The DLC Report: Super Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC #4 - Terry Bogard

 BUSTAH WOLF!

 Full disclosure, I absolutely adore SNK fighting games, while I'm not too fond of Fatal Fury, at least until Garou - Mark of the Wolves, which is one of my favorite games of all time, I actually really like Terry. Like Top 10 fighting game characters kind of like. So, trust me, I'm a bit of a Terry nut... and yet, I can't help but feel like this choice was lame. Nintendo hasn't had much history with Fatal Fury, sans a few ports of the pre-Real Bout games on the SNES, and while Fatal Fury technically was the first King of Fighters, in title only, I don't think Terry was such an amazing choice.

 Terry fights like the Street Fighter characters, but a bit worse. Just like them, they 'face' opponents, as if it were a 2-D fighting game, which makes his movements feel a bit stiff. He also has stronger versions of his Special moves by inputting the commands from his games, they even kept the Rising Tackle's charge inputs! When Terry reaches 100% damage, he gets unlimited use to two super moves, which can only be done through inputs. They feel a bit awkward to use, since I'm always scared Terry will turn around and ruin my inputs. He also gets two different side B, pressing Side+B towards the opponent produces the Burnin' Knuckle, while pressing Side+B against the opponent will produce the Crack Shot. That sounds neat, but in practice, a ton of times I wanted to use my Side+B to attack an enemy on the other side, only to end up using his other Side+B against an enemy that's further away from me. It feels very clunky and cost me a few deaths. Even Ryu and Ken turn around for their Side+Bs, so this extra move feels like an extra handicap.

 Terry's stage has invisible walls around it which can only be broken by pushing the enemy against them with a ton of power, it's the stage's sole gimmick. Instead of gimmicks and hazards, this stage features a ton of different possible cameos from King of Fighters characters, which is a bit endearing. A bit.

 I dunno, yo. I really like Terry, and I love the fact that this means I can get a Terry amiibo, but I think he was a lackluster choice and he isn't very fun to play in Smash due to how his side+b works. Honestly, I would've felt much better about Terry if he had been on the roster from the start and wasn't an extra.
 5.0 out of 10

Review #712: Breath of Fire II

 Not a case of bad breath, thankfully.

 It's great, yo! Breath of Fire II is a direct sequel to the first game, albeit taking place a few hundred years after the first Ryu, Nina and friends stopped the evil Dark Dragon clan. Just like with the first game, when engaging with this game you have to keep in mind that it's an oldschool JRPG, with wonky translation, vague hints and a bit of grinding. The translation in particular is quite a gem, making it hard to understand a few pivotal plot points, and featuring all sort of typos and grammatical mistakes, truly a sight to behold. Just as with the GBA port of the first game, this version of BoF II features doubled experience and money gains, which makes grinding much more tolerable.

 The plot is pretty great despite its poor translation. The intro alone is phenomenal, you play as a very young Ryu who, after a meeting with his father and sister, returns to town alone, only to find his family gone and nobody in town remembering him or his family. That's how the game opens up, and it only gets better. Just as before, the game features a rich and diverse amount of races, such as fishmen, frogmen and what have you, and even the party itself is made up of very different folk. Ryu, the half-dragon man, the winged Nina, Jean, a frogman, Rand, a armadilloman, Katt, a tigerlass, Spar, a plantman, Sten, the monkeyman Ryu's best friend, Bow, the dogman and, finally, Bleau returns as a secret character. Each character, save for Bleau, has their own character arc and mini-story arc, so you get to know them. You have to help Jean prove that he is the real Prince when an usurper takes his place. You have to help Rand's mother plow the field, and then rescue her, etc etc. You can even visit "Township" every now and then to talk with your party members and get their take on the situation. It's a very compelling cast of characters, aided by an interesting plot that has you fighting an evil church that's trying to get everyone under their cult. Fantastic stuff for its time! The translation is pretty bad, so bad that the reveal of what happened during Ryu's childhood gets a single, wonky line of dialogue that's pretty easy to miss if you don't infer what the character is talking about. So bad that later in the game you're told to find a certain character in "HomeTown", but she's actually in "Township", but even so, the plot was very, very interesting, it can get quite dark actually, and I loved the new cast of characters and how they had proper personalities now.

