/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.4250032]

Are the Breath Of Fire games on par with the best of the JRPG's on PSX? Or are they generally considered a solid tier below?

[Anonymous No.4250036]

>>4250032
that game is super boring

[Anonymous No.4250054]

>>4250032
3 maybe kinda, probably at the bottom of the best tier list. 4 and 2 are definitely tier below, 4 maybe on the "decent" tier instead of "great"
Never played 1.

[Anonymous No.4250106]

It's a better looking BoF2, that's it. It's not on the level of God tier JRPG's on PSX like Xenogears or Chrono Cross for sure.

[Anonymous No.4250108]

>>4250032
Capcom was always lagging behind with the BoF series.

I think the closest it came to being worthwhile was 3 but I wouldnt call any of the retro games outright bad. YMMV

[Anonymous No.4250110]

3 and 4 are the only good BoFs, and they're just that - good

[Anonymous No.4250113]

>>4250032
3 takes about a lifetime to get going and prior to that is a snorefest. 4 has its issues but at least they improved the pacing by a large margin.

[Anonymous No.4250449]

I really liked Breath of Fire II, but that was back when I was ten. I wouldn't know now.

[Anonymous No.4250457]

The only outstanding Breath of Fire game is Dragon Quarter, but that one's not retro.

[Anonymous No.4250515]

I dunno, I like 3 and 4, but they're no better than 7/10, tops. Definitely not the best.

[Anonymous No.4250527]

>>4250515
This. Never understand all the hype, the game is kinda bland really.

Also I really like BoF2 because of that fusion system, but I admit I like it more than I should.

[Anonymous No.4250538]

Dragon Quarter is the only one that's really something special, it's quite reminiscent of Vagrant Story actually.

Of the retro ones, they all have tons of random battles, and you will suffer if you run away instead of fighting them. From 1-4 they pretty linearly have better plots, better battle systems, and more bizarre and shocking content, though even by the time you get to 4, this is really just especially edgy rather than especially good.

I recommend you start playing all of them, but I only recommend actually finishing 4 and 5.

[Anonymous No.4250563]

>>4250457
That game is super hard, though

[Anonymous No.4250570]

>>4250563

It's not unreasonably hard at all once you figure out that the game wants you to restart occasionally

[Anonymous No.4250643]

As much as I love old Capcom I never cared about Breath of Fire series. Every game had something that ruined it for me.

[Anonymous No.4250742]

1-2 is dull
3 is great
4 looks very nice, but is a bit boring
DQ is fucking shit-tier worse than the phone game

[Anonymous No.4250780]

>Dragon Quarter
I remember having fun until Ryu got that skill that deals all damage he took during the whole battle against the enemy, then it was a cakewalk.
Dark corridors, boring characters, and a story with an interesting premise that is never fully taking advantage of.

[Anonymous No.4252367]

>>4250054
1 is painfully generic.

[Anonymous No.4252394]

>>4250032
Is he inusyasha?

[Anonymous No.4252401]

>>4252394
He's literally asian sephirot

[Anonymous No.4252448]

>>4250032
III is pretty good I suppose but nothing I would write home about.

However IV is fucking phenomenal in my opinion. A great battle system, gorgous visuals, interesting story, cool world, and a distinct soundtrack cement it as my favorite ps1 game. The only real flaws I can say are it's too easy until the end and there is some fluff that feels uneeded. Still, Breath of Fire IV is easily in my top five video games ever made.

[Anonymous No.4252450]

>>4250032
7/10-8/10 at best, memorable soundtracks.

[Anonymous No.4252675]

>>4252448
>>4250054
I really don't understand this. Everytime i read here some opinions about BoF, you get this contradictory answers, like 50/50.
What are the differences?

[Anonymous No.4252705]

>>4252675
People have different opinions. I'm the guy who said it's one of his favorite games, some people just don't like it. As long as they have actual evidence they played it then whatever, that's cool.

[Anonymous No.4252724]

>>4252675

Except for Dragon Quarter, the BOF games are solid but fairly generic JRPGs, that do some things really well (like the gorgeous sprite work and world/monster designs of 3 and 4, or the town-building feature of 2, or the overworld exploration of 1).

For some people that's more than enough, for others it's mediocre. If you like traditional JRPGs, they are definitely worth a try.

[Anonymous No.4252735]

1-3 are by the books but okay

4 and 5 are both fantastic and actually have some really unique ideas and setting

[Anonymous No.4252737]

>>4250032
I"ll try to rank them objectively.

