Name: Breath of Fire
Platform: Super Nintendo (Super Famicom)
Style: 1-player Roleplaying Game
Publisher(s): Square Soft
Developer(s): Capcom
Release Date: August 10, 1994
Date of Completion: January 24, 2018
You know something, I’ve never played a Breath of Fire game, yet, I’ve told people that I have the greatest respect for the game series. Of course, I had to fix that but I also had an ulterior motive behind it. See, one of my best mates wanted to buy my WiiU off of me and I agreed but ONLY after I completed the Virtual Console games on it. However, I realized that Breath of Fire was the only one that I really cared about – for good reasons, too.
See, like most RPGs I play, it takes place in a fantasy/medieval world. But, in this world, in addition to ordinary humans, there are various “clan” of anthropomorphic animals. That, of course, includes dragons. See, there’s a clan of humans who can transform into dragons which serve as the focal point of the game.
Long story short, many years ago, two clans of dragons, Dark and Light Dragons, feuded over the goddess’ favor eventually leading to a war that could potentially destroy the world. However, a Light Dragon put an end to the “Goddess War” by imprisoning Myria, a Dark Dragon who was encouraging the war and sealed her away using six keys. You can see what the central plot will revolve around, right?
As you can imagine, in the game’s present time, another Dark Dragon, this time an Emperor named Zog, claiming that it the Dark Dragon’s birthright to conquer the planet and intended to release Myria in order to claim it. However, there’s one person standing in his way: Ryu, an orphaned Light Dragon.
Without giving too much, it became Ryu’s task to collect the keys before Zog can which, in my opinion, lead to the most common – yet effective – RPG cliché. Even funnier, it also leads to an “Oh, that makes sense” moment at the end of the game which loved!!! I’m not going to spoil the ending for you because that’s not my style. Just know, that, like most stories, the ending brings everything together into a neatly tied bow…and Myria is a really evil jerk (trying to avoid using the other word).
The game played a traditional RPG with random battles, skills learned at a certain and suiting up your characters to maximize their stats. However, the game really shines at emphasizing that EVERY character has to be used in some capacity. See, all eight character (you heard me right, EIGHT!!) has a skill that can be used either in or out, of battle. For example, to name a few, Ox can break walls and push large obstacles, Karn can disarm traps and Bo can move through large forests. Either way, you will be using all of the characters a few times before you’re done.
Another thing that I love about the game is the music was spectacular. But, frankly, that’s to expected when Alpha Lyla and the renounced Yoko Shimomura is involved. Still, don’t know why she was uncredited but, alas, I digress.
Breath of Fire gets a 10 out of 10 from me because of it’s eloquently written story, meaningful characters – both heroes and villains, and wonderful soundtrack. Honestly, I couldn’t find anything wrong with the game…maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough. Haha.