 While the previous game wasn't particularly bad looking, Capcom was really flexing their spritework skills. The sprites in this game are AMAZING, the animations are great. This game puts most other JRPGs of its era to shame. Just look at the very detailed battle sprites and compare them with Final Fantasy's rustic looking characters, there's no comparison. Heck, Final Fantasy had intricate-looking bosses.... that had 0 animations, not so in this game. Capcom had always had great artists working on their sprites, and this game is proof of that. It helps that Breath of Fire's art direction has always been on point.

 The brunt of the game is pretty much your everyday SNES RPG: Visit towns, talk to NPCs, figure out where to go next, travel the world, enter dungeons, fight in turn-based battles. Just like before, there's a day-night cycle, with some NPCs only showing up at certain times of the day, and citizens closing their doors at night. Each character has a different field action, like before, Spar can walk through forests, Bow can hunt, Sten can reach poles to carry the party over gaps, Rand can roll into a bal and avoid random encounters, etc, etc. That said, there's a single area where this game falters and the previous game didn't... switching party members. Y'see, in the previous game, if you needed a character, you simply had to press start, switch in whoever you needed and that was that. Not so here, you can only and exclusively switch party members at Dragon Statues. Statues which are found in some towns and not others. Say, you finally found where you had to go, you are on your merry way only to find that you need Sten to cross over gaps. Tough luck! Hopefully you have Jean or Spar in your party so that you can quickly warp into a town that has a Dragon Statue. It's incredibly annoying! My party was made up of Ryu(Fishing), Kat(Breaking rocks), Bow(Hunter) and Nina(Eventually can call a giant bird to fly through the overworld) which meant that I had to go back to the nearest Dragon Statue to swap members quite often.

 That said, Sten, Rand and Nina have their own solo sections during the story, so make sure to have each character at least at level 22 and their equipment update at all times. Rand's solo boss battle was pretty darn tough even at that level. If you save at the wrong place and wrong time you could possibly enter an unwinnable state, in which you can't backtrack to grind for levels and a win a fight you just can't win. As I said, this is an oldschool JRPG, so it's unforgiving like that, and you should probably have a guide at an arm's length to consult every now and then. While the hints in this game aren't as awful as the ones in the previous game, because at least now you'll always know the name of the place you need to get to, sometimes you won't know where said town is. "X character is at Bando", thank you, but where the **** is Bando?? I mean, you'll get where you need to be eventually if you explore, but it's nice knowing where to explore.

 Combat has seen some slight tweaks to make it more interesting. For instance, now each character has their own unique battle ability. Ryu has Guts, which makes him heal himself, the more HP he's missing, the more he'll heal. Nina has Will, which will either do nothing or restore 16 MP(INFINITE MANA!!!), Rand has Wake, which has a chance of reviving a fallen character, Spar has Nurture, which varies depending one how much flora is around the field of battle. Not every ability is useful, but it's a very neat idea. Ryu is a dragonkin, as per usual, but now his transformations consume all of his MP, and the damage it deals depends on how much MP was used, which means, that, yes, BoF's Ryu was way stronger than this Ryu. But this one wears pants.

 There's another neat addition, Shamans. Hidden throughout the game are 6 Shaman girls. Two you get through the plot, another one can be permanently missed. Shamans can be fused to every character but Ryu and Bleau, and each character can fuse with up to two Shamans. Fusions can have three different results: A passive increment to a character stats. A boosted increment if the Shaman and the character are compatible, which also changes the character's sprite colors(Pretty neat) and a massive improvement on most stats alongside an appearance change. Bow can turn into a massive armored creature, Rand can turn in a bundle of cuteness(Tanky as hell), Nina can turn into a more majestic version of herself, Sten can turn into a Djinn, Katt can turn into a devil-lady and Spar... Spar is special in that he has four different forms. That said, there's one small caveat....certain story events will undo the fusions, as well as the character dying. This is pretty darn inconvenient, specially when one of the story events during the final dungeon, the longest and toughest dungeon in the game, undoes all your fusions! Making returning to the Township a chore.

