/vr/ - Retro Games

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the first two Breath of Fires are the most bare bones of RPG fare out there. It improves vastly with III, and IV is an outright masterpiece. In fact, just stop now and skip to IV.

>>6059774
Well, yeah, that's what everyone always said in school and in vidya forums back then. So I never much bothered with them. But I figured there must be something to them, since they have such a large fanbase. Or used to have, anyway.

>>6059780
I see. What does IV do better than I?

>>6059778
>A dead thread about source code
And nothing of value was lost.

>>6059784
>What does IV do better than I?
- One of the single most beautiful examples of pixel art in existence
- A compelling story
- Good characters you actually give a shit about
- Great soundtrack
- Incredible world building
- A fluid, flexible battle system which is satisfying.

Breath of Fire got better with each entry. Keep in mind this was Capcom's first attempt at a by-the-books JRPG (not counting Sweet Home or Tenchi o Kurau as such).

>>6059771
There's no reason whatsoever to waste time on BOF1-3, but sadly nostalgia fags will always shill them.

>>6059771
>Breath of fire 2
There's your problem you furfag
Start with the first game you idiot
The 2nd game is a trainwreck of epic proportions

>>6059794
>Breath of Fire got better with each entry.
Nope.
2 is complete ass compared to the first game.

>>6059771

Try FFVI or Chrono Trigger for a superior dose of audiovisual spectacle, try the recent Romancing SaGa 2 remake for a rare experience of mechanical depth in a JRPG, and try Earthbound or some version of Mother 1 for the charming, heartfelt, oddball angle. Do this in no particular order, and stop when/if you get sick of it. At some point maybe you will find that you like JRPGs in some significant way. Or maybe you will find that you don't like them at all.

It makes sense to like them because they do have a lot of good features. It makes sense to dislike them because they are always (as far as I know), without exception, childishly shallow in story, mechanics, or (most commonly) both at once. Do whichever.

>>6060741
Oh, I didn't even notice. In the OP I was talking about BoF1, not 2.

>>6059794
>Breath of Fire got better with each entry.
Are you serious?

I love BoF2 but there's way too many games out there to keep playing a game you're not enjoying

>>6059771
Breath of fire 1 is ass and I’ll like most jarpig shit

>>6060747
Jesus, how could 2 be worse, 1 was so fucking boring

>>6060856
>>6060853
1 was simple but had a good sense of momentum and moving you from place to place. I don't know why you'd think it was boring. But I also don't have a stunted attention span or imagination.

Also 2 is literally broken.

>>6060821
HURR DURR

>>6059771
Breath of Fire II isn't that great. Best thing about it is the final bosses speech. Otherwise you have to slog through the game to progress. There are much better SNES JRPGs to play.

>>6059771
breath of fire is literally an rpg series that does nothing exciting or special till 3 and you get the observe skill and the masters make the game a bit funner. otherwise, this is what you get when you have capcom, an action beatemup sidescrolling and fighting game dev com, makes a fucking rpg. everyone knows their trash in terms of gameplay. theyre just kinda cool. 3 has a great ost and a somewhat good storyline and is the only one i would ever in my life "play" again.

Okay, how was I supposed to know that the furry could let the party traverse forests in the overworld? Was that in the manual? Because I don't think anyone in the game tells you other than that one NPCs in the furry villagetold you "he is a forest guide" or whatever. That's super weird.

>>6060956
>Was that in the manual?
Yes.

>>6060958
Welp. So I guess the game didn't age well if you don't have that now.
Fucking hell, this is why these virtual console releases should come with a digitized manual document.

Are there any other of these moments later on? Can you do shit like fly around when Nina leads the party? Just generally, is there any crucial information like that in the manual? The game is shallow, but atleast somewhat of a fun timewaster while you're listening to something. But if it has more of these moments, it will be a pain to play.

>>6060967
You can probably Google the manual and sift through it for anything you might miss. I agree with you, they should include a digital one.

>>6060967
Even if it's not in the book the person who says "he's your forest" guide is giving you a pretty huge hint as to what you should be doing. Do you just not try anything when playing new games? I swear it's a wonder you people manage to tie your shoes.

>Can you do shit like fly around when Nina leads the party?

eventually.

>>6060987
>Do you just not try anything when playing new games? I swear it's a wonder you people manage to tie your shoes.
I wasn't aware rearranging your party would affect overworld traversal. It's not exactly obvious, especially since nothing previously indicates that. I mean, I can see how someone would figure that out if he spent hours dicking around, or if that's something of an RPG convention of which I'm not aware. It does make sense, but it's not exactly striking.

>>6060990
>I wasn't aware rearranging your party would affect overworld traversal. It's not exactly obvious, e

How is "HE'S YOUR FOREST GUIDE" Not obvious? He guides you meaning you follow him.

>>6060992
It's obvious if you know there isn't a clear divide between overworld and sub-level forests. If you, like I did, assume overworld forest boundaries are just terrain like walls or water is (at this point), you wouldn't even be aware that there is a problem to which you need a solution.
I assumed the NPC telling me about him being a forest guide just told me something about Bo's backstory, because I meet him in a castle in the woods.

>>6060995
Why would a forest be an impassible divide? Forests are traversable. If it's meant to be a block, most games will throw a mountain or an ocean in your path. This is common sense problem solving. For fuck's sake just bang on things till something happens. There's not even many new directions you can go.