BoF1 is generic but tries its hardest to be more than that. It has a colourful world of anthropomorphic characters, there's fishing, hunting and special abilities to uncover secrets. There's also the dragon system and high concept scenarios it throws you in. 6/10.

BoF2 is a gem under a shit translation. Every character has their own arc and get a good bit of development. That's something really rare for the era. The music is great, the fusion and housing system are interesting and the plot is pretty good for the time. It's downfall is the REALLY dragged out prologue and high encounter rate that borders on insanity in the last dungeon. 7/10.

BoF3 is just decent. It doesn't do anything particularly great or bad. The faerie town is pretty addicting. Other than that, it's an alright game with yet another too long prologue. The spritework is gorgeous but the music is hit or miss. 6/10.

BoF4 is the best of the bunch. It's a shame that the great visual and audio style it used was scrapped. BoF could have filled a far eastern theme that's ignored in JRPGs. The atmosphere is phenomenal and the characters are all memorable, if not likable you'll know the one. The plot, again, is a little slow at first. The character development is a bit unbalanced though. The battle system is also the best in the series and it's the first time that the dragon system wasn't either gimped or OP'd. It's a solid 8/10.

[Anonymous No.4252792]

>>4250106
>Xenogears and Chrono Cross God tier
HAHAHAHA.

[Anonymous No.4252801]

>>4250032
Holy fuck I don't know where all this shit taste came from but don't listen to these losers, the BOF games are fucking Elder God Tier.
There's absolutely nothing like them.

[Anonymous No.4252806]

They're generally good-to-great. If you're a furry they're great-to-excellent.

Fight me, you know I'm right.

[Anonymous No.4252943]

I see Breath of Fire threads popping up in /vr/ pretty often. Recently, I found a Bof discord. Maybe some of you would like to join? Sorry to shill it here, but come if you want to talk about furry OCs, or laugh at shitty memes.

https://discord.gg/PT6BZVx

[Anonymous No.4253041]

>>4252943
Get out

[Anonymous No.4253065]

Breath of Fire is dead

[Anonymous No.4253091]

BoF4 is easily one of the best JRPGs on the entire platform. I find it hard to believe it shares the writer with 3, it's way better-written and has a surprising amount of violence and edge perfectly tied with its narrative. Fou-Lu is easily the best character in the entire franchise and the way he went nuclear is perfectly understandable. I'd argue that story-wise it manages to be more meaningful than Xenogears despite being nowhere nearly as overloaded with lore and pretentious throwbacks.

And holy shit, that combat system was great. Loads of combos, all characters participating in combat at once with some back row utility, it's esily one of the best designed turn-based jrpg combat systems on ps1.

[Anonymous No.4253095]

>>4253065
So bad Japan hated it and it was made specifically to appeal to the mobile normalfags.

[Anonymous No.4253096]

>>4253091
This guy gets it.

[Anonymous No.4253193]

>>4252737

I find it kind of insane that you love 2s music but think 3 is hit or miss. Did you happen to forget the dungeon music in 2? The music which you probably hear more of than any other song?

[Anonymous No.4253194]

>>4253091

4 would be better if it had 3's dragon system and all the large entities were sprites instead of ugly 3d models.

[Anonymous No.4253203]

>>4253091
that's funny because 3 is about 100 times better. breath of fire 4 feels unfinished with 2 screen dungeons and a pants on head retarded plot and thing with fou-lu.

worth playing though.

[Anonymous No.4253207]

>>4253194
The problem with 3's dragon system is that it made rest of the team virtually useless. Ryu solo run is so simplistic you don't even feel any real difference because nigga can do everything at once and each transformation into a dragon gives him a new massive HP bar. I do agree that 4 made the system a bit too much simplistic but it really compensated this with combo system.
>>4253203
Feel free to come back when you actually invent meaningful criticism because i'm really not interested in listening what your ass feels.

[Anonymous No.4253215]

>>4252737
There's nothing objective about your assessment of 2, and if I had to guess you have a lot of nostalgia for it. Yes, the characters get their fair share of development and the story is pretty good, but you failed to mention how the fusion system is utterly broken due to a few shamans only being available right near the end, how low health cancels fusions and the only way to get them back is by gtfo of wherever you are and warping back to one specific town, and how one of the shamans is so broken she literally gives no bonuses whatsoever. And the housing system is interesting, but only useful if you have a guide and plan ahead who you're inviting due to how tenants will only ever move to one specific house.

Also it's the only Breath of Fire with a completely shitty dragon system. Dragon "transformations" are now a one time attack that uses all your MP, way to destroy any semblance of strategy it could have possibly had.

