Review #721: Breath of Fire III

 Don't that just beat all?

 Fun fact: This is the second time I'm writing this, because blogger.com sucks and a Ctrl+Z completely undid EVERYTHING. Regardless, here we are, again, with Breath of Fire III, Capcom's third foray into the Breath of Fire series, now mixing their beautiful 2-D sprites with spiffy new 3-D environments. For the longest time I avoided this game because it annoyed me how the official art didn't match the sprites, and boy, was I missing out.

 Once again, you play as Ryu, a dragon-human hybrid, who travels with a racially diverse cast of characters. The playable roster has shrunk to 6, and the party limit decreased to 3. Aiding Ryu is Nina, the winged Wyndian, Rei, the Worren(cat-person), Momo, the doglady, Garr the living Gargoyle and Peco, this game's grass-man. Taking what worked from 2, this game also sees fit to explore each character with a few scenarios dedicated to each character. Except Peco. He really gets shortchanged in the character development area. The story itself if pretty entertaining, but decidedly less perilous than previous games, this isn't about saving the world from impending doom, this is about Ryu discovering his heritage and Garr travelling to meet his god. Since child Ryu worked so well for BoF II, this game expands on that, by an entire 10-hour long childhood chapter, with Ryu and Nina being children! If you ask me, I felt the childhood chapter dragged a bit too long, but maybe I was chomping at the bit to get to the timeskip. While I feel like most characters were well developed, I think a certain villain near the end of the game could've used more build-up, but oh well! They'd learn from this when it came to Fou-Lu in the next game. Regardless, I feel the plot was entertaining, even if the stakes are lower than in any other BoF game. It's a more personal adventure.

 A few features have been axed, like the day/night cycle and hunting, which, while they didn't add much to the games, were about to become series' staples, but seems it wasn't meant to be. Field abilities return. Ryu can cut/steal from NPCs, Garr can push blocks, Momo can shoot her bazooka, Rei can open locked doors, Nina shoots magic and Peco can headbutt stuff, however, they are barely ever required to progress. Heck, I don't remember having to use Nina's magic after the timeskip! Not to say that the dungeons skimp on puzzles, because there are plenty of them, but they are more about pushing levers and the such instead of using characters' abilities. That said, some dungeons require a specific character, but not because of their abilities. You might reach a point in a dungeon where you get told that "This is too complex, maybe Momo can understand it", which will force you to get into the overworld and swap characters. Momo and Garr were, probably, the most required characters, which kinda sucked for me since I was running a team of Ryu, Rei and Nina most of the time.

 Combat hasn't changed much, I mean, it's your average turn-based RPG. You walk in the field, trigger a random encounter, and then fight enemies by attacking, using magic or using items, taking turns with the enemy. What has changed a lot is how you develop your characters. Hidden throughout the lands are Masters, and if you fulfill their request, you'll be able to put your characters to 'train' with them. 'Training' means that every time you level up while under said master, this master will affect your stat gains. Some might grant you a ton of Strength, but might cost you some Defense points. And, after earning a certain amount of levels under them, you can learn new abilities. Only one character can get the bonus abilities, but any number of characters can train under the same master. You can also use 'Skill Ink' to swap learned abilities between characters, heck, you can also learn abilities by 'Examining' enemies during battles. Some masters are undeniably better than others, but I don't think you can totally screw yourself. Just, y'know, don't put Nina under a master that will ruin her already low Def stat gains. That said, you can also create complete monsters if you play your card rights, for instance, I had Ryu train from level 15 till 30 under D'Lonzo, which granted him a TON of bonus agility and strength, so now he was scoring bonus turns in almost every fight, even during boss battles! For the rest of the game, I put him under series regular now demoted to Master, Deis, to increase his AP so that I could maintain Dragon forms for longer.

 Ah, yes, the game can be a bit tough. Experience points and money can be hard to comeby, don't be surprised if you can't outfit your 3-man party with every new piece of equipment when you first reach a new town. Some of the early parts during the childhood chapter can be quite brutal, and some of the bosses could potentially kill any characters with two hits, however, as I said before, if you plan your stats right, you can outcheese any enemy you meet. My Ryu was so fast and so strong that he could defeat a few bosses in two hits. I felt like I had turned into the Boss during boss fights! You can also plan some fun strategies with Ryu's Dragon forms. Also hidden throughout the game you can find 'Genes' which you can use to mix and match and create powerful(or not!) dragon forms for Ryu. For instance, the Fire gene will produce a weak Fire Dragon Whelp, but if you have AP to spare, why not mix Fire, Cold and Thunder for the Trygon, a Dragon with all elemental Claw attacks! I was quite fond of the Miracle gene, which turned Ryu into a high strength, high HP Behemoth, which also pulled party members away from harm's way! Then I got the cool Force gene that turned Ryu into a dragon-hybrid, like BoF IV, and also granted me access to Aura, a costly technique that dealt TONS of damage. There's a lot of fun to be had playing around with genes. You could use the True Kaiser form, Ryu's ultimate Super Saiyajin form, but costs a massive 53 AP to use, and then costs about 7 AP per turn to maintain, or, you could use the Behemoth or the Tiamat form, so that Ryu fight alone for a while, tanking and dealing damage, and after you're forced to revert, you can continue fighting with the rest of the characters, after taking a huge chunk out of the boss' health. Oh, and by the by, bonus turns granted by agility don't consume AP from Ryu, so, y'know, a speedy Ryu is the best Ryu.

 One last new addition to the series is Camping, which you can do at any time you are in the overworld. Camping lets you speak with your party members, so that they can share their feelings about what's going on with the plot(Except for Peco, who speaks like a Pokemon), save your game or Sleep in order to recover your health and AP. Why the need for Inns then? Because if a character dies in battle, they'll get a 10% max health reduction handicap, up to 50% if they keep dying, and the only way to remove this handicap is by sleeping at an inn!

 I really liked Breath of Fire III, although I think I preferred 2 a bit more. Regardless, there's a reason so many people have BoF III as their favorite, since it's easily one of the best in the franchise. An interesting story, likeable characters and a fun dragon-form system that opens the way for various different ways to play the game. You might want to do a bit of research on how each Master affects your stats before committing to any one Master, but having this much freedom on how a character develops feels great, particularly seeing the monsters they turn into... at least if it comes out right, like it did for me.
 8.0 out of 10