>>6060998
>Why would a forest be an impassible divide? Forests are traversable.
Because there are traversable forests that work differently. I assumed if I was supposed to traverse a forest, it would be by entering a forest sub-level. I mean, you had to get a saw to enter the forest where you meet Bo. I assumed that would be a consistent thing going forward.

Don't get me wrong, it's pretty cool that it works this way, I'd just wish there'd be more of an indicator telling you that party order can have different affects (not specifically for Bo, but for the game in general). Like I thought, this would be in the manual. So it'd be nice to have that.

>>6059784
>Well, yeah, that's what everyone always said in school and in vidya forums back then. So I never much bothered with them.

Listening to people like that guy is a huge mistake, they hate everything and take their shitty life out on people by mocking people who find enjoyment in things. Let them bubble in their bile and try shit out for yourself.

Play the retranslation vetsion of BoF2. The game is a bit barebones but worth a playthrough, the characters are fun and unless you overlevel the game does get somewhat challenging later on. You're writing the game off really quick.

>>6059810
Eat shit. People enjoy different things, you mong.

BoF 2 is a very nice game. it has qualities that 3 and 4 don't have, like an actual world map where you can travel freely, and characters that all have an individual story. and they're all interesting imo.

When I was a kid renting games and not getting the manual so I knew what to do was the worst, now I find out that grown adults with internet access willing subject themselves to that suffering
At least look up an faq you dummy

>>6059771
Why people play these type of games ?

>awful plot
>boring gameplay
>ugly graphics

why...

>>6061059
>At least look up an faq you dummy
I burn that bridge when I come to it. I like to atleast play around a bit if I don't know what to do.

Yes it's ass

What the fuck is this Gremlin bossfight? Guy won't go the fuck down. Is there some mechanic to the bossfight that I don't understand? Is their last hitpoint supposed to be infinite? Is this one of these fabled ressource-wasting fights I'm supposed to lose?

>>6061231
Bosses in BoF get a "second wind" where you don't get to see exactly how much health they have left to make it more exciting I guess, by the end of the game the second wind usually has just as much or more health then the first phase
Just keep healing and beating on him

>>6061268
Yeah, I just beat him. That shit is infuriating.

>>6061116
Masochism?

>>6061116
>>6061380
I unironically like the pixel art. It is adorable as fuck.

And yes these games are not complex which is a PLUS for some peolpe. In that regard they are similar to Dragon Quest games. Sometimes you don't want complex. Sometimes you don't want a game where you have to read a 150page manual and do a 2 hour tutorial to get the mechanics.

Sometimes you just want to grab a 6 pack of beer, a bag of potatoes and a good old simple JRPG and watch your fucking numbers go up while you mindlessly LARP as a legendary hero while killing rats and slimes, later skeletons and zombies and watch the game throw ever more menacing looking beasts at you but you kill them all like a god and you imagine how you bang the attractive girls in your party. Sometimes you just want to space out and mindlessly grind and play a mindless, but charming game and listen to catchy 8 bit MIDI tunes and chuckle how an entire generation found that entertaining.

You either get it or you don't. It's a niche market but a target audience who finds these games appealing DOES exist.

>>6060817
You have tremendous shit taste then.
Carry on.

>>6060863
This
1 is a great game for high IQ intellectuals.

2 is "WHAT THE FUCK WERE THEY THINKING?"
A lot of cool concepts but they fucked the execution big time.
Goes without saying you need to apply the double exp/gold patch and the retranslation patch.

Soundtrack was a mixed bag. It had some great shit in there but also some really bad tracks like that horrendous dungeon theme as well as the whole music direction in general felt weird.

Meanwhile BoF1 has the best soundtrack in a JRPG ever by the God Yasuaki "Bun Bun" Fujita(yes the dude who also composed the best Mega Man soundtrack on the NES Mega Man 3)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtYH_YvicsA&list=PLL_gqPiMR6mvdZBoNgRhgd6r8GXmmw9U2&index=2&t=0s

Just keep in mind to buy Marbl3's when you want to turn off encounters(the encounters themselves aren't too hard but there can be many of them sometimes). They work crazy well.

BoF2 on the other hand is beyond saving in that front. The encounters are way too frequent and the "Smoke" item doesn't work for shit. Rand's field ability is decent but unwieldy most of the time.
If you can put up with the difficulty until you get Grandpa Whale then after that go recruit Deis and go grind in Monster Island to make the game more tolerable.

BoF2 is filled with a lot of filler bullshit though so it's not as enjoyable as 1 at its best. It only gets really good in like the last 4th of the game and the it stops pretty abruptly, leaving you wanting more when it was just getting good and the story was really opening up.

>>6060967
More like the translation for the Breath of Fire games hasn't aged well.
People talk of the horror that is Breath of Fire 2's translation but Ted Woolsey only had like 2 weeks to do Breath of Fire 1's translation and the cart was small too so you get shit like "Marbl3" and stuff like that.

>>6060967
>>6060990
They also all have overworld field abilities if you haven't noticed.
Bo can hunt animals with his arrow but you need to put him on the lead to be able to use it.

I have to give BoF2 this...that game improved on this by making it so that you can change your lead party member with the shoulder buttons...actually you might be able to do that in BoF1 via mapping it to your shortcut buttons...I can't remember. But come to think of it the shortcut system or whatever they had in the first game was pretty neat.