 Speaking of the Township, this is another neat new addition, your own town. Kinda. After a a short while you'll become the owner of the town 'Township', and you can invite up to six different NPCs into your town, each one boasting their own benefits. That said, there's no way of knowing what these benefits are, and once you invite an NPC into your town, it's final. Needless to say, get a guide and get the good ones, since some are almost useless.

 One final piece of advice, hoard your MP restoring items up to the very end. The final two bosses are the stuff of nightmares, even though I was overlevelled thanks to the increased XP gain rate, it was down to the wire, as I consumed every single MP restoring item and my characters were out of mana and close to dying... I managed to defeat it by the skin of my teeth. I thought I wouldn't make it through. Heck, the second-to-last boss is no slouch either and he'll kick your butt without a second thought. It's a tough game, oh boy, but the final stretch is one tough cookie.

 Talk about an improved sequel! Breath of Fire II is a fantastic game as long as you can get yourself in the right mindset to enjoy it. Be ready to deal with unfair fights, a rough encounter rate and vague hints on how to progress. But get yourself a decent guide at your side, and forgive its aged tropes and you can have a fun time with this one.
 8.0 out of 10

Review #711: Aero the Acro-Bat

 So... basically it's Nightwing?

 Aero the Acro-Bat took me by surprise. I had played the SNES rom a few times in the past, and while my younger incarnation found the character interesting, never spent much time with it. But as a SNES lover that never had a SNES, the GBA port was a decent way to get a legit copy of the game and finally give it the good old college try. And it was pretty good!

 This is your average 2-D platform game of the era, albeit with a very European feel. You know the feel, strong colors, plenty of collectibles valued in points and plenty of fake walls you can go through for extra goodies and a bit more Sonic than Mario, sloppier jumps but faster running speed. Since the GBA doesn't have much screen real state it's easy to get hit by enemies you simply couldn't react fast enough considering your running speed and how little ahead you can see. The game is pretty generous with Lives and health, as a matter of fact I finished the game with over 66 lives, so getting unfair hits and deaths every now and then doesn't sting much. As for the game, it's 4 worlds long, each world having 5 stages and a boss, except for world 3, which lacks a boss. It's pretty short, but it's fun.

Controls are a bit weird at first. You can't hurt enemies by jumping on top of them, but rather, by double tapping the A button and performing Aero's spin attack. This move also serves as a second jump, and it'll go either diagonally up or down depending on you holding down on the directional pad or not. You can also collect stars, which you can then shoot with the B button. Don't hoard them because you're back to 0 at the start of every stage. So far it seems somewhat par for the course, but what changes things is the R button. If you press it after jumping it'll let you hover for a short while, but double tapping it will let Aero cling onto ropes. The latter was quite unexpected, as Stage 1-3 stumped me after I read in a fact that Aero could actually do that. It's a weird mechanic, used very sparsely, which makes me wonder why it's even there in the first place!

 The first few stages tended to have objectives, such as finding keys to doors, or stepping on an X amount of platforms, but it seems like they gave up on the final stages and they play like normal platform game stages. Each stage has a timer, but I think it's just for points, as I defeated a boss way past the time limit and I proceeded to the next stage just fine. Either way, stages are pretty decent, and it gets really good once you get more comfortable with how Aero moves and how the spin attack works. You'll be hopping-to-downward-spin-attacking enemies in no time, while using the upwards spin attack to attempt to reach secret platforms or what not. It's a fun, fast-paced game.

 Aero the Acro-Bat is more than fine, and it's a perfect purchase for anyone who is into retro SNES/Genesis platformers. My one complaint is that the developer opted not to re-release Aero 2, choosing to focus on newer IPs. Which bombed, these are the creators of NinjaBread Man and its ilk after all.
 7.0 out of 10

Review #710: Sword of Mana

 Final Fantasy Adventure, now a proper Mana game.

 Sword of Mana felt like a Gameboy Advance launch game, to me, for the longest time, because back when the GBA first released this game was EVERYWHERE. But we had little money at the time, and for about two years or so the only game I had in my collection was Super Mario Bros. Advance. Not that it mattered, since I don't remember being particularly interested in this game, even though I had already dabbled into the Mana series. But I digress, as I'm wont to do, this game here is a Remake of Final Fantasy Adventure, however, it took away every Final Fantasy element(Moogles, the Chocobo, Black Mages, etc) and in turn added some Mana staples, such as the elemental spirits, the different days and cannons as means of transportation. In the end, it ends up being a very different game, for better or worse.

