The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Backlog: Breath of Fire 3

That's right! Not 1, not 2, but 3!
I never played 1, I did play 2 and it annoyed me to no end, so I figured I had established enough of a base to buy 3 without playing it first.

Boy was I wrong.

Breath of Fire is Capcom's attempt at creating a popular RPG franchise, in the vein of Square's Final Fantasy, Enix's Dragon Quest and Atari's Pit Fighter.
And in general I welcome ANYTHING Capcom does. Capcom is by far and away my favorite Video Game Company, because they're the only ones who seem to be able to handle practically every genre really well. Practically, cos RPG's weren't really their cup of tea apparently. Although they've made a couple of really good ones in this day and age, it took them a long LONG time to produce anything that wasn't hair-tearingly annoying or mind-numbingly dull. Breath of Fire III was still before that time.

This game will frustrate the living CRAP out of you. I swear, at some point, I had to go to the toilet, and my CRAP started shouting at me and flinging itself at me for playing this.

It's not that it's boring, no, not at all, it's got some nice stuff. The ability system, where you can learn skills from enemies by using the 'watch' option in battle, and you can become a student under a master with his own specific skills which is nice and all. The game has a decent sense of humor, keeps up a good pace, yaddah yaddah, it's all decent at best, but what it really excells in, is frustration.

First of all, ALL dungeons are of the Maze-type, which I really really REALLY HATE.
"Uh-oh, a crossroads! Which way shall we ever go?"
"Let's go left!"
"Well now, here's ANOTHER crossroads! This must mean we're heading in the right direction, let's go back to see if we missed anything. What the.....there's a FUCKING CROSSROADS HERE TOO!? DAMN YOU CAPCOM! I'M GETTING OUT OF HERE!"

I swear, this actually happened, the guy just stepped out of the game and he's doing my dishes now. Hey, be more careful! That's real porcelain you know!?

Fortunately you have to deal with a rather high encount rate as well. Joy!
And this is one of those games where, if you're attacked from behind, you are in real serious trouble. Enemies are already pretty damn fast in a normal battle, but if they can go first, you're pretty much screwed.
And then there's the fact that you miss a LOT. GOD I hate that.
The only good thing I can say about the battles is that the Bosses look pretty cool. Even though the environments are 3D, all enemies and characters are 2D sprites, and they're real pretty. You can leave that to Capcom. Bosses are HUGE and everything is very nicely animated as well.

In terms of events, there's a lot of variation too, there are puzzles, lots of mini-games, subquests etc. The main character Ryu can change into a dragon, despite what his name might suggest, and throughout the game you will find Dragon Genes to open up new species of dragon with new skills. When transforming you can choose to combine up to 3 genes to customize your own dragon, and favorite combinations can be saved for easy access. This system is really really cool, and far better than the dragon system in any of the other BoF's.

Oh, speaking of events, there's one REAL stinker though. At some point you have to traverse a Desert, which, if you know your games, is NEVER a lot of fun, but this game manages to make it feel like the Hot Hell it would be in real life.
Firstly, you have to deal with limited amounts of water, obviously. You're never bothered with having to drink water in the rest of the game, but there you go. You get 20 water units before you go in, and experience has taught me that you will run out before you get to the end EVERY TIME. Naturally, you'll start losing health when that happens. And of course there'll be random battles. To be fair, the encount rate for this area seems to have been dropped significantly.
But here's the real deal, you don't get a map, you have to navigate by USING THE STARS. Shit, I feel like I'm a junior Scout all over again. Where's my pocket knife so's I can stab myself!?

This desert is really FRIGGIN' HUGE and flat and boring and monotonous. Still, have fun following the stars, but know that if you diverge of the indicated route a little bit too much, that you''ll never find the way out. I talked to some friends who'd also played this game and asked them what they thought of it, and they ALL said that they stopped playing it at the Desert scene. You have to be a real Die Hard and actually WANT to finish the game to.....uh.....finish this game.

Still, if you do, there's some fun to be had, sporadically. There is decent reward for taking the long way, treasure chests usually hold something good, which I always appreciate, the story is nice, and there is a lot of variation, so it's not really bad or anything, you just need a LOT of patience and you really shouldn't try this if you're not a convinced RPG player. I give this a 7.0, but beware.

Here be Dragons.

posted by Ingen! @ 11:05 AM