Breath of Fire II

"An old time classic revisited on the GBA."

Breath of Fire 2 was originally released on the SNES by Capcom. It followed up on Breath of Fire 1 and managed to deliver another solid entry into this RPG series. The game, along with several others including Breath of Fire 1, have been ported to the Game Boy Advance.

Story: The story is pretty old considering the time it came out but it still holds up to this day. The story is fairly basic with the whole Destined Hero fighting evil deal. The game has a rather lackluster translation though and that should have been fixed for the gba version. The story has its twists and turns but nothing you wouldn't expect. It has a religious theme as well which I think they handled pretty well. I would know for sure but Capcom never bothered to fix the translation as I said before. Each character gets some amount of character development but it's usually very minor or in large chunks. Other times it's spread across the game as well as is the case with Rand. You can give them a little development yourself by returning to Township and talking to them in your house.

Graphics: For a snes/gba game it doesn't have bad graphics per se but there are games that had better graphics at the time. The battle animations are fluid and everything has a decent amount of detail. Each character has his/her own unique appearance and animations. All of the monsters are detailed rather nicely and there's enough diversity in the monster design as well. Each of the major bosses were especially well done. The World Map is typical old school RPG fare. The towns and dungeons themselves were well done. Each area was unique in its own way and the developers managed to capture the essence of each city and dungeon. New to the GBA version, are still cutscenes that show various characters and events of importance.These are minor additions to the game but they contribute well in getting the player more into the story.

Gameplay: Standard RPG gameplay because well it came out a while ago. Talk to this person go to that place stop that guy etc. The battle system is turn based but it provides a good turn based experience. Different battle formations can be used for a certain amount of strategy. Each character has their own unique style. Nina's the classic weak spell character,Ryu's the classic main well rounded character,Rand's the classic big guy with strong defense, and so on. The menu system is well put together although its nothing special. The Main Character Ryu, as in every Breath of Fire game, has the ability to transform into a dragon. Unlike Breath of Fire 1, where the transformation was permanent for the duration of a battle if the player so wished, Ryu uses all of his MP up in 2 when transforming into a dragon and attacks for only one turn. Ryu can transform into several types of dragons although there is not much diversity. Each character has his or her own special over-world skill. Ryu like most every Ryu in the Breath of Fire series has the ability to fish. Bow among other characters has the ability to hunt food in special areas. Some abilities are inconsequential to the game overall and you may never actually use them in game. Other abilities such as Sten's or Kat's are necessary to complete the game. Each character also has his or her own special in battle skill such as Ryu's Guts move.

You can combine characters with shamans to create more powerful characters with different appearances and abilities. This is a fun little diversion from the main story as you can go and find different shaman, and combine them with your characters. The transformation wears off though if you go into critical health. The Shaman's can be found all over the world and are often in highly dangerous places.

Another particularly interesting gameplay mechanic is town builder. At a certain point in the game you can select from one of three carpenters to design a town for you. You can then go all around the world and choose different people to populate your town. Each carpenter has his own advantages and some of the citizenry you can recruit are quite useful while others are rather useless. It's a neat little diversion from the main quest and is handled fairly well.

Music/Sound: Music's nothing special. Nothing memorable but it doesn't have any awful tracks so that's a plus. And for sounds the weapon attacks all sound right and the classic noises that are associated with old rpgs. The Battle music for this game is one of the highlights however.

Overall: Doesn't hold up to most rpgs of the past two generations but if you're looking for an old classic rpg for nostalgia purposes this is one of the better ones.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/05/06