>>6061021
>unless you overlevel the game does get somewhat challenging later on.
Are you insane?
The game is still balls hard even if you overlevel...especially if you're playing without the exp/gold patch.
The balancing in BoF2 is abysmal.

This is why BoF2 shouldn't be recommended to newcomers. It's way too fucking difficult and for all the wrong reasons(items don't work, buff/debuffs don't work, random encounters are too frequent etc.).

Only play BoF2 for completion. And when you play it do the following
>apply retranslation patch
>apply double exp/gold patch
>be prepared knowing that you're gonna get your ass handed to you
>make use of Rand's field ability as much as you can to avoid encounters
>be prepared to grind a lot after every chapter
>repeat this shit until you get Grandpa Whale and then go recruit Deis/Bleu and go to Monster Island and grind some levels(a lot of them) so that you can make the rest of the game more bearable

>>6061116
Go play Fortnite or some other spastic shit.

>>6061712
Based
But honestly I see Breath of Fire as much more than that

The original Breath of Fire has to be the most immersive jrpg I've ever played.
It captures that feeling I used to have when I used to think about ancient history/mythical events when I was a kid.

It\s hard to put it into words but it just has this very nostalgic and/or almost spiritual/religious feeling to it. It makes me feel like I experienced a pre-technology primitive world like this in a past lifetime with a bunch of friends or something. Maybe quite a bit of that has to do with Bun Bun's amazing soundtrack.

In any case it's an enchanting experience and if a game can make me feel this way then I regard it as something special.
Quite a few old RPG's have made me feel a bit like this but only Breath of Fire 1 really hit hard.

>>6061712
Newer Dragon Quest games do have deeper mechanics, granted there nothing compared to Western RPGs in many respects, but as you said, those are cumbersome, and I would say bloated.
To me, and many others, good game design knows what it wants to do and get to the point without adding superfluous bells and whistles that bog down the whole experience in endless dancing in menus and min-maxing some 20+ different stats and parameters. As far as markets go JRPGs have a reach far beyind "a niche market" most western RPGs are very niche, and the western ones that do have great reach have taken a page from the book of more concentrated design of other games and get to the core of what the experience is.

>>6062736
>>apply double exp/gold patch

https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/3272/

Just play this re-balance.

>>6062781
I don't know how I feel about playing a hack like this for the first time when you play BoF2. It gives you a very dishonest experience of what the game is like.
Double exp/gold patch just makes it a little bit more bearable but the experience largely remains the same except for grinding money and shit like that.

The re-balance hack in itself seems cool though but I don't enjoy BoF2 nearly enough to replay it again to find out how good this is.

This still doesn't fix the glaring bugs like buffs/debuffs not working and such from what I'm seeing though.

Also am I the only one who doesn't like the translucent menus in the retranslation?
I wish they gave us the option of using the original menu graphics. Much easier on the eyes to me.

I also didn't like seeing them using those same kinda menus for their now pretty much defunct Breath of Fire 1 re-translation project....like what the fuck I liked the original menus as they were stop fucking around with them or at least give me an option to choose.

>>6062752
I mean It really does go back to the "adventure" in your head argument. Which I realize is basically admitting the actual plot is a bit dry but it created a world to explore and adventure to partake on and a lot of engaging set pieces. There may be little in regards to personal arcs but that's more because the world had the same problem, the Dark Dragon empire. It's kind of like Star Wars. All very simple stop the badguys stuff but how we got from A to Z was were the meaning was. We fought in giant robots, battled an armada, an undead lich and woke a mysterious sorceress. "Stuff" was always happening and it almost always had some connection to the bigger problem.

I won't deny it's not very deep but I still felt more for Ryu1 when he found his Sister than a lot of games that will hammer in it's feels. The plots are more down to earth, easy to insert into and connect with. It feels like a pen and paper campaign you might run.

I just now noticed that Bo uses a bow.
I'm plenty of retarded.

>>6062828
I don't care if it has a plot or not as long as I'm enjoying it. I don't remember much of BoF1's story at all but the way it was told was solid.

I get what you're trying to say with the Star Wars comparison but honestly Star Wars always felt like a series of popcorn flicks to me and not much else.

I like the party members in this game. Even if they don't talk much I love them.
Karn is my nigger...favorite character in the game just impossible to not love
Nina is likeable. Just the way she stabs enemies is cool.
Bo is a badass.
Deis/Bleu is hilarious.
Gobi is funny looking etc.
All of the character designs for the main party are so memorable. I think they took a bit of hit in the second game desu.

This kinda reminds me of Earthbound where even though the main party are basically silent protagonist I still loved all those characters and felt attached to them.
Both Breath of Fire and Earthbound prove that silent protagonist haters/naysayers wrong big time, I feel.

But anyways the vibe I was discussing is something different. I think it's probably just me but...
Very simple stuff like the music that plays when you go into any random house or even just walking around and then all of sudden it's night time...simple stuff like that just gave me a sort of overwhelming sense of nostalgia.

A lot of early RPG's leaned heavy on the adventure aspect but there's something specail to BoF1 I can never really describe.
It's like it reminds me of how much of an adventure life used to be or something...I dunno.

