Hello you all, adorable e-people. I’m back after all these days of gaming, music, coke, doritos and love.
I’m back to present the review of the game that changed it all. The review of the most important game to me. My favorite game, the almighty Breath of Fire IV.
Let’s get back to 2000/2001. I was an Elementary-Schooler that was into all kinds of nerdy-geeky stuff. Comics, Books, Animations, Japanese Series, Table-Top games, RPG and videogames. Although back then, most of those things weren’t as cool as it’s today. At all. I mean, even today there’s prejudice towards those who happen to like this. Differently from my Elementary-School days, everybody like games now. In fact, it is actually cool today. Families play games together. Adults often play games. I’d never thought that back then. It’s mind-blowing.
Anyway, I could not afford to have two game-consoles back then, so I had to sold my SNES in order to buy the Playstation. I made a great deal, actually. I had finaly bought my “new-gen console”, I was excited. I started to get into more “mature” games in the Playstation-Era. I was growing up as a gamer and as a person. From Mario to Metal Gear Solid.
I’ve always been into RPGs. Since the first Final Fantasy on the NES. My friends did not. They were into adventure and such, only. When the Playstation-Era arrived people changed their Adventure type-of-games for “Tony Hawk’ and “Winning Eleven”. To be honest with you, 16-bit was the last true gaming generation to me. Some games on the Nintendo 64 needed an “Expansion Pack” to work, for example. Consoles before that were “Plug-and-Play”. Thing started to get more complicated. Don’t get me wrong, the 32-bit era was great, Playstation and the Sega Saturn had lot of good titles and all, but the magic of it had been weaken.
However, there was a game of that era that got me. A game that has an awesome plot, characters, game mechanics…
Now I finally present you the review of my favorite game, of all time. Here we go!
Background: Breath of Fire IV, originally released in Japan as Breath of Fire IV: Utsurowazaru Mono (ăăŹăč ăȘă ăăĄă€ăąIV ăă€ăăăăăăź, Lit. Breath of Fire IV: The Unfading Ones?) is a role-playing video game developed by Capcom, and is the fourth game in the Breath of Fire series.
Just as in previous games of the series, Breath of Fire IV follows the adventures of a young man named Ryu, who has the power to transform into powerful dragons. The Ryu in this game must team up with several other skilled warriors to combat an awakened immortal emperor from ascending to godhood and destroying the world of man. Like Breath of Fire III, the game utilizes a mix of two and three-dimensional computer graphics and turn-based battle sequence.
Gameplay: Breath of Fire IV is a traditional console role-playing game with an overhead, isometric viewpoint. The game’s camera can be manually rotated by the player up to a full 360 degrees in some instances, though unlike Breath of Fire III it cannot be tilted up or down. The game environment is rendered in full 3D, while character are present as two-dimensional hand-drawn sprites. While moving about the world, players can interact with computer-controlled characters and objects, gain knowledge on the world around them, and gather clues on how to advance the story. Each playable character is given a special “field skill” that can be used to destroy obstacles or solve puzzles outside of battles, which occur randomly in hostile areas or dungeons. The “Master System” from Breath of Fire III returns, allowing players to customize each character by having them apprentice under different masters found throughout the world. Under their guidance, these characters may gain new skills and special statistic increases by fulfilling certain tasks, such as participating in a certain number of battles, or finding specific items.
Battles take place with teams of three characters against any number of enemy opponents. During these combat sequences, the player can choose which characters will perform an action in any order, as well as switch in any available reserve characters from the back row. While positioned in the back row, a character may not participate in battle, but may regain lost health or magic every combat round, as well as become unaffected by any attacks. Battles are end when either all enemies are defeated or all characters in a player’s front row are out of health. Each battle yields experience points that go toward earning levels for each character, which in turn grants increased statistics and new skills.
New to Breath of Fire IV is the Combo System, which allows certain spells or skills to be cast in a specific order to gain bonus damage or other effects. Casting two ice spells in sequence, for example, will produce a stronger ice attack, while a fire spell followed by a wind spells with instead create a new explosion-based attack. Combos may also automatically occur in single attacks that have more than one effect
Plot: The story of Breath of Fire IV begins with a search team consisting of Nina, princess of the Kingdom of Wyndia, and Cray, leader from the plains-dwelling Woren clan. They were heading to the town Synesta for information on the whereabouts of Nina’s older sister and Cray’s love interest, Elina, who went missing several weeks earlier on a diplomatic mission. They were soon attacked by a berserk dragon and their sandflier crashed, forcing Nina to go to Sarai for spare parts while Cray guards their ride. Happening upon a crater left when a strange object landed from the sky, Nina confronts a large dragon who transforms before her eyes into a young man. Remembering nothing other than his name, Ryu, Nina surmises he must have amnesia and persuades him to help her search for her sister. Meanwhile, across the world in the western Fou Empire, the ancient Emperor Fou-Lu rises from his burial tomb, declaring that it is now his time to regain his throne, as he promised over six centuries ago. He commanded one of his Guardian dogs, Won-Qu, to guard the tomb before heading south. In his vulnerable, newly awakened state, he is attacked by Yohm, a general in the modern Fou army who is privy to Fou-Lu’s long-prophesized resurrection, and aims to kill him before carrying out his plan. Fou-Lu was overpowered in the struggle, and struck down into a ravine.
