A game worth playing but not finishing.
Review 88
Released: December 13, 2001
Developer: Capcom
Game Genre: RPG
Opening Thoughts:
There isn’t much to say about Breath of Fire. It was originally released on the Super Nintendo, and Capcom took the easy road and converted the game to Gameboy Advance with nothing new.
Story (6/10)
The storyline starts off nicely. Ryu is a member of the Light Dragons. The Dark Dragons take over the world and it’s up to Ryu to stop them and their evil leader, Zog. However, shortly after you meet your third party member, the game takes a plummet and the storyline becomes muddled. The places you need to go are not stated clearly. I have played dozens of RPG’s and have never had a harder time than I did with Breath of Fire. Near the end of the game, though, the storyline clears up a lot and becomes easy to understand.
Gameplay (7/10)
It’s just a standard RPG with no real outstanding features. Players learn spells, have their own separate weapon types. Battles are typical RPG battles, where you select attack, spell or defend. One neat thing about the battles, though, is the ability to switch between any of the 8 characters you eventually meet (4 characters battle at a time) in the middle of a battle. Also, each character gains an even amount of experience, not just the 4 in battle.
The non-playable characters are annoying. They don’t help much, and a lot of them say the same thing. The world map is pretty big and annoying at first, but two characters learn the “Warp” spell, and one turns into a giant bird that you can ride around near the end.
Overall, the gameplay is very generic, but solid as well.
Graphics (8/10)
About as much as you can expect from a converted SNES game. There is no pixilation and also a couple cool animations.
Durability (8/10)
The game lasts for a very long time. I spent close to a month on it (including stops). There are some points in the game, though, that make you want to punch a dolphin. Yep…they’re that frustrating.
Overall Score (7.25/10)