>>6062928
LOOOOOOOOOONG for anything to get from A to B. It's just loaded with so much chatter that even the regular towns folk have a mini arc I just don't care about. A simple scene to establish that the hero became a teacher and met one of his old friends ends up taking half a fucking hour of back and forth and all that's really established is that Im a teacher now and my students hate me. Hah hah. But I played Alliance Alive which is much more traditional and inside that same amount of time I find out we're fighting against an oppressive race of beastmen and demons, the world's sky is blocked by magic and the land split apart and one of our central characters is blinded by magic for entering their territory and the other makes a vow then and there to restore her sight. And despite all these these two heroes feel much more interesting to me because the game gives us the important bits of who they are rather than their life stories. I understand their relationship through context, I understand what's going on by exploring the world and the game understands ho to pace it's story and how it reveals information rather than bashing you over the head with it. I know what I need to care about, why I should care about and the rest falls into place on it's own.

BOF1 was like that too. I need to find my sister. The Dark Dragons took her and on the way you meet others hurt by the same group and you join together to fight them back. Helping Bo helps Nina, helping Mogu helps Ryu and so and so forth.

A lot of the problem with modern story games is that the story gets in the way of the plot. I was playing Cold Steel 3 and it just takes way to LOOOOOOOOOONG for anything to get from A to B. It's just loaded with so much chatter that even the regular towns folk have a mini arc I just don't care about. A simple scene to establish that the hero became a teacher and met one of his old friends ends up taking half a fucking hour of back and forth and all that's really established is that Im a teacher now and my students hate me. Hah hah.

But I played Alliance Alive which is much more traditional and inside that same amount of time I find out we're fighting against an oppressive race of beastmen and demons, the world's sky is blocked by magic and the land split apart and one of our central characters is blinded by magic for entering their territory and the other makes a vow then and there to restore her sight. And despite all these these two heroes feel much more interesting to me because the game gives us the important bits of who they are rather than their life stories. I understand their relationship through context, I understand what's going on by exploring the world and the game understands ho to pace it's story and how it reveals information rather than bashing you over the head with it. I know what I need to care about, why I should care about and the rest falls into place on it's own.

BOF1 was like that too. I need to find my sister. The Dark Dragons took her and on the way you meet others hurt by the same group and you join together to fight them back. Helping Bo helps Nina, helping Mogu helps Ryu and so and so forth. Think of how quick it was to get a handle on FF6's initial conflict was, Chrono Trigger has you back in time almost immediately.

good design is when there is nothing left to remove, not when there's nothing left to add.

Bof1 is pure kino

It has barebones gameplay? Okay, but JRPG is just a calculator simulator, we want kino situations and Bof 1 delivers

Glad to see based anons here

>>6064024
after seeing people shit on it for so long Im glad to see other people appreciate it

>>6060821
i like to pretend the franchise ended at 4

>>6064034
>>6064024
OP here, I've kept playing it and I do enjoy it more and more. You have to settle into the barebones gameplay, sure, but if you treat it as some silly anime to kick back and enjoy, it does fulfill its purpose.
It's not a masterpiece by any means, in fact I still wouldn't really call it a good game. But I think it is fine for what it tries to do.

>>6061004
i think back then manuals still had that residual significance of important info for getting started. later games rely more and more on tutorials and conveyance, frankly making the manual actually useful and not just a marketing brochure for a game you already own is kind of a charming concept

>>6059784
>But I figured there must be something to them, since they have such a large fanbase
Numbers growing as you repeat the same shit over and over to make you feel like you're improving on anything, and generic anime stories for autists.

>>6061059
>At least look up an faq you dummy
>reading the faq in knowledge-driven games
Just watch it on youtube you dummy

>>6064038
>Purposely ignoring the actual best game

>>6061712
this, if nothing else it was a visually fresh jrpg until the series hit its stride. also the art work in the prima guide for bof2 was great

I wish we had an anime, or at least less shit scans of the manga

SLAM

>>6065482
Second wind

>>6059792
The backstory & world building in IV is top notch and the whole dual protagonist thing with Ryu & Fou-Lu is pretty damn good.
Shame the game shits the bed in the last act in so many ways. The fucking Pabpab shit is both creepy and absolutely kills the pacing of the story. Yuna getting away scot free is atrocious. And cutting the scene with Fou-Lu decapitating the emperor really hurts his story arc.

>>6066908
Yuna's survival is fucking brilliant though. It's the whole point. Ryu and Fou's conflict has so much more weight because Yuna is out there still. The whole central and final debate is about whether or not it's better to let the guilty suffer to punish the innocent or the other way around. Any other game would have just had all the bad guys dead and no more conflict so that question would just be a bunch of saccharine nonsense but with Yuna out there the question has so much more depth. Everyone gets a second chance to make good or screw up and Yuna is an example of how imperfect things are.

Also the pabpabs were chill and a good example of one of the games many Taoist themes. And this is getting into artbook shenanigans but apparently they're one of the only true natural races of the games world that weren't created by a god's influence like all the other animal people. (Again an Asian mythology thing)

>>6061712
>Sometimes you just want to grab a 6 pack of beer, a bag of potatoes
>a bag of potatoes
Is this a meme I'm not aware of? I hope not, because it's funnier as is.

>>6062717
>best soundtrack in a JRPG ever by the God Yasuaki "Bun Bun" Fujita(yes the dude who also composed the best Mega Man soundtrack on the NES Mega Man 3)
That's a weird way of spelling Mega Man 2.

>>6066931
>Yuna's survival is fucking brilliant though. It's the whole point.

