Breath of Fire

"A very good RPG made by a great company!"

Around 1993, Capcom wanted to give a shot at making RPGs. So they released this in Japan, then they wanted Squaresoft to translate the game for them in English for North America. And what Square gave us was a bad translation, but a great RPG. And I love this game, since this was my first RPG and it got me into RPGs.

Gameplay (9 out of 10)
Breath of Fire is pretty much a normal RPG. It's turn based, characters get new magic as they level up, however they added a little twist. The main character, Ryu, is a human that can change into a dragon. He can learn different dragon transformations in shrines located around the world, however there is also a secret transformation. One thing Capcom did with this game was that each character could do something others could not. Ryu can change into dragons and fish. Nina can change into a bird (later on) and she casts healing magic. Bo can hunt for food and has weak attack magic. Karn can get rid of traps on chests and can find traps like pits and such, and he can open locked doors. Gobi can turn into a fish and swim in water, and he casts spells that can only be casted in the ocean. Ox can pound down walls and knock fruit off trees, and Mogu can dig in battle to escape or he could dig on the world map to find hidden places and items.

Story (8 out of 10)
The story is okay, but gets a little better, I don't want to spoil too much of it. You play as the hero, Ryu, he wakes up to find his village, Drogen, home of the Light Dragons, burning. He follows a magician to a safe place in the house where there is no fire, and the mayor and all the other villagers gather there. One villager claims the Dark Dragons that are ruled by Zog are burning the village. Sara, Ryu's sister goes out to investigate, but the people refuse, they'd rather fight the invaders. She casts a stone spell on all of them including Ryu to protect them from the flames. She goes out, only to be captured by the commander of the Dark Dragons, Jade. Later as the fire is extinguished and Sara's stone spell wears off on the villagers, they realize that Sara had saved them. They run off for some reason (after the magician stomps the floor and the floor sort of cracks, the villagers run away, I still don't understand what that scene meant) and Ryu starts out on a quest to rescue Sara, and destroy Zog along with 7 companions that Ryu finds.

Audio/Video (8 out of 10)
The music is alright, but can get boring sometimes. However, the battle song changes about halfway through the game and the world map songs change four times during the game, which I think is pretty cool. Graphics were good for it's time, and when you use your most powerful dragon transformations, it shows a little cutscene of the dragon you change into.

Replayability (7 out of 10)
There is somewhat replayability in this game. There are two endings, a good and bad, and there are many secrets in the game, but besides that, nothing much else worth replaying for.

Overall (9 out of 10)
It's a great game made by a cool company, contains a bad translation, and some things in the North American version are taken away, but it's a great game. If your an old-schol RPG fan, you've gotta try this out. So what are you waiting for? By the way, there's also a GBA version of this game, though from what I've seen, the SNES version looks much better.

-Moggy

-Created on 08/29/01
-Updated on 09/26/03

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 08/29/01, Updated 09/27/03