 The game follows the same plot from Final Fantasy Adventure, but with a few tweaks. Well, quite a few tweaks. Plenty of tweaks. You start off as a Gladiator, once again, but now the Hero and the Heroine knew each other when they were younger, and her protector never dies because he doesn't exist in this game. The structure of the plot is basically the same, you still have to defeat the Dark Lord and Julius and try to save Mana from disappearing. The original game was noteworthy for its rather depressing tone, a ton of characters died throughout the course of that game. That changed a bit, there's not as much death, but they added other types of tragedy in this version, the loss of a sister, the loss of a mother, the loss of a former love due to being frozen for various years... there's a lot of loss in this game. That said, I think they erred a bit with a few characters, such as Count Lee, who is easily forgiven because he was being evil for the 'right' reasons. Or Medusa, who is easily forgiven for turning innocent people into birds, and caging them, because she had a sad past. It doesn't feel very honest when the main character is still feeling sorry for Medusa up to the end of the game. One big addition to the plot is that now you can pick between the Hero and the Heroine, and depending on who you pick you might see a few exclusive scenes.

 Aimless wandering, Mattocks and Keys are things of the past, thank god. It may rub a few people the wrong game, but this game is a much more linear affair, there isn't even an overworld to get lost in. Some people adored the freedom of the first game, I very much didn't. Here you'll always be where you need to be, and you can even partake in a few shallow sidequests by talking to every NPC that comes your way. They are mostly fetch quests, but it's extra content. I felt the rewards were pretty much worthless so by the end of the game I didn't care about going out of my way to complete them though. Don't freak out if the game starts weirding out, there's a TON of sprite-flickering in this game, particularly in towns.

 When not exploring towns, you'll be exploring dungeons and the like. I'm not gonna lie, I think dungeon design was all over the place. A few were fine and dandy, but a few dungeons were just... weird. There's this dungeon, the Subland River in which you have to figure out that you can interact with a few rocks that are barely distinguishable from the background itself. Heck, I clearly remember getting lost in a few dungeons because it wasn't very clear just what the game wanted me to do. For instance, it took me a while to realize how the rocks I could grapple onto with the flail looked like. There's no tutorial, there are no hints, just a rock that looks weird. I've been playing Mana games for a while now, I'm used to using the flail like this, but the game failed to teach me what these rocks looked like. It doesn't help that out of the 8 different weapons you can use in the game, the flail is the only one that can, and must, be used for exploration. Why? I don't know, it just is. Oh, and the infamous figure-8 puzzle from the original game? I didn't have any issue doing it in that game, but for whatever reason the game had trouble registering my walk. I thought I must had been doing something wrong, or needed to speak with another NPC, but after more walking it finally triggered.

 Combat is where the game finally had a chance to shine, because combat in the Mana games is usually pretty dope. And, on first impressions, this game delivers. Press A to attack in real time, as you lay attacks you fill a gauge below your health which can then be used to use a super attack. There are 8 different weapons, each one with their own unique super attack. And spells? Equip one of the elemental Spirits and the either hold R to use an offensive spell or tap R to use a supportive spell. Weapons and spirits get stronger the more you use them, and every time you level up you can pick a different stat-increase spread, fashioned after archetypes such as "Fighter", "Monk", "Wizard", etc. Oh, and I almost forgot! What the offensive spell is changes depending on which weapon you've got equipped!

 Sounds pretty neat, don't it? It can be. It can be fun. Here's the biggest problem: Resistances. Enemies can be resistant to an specific weapon type, so you have to press Start, enter the weapon menu and change your weapon. And the enemy might even resist THAT weapon, so you might have to enter the menu and swap weapons again. Worst case scenario, you cycle through every weapon only to discover that the enemy is weak against magic. That's eight times you pressed the Start button, 16 times you pressed the A button and 16 times you pressed the B button only to figure out that you can't hurt the enemy, because being resistant to something means that they take ZERO damage. It's not an option to change weapons, it's a necessity. I'm an oldschool kinda gamer, so I love using swords. Guess what? If I had to seal with an enemy weak to magic I had to change my weapon too, because the Sword's offensive spells are worthless and you'll get hit as you cast it, meaning you'll lose your MP and your health. Combat was fun as long as I didn't need to swap my weapons just because. Eventually you'll try to avoid resistant enemies because they are not worth the hassle.

