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Breath of Fire III Capcom - 1998 Breath of Fire. If you have never touched this genre and want a plot, play 4 first. If you like that, play the others. If you want a mindless game, go get 1. It's on the Advance. My order goes as follows: 4,3,1,2. The plots, while could possibly be connected, don't have enough in common to want you to play them in any order. Just remember, while Ryu and Nina are in all of them, they are different Ryus and Ninas, so you don't get more powerful characters, a la Suikoden or Arc the Lad. Now on to the review. Hmm, Breath of Fire 3. What a fun game. You play as Ryu (again) yet a different one than before, and you are found as a baby dragon, (hmm.. Ryu is a dragon? Who woulda thought? Especially after playing BoF1 and 2.) You then escape the escavation place where you were found, after killing everyone "by accident" and are found by Rei. Then 1/4 of the game goes by as you grow up with Rei and Teepo as theives. Finally, Rei and Teepo are missing somehow, I don't remember, and you decide to go to Windia to find them. On the way, you run across two annoying Horse-men, who capture you and try to sell you to the king of Windia. After that, Nina, the princess, helps you escape, and you run away from these Horseguys for the 2nd 1/4 of the game. Then you somehow meet Garr, who finds out you are a dragon, and brings you to meet his goddess, Myria (aka Tyr) who you kill. But that is after a whole lot of side quests along the way. If that made any sense, the plot of the game makes less. I could explain it in more detail, but I won't. Why I like the plot of 3 the most is that at the end of the game, you decide to fight the goddess of the world, Myria. She tells you time and again that she's really helping the world and that killing her would flood the world with a vast desert, and kill most everyone. And the game tells you too that she is telling the truth. Yet you kill her anyways. And at the end it shows the desert rush past the great ocean into the world. Then in 4, most all the world is a giant mud-land or desert land, which would make you think that a vast desert flooded the world? Huh? And you said the games weren't related? Needless to say, the game tries it's best to be ambiguous, and each game adds a bit more ambiguity to what order the games go and how they do. Original stuff: You get to wander the world map and NOT fight enemies. You get an exclamation over your head that lets you choose to go into a mini map area where you can fight enemies and look for extra treasure. You can camp out and heal your hitpoints in the main world map, which is cool. You only need inns if you die in battle. this is handy, and you get to talk to your partymembers when you camp out. The backgrounds are also 3-d and polygonal, while the characters are still 2-d sprites! Yay! You have the choice to study enemies and learn their techniques. This adds a lot of fun, learning crazy enemy attacks, like JUMP that roaches have, and use them against other enemies. Yeah, someone tell me why roaches have the JUMP ability. That is what I thought. You get to find dragon genes, and mix them together, creating a bunch of different types of dragons. Half the fun is mixing them for weird creations. And the game saves the last few you did, and can save certain ones forever if you asked it to. Very nice addition. The last cool thing is that there are masters, who you apprentice under. They reward you with new spells, and change your stats. So you can make Nina a fighter if you choose, or like I did, make Rei faster than he normally is, so he always gets 2 attacks. Fishing game cleaned up and actually sort of fun to play, sometimes. What liked: The battle system adds a lot, with a bunch of cool spells, and the fact that you fight right on the area you are walking on. Sometimes this is annoying though, just as you fight around corners and such. Also, everything in Original Stuff is cool, and this includes my favorite character ever in any game, Rei. What disliked: The game shows at angles, which is annoying, for you have to walk at angles a lot, and it isn't analog supported. Not a major thing though. The circle button is used to start conversations, and X button to choose in a conversation, which is a hassle. There is no real map of the world, and I don't think you explore even a lot of it. I hated both Momo and Peco, tolerated Garr, and loved Ryu, Nina and Rei. The problem about Bof3 is that the first half of the game plays well, but you sit there wishing that Ryu was grown up. Then when you get the grownup Ryu, the game rulz. Then in BoF4, you have an adult Ryu the whole time, which is great, but he never reaches the extreme coolness of Ryu in BoF3. Both kid Ryu and kid Nina were annoying, and Nina didn't even have her wings yet! I only tolerated it, 'cause when Ryu grows up, he becomes Soo cool! The fairy villiage was fun, but could have been a lot more customizable, I wish. What to expect: More plot and better translations than the last two games! Characters are actually funny and stuff. A great looking game, that plays sort of well. Better than most RPG's, with exception of Vagrant Story and the like. What not to expect: Graphics like FF8. True, I actually prefer sprites to polygons, except in new PS2 games where the polygons can look stylized and cartoony enough to look like sprites, like Kingdom Hearts for example. Don't expect cut scenes galore like in Final Fantasy as well. Don't expect a lot of magic healing items! Save them up all the time! You only get like 5 of them in total! Ratings on: Graphics: 7 - Sprites are cool in my eyes, but some of it was choppy. Sound: 7 - Acceptable. Some good songs, but nothing I remember very well. Controls: 5 - Due to the have-to-walk-sideways deal. Very responsive though. Style: 6 - Still a normal RPG, but added some newer ideas, read original stuff. 1st hour: 9 - Wow, the beginning is cool. Watch both intros though, so let it sit twice before you begin. 2nd hour: 7 - Fun still, haven't moved, but saw the picture of the older Ryu, and wondering when you get to play with him. Hoping it is soon. 1st week: 7 - Still haven't gotten to play with Big Ryu. But the game plays well. 2nd week: 8 - Given up on older Ryu. Enjoying the plot, and Maybe even enjoying Momo, since she's handy every now and then. 5th week: 10 - If you are still playing, got Adult Ryu, and Rei! That is, if you haven't given up yet. Don't, cause if you get adult Ryu, the plot gets good, and stuff. #1 reason I hate this game: Rei isn't in it enough. Doesn't that just beat all? |
