Breath of Fire Recognition Topic
 

BoF is a fantastic RPG series, sure the first 2 were jsut above average, but the lack of human characters certainly made it unique, and 3 and 4 had great stories, then 5 came along, and was one of the most unique, indepth and replayable RPGs ever. Fantastic series people.

Wow. I just came back into my room after helping my little brother get started on the third game. Made me feel good to see him starting the one that really got me into the series.

Out of all the games in the series, I've only not enjoyed the first one, and not because it was bad. I just couldn't get into it. The fifth one took time, and a different play style, but it wasn't a terrible game at all.

I've got a ton of memories of those games, played them all through middle and high school. Fun times.

The real BoF games are my favorite generic JRPGs. Dragon Quarter is a supposedly great dungeon crawler that I wish didn't bear the Breath of Fire name. I hate it, but only because it seems to have killed the series. :stressed:

I guess BoF's main feature (or gimmick) is the ability of each character to execute a unique ability on the field or the world map. Combined with a system where every character has a unique spell list creates a situation where your choice of party members is the main point of strategy. Sometimes you must use a certain character to advance, sometimes you'll want a character who isn't great in battle for their other useful abilities.

That feature's importance was diminished after the second game, sadly. I'd love to see another BoF game that focussed on that gimmick, and more adventure-ish than any of the others. I have this vague image of something that looks like DQ8, but with the enemies visible on the field and some characters who's field abilities allow them to affect those enemies allowing for preemptive strikes or just a chance to avoid them.

BoF 4 has some terrific artwork, the animation and style are indeed beautifull... and the game is HELL of a lot of fun... i just missed the transformation process from BoF 3 which was really fun to combine all those genes to figure "what" you can become...

I just hope that someday they can make a RPG taking 2 ideas

"XenoGears" + "Shadow of the Colossus" = RPGtastic!

Now just replace Xeno with BoF... who wouldnt want to transform into gargantuam Dragons during gameplay with monsters the size of the colossi !?

I personally prefer DQ to almost all JRPGs, simply because of the atmospheer and setting, but thats just me. I did love the Gene system in 3, I made some pimpin dragons using that.

White Knight Story has a similar idea, though the scale is smaller and the transformation is in to an Escaflowne-ish suit of armor.

I kinda liked the 2 over the others. The fight against religion was mainly repeated and the game didn't feel too forced.

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Ok, it had its moments. But I liked how you had to play the first BoF to get into the second story such as with Nina and her history. Also I would have loved to see more of certain characters such as the plant and frog people for the uninitiated.

Anyway, 3 was good simply because in terms of gameplay, you could use the dragon for more than a one-size-fights-all damage maneuver.

4... Still haven't played it. So no comments there.

Breath of Fire 1 and 2 were the best. I played Breath of Fire 3, and it was just way too overloaded with time-consuming minigames and random encounters, and the plot was tedious and underwhelming. I haven't played 4 or 5 yet, I'm hoping they might be a bit better.

I also wrote a Breath of Fire 1 sprite comic for a while. :sweatdrop

Breath of Fire is a cool older series. I didn't much care for the mechanic of 'oh, you have to play through the game multiple times just to open some doors' in Dragon Quarter. I'd like to see a really well-done update of this series, but I doubt that'll ever happen, just like I won't get a sequel to Skies of Arcadia. Oh well.

Hmm, I remember the second game having the most random battles. About half the reason I stopped playing it even. 4 > 3 > 1 > 2 for me.

I love pretty much everything about 4. I was about 6 hours into FFIX when I decided to at least give BoF 4 a try before continuing... but I wound up playing it to completion before I even put FFIX back into my PSX. Because the entire party travels together and characters join up permanently as the story allows there wasn't a lot of point to the special action system and it's diminished state wasn't a problem.

The third game is neat to me for a couple of reasons. Though it has random battles, these battles take place right there in the dungeon without a transition. They were fairly frequent and this help me keep my bearings -- in most games with random battles I will often finish the battle and find I'd forgotten where I was going or what I was doing. Second is the story. It's one of the least cliched stories I can think of. You're not out to save something or fight 'evil'. Your whole pilgrimage serves no purpose but to grant Ryu, Garr, and Momo peace of mind. Last is the Desert of Death. I liked it, and beat it on the first try, but apparently many many people who played this game quit there.

I can't play the second game. The awful translation kills it. That and the insane encounter rate, the slow walking speed, and the (effectively) mandatory grinding. I'd love an updated version with those problems taken care of, the gameplay seems great apart from the grind and the story might be great beneath the Engrish.

The first game... well it started the series. The translation is adequate and the gameplay is good in a Dragon Quest sort of way. I got much farther in this one than the second game but lost my save and didn't want to start over.