Breath of Fire

"The firm first step of this great and unappreciated series."

Although you can find the Square logo at the beginning of the game, that is only because Square distributed the game, Capcom was the real developer, this first Breath of Fire was a very successful game lots of years ago, thankfully, because while it is not something to be THAT exited about, it spawned wonderful sequels, and nowadays the Breath of Fire name is very respectable one among rpg fans (though in my opinion not as well considered as it should be).

Story 6/10:
This story has been present in every single Breath of Fire, with some improvements and new ideas, but always the same. It is about Ryu, the descendant of the ancient Dragon Clan, a boy that has a great power that has yet to be discovered, and during his travels we always and up meeting with Nina, the young princess of a city called Windia. That is the way every Breath of Fire begins, then the main story comes, and it is different with every new game of the series.

Ryu is a silent hero, and I think that is the fatal mistake Capcom does with every Breath of Fire they release, only by letting Ryu talk, a plot that it is not all that impressive gets way better (of course the dialogue between characters has to be at least decent also), because that adds a lot of deep, don’t know why Capcom never pays attention to that. The story in this first chapter is very, very standard, it has some nice moments, but overall nothing that amazing.

Graphics 10/10:
Solid graphics, big and beautiful (excepting for some characters portraits, nothing like the ones of Breath of Fire II), with some characters we can even see the different weapons they are wielding, something that even the sequel lacks. The combats deserve a special mention, they are very spectacular thanks to a little graphical effect many games lack and that it is as simple as visually striking. The thing is that all the enemies have animations, some of them move their arms, or their legs, or just an specific part of their body, but it is incredible how with so little movement they look so great, that is a good example of how to use the imagination to make everything better without using lots of memory. And then we have the magic spells and summonings, they are pretty cool because they have some cool animations, not just a slight beam of light or a little electric spark.

Music 7/10:
The music played in most the towns in excellent, as well as the one played during the combats, but there isn’t enough variety, and the dungeons have some very so-so music. Overall the music is very good, but there is not enough.

Gameplay 7/10:
Breath of Fire plays more or less like any Final Fantasy, excepting that during the combats we have to choose an action for all our party member before they attack, and we can’t cancel our action until the end of each turn. The only problem with the gameplay is that the game ends up being monotonous, it is always the same, from town to dungeon all the time. Sometimes there are some interesting turns and events in the game, but the way we deal with them is always more or less the same.

However, the reason why I like this series so much aside from that flaw it has are the typical hardcore rpg elements, Breath of Fire is a true rpg from the beginning to the end: the map is very typical, the magic system with summoning and magic points, the battle system, the gameplay with turn based random encounters… absolutely everything, and then we have the fact that this game is very fun, I don’t know exactly why, but I had a lot of fun playing even with the monotony, just like in Lufia.

Replay Value:
Breath of Fire does not have very much replay value, but there is some for those who still want more. There is a hidden equipment for Ryu, and we have to find each part of the equipment (shield, amors, weapons and helmet) in a different part of the world, and once we got them all there is a hidden place where we can unleash a secret power for Ryu. Also, there are two actions that can be considered as mini games, hunting and fishing. To try to catch a fish (or treasure sometimes), we need bait and a load, with that, by going to any pond or even at the sea we are able to try to catch something, and there are special baits and loads to catch better pieces. To hunt we only need our pal Bo and his ability with the bow, sometimes over the world map we will see pigs running over the grass, we have to approach very slowly and try to hit them when they are close enough. Normally we will obtain food to heal, but while fishing, as I said before, sometimes it is possible to obtain treasures, and there are some really good treasures under the water, so we should better take our time to look.

Conclusion:
That’s it, Breath of Fire may not be the best rpg around, and it is true that this first installment is a fun but just an above average rpg, it is like any other Nes rpg adapted to the new much powerful console, but like many other games the important thing here is that it started a wonderful series of games and added nice gameplay elements never seen before in the genre and that now are classics among lots rpg fans, that is why we have to respect this game.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/27/04, Updated 02/27/04