Breath of Fire II

"Dedicated to the old lady at work who likes to slap my Butt."

Back when this game first came out on the SNES I was extremely stoked for it to come out, after having played the first one. But unfortunately this one was really hard to come by even when it first came out.
So I ended up having to special order it from somewhere.
After much waiting the game finally arrived and I was very eager to play.
I played it and enjoyed it because back then RPG’s were still pretty scarce. I beat it 2 times and yet for some strange reason just like with the 1ST one, I felt I had to play it again.

Gameplay:7 This game does not really play that differently compared to the first one.
The battle system is still turn based, and unfortunately, it seems to be less enjoyable than the battles in the first one. You still have all of the basic commands of Attack, Defend, Magic, Run, & Items as well.

And also just like in the first one, each of the characters that joins you has a different ability for you to use. Such as using Sten’s long arms to cross a chasm or using Rand’s rolling move to destroy walls.

There are a few major downside’s in this one compared to the first one.
The first is that the Dragon attack isn’t near as useful as it was in first one, were you used a specific amount of MP to transform and you stayed in that state until you chose to revert. Instead in this one your Dragon spell works like a summon spell and can only be used once because no matter which dragon spell you use, it will drain EVERY single drop of MP you have.

And then the other problem is that you run into battles WAY too frequently for them to be much fun. And unlike in the first one where there were items that prevented you from running into enemies altogether, in this there is nothing except the useless Smoke Ball which sometimes seem to make you run into MORE enemies.

However there is one major upside in this one. The SHAMAN SYSTEM. In my opinion this is the only thing that keeps the game from falling short.
It works like this: As you progress through the game you will find different Shaman’s which you can fuse to your characters. When you fuse characters they can gain new abilities, get a stat boost or even changing the way that they look. And it isn’t just a cosmetic look either. Each character will have different abilities than they did in their normal form. Katt for example normally has a taunt ability, but when she goes through a transformation she becomes more powerful and has a new ability called Charge.
It can be really fun experimenting with the Shamans trying to find all of the different fusion forms.
Out of all of the different fusions, Katt’s is my favorite. Because when she changes she looks SO COOL!

How long this game takes to beat is hard to say because it’s been a long time since I first played this game, but I know that this time through it took me around 30 hours to beat.

Story:7 The hero Ryu starts out in his village with his father and sister. Everything in the village seems well, but something strange happens and nobody in the village is able to remember who Ryu is. So Ryu not knowing what else to do, leaves with Bow, a thief that he befriends, to leave the village. You leave the village & are then attacked by a gigantic Demon who devastates you.
Then the game shifts over to ten years later with you and Bow teamed as Rangers helping people. Then something happens where Bow is framed for a crime he didn’t commit. So it is up to find the person responsible for the crime.

There is a lot more to the story than that and eventually it just becomes your typical save the world story, but there are enough things happening to make it somewhat interesting.

Graphics:6 I really feel that the graphics have taken a drop from the first one. The colors look a lot more dull than they did in the first one and the enemies don’t look as good as they did in the first one either.

Sound:7 I really like the music in the 1ST one a lot better than this one as well. It’s not that the music is bad or anything, A few of the tunes I really like. It’s just that I feel that most of the music in the game doesn’t fit it location very well and that there is not enough of a variety of different tunes. There is one tune in particular that I find is very overused. It's the one that is used in practically every dungeon. As for sound effects I never payed much attention to them to really say anything about them.

Difficulty:8 This game can be pretty difficult sometimes Because a lot of times I would barely scrape by in some of the boss battles.

Replay:5 Even though I’ve played through this game 3 times total, now I can honestly say I will never play this one again. Unlike the first one which I will probably go back and play again in a few years.

Rent or Buy: If you are just looking for an RPG for your GBA then you should buy this, but if you are looking for something new you should definitely rent this one first.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/22/02, Updated 11/10/03