You can look at the bright side but it was actually that his boss fight and death was cut for time constraints. I don't think it has much merit to keep him alive (Ryu gives up his and his summons' godhood to go mortal in the ending, meanwhile Yuna is still alive and he makes gods so they just look like idiots) outside of speculation he creates Myria and BOF4 is actually a prequel but that's just a theory... a game theory.

>>6067162
>You can look at the bright side but it was actually that his boss fight and death was cut for time constraints.

That's a fucking lie. They fully intended for him to live. You don't end your game like this calling attention to the fact that he's not dead if you just ran out of time and money to kill him.

>>6067172
A 40 second cutscene of Yuna saying "okay I'm still make gods tho" is probably easier to produce than a segment where you find and kill him. I think chapter 4 is really short compared to 2 and 3 so it's plausible that it was the case that it was among the things cut. I never seen the alleged interview though.

>>6067183
The point is if they wanted him out of the picture they wouldn't call attention to the fact that he's still alive so boldly. They not only wanted to remember he didn't die but they practically shove it in your face. And I really doubt it would have been to much trouble to kill him either. Just do it when Cray tries to get him in the scene with Elena instead of having him teleport out.

Transition to battle, have Cray use his attack sprite animation on him and when you cut back Yuna's got a case of the deads. Won't even need a corpse. Easy peasy.

What's up with BoF3?

I played some BoF1 which was likeable and stuff. Then I hopped on to BoF3 and it's suddenly very cute, both in story and plot. And not in a good way. Goddamn baby dragon escaping a mine and then a cage on a train. As if the game's trying to appeal to small children.

Why the sudden change of tone? Will it change if I play the game further?

>>6067207
3 likes to spend a huge chunk of time with you as a kid. It then skips ahead a few years to adult you. Frankly I think they spent way to long on the kids part. Like they really could have skipped ahead after the hideout got burned down.

A Katt is Rinpoo

>>6067221
>that bulge
So gay.

>>6067213
Really, just condense everything from the hideout burning down to arriving at the pyramid, Wyndia and the syndicate's section completely drags on, as does the stuff you in that one port city. It has some important setups for later and needed exposition, but it's very slow paced.

Once you become adult Ryu, the dominoes fall a lot faster since the stakes are higher and you're getting more lore, more quickly than before. As a child, you spend most of your time handling mundane tasks and attempting to avoid some people chasing you, and the little investigating on the world you do has no real revelations until the Pyramid just before the child phase ends.

Is it possible the entire war between Tyr/Myria and the dragon clans is actually a just crusade on Tyr's part and that the black dragons who side with her are doing so logically and for a morally good reason? It seems like the one in BoF2 felt pretty convinced even though things weren't perfect, he needed to go along with the church's plan, and Teepo seemed to agree that his powers were a massive threat to the world and decided to live out the rest of his life at the end of the world away from humans. And there's also the degredation of the various clan demi-humans into regular humans as the series progresses, with less clan races as time passes until DQ.

She's always referred to as the goddess of destruction and her and her armies always take on a monsterous/demon motif, with herself being a snakelike entity traditionally associated with deception in western mythos, so I just assumed she was meant to be a deceiver type entity akin to the devil, but 3 seems to make her out to be more like a watcher over humans in general. Though one would have to wonder if she had a hand in the humans wiping each other out in Caer Xhan.

>>6067207
bof 2 is the most serious of them all

>>6065482
EGGBETR

>>6067548
Man I can understand poor grammar but this is just vexing.

Is there a way to make BoF3's dialogue go any faster than it does? Or even it's battles? I have the game on CD on the PS1 and wondered if the PSP version fixed the problems but no luck.

Should I just emulate it?

>>6068334
I understand the PSP version is even slower, especially in regards to load times

>that princess bathing in the pool scene
Surprisingly lewd.

>>6067287
Heard a real wild one years back. Myria and Bleu are the aunts of Ryu in BoF or are related to him somehow.

>>6068972
Considering their status as gods and connection to the dragon clan that's probably not to far off on some level

>>6068978
I haven't played 4 yet, but weren't both some sort of synthetic Endless race, or was that only Myria? I thought Yuna created one or both, which makes him indirectly responsible for everything bad that happened afterwards.

>>6068985
No, Bleu is old...like, fuck old. Myria is her baby sister and though Bleu is probably orders of magnitude more powerful than her, she acts as basically the eternal "I told you so" to Myria's shenanigans. One could gather that the mother of Ryu in BoF was their equal, but since she passed it is basically trials they put the Dragon clan through to see if they are still worthy.

>>6059794
Destiny of an Emperor

>>6068985
Deis is SUPER ancient. In 4 the fou empire merely summoned her, sans body, and bound her to a suit of Armor, which achieved sentience on it's own as a result and became Ershin. If 4 is connected it's up in the air how she became snek and whatever happened to Ershin. She's seemingly younger than the dragon gods, not sharing their patience, but she's very clearly a legit Endless. At the end of 4 when the other gods are cast out she's the only one who remains deciding to see how this new godless world goes.

Myria's origins are a lot more up in the air. All we know is she's ancient but even in BOF1 Deis seems rather dismissive of her and the dark dragons on the whole. It's only in 3 where she starts calling her something like sister but it should also be noted that 3 Deis, despite her petty ass beating of Gar, is a lot more tempered so it's possible that she's come to accept the false goddess as something like family on the understanding that it wasn't Maria's choice to be born into this world (This kind of lines up with a lot of the games themes, see the mutant plant) and finally rather than looking at with her contempt gives her some pity when they choose to die together.

