Breath of Fire a classic RPG from SNES era
which spawned one of the biggest series in video games, developed by Capcom
and localized United States by square it has the makings of
legend but sadly the series has had no new releases in years.
follow me, Fade Dragontear
on my exploration this classic game series as I explore various aspects of this
the 16-bit piece of art. The game's opening cinematic scroll talks about
relative shortness of our existence on a cosmic scale and draws an example from a
clan of dragons who have built a mighty empire through battle but eventually fell
we're introduced to the Dark Dragon Clan basically
the assholes the world backed by a mysterious goddess
They seek global conquest which will plunge the world
into chaos
Fade: You basically just wake up and like this shit is on fire
You start the game As a blue-haired boy named Ryu
your village is under siege and it is explained by your sister Sara
that the Dark Dragon Clan is attempting to take over the world and the Light Dragon Clan
In which you belong is its first target Sara encases your clan in stone to protect them
and confronts the Dark Dragon general herself. Sara confronts and is defeated
by the general
and you awaken from your stone slumber. you basically decide to go attempt to save
your sister
the game is actually very ambiguous on your motivation here
and is basically says here's some gold now go wander around
Fade: wait, stop me from doing what again?
Fade: My character didn't even say like "I'm going to go on an adventure"
Fade: Free equipment is awesome -mumbles to himself-
it's at this point your thrown into the world map and what will be the bulk of
the game play in most SNES RPG's.
Random turn-based battles, this game doesn't hold your hand either
if you aren't properly prepared you might find yourself defeated in the first few
battles
Fade: I shoulda fucking healed
Fade: yeah I should a fuckin healed :( God Dammit!
Luckily Breath of Fire augments the random battles with purchasable monster
repellents
something not common to RPG's at the time however
not avoiding random encounters will of course be essential to your character
progression
but it's a nice option if used sparingly
at this point you might also notice there's a dynamic day and night cycle
present here
this affects is aesthetic of the towns but is also important for some plot events.
This is reoccurring in breath of fire but was sadly scrapped in later games
I'm not entirely sure why. Save points are cleverly disguised as dragon shrines
found through out the world they are present in most towns and
have their own unique architecture it said the town's motifs
while there is a plot to breath the fire most of the time is spent in episodic cycle of
find a new town, traverse the dungeon defeat the big baddie,
collect the treasure, rinse and repeat.
Fade: so anyway right now I'm going after some friggin quake machine because,
Fade: okay, theres the light dragons and the dark dragons and the dark dragons are being
Fade: assholes
Fade: and their like, this here is the earthquake machine they are using
Fade: to be assholes with...somewhat. So now I get to fight the boss.
While doing this episodic missions you're gradually introduced other members
of your party
the first being Nina a winged princess from the town Winlan
whose father; the King has fallen ill.
Mechanically Nina is a support mage with various buffs and healing spells at her
disposal
other members of your party will later include:
Bow: a wolf-like hunter/archer Karn: human looking character of
undefined race who has the ability to merge with other members of your party
Gobi: a useless fish merchant
Ox: A giant ogre Mogi: A mole man
and finally Bleu: a sexy snake lady Each character has a unique world map ability
ranging from being completely useless to you merging together to create
unholy abominations to other more useful ones such as breaking down walls or flying.
so after a mountain of side questing
random encounters and traversing the world you defeat the Dark dragons
leaders Zog
and his general Jade but not before they were able to awaken the goddess Tyr
I'm not gonna spoil the ending too badly but
I will point out that there are two different endings affected by your
actions in the game
only one will offer any insight or feeling of closure on the events that preceded it
and it leaves the segway open to continue the story.
Breath of Fire in many ways was far ahead of it's time and still holds up today
it is one of my favorite series and next time I'll be taking a look at Breath of Fire 2
one of the earliest RPG's of my childhood I'm pretty excited to
play it again once again Once again this was Fade Dragontear remember to comment/like/subscribe
Peace out!