Breath of Fire IV is no exception, compensating for its minor narrative and graphical flaws with watertight gameplay and a huge helping of old-fashioned role-playing charm.
It became my favorite game in the Breath of Fire franchise. It won me over with its gameplay, humor and story. However they made some changes compared to the previous games in style and worldbuilding which is not for everyone but I enjoyed these (and compared to the later Dragon Quarter it is not even worth mentioning). Also a lot of mechanics are improved in comparison to the prequels. Lets start at the beginning: The Breath of Fire franchise was a long running and cherished RPG series from Capcom. Not as popular as Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest back then but good games that had a fan base. This game is gameplay wise the best in the series, has a fun story with good characters and an art style that aged very well for PlayStation times. Story: A long time ago the western continent had multiple problems and countless fights erupted into a war. To solve the endless struggles they tried to summon a (dragon) god from another realm to unify the empire and bring peace and stability. While the summoning was flawed a god named Fou-Lu entered the world and was able to unify the lands into the so called Fou Empire. However Fou-Lu felt that he was weakened by the flawed summoning and rested in his tomb while the world moved on. Many years later the western Fou Empire is in a state of interrupted conflicts with the eastern continents Alliance. When a boy named Ryu mysteriously appeared before Nina the princess of Windia the events of the game start to unfold as Fou-Lu awakens from his slumber and Ryu’s journey will decide the future of the world. This is the set up for the story. It has the best and most interesting story in the franchise. There are countless philosophical themes, worldviews and plots in play. You will deal with things that have impact on a personal scale up to a huge political scale. Also the humor and characters enhance the experience. Characters: You have the staples of the franchise in play with Ryu and Nina. Both are present in all games and are favorites. The rest of the cast I wont spoil as this would / could be a mayor no go for others. I will say that I like their stories, struggles and motivations. There is a lot of character development here for your party members even with some good surprising twists. Even after many years I remember some scenes, jokes and character moments. Gameplay: This is a strength of the game as the mechanics work well. It is a turn based RPG with good mechanics. Your party of 3 battles the enemies while the other characters are in the back. You can switch between them to adapt to combat situations during battle and outside of. It has an interesting combo system that I truly enjoyed. Elemental spells can be combined to crated more devastating effects like for example fire and wind create an explosion or wind and water lightning.
Multiple spells / abilities of the same element increase the effect or status boost / debuffs can be applied multiple times (at a lesser potency). There is a lot to experiment with as many and different tiers of spell exists, some combinations are devastating and maybe there are some character connected ones ;-). Back from the prequel is the ability to learn some of your enemies spells / skills. It is improved because you don't need to examine an enemy just guarding. Also the number of useful skills has increase. There are also masters that teach you skills if you fulfill their requirements and have benefits at leveling up. (For example more power and defense but less magic and mana points). Each master has also a proficiency ability that she / he shares like getting more money or automatically finish enemies that are critically injured. This can not make a fighter out of a healer but gives you an edge. As staple the fishing mini game, village building an other mini games return. Beware there is a game point meter (forgot the exact name) which has an effect on your main characters unique abilities. Also there is a lot to explore in the game. This altogether made it the best game in the series for me. Presentation: The graphics look hand-drawn and aged amazingly well. It is not my favorite style but it won me over at the end and I praise the game. The soundtrack is also my favorite for the series and is amazingly well done. I encountered no bugs in the game too so that I say there is no misstep here. For the style they go more for Chinese Empire vs western setting which can anger hard core fans. Some advice for new players: Keep the numbers of items in your inventory as high as possible (you will know later why). Learn abilities from masters and enemies to play with combos. Get the game points above 60000 at the end game for a beneficial effect (Hope I remembered the number correctly) and explore the world carefully as there are hidden areas, items and secrets. Overall this is a somehow hidden gem in a now forgotten or barley (possessive) talked about series. The characters, gameplay mechanics, story and setting make a great experience.
The new battle system and improved graphics mixed with solid features from the past make for a seriously addictive game. Great for old school vets and newbies alike.