Likewise, the music is pretty awesome... except when you're in a dungeon and it's a 10 second shitty loop, and the encounter rate borders on insanity mostly everywhere you go.

I love BoF2 because it's charming, but it's broken to the core and there's nothing objective about giving it a 7 when 3, which is a far more solid and polished game, gets a 6 (the same mark as 1?!), and then 4 gets an 8. BoF2 should be lower than that score if we're talking "objectively".

[Anonymous No.4253223]

>>4253207
>invent
literally everything about 4 is the same as 3 except there's less and it's truncated. Right down to the artstyle on the cover if you're denying that you're some kind of delusional maniac.

[Anonymous No.4253226]

>>4253223
>literally everything about 4 is the same as 3
I don't know what your mental illness is but i do hope that it's not contagious.

[Anonymous No.4253227]

>>4253223
What? IV is much different then III. The battle system has changed, the world now has a Asian influence, and the plot is much different. Also other then the bosses the art is improved from III.

[Anonymous No.4253228]

>>4253207

It's true the dragon system in 3 is broken, but I think it's a lot more fun to be those dragons rather than just do a summon attack.

[Anonymous No.4253229]

>>4253223
>Right down to the artstyle on the cover
shocking news: it's done by the same artist!
holy shit anon, are you alright?

[Anonymous No.4253236]

>>4253228
Dragon in BoF4 is more than just a summon attack. He has a place in combo system as when his highest elemental magic is used as a finisher it creates the most powerful magic attacks in the game (Earthbreaker/Catastrophe/Supernova), he has some good utility and physical attack skills, he gets a general stat boost. They could design it better, that's obvious, but there's a few really neat things about it still.

[Anonymous No.4253240]

>>4253236

I suppose but you can't tell me it's more visually arresting than turning into Behemoth or Tiamat and wrecking things.

[Anonymous No.4253247]

>>4253240
Indeed, that was the coolest shit about BoF3.
Hell, they even made unique sprites for multiple fusion forms, Momo's fusion turned you into some mecha dragon who could drop a big-ass bomb on enemies.

[Anonymous No.4253248]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pOVQIPnEiE

[Anonymous No.4253249]

>>4253193
BoF2 just had a lot more standout themes than BoF3 for me.

>Did you happen to forget the dungeon music in 2?
It must have been repressed. I just looked it up. Definitely the worst song in the franchise. It's lazy and almost offensive when you consider how often and how long you hear such a repetitive, short piece.

>>4253215
>the fusion system is utterly broken
Fair point. Outside of Katt and Jean's fusions, I never really used the fusion system that much so it wasn't a particularly memorable frustration with the game for me. You're right, though.

You might be interested in this:
https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/3627/

>And the housing system is interesting, but only useful if you have a guide and plan ahead who you're inviting due to how tenants will only ever move to one specific house.
And how some of them do basically nothing. Again, you're right.

>>4253215
>Also it's the only Breath of Fire with a completely shitty dragon system.
Yep. The dragon forms are glorified summons done even worse than IV's. Though I still do think that IV is the only game that did the dragon system right (without it being broken or gimped).

I genuinely very much like each game. I just have to replay III fairly and see if it clicks with me better. I replayed them all in order about a year ago (with III and IV being the first time in about a decade) and III just didn't stand out as much between II and IV.

[Anonymous No.4253259]

How does it feel to know we're never gonna get this for real

[Anonymous No.4253269]

>>4253259
It sucks balls.

The artist's premise is super interesting too - the game would begin with a prison escape.

[Anonymous No.4253279]

>>4253259
...I dont even know what Im looking at here.

[Anonymous No.4253285]

>>4253279
>A couple months ago, Simon "Snake Pixel" Anderson (known for his game OwlBoy) did a mock-up for an imaginary Breath of Fire sequel.

[Anonymous No.4253289]

>>4253269
And what seems to be an incarnation of Deis breaking Ryu out, too.

Fuck Capcom.

[Anonymous No.4253639]

>>4253194
>4 would be better if it had 3's dragon system

Oh piss off. The dragon gene system was a joke. Every time someone brings it up they act like it was this amazing thing but it wasn't. It was just one more step between the same result of every result. You pick a base form then an element. That's basically it. The only difference between combining a frost gene with a dragon gene and picking frost dragon from the menu is the amount of steps.

[Anonymous No.4253670]

>>4253639

Again, it's about turning into and fighting as cool looking dragons, not how the gene system worked exactly.