Elsewhere, Ryu and Nina ran into trouble with a Fou Empire captain named Rasso and couldn’t get the needed spare parts in the end. While escaping the Fou soldiers, they travel to a town blighted by an evil miasma known as “hex” to get back to Cray, where they meet Ershin, a mysterious robot-like armor who leads them through the poisoned side of town. Re-uniting with Cray, the team makes their way west to gather more information. The story shifts back to Fou-Lu, who has awakened after his ordeal with Yohm and finds himself in the care of a man named Bunyan. After recovering enough, Fou-Lu departs down the mountain only to find Yohm and his soldiers blocking the path. After a struggle, Fou-Lu is forced to flee by transforming into a dragon and flying away, declaring that he must find his “other half”, Ryu, and re-unite with him before the Empire finds him first. Yohm summoned another creature to chase and strike Fou-Lu down. It succeeded and Fou-Lu crashes into the forest below.
By this time, Ryu and his friends have arrived at the border town of Kyojin, where they meet Captain Rasso again who attempts to block them from entering the Causeway’s gates. Quickly escaping past the guards in Fou Empire’s contient, the team make their way north where the meet Yuna, an Imperial scientist who knows of Elina. He claimed that she was here but no longer was. The soldiers then captures and returns them to the Eastern Lands with accusations of breaking the pre-war peace treaty by trespassing in their lands. The group is detained in the town of Ludia and Cray is set to stand trial on their behalf. The group tries to help by “lessing the evidence” against Cray but to no effect with the judge. With no other choice Ryu, Nina and Ershin break him out of captivity with the help of Scias, a tall, dog-like mercenary who joins their cause. Determined to clear their names and find Elina, they travel past a swamp and through a volcano to arrive in Wyndia, where after an audience with Nina’s father, the king, the group continues west. After seeking the Wind Dragon at the top of an ancient temple and brought to an ancient summoners’ village, the group learns of Ryu’s heritage, why the Empire is after Ryu, and the danger he would be in should he and Fou-Lu ever meet. They also learned that Ershin was carrying an Endless’ spirit named Deis. While the group learns all this, Captain Rasso tracked Ryu to the summoners’ village and killed most of the villagers. They then meet Ursula, granddaughter of a high-ranking Fou Empire official and was against Rasso’s savage methods. After attacking the villagers, Captain Rasso pulls out his trump card against Ryu. Ryu goes berserk and incinerates all the soldiers and Rasso and almost kills Ursula too but Nina manages to calm Ryu down. Before leaving for Kyojin again along the western border, Ursula joins the group to keep an eye on them. Learning that the Causeway broke down after their initial visit, they find that they need a ship in order to proceed with their journey.
Ryu and his team travel to the Emperor’s pagoda to stop him, and find Ursula’s adopted grandfather, General Rhuh, holding off several monsters and A-Tur charging the palace area. Dying in the struggle, Ursula’s grandfather tells his daughter to stop Fou-Lu with her new friends, and restore the empire to its former glory. She agrees, and the group makes their way to the palace’s inner sanctum, where Ryu personally confronts Fou-Lu and questions his motivation to destroy humanity after they have done so much for him in the past, recalling and comparing their memories. After an intense battle, Fou-Lu finally understands Ryu’s defense and merges with Ryu to become the complete Yorae Dragon God. With the remaining dragon gods of the world deciding to now leave life in humanity’s hands, they remove their presence from the planet. With Ryu’s godhood now gone, he rejoins the group as a mortal and they leave the palace together to return home.
Audio: The music of Breath of Fire IV was composed entirely by Yoshino Aoki, had previously collaborated with Akari Kaida on the soundtrack to Breath of Fire III. Unlike the previous game, the music does not exhibit a jazz motif, but rather a traditional orchestral score modeled after Asian music. Aoki would also provide the vocals for the game’s ending theme, “Yume no Sukoshi Ato” (ăăăźăăăăăš, literally, “A Little After the Dream”), and would write an arrangement of Maurice Ravel’s “Pavane pour une infante dĂ©funte” titled “Pavane for a Dead Princess”, while composer Taro Iwashiro provides the game’s opening theme song “Breath of Fire IV ~Opening Animation~”. In May 2000, Capcom would release the Breath of Fire IV Original Soundtrack on the company’s in-house music label Suleputer, which contained all music from the game across two discs. In June 2006, the entire soundtrack would be re-released as part of the Breath of Fire Original Soundtrack Special Box boxset, which contained music from the first five games in the series. You can find the soundtrack here to download. Enjoy~
Gameplay, plot and audio. Simply enough, it is what really matter on an RPG.
I hope you give it a try, if you haven’t done so. It’s an awesome game.
Truly a masterpiece. There’s also a manga series based on it. You can read it here.
I recommend, if you wanna get more into the story. It’s a good manga, for sure.
Signing out.
Regards.
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