Breath of Fire 4 is my 2nd favourite Breath of game. I loved it allot and spent many many many hour playing it. I even had a race with my nephew with lvling Fou-Lu as high as possible. We had allot of fun and I rlly wish to play this game again as a HD Remastered version for PS4 or PC.
This will be a long one, cause this was one of my favorite PS1 games and it was the very first RPG i played in my life.
First thing to clear is; this game suffers from all the well known JRPG problems of its age: Slowness, no customization on character (no costumes, armors doesn't reflect on characters appearance, not even the weapons) annoying random encounters and the most important: painful EASINESS, which IMO is the biggest flop of this game, cause it affect others thing the game do well, like gameplay.
The story is mid, the whole idea is good, there's some good moments, twist or revelations, but ultimately fails to have you emotionally involved in the long run. I liked the ending, for the most part, but Yuna should have died.
So, with bad things clear out, here is why i still like the game:
1. I like the the way it does turn base combat, with commands executing in a kind of simultaneous way, this allow the Combo System, which i love.
2. I love the Master System, it's like an In-game-rewarded "trophies/achievements" system.
3. One of my most beloved role on Final Fantasy is Blue Mage, this game is the reason why. Here, Blue Mage is a universal mechanic for all characters.
4. Love the music, it's not as good as FF, but is very good.
5. This is probably the only RPG where i like the whole roster.
The rest is just a bunch of little things and quirks i like about the game, like how the money in this game have value, a lot mini games, the faeries thing, etc.
I just which the game were harder, all those nice mechanics and quirks are ultimately worthless because the game is WAY too easy, it's just a walk until you reach the very last locations (The Tomb, Capital and Final Castle) that help to make the game feels boring, your are never in peril, i finish the game with only 1 game over (against the last boss and mostly because I thought it was scripted to die) I wish that final area difficulty was the default from the beginning. It also lack some end game dungeon/area where you can use all the things you master. The game let's you play after the last save, but there's no real reason to do it, since you already kill 99% of enemies.
Capcom needs to bring Breath of Fire to Steam. Sound and visuals are the best part of BoF IV. The weaker of the two PSone games, but that's like saying the Carrera GT is the worst Porsche. You'd still gladly drive it.
Breath of Fire 4's (BOF4) developers can't even get right the obnoxiously exhausting and stupid nonsensical character isometric field controls. Very few professional game developers fail the standard "move the avatar" exercise in game design. How did BOF4's devs fail that??
Changing the control schemes in the options menu does not help ease the pain and irritability the player feels. (Do the Japanese developers and players always embrace pain to feel pleasure?)
The first town is a maze (desert town map as small as our toilet room) that keeps obscuring the view on your character which always makes you guess where the hell the character you're controlling is at. The camera rotation sometimes helps and sometimes worsens the view like it's devs are mocking you in the face, "Navigating and figuring out where your character is at painfully is part of the game LOLz"
There are better RPGs out there which got the basic requirements for RPGs right, which are the controls and camera views.
I remember when I first bought this BOF4 in the year 2000. I asked the shop clerk to test run this game so I can see how it goes. I felt hesitant to take it because THERE IS NO WOW MOMENT in the intro of this thing. Back in year 2000, if Final Fantasy 7, 8, and 9 were priced at around $40. Breath of Fire 4 should have been priced $5 because its intro (first few minutes of the game) does not WOW at all. Visual Novels look even much interesting and better.
In the end, I still bought BOF4 because I still remember how fun and memorable Breath of Fire 3 was.
PS --- The Dragons in this trash look like starving and dying house lizards....
Now we know why there's no more proper Breath of Fire games made after this 4th try.
SummaryAfter centuries of war, the two lands bordering an impenetrable swampland have finally reached an armistice. Mysteriously, the noble Princess Elena disappears somewhere near the war-ravaged front lines. Distraught, her sister Nina goes in search of the Princess alone and on her journey, meets a mysterious young warrior named Ryu. Their d...