On the whole she's really one of the most fascinating characters in the franchise, another baseless rumor is that in DQ she was going to be revealed to have been Lin in disguise but that didn't happen.

>>6069059
Just by conjecture, I've always postulated that the series is connected and generally goes 4 -> 1 -> 2 -> 3 -> DQ. It seems like that order somewhat follows the technical development of the real world (4 having an ancient China feel, 1 using many classical elements that existed throughout Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, etc, 2 drawing more from the middle ages/renesaince era, and 3 being set in the early industrial era with DQ being set in a modern/future setting) and all seem to have a progression of the gradual disappearance of demi-human races and rise of a single human race. I've heard an anon suggest it could be caused by interbreeding between clans which gradually "breeds out" their unique features and results in ordinary humans.

We most sharply notice the Dragon clan declining over the course of the series, with BoF1 featuring the light dragons (who have sealed away their power to prevent misuse) and dark dragons existing as their own independent nations, BoF2 featuring the last remaining dragon clan town situated within infinity, and BoF3 seems to have only a few remaining dragon clan members surviving at the edge of the world after a global genocide against them. It really seems like BoF is all about a magical and fantastic world slowly devolving into an ordinary, mundane one over the course of time with technology coming to supplant the strange and unique features of the world's inhabitants and resulting in a singular race as the result.

I guess in that way, the series has always felt to me like even though you subvert doom in each installment, the nature of the world is still trending towards a particular path despite your success. You use ancient power to defeat a malicious goddess and prevent apocalyptic wars, but you're still powerless to stop the march of progress slowly eroding the world anyway.

>>6069369
The Wing clan losing their powers over time is a huge point in 2 and up too. Even as early as the second game they lost the power to transform without some crazy ass ritual that results in you getting stuck that way and in three you don't even see that much. 4 has Nina fly a bit more freely but no transformations but I think it's really just more a point of the game not having a traditional world map and thus not really needing a means of conveyance.

Also this was hot fucking bullshit.

>>6069387
especially considering there's spots on the map you can only go to using the bird and can't land using the flying town (also the town is fucking slow as hell)

>>6069403
2 made some really vexing decisions.

>Fusion is cool
>But it comes undone and the only way to get it back is to go all the way back to the hometown
>But you can't warp to the dragon town and there's no fast way back there meaning you'd have to trek all the back through Infinity again

I would rather scale Xenogears tower of Babel 10 times than go through that shitheap once.

>>6069403
i think you can still access the fishing spot with the ultimate weapon using Jean

>>6069415
you're supposed to lose your fusions going through the last dungeon. in the end, it's just you and your friends in your authentic forms. it's more dramatic like this. if you even thought about giving up and going back to the town then you're a pleb and should stick to xenogears indeed

>>6069529
I do leave them that way but it's still a pain in the dick getting through that dungeon even in the course of the natural progression of things. It's a long horrid dungeon.

>>6069369
Sorry to tell you this anon, but Oblisk in 1 is the the same as Maria Station in 3. Unless its her "ship"

>>6067287
>Myria discussion
She can oversee the world as evidenced by Jono the dragon elder's dialogue (he was hidden in some pyramid to hide the infinity gene). However she does not intervene in worldly affairs: the corruption of Mcneil village. Balio and Sunder, Mikba (literal demon) and Sin city in general. Genetic experiments of Momo's dad. Yggdrasil trees are cut down furthering desertification, the very thing she is desperately trying to protect The world from, supposedly.

Her direct intervention is rare or non existent. She does send limited technology through the ocean which is then fished out from the sea to help humans. Nonetheless she explains to Momo that if left unchecked humans would make advancements that would destroy the world. Funny considering Caer Xhan sells Atomic Bomb, Momo's strongest weapon.

She can erase peoples memories, and teleport them except for Yggdrasil or Brood. Oh and she has a cloning lab.

I always wondered what made Teepo give up on the Brood. We never see what he went through to come with such a conclusion. It is as if he was supposed to have his own story arc much like BoF 4 Fou-Lu where the grey morality comes in to challenge the player's final decision.

>>6069530
There is a cutscene that unfuses all your characters 75% through the dungeon anyways. The pure water cut scene or whatever. You can walk all the way back, refusion your characters, slog another +2 hours of endless random enemy encounters but the cutscenes with death evan would unfuse them again and after that there is no turning back. Fuck that dungeon, and fuck BoF 2 horrible encounter rate.

>>6069927
and fuck the smoke spell not working

>>6069901
>I always wondered what made Teepo give up on the Brood.

I always found the whole reunion with Teepo to be extremely underwhelming, honestly. He just shows up out of nowhere at the end with nary an explanation as to how he swapped sides. I guess there were a couple of foreshadowy dreams but that really felt disconnected and considering you're both kids at the time I initially assumed it was predicting some other antagonist and really doesn't help explain things even when you know it's him.

>>6059771
Nah man those games are quite bad. There are far better jrpgs on the SNES. Even the ps1 BOF games are extremely generic.

Just reached the part where the doctor from the time-stopped village told me a list of medicine ingredients. Is this the part where I turn the game off and never think of it again? Always hate this kind of shit where I have to look all over the fucking map for random items. The game had that kind of stuff before, but it was usually straight forward and continued the plot quickly. Please tell me this ingredient hunt doesn't drag too much.

