Developer: Capcom Publisher: Capcom Released: December 10, 1995 The first time I had ever played a Breath of Fire game was when I was a child. It felt like I had found something new, something enjoyable. Indeed, I was right. This is basically my first review... So yeah. Also, I'm horrible with exaggerating and explaining things, so, I apologize for the lack of length. Also, I want to get better at reviews, so any and all help will be appreciated. Also, I didn't see another Breath of Fire 2 review, so... Let me get on with it and quit boring you here. Gameplay: Not much can be said about a classic turn-based RPG in terms of gameplay. You have your random battles, dungeon exploration, overworld exploration and finally, a menu screen which is simple and easy to navigate, in and out of battle. However, what sets the game apart from others like it is the ability to 'shamanize' your characters, which is just basically fusing your characters to make a completely different being altogether. Shamanization: After you reach a certain point in the game, namely after you've reached the city of Capitan, and if I remember right, you'll have to do a bit of a rescue mission, but soon after, you'll be able to start a small side quest which will allow you to do fusions and give Ryu the ability to shape-shift into a dragon, much like in the previous game and is also a just a one-time attack as it completely drains your AP in the process. However, upon speaking to to an NPC that is conviently placed between two buildings as you enter the town, (she's between the inn and the weapon/item shop if I remember correctly) but after you've spoken with her, she'll lead you to her grandmother's home, and she'll attempt to fuse with you, after saying that it would benefit you, however, instead of changing your form, she'll awaken your ability to shift into a dragon, and upon doing so, burn down her house in the process. Being that you're able to create your own town, you're given the task of finding the old woman and her grand daughter a new home. Example of a shamanized character... One last aspect of gameplay I want to touch up on would be the couple of things you can do after you've left a battle, and those would be the field abilities to hunt and fish. Fishing and Hunting: Aside from field actions, such as having Jean turn into a frog to get around, or using a whale to travel the ocean in place of a ship, there are two things that you'll be able to do after battle, and those are the abilities to hunt and fish. While you have two characters to use for hunting, Bow or Katt, Bow is the better choice as he has longer range, and has less of a chance of frightening the animal he's after. However, as far as fishing goes, Ryu is the only character in-game whose field ability is to fish. While the controls for the minigame are simple, this is the only way that you can purchase some items not available anywhere else in the game. To do this, you'll need to equip a rod as your weapon, and the bait you're planning to use as an accessory, such as shrimp or a worm, some fish will go after different bait, however, on occasion, there will an NPC swimming along the bottom of the screen in which case you'll want to equip a gold coin in order to snag him and see what he has to sell. One last thing I wanted to touch up on was the story. As an RPG gamer, aside from the gameplay, I find that a story can also make or break a game. There's quite a bit of religion mentioned in-game, but if you have not played it yet and intend to, then I'll say no more. However, in this case, this is easily the strongest point of the game. Story: Capcom places you in the role of Ryu Bateson, the son of a priest in the town of Gate. When your younger sister, Yua, runs off, your father asks that you find her. Upon agreeing to do so, you begin your search for her, and it eventually leads you to her usual location, under the head of the sleeping dragon. After she tells you that you may see your mother if you were to take a nap under the dragon, you decide to do so. When you awaken, you return to town, but no one seems to know who you are, and you find that your family has gone missing. However, the priest, Father Hulk allows you to spend the night. During the night, you wake to find a young dog-like boy who introduces himself as Bow. After he pilfers the candle, you decide to head out into the world while it's still dark. Once it begins to rain, you and Bow both decide that you need to take shelter in a nearby cave, and the story really begins from there... And so it begins... Graphics: Sprites for the overworld/towns/dungeons differ from the battle sprites. They're what you would normally expect to see in an RPG of this era. There wasn't much, animation-wise, other then a few townspeople walking or standing still. However, you can find a couple of things to do after you've left a battle, such as fishing (which is indicated by a fish leaping out of the water) and hunting (which is indicated by a patch of grass sticking up out of the world map).* (*See gameplay section...) Town navigation. One other thing that impressed me was the graphics in battle. There is no slow down when you're attacking, casting a spell or guarding, and I could find nothing out of place in that respect. Just your typical turn-based battle... Sound: While there are a few pleasant songs to listen to in-game, from the battle music to town themes, easily, the worse song here would be the dungeon theme. It's dull and monotonous. As for a couple of other songs, the battle and boss battle themes go quite well with their respective locations. As for sound effects, I could find nothing out of place, weapons and skills sounded as they should. Presentation: 9/10 Graphics: 7.5/10 Sounds: 6.5/10 Gameplay: 8/10 Last Appeal: 8.5/10 Final Score: 39.5/50
Interesting review. Good for a first, but you might want to go into detail on some game mechanics. Are the menus easy to navigate/understand? Go into detail in "shamanizing" and how to do so. Add depth to your support information. It still gets a point across on an idea of how good the game is, but it would help a lot. Needs more length, but then again, that depends on depth (see previous paragraph, lol). You had transitions between gameplay and story categories: but then you lacked transition between categories...maybe add some more to that, like the quoted part of your review. Nice first review! Nice use of a variety of words. Just lacking in some text, but it's good.
Ah, that's a good idea, I'll get working on adding what needs to be added in just a bit. Thanks for the reply. Edit: That should be a bit better.
Now that's a lot better. Maybe add a way to transition between "Shamanizing" and "Fishing and Hunting"? Just seems a bit janky because it jumps from shape-shifting to fishing for stuff. Otherwise, it's a lot better, in terms of length and quality.
How you go from one paragraph to another without sounding awkward. You have one transition, from gameplay to story (the last gameplay paragraph), and that was good. Needs more of that. Hopefully that explanation helped. If not, I suck.
I've added the one between shamanization and fishing/hunting portion. Do I need to add anything else?
If you play the game I'd highly recommend using the translated version since it doesn't destroy the dialogue like the original did. That said though, the box art makes Ryu look like Conan and that's awesome.
