motivated to continue through the game. It doesn't feel the same throughout the game, they have the story change continuously to keep the game fresh and exciting. One moment you have to enter a tournament and fight for your life and then you're off to look for a thief. I can't remember a single time when felt like they're just making me do the same thing over. BoF2 is a sweet game that will settle anyone's urges to try a new type of RPG. If you're expecting a revolutionary game, this definitely isn't it. And no, you don't have to play the first to understand what's going on in this game. Being a SNES game and all, it's an almost zilch chance you'll find it anywhere. Although it should be available for download on the Wii once the virtual console is ready.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/01/06, Updated 04/22/09

Game Release: Breath of Fire II (US, December 1995)