Breath of Fire 3!
Overview
A more classic story there ISN"T!. 400 years ago a war between the race of dragon people, the brood, and gods forces raged for the very fate of the earth. God seeing the brood as a threat to the world dispatches her army and exterminates them. All is well. Present day, in a mining mountain two excavators rig some dynamite up to excavate diamonds from the caves, the crystals explode and out of the smoke emerges our hero. Ryu, the last of the brood.
Charecters:
Ryu: Like most rpg characters is silent. Trying to find out who and what he is, he's the blue haired badass that you control the entire game. His lack of speech just adds to the experience as it immerses you more in the game as he's supose to represent you.
Nina: The princess of the wyndian empire she's the main magic user of your group and the general hopeful light that keeps the group afloat.
Rei: The thief of the group, the first person ryu meets and one of the best charecter designs in the game. Rei doesn't give a S%$T about anything and would rather take what he wants than work for it. Under it all though he cares about his friends even if he doesn't show it.
Momo: A well balanced character that excels at everything, momo's the daughter of a famous scientist and as such studies as much as she can about the land's history and how robots work in a world that has long forgotten how to use machines. She's a bit clumsy and absent minded but she's cooler and more original than allot of other female characters i've seen.
Garr: What i'de imagine Akuma would look like as a dragon, Garr is easily my favorite character of the game. Strong, smart and with a troubled past, Garr defines cool and I wouldn't mind seeing more of him in other games.
Peco: Peco's a living onion, how's that for original idea? He never talks any words except the normal cute pukyu gibberish he's always spouting, really, that's all there is to him. OR is it!? Nah....
Graphics 8/10
All character and enemy models in the game are rendered completely in sprites. This gives the game a very old school feel and contributes greatly to the atmosphere. Attacks are presented in 3D and are good at doing their job. All the landscapes are 3D but layered with sprites, most of the land and buildings are presented in a way you would expect from a PS1 RPG.
Gameplay/Controls 8.5/10
The characters are very easy to move around, a bit slow but holding down one button to run speeds things up a little. The battle system is one of the most solid i have ever had the pleasure of playing and should be a guideline for how every other rpg should play. In battle your presented a plus. Left, right , up, and down let you scroll over your actions and a quick tap of a button lets you go to it. Simple no?
Attack: Regular physical attack that can occasionally miss or get a critical hit.
Defend: Raises your defense for a turn.
Examine: One of the great things about the battle system, by choosing examine you can learn an enemy's attack if they use one next turn. If your successful you get an exclamation point above your head and that move is added to your skill list. This is especially helpful later on as you can transfer skills you've learned from one character to another later in the game.
Ability: Here you can choose to use magic, an attack you've learned from an enemy, support magic to raise or lower stats, or the healing page to use something to resurrect a fallen team mate or heal someone that's almost gone.
DRAGON GENE: Picking any combination of 3 dragon genes transforms ryu into a wide variety of creatures. This makes him much stronger but it's never that abusable concidering how much ap it costs to transform. Fusion dragon for using the abilities of your team mates. The huge behemoth dragon that's low on magic but big on attack. The warrior dragon that's fast and powerful. And the ultimate kaizer that's admitedly a bit like going super saijin. Truly a great battle concept.
Outside of battles you can even become someone's apprentice. While under a master it alters how your stats go up. A character have really bad attack but awsome defense? Make him/her train under someone that raises attack. Filling in stats isn't all they do though, every couple of levels under a master that character might learn an attack. Abilities like "shadow walk" make the game that much easier later on.
This part of the review would have scored much higher if it weren't for some really awkward camera angles in certain points of the game. Breath of fire purposely hides items behind walls that obscure your vision, and while this can sometimes be helpful, it's mostly a pain as you might miss something important along the way. The L and R buttons help you change the camera angle but it just goes right back to normal after you've changed it.
Side Games: There are 2 basic side games that you can have fun with. The first you can have fun with early on. On the over world map you can go fishing and any fish you catch becomes an item. Some restore health while others might be good for selling or using on enemies. Take a shot on it. It's pretty fun.
The second would be the fairy village. A few hours into the game your given the task of telling a bunch of fairies how to run their town. If you don't tell enough to hunt then they die, but if you have a good balance their town becomes amazing which opens up some great shops and items.
Sound/Music 7.5/10
Most of the music, especially the over world theme is light jazz. It's the kind of music you would expect from the weather channel, and that's not bad at all. Battle music is dynamic and never gets on your nerves which is good considering how many battles there are. A few tracks stand out from the others, the ending theme " Pure again " is a Japanese vocal track and even if you can't understand it, it ends the game beautifully.
Replay Value 6.5/10
Once the game's been beaten your given the option to continue where you left off with all your stats and items. There's a few things you can mess with, maybe there's some attacks you still want to learn, perhaps you want to get all the fish. Whatever it may be the game doesn't offer too much. There are 2 enemies in the game that are five times as hard as the end boss but after that the game offers little incentive to continue.
Overall 8/10
The game has allot of stereotypes but that's because it's one of the games that established them in the first place. Easy to get into and interesting and fun enough to keep you going to the end, breath of fire is one of those RPGs with no real highs and no real lows but it's a damn interesting ride while it lasts. Pick it up if you can, or if you can't find it, it was just re-released for the PSP in Europe, and after all, the PSP is region free so you don't have to worry about modding. Give it a shot, you might like it.
Final Analysis
Highs:
Insanely solid battle system that never seems like it's ever your fault you lost. Some great character designs: Garr, Rei, Momo, lookin at you.
Light jazz is relaxing, allot of control over where you are allowed to go.
Fishing mini game is fun.
Not based in japan! No Ninjas! Woo hoo!
Lows:
If you don't go into options and speed up how fast the text goes by then you WILL be angry at this game. Using an emulator to play the game at faster pace bumps my score up 5%.
2-3 second load times before battles.
Some walls and environments make it hard to see where your going.
Just not fast enough for some people.
USELESS:
Looking around by pressing start.
- By Wingzrow