[Anonymous No.4253718]

>>4250106
>God tier JRPG's on PSX like Xenogears or Chrono Cross
You can't be this fucking stupid.

[Anonymous No.4253720]

>>4250110
2 is better than 3 and 4.

[Anonymous No.4253741]

>>4253670

yeah but the models are just pallet swapped lizard. While they may be summons there are no dragons like the ones in 4

[Anonymous No.4253938]

>>4253741
Seriously, IV's dragons were beautiful.

[Anonymous No.4254048]

>>4253718
>>4252792
Found the brainlets

[Anonymous No.4254184]

>>4253259
>>4253285
>>4253289
It could be worse. They could be reviving it as a phone game. Oh, wait a second.

[Anonymous No.4254281]

>>4253741

Hey, I like the aesthetics of 4.

Shame 4's Nina is pretty lame. Least we have Ursula.

[Anonymous No.4254567]

>>4254048
Xenogears is literally a game for brainlets with surface level introduction to Nietzsche and religion and Chrono Cross is a subpar sequel to a better game

[Anonymous No.4254573]

>>4254281
IV's Nina is fine honestly. She does her part well and has some good moments. Like all Ninas she's a cutie too.

[Anonymous No.4254580]

>>4254048
If being a MENSA members means you prefer reading for 45 minutes about what happens in the story a Japanese role-playing game from chibi, pixelated characters sitting on wooden chairs instead of actually playing a game and experiencing its story by myself, then I'm glad I'm a brainlet.

>>4254567
Also this, although I wouldn't call Cross subpar, but the Breaths of Fire are at least finished games and their endings don't involve pseudophilosophical nonsense and a Japanese actress wearing a blond wig and walking around Tokyo for five minutes.

[Anonymous No.4254608]

>>4254580
Xenogears is the greatest game, and also the worst game. It's leadership suffered from a crucial lack of business sense and the game itself feels a bit uncoordinated, like it was too ambitious for it's limitations. Unquestionably what should have happened is that Takahashi would have put everything into the first disc when he knew he wasn't going to make it on time, then left the game at a cliffhanger for the conclusion of the second disc released as a separate game. What happened was he ended up unloading his biggest brain wad without taking quite enough time and affection to develop the characters and the game it's actually riding on, and we're all sort of left holding a game that at one point seemed like it was the greatest game of our lives, and then turned out to just sort of be okay because of all the mistakes in the execution.

like just listen to some of the music tracks and show someone the character designs and describe to them what the game is about and what happens in it

and then show them the actual game

it's really heartbreaking that this happened

[Anonymous No.4254645]

>>4254573
>Nina 5
>cutie in the same way as the other ninas

Hello, fbi?

[Anonymous No.4254775]

>>4254645
She's cute like a dying puppy that you have to take to the animal hospital in less than 10 hours and you're at the bottom of a coal mine/vertical shopping mall

[Anonymous No.4254779]

>>4254645
Well I guess Nina V is more of a "Let me protect this child" cute. I will say she is more precious then cute.

[Anonymous No.4254968]

>>4253249
Most of the tenants do little of real use. They're mostly there as a fun bonus and replay incentive, though it's one that requires you to figure out that each house does have multiple potential tenants.

[Anonymous No.4255665]

>>4253938

They really hammer in the GOD vibe they're supposed to have. They're just so uncanny and unlike anything else

[Anonymous No.4255692]

>>4253096
>>4253091

3 and 4 are so much fun! great games and jrpgs!

[Anonymous No.4257549]

>>4250032
BOF is so comfy

[Anonymous No.4257836]

>>4250032
They are b-grade.

[Anonymous No.4257978]

>>4253095
That's what fucking kills me: you have an IP that could get pretty good returns in the US if you released a full-fledged game in the US and Europe for consoles and PCs and you develop it for mobile audiences in Japan and make it a numbered game in the series: not a side game. And it could of sold like hotcakes too. Look at fucking Nier Automata. No one knew what Drakengaard or Nier was before last year and now everyone knows it because of that game. Hell, if they marketed it well, they probably good portion of FFfags to express some interest in it.

[Anonymous No.4258396]

>>4257978
I think it's just bigger Japanese video game companies not knowing how to deal with the the rise of mobile gaming. We don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but Capcom could have very well just played a couple of mobile games to get the gameplay elements down and thought that slapping the name of one of their IPs (let alone Breath of Fire SIX after how many years) would make people flock to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEauh00WzgY

There's also Namco and their hilariously sad Tales of Phantasia mobile port debacle.