 There are a few other caveats with this system, for instance, a few weapons like the Sword, Axe and Gauntlets have combos, but you need to get the timing of your button presses right, else the combo won't come out. It doesn't work very well. Early in the game when you have to defeat a few Zombies to progress can be hell, since you can only defeat them with magic. So far I had been focusing on MONK and FIGHTER, since I wanted to be a melee fighter, but my spells were doing negligible damage and I was running out of mana. So I had to get some space between me and the zombie so that I could hold L and A to 'sit' and very slowly recover some mana. That's when I figured out that my Sword spells were worthless and I had to switch to the bow if I wanted to land magic attacks.

 In what can only be considered an homage to the original game, because why else would be so horrible, your AI companions' AIs are completely, undeniably and legally braindead. THEY ARE WORTHLESS. Even as punching bags, because they'll get stuck between objects and won't even follow you properly. To add insult to injury, there's an annoying 1-second pause every time you enter a new screen.... but the AI companion will move as you are frozen to the spot because reasons. Like, Jesus Christ, the cherry on top.

 Sword of Mana is flawed. Very, VERY flawed. It's got plenty of good qualities to itself, but almost everything it does falters in some way or another. Every time you start having fun with the game it'll stop you dead on your tracks with a new enemy whose weakness you have to find. It's like, the game is getting good, you're enjoying your favorite weapon and then you hear a CLING and a 0 appears on top of the enemy and the frown returns to your face. That makes the game hard to score, you know? I can't deny enjoying the combat at times, but I also hated it. I liked parts of the story, but I also felt it got a bit too cheesy at times. I think there's definitely value in here for people that like the Mana series, but ironically, since it's a remake of the first game but with more Mana elements and less Final Fantasy's, it shouldn't be your entry into the franchise because it falters in a few ways the other games don't.

 And I know I'm being very harsh, but I usually am with games I can could've been so much more. Because hacking and slashing monster feels great when you aren't hampered by resistances. Because you've 8 different weapons, and a ton of elemental spirits. You can change how your stats develop, which could've made for fun builds if only some enemies didn't outright cancel any type of physical damage. Because the game's world is relatively large for such an early Advance game, with various different towns and dungeons, not to mention that I love the tragic themes it touches upon. If sound angry, it's because I am. Because a few tweaks could've made this game another classic in the franchise.
 6.0 out of 10

Review #709: Tekken Advance

 Half the buttons, half the roster, all Tekken!

 Before Tekken 5 and 6 made it to the PSP, before the 3DS got its very own Tekken, we had Tekken Advance. In a few words, it's a portable version of Tekken 3, kinda. Back when it first released, and I was already playing Tekken Tag on the PS2, I always had time for a few rounds with this version, albeit in the form of a rom. But now I finally own this game, and it's about time.

 The game features a revised roster based on the original Arcade release, meaning only 10 characters, albeit instead of Eddie and Lei we get Gunjack and Heihachi. Ogre isn't even the game's final boss! The game is offers a nice selection of modes: Arcade, VS Player, Time Attack, Practice, Tag Battle, VS Player Tag Battle and Team Battles, not bad. In order to unlock Heihachi you have to beat the game as the nine initial characters(Gunjack, XiaoYu, Nina, Yoshimitsu, Paul, Hwoarang, Jin, Law and King) and to unlock Team Battles you need to finish the game as Heihachi.

 Since the GBA is a bit lacking the button department, we've only got three buttons: Punch, Kick and Grab. You can sidestep left and right, which is pretty neat. As a matter of fact, the game run on a pseudo-3D plane, using surprisingly good looking digitized sprites. Some animations are shockingly smooth, while a few look a bit choppy, regardless, it looks good and runs pretty smoothly. Having only two buttons means that you can't do as much stuff as you could on the original game, but the developers managed to cram a relatively large amount of moves per character, you can even pull off Electric God Fists! That said, a few inputs, like the one's for the EGF are a bit hard to pull off. In any case, the juggling works pretty well, it feels like Tekken and that's what matters most. You