Breath of Fire (SNES, 1993)
A mediocre JRPG with fantastic sprite animation.
Nostalgia Factor: Low.
Difficulty: Medium. Nothing too tricky for RPG fans, but it can be very grindy.
Welp. I FINALLY finished Breath of Fire (BoF). Third try is a charm, I guess. It’s not a good sign when you’ve started a game twice, and have abandoned the game both times. To be honest, most of this game felt like a slog, and I'm surprised I finished it at all. I have this pesky obsession with playing every game in a series, and I hope to play all of the BoF games eventually. I stuck it out since I heard there’s some great games in the BoF series.
Breathe of Fire has some positives. Capcom has always had impressive sprite and battle animations, and I like their classic sound effects. The soundtrack is fine, though not particularly memorable. I found some of the baddies to be interesting (although, how many RPGs have slimes as their basic low level enemy?). At least a few of the story beats kept my interest towards the end, and the dragon modes and character fusion was pretty cool.
Aside from that, everything else in BoF was mediocre or bad. The dialogue was extremely limited, the translation was awkward and full of typos, and the story just doesn't really stand on two legs. Story is the biggest reason I play RPGs. Item management and the menus are a nightmare, probably the worst I've ever seen (understandable for Capcom's first ever RPG I guess).
The game is moderately challenging at the start, and some grinding is necessary. The encounter rate in this game is absurd. There's no way I could've finished this game without using an emulator’s turbo/frame-skip function and the game's "auto-battle" mode to speed through 90% of the battles. If you manage not to run from any battles as you progress through the game, you’ll be very well-leveled for the final bosses.
Overall, I can't recommend this one unless you really like SNES era RPGs.