>>6070713
It shouldn't. You should have the warp spell and well, look up a guide.

>>6070716
I try to use a guide as little as possible here, though. Warp is super useful, yeah.

>>6070713
If you know what to do, you can finish the game in an hour or two now, but yes, this is the part where you need to backtrack all the world to find the items

>>6070238
The same thing that seperated Odjin and Chetrere. The Brood does not all think alike.

>>6070960
Im not saying he has to share anyone's view points but the whole thing feels really anemic when it all gets crammed into the last 10 minutes of the game. It's certainly not the climax to a decade spanning quest I would like to see.

>>6070992
Tell me. Hence the reason I hate on 'Gears so much. But what can you do? Budgets and deadlines...really, lazy writers, fuck things.

>>6070238
Those dream sequences always bothered me. Adult Teepo speaking to kid Ryu, just why? On my 1st playthrough I thought it was Ryu's dad. And then Myria appears in the dreams too. Again figured this was Ryu's mother. In hindsight it is completely random, perhaps a scrapped plot line?

Also remember when welp Ryu in Dauna mine is about to kill the foreman with the crane, a voice/text yells "stop!" Or something and Ryu gets knocked out. It couldn't be the Bone Dragon who called out as it wanted to kill everyone for vengeance. The other possibility is Myria considering she is always watching the world.

>>6070960
The search for Rei and Teepo is a key plot element driving Ryu throughout the world leading to the Angel Tower showdown (after which he literally gives up on everything) . Before timeskip, the little crossroads next to wyndia castle, there is a house with an old man and woman. They mention a purple haired kid was there recently. A subtle hint Teepo is alive. After timeskip there are dialogues from npcs mentioning Rei/weretiger going on a rampage. Rei has is own story arc with sin city. But Teepo has nothing. Visiting the same house reveals the old man died and the old woman's dialogue becomes 'hohoho!' (She went senile) In Eden Teepo is certain the Brood must give up their power. But Ryu with his power practically cleans up the world. Balio and Sunder. Volcano elder. Mutant plants. Austrian Dolphin. Bone Dragon. Were tiger Rei. Mikba the demon. Ryu has tremendous power but how does Teepo conclude Ryu must give it up? Ryu is in full control story wise.

Not much is known about the russian dragons other than they are 1/2 ratios. Odjn and Chetrye might have been rivals but it can be ignored for story purposes.

>>6071162
Yeah it feels like the game wants to make it ambiguous as to whether or the brood should exist and whether or not Myria's actions where justified but at this point in the series the dragons have done nothing but save the world. From Myria. There's no scene where a dragon runs out on rampage or goes berserk. Even the opening mine scene is a baby acting in self defense. I mean there's a gameplay mechanic where Kaiser can go wild on your party but nothing backs that up in story. Even when Myria decided to wipe them out the brood decided to let themselves be slaughtered for....reasons?

Can eomeone explain why the Momo bitch thirsts for tiger semen very so.

>>6071171
It is hilarious to see people believe the main villian of the game when she claims to have good intentions.
Its also hilarious that the good-guys pacifism sees them wiped out over the course of the series.

>>6071948
That always really bugged me. The Dragon clan in 3 were just such phenomenal pussies. In 1 they weren't at their height but ready to fight tooth and nail, in 2 they were even weaker but were still guarding the seal even if it meant hiding away, 3 just went full NOOOOO FIGHT BAD WE DIE NOW.

>>6062928
I think what makes Breath of Fire feel special might possibly because it captures what you said earlier;

the spirit of adventure before the advance of technology.
Japan was going through a tech-evolution around the time the game was made and a lot of people were freaking out that all of the old ways of life were in the process of eroding by corporations.

I think Breath of Fire was made as a way of honoring the idea of the sense of travelling from place to place just to do one thing or a job, and that the people you met along the way would give you the insight to getting it done before tech gave the solution to them.

Kind of like a puzzle of some sorts where you piece it together bit by bit and get an idea of how it works as you go along with completing it.

>>6069927
deathevan cutscenes dont unfuse. ive fought him with all my chars fused

bump

Just beat Zog. Could it be that the game is really running out of steam at this point? There were a lot of fedge quests where you just have to warp back and forth between towns to get items for some NPCs. Hope it gets a bit better from here on. Also, Zog was pretty easy, but maybe that's on me for finding the dragon armor already.

>>6073596
You using a guide? What dragon forms do you have?

>>6074026
I only wanted to look up how to fish, but immediately got spoiled on the dragon equipment being in wells. I found all the wells myself though. Found all the dragon shrines myself, already got Agni.

>>6073596
Well you're nearing the end anyways.

>>6074034
With Agni, the challenge is all gone now
Congrats finding it without a guide tho

>inb4 challenge in a jrpg?

>>6060821
other than cutesy graphics what was wrong with 6? Never played it,just wondering whats bad about it

>>6075736
iirc its basically a cellphone game with no actual game in it

>>6059771
Play CRPGs, fren.

>>6059771
Yeah I never cared for them either

>>6075748
so not worth playing then ok thanks for the reply

>>6075805
That guy is full of shit, there is a ton of game in it and it's a worthy addition to the series

>>6075771
No, I'm not gay

>>6060821
please delete

>>6075837

Why is this series so weirdly appealing despite it being kind of archaic?
Majority of games that try something similar to it feel extremely half-assed, shitty and painfully lazy but with BoF, somehow, it adds to its appeal.

