The Biggest Game Project on this Planet

Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter

Man, I'm one stubborn son of a bitch.

I guess I figured, since Breath of Fire IV was by accident so good, it could only get better from there on, and V would rule again too, despite the 3 lousy prequels! Right! RIGHT!?!

Dammit I was wrong again. Fuck Breath of Fire, FUCK IT RIGHT IN THE EAR!

This was incidentally one of the most frequent quotes made by me whilst playing this game. GOD, is it hard. It's hard as Reinforced Steel Nails in Extra Strong Concrete, with scars and one eye missing. It's hard as something extremely HARD. HARD.

But it's not easy! That's what makes it hard. Capcom have decided to throw the entire series out of the window and do something totally completely new cos Originality is A Good Thing. Is it really? NO.
I prefer good old tried-and-tested, run-off-the-mill, thirteen-in-a-dozen repeat-a-thons anytime over "It's got to be good cos noone's done it before!". 9 out of 10 times it ends in disaster.

In Breath of Fire V, also known as Breath of Fire 5, you play Ryu, who *sigh* can turn into some dragon like creature, which explains the name Bob. And this is where this game goes haywire already. Instead of getting multiple Dragon forms to choose from, you only have ONE shape this time, which admittedly is incredibly strong, but there's one very serious downside to using it, and I'll get to that in a moment.

You're a member of some kind of organisation or other, and it's basically your job to explore the subterranean world mankind has been living in for some time now, and to kill any monsters you might run into and if possible, find a way out to the surface. As a result the whole game takes place in dark dusty corridors and underground labs and energy facilities and the like. This does manage to create a very brooding and suffocating atmosphere which helps the game a lot.

You will occasionally run into doors that are closed which tell you that your D-rate is too low, and you can't go through. The D-rate is apparently something everyone has in this world, and it more or less defines your importance, so the higher your D-rate, the more doors you can open etc. Your D-Rate only rises when you finish the game though, so these extra areas are solely put in for replay value, which is also nice.

Whilst exploring the many hallways you will frequently run into enemies, which are totally visible all the time, so no random encounters. As soon as you hit an enemy, or it attacks you, the battle sequence will start on the spot, and any enemies in the immediate vicinity will join in, very much like Chrono Trigger. You also get some field items like bombs and traps to deal damage before the battle starts, or temporarily stun the enemy, which is nice. During battle though, you are free to run around within the arena, but you have a certain amount of attack points to keep in mind, determining how many movements you can perform within one battle turn, it all makes the battles very strategic and active yaddah yaddah, let's get to the SUCKY PART.

Cos SUCK it does, in some ways, and more than one. It Sucks like a Transylvanian Vacuum Cleaner moonlighting as a Thai Prostitute. Without teeth. You see, Capcom thought of all of the above, and they had a very decent game on their hands, but that wasn't enough! Oh no, they needed something more bless their little hearts, I imagine the meeting going something like this:

Exec A: "Good, I think that about wraps things up, does anyone have anything else to say?"
Exec B, whom I belief to be Satan: "Wait a minute, I have this one last idea to throw in at the last minute and fuck up the entire experience!"
A: "Well, by all means, share"
B: "I was thinking, what we got now is pretty good, but we need something to piss the player off. We need something so that the player, no matter how much fun he is having, needs to be aware of something really annoying in the background that'll fuck everything up royally. How's that sound?"
A: "But we already have the insanely hard, overpowered bosses, what more do we need?"
B: "One Magic Word: Time Restriction"
A: "Actually, that's tw...."
B: "And not just for one single event! No! FOR THE ENTIRE GAME!"
A: "That's INSANE! Nobody'll but that! We'll be out of business in no time, and rightly so!"
B: "Still, we're doing this, cos I have the last word in this matter and I'm a money sucking asshole."
A: "You know, that sounds pretty useful, I wish I had one of those."

So, they gave Ryu the Dragon Meter or whatever the little piece of Pixellated Hell is called, which slowly but surely increases until it hits 100%. And the damn thing is constantly moving up, even if you just stand around doing nothing. Use your Dragon Power though, and the thing'll SOAR upwards like nobody's business, putting a huge restraint on using your special powers, which would be a nice strategic element if bosses weren't TOTALLY FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE to defeat without them.

"But Almighty Ingen, what happens when the meter hits 100%? PLEASE TELL US!" Let me tell you, my pretty ones. You DIE. You DIE like a little doggy thrown off a 50 story office building. By a Catapult. And it's Game Over FOR EVER. You HAVE to start over FROM THE BEGINNING. Which brings me to the Scenario Overlay System, or SOL. Yes, SOL.
This allows you to take your best equipment and money back to the start of the game and try again. You lose all your Experience though. On later playthroughs, you will get some new events and learn more about the story, so Capcom really did all of this on purpose, which sucks. You'd better keep, like, 50 separate save files or something, or you might be screwed along the way.

No wait, that WOULD be an option, if you weren't restricted in saving as well. You need save tokens to save, always a GREAT idea in an RPG, and you hardly get ANY of them throughout the game, especially towards the end. You can make one temporary save anytime you want though, and it'll still be there even after turning off the machine, but if you die then, you'll be fucked as well. Yes, the fuckings are plenty in this game, it's like an American Campus, only without the alcohol.

There is one way to mess with the game though, as I found out on www.gamefaqs.com, and it allows you to use money and party experience without actually consuming it, so you can keep using it over and over again to gain some easy levels, which helps.
It's really stupid to have to use a bug to make the game bearable though.

Yet, despite all that, I gave this game a 7.0, because I appreciate it's originality, the battle system is fun, and it has some replay value, if you can bear to play the game again. This game definitely isn't for everyone though, it's Breath of Fire for MEN, and men who don't have anything better to do with their time at that. Not for the casual gamer, that's for sure, but if you're looking for an extreme challenge, you will find plenty here to enjoy. Very much like a steaming pile of Dung actually, in that respect.

So the question is, will there ever be a Breath of Fire VI, and if so, am I going to buy it? Well, only time will tell, so you'd better stay tuned kids, and eat your spinach. Now clear off!

posted by Ingen! @ 8:19 PM