Can somebody explain why? Is it the art direction?

>>6077391
>Can somebody explain why? Is it the art direction?

I think that's a big part of it. It's got a nice look while also being simple enough to digest but not quite as bare bones as something older

>>6059771
One of Razorfist's favourite series.
https://youtu.be/cLoIlDIboYM

>>6078226
Fuck off

>>6078226
>BoF2 is the best
Literal worst opinion.
Bof2: The game falls apart in your hands, there's no real strategy outside of who you accept into the Homstead and any legitimate tactics are tossed to the side because magic sucks, plus a number of spells and items do nothing. The idea of magic doing set, fairly high damage (modified by items) compared to attacks doing high, variable damage (reproduced by items) was, in and of itself, very useful.
The fusions reset themselves constantly, and require a teleport back to Homestead to reset. Instead of just allowing a random party member to accomplish the act. There's only one or two ways for a fairly simple combat system to stack up.
I get that the story sort of is more interesting than BoF1 or BoF3. It's still garbage compared to BoF4.

>>6079176
>there's no real strategy outside of who you accept into the Homstead

Even that's a no sell. You get the cook. The other guys are worthless

>>6079192
I meant that but suppose that I didn't state it properly.
Strategy: Longterm decisions that impact the campaign
Tacticts: Short term decisions that impact the battle.
Cook impacts the campaign. Bingo/Gambler impacts the tactics. I don't even remember what the third (hardest to get) carpenter gives you. But I know it's the worst.

Comparatively in BoF: Find out the magics that have extra effects when used/equiped and don't worry about the rest. You're fine through most the game. Only hangups come when equipping endgame gear. To say nothing of BoF3 and beyond.

OP here. I'm done with the game now. I stand by my word that it isn't really a good game, but it is fine for what it is. I liked it, but will probably never feel the urge to play it again.

BoF2 is now also available to play on the Switch. So, maybe I will tackle that one in the future, but not right now.

>>6060741
Even the fan translation (sans the ugly menus?)
Agreed on the BOF2 official release being a train wreck

>>6078226
Daily reminder that youtubers are cancer and will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Second will be the people who follow youtubers.

>>6080158
BOF2 is better than the first if you play the fan translation, with the exception of the hard-to-read menus and the fact that the hacker decided to put a fucking checksum program in to make sure you didn't modify their hack to fix the ugly visuals.

>>6080194
>and the fact that the hacker decided to put a fucking checksum program in to make sure you didn't modify their hack to fix the ugly visuals.
katfags truly are cancer

>>6060992
It could be flavor text.

>>6080395
>katfags truly are cancer
What ever happened to that autistic kat poster?

>>6080904
>>6080395
NGL, I actually liked 'Katt.'
I'm >>6080194 btw.
Someone can like a thing but hate the fan base. I'm like that with most anime/manga (especially Inuyasha), Rick & Morty, or (in /vr/ land) the Mother series (Earthbound) and FF6/FF7.

And is it just me or do furries universally lack even the most basic aesthetic taste?

>>6080187
>Even the fan translation

The fan translation is just badly written

>>6081041
>even the most basic aesthetic taste?
I'd say the most basic aesthetic taste is at least finding your own species attractive. So yes, they lack it.

>>6080192
This board isn't much better, if you're being honest.

I've been playing BoF1 on my switch in moon recently. It's surprisingly quite fun. Very simplistic, but to be honest, that's what I was after. It feels like a mix of DQ1 and Shining Force. Sit back, relax, fight bad guys, use the earth key.
Really wish it gave descriptions for spells, though. They're all made-up names, so the only way to see what they do is use them in battle and hope it's obvious. Also fuck the encounter rate.

>>6083450
It's OK to read the manual to find out what spells do, the devs expected you would and put detailed instructions in it

And then there's this asshole

>>6083627
Seems Nintendo haven't uploaded the original manual for BoF like they did with a bunch of the SNES Classic games. So I've been using the wiki page for Nina to see what her spells do. Other than that I'm trying to avoid looking shit up as much as possible.

>>6084394
While I certainly respect your desire to not spoil yourself, I don't think anyone will hold you in contempt if you at least look up stuff that's in the manual.

>>6067236
Its her clitoris.

Haha, I'm guessing this one was censored in English.

>>6084887
A bit yeah

>>6084824
>not recognizing a cameltoe
Not surprised, to be totally honest.

I've been trying to apply the BoF II fan translation, but I haven't been able to find a patch-compatible ROM.
All the underheadered ROMs I've found including those from no-intro sets are CRC32: 67CDACC5 instead of the necessary CRC32: 1320298E and it's bugging me.

>>6060821
Good thing this game doesn’t exist anymore

>>6060863
I don't know about "literally" broken, unless you mean the cutscene where your game resets if you have ever used Gameshark/Action Replay codes, but that's deliberate by the developers.

Some people say being able to cook gold bars and stat-up items is figuratively broken, even though it's almost as tedious as level-grinding for real.

>>6060821
I like the blue wolf character, but it's so painfully obvious that this wasn't a BoF game. They just slapped the license on it and even had the gall to claim it was the 6th in the series.

>>6085445
I mean spells don't fucking work

>>6084887
>>6084902
>5ft

Anybody know who the character by the moon is?

>>6088060
>Girium
It's clearly Gilliam. I mean his mate who got hit with an arrow is called Terry. It's a clear reference. Just like the town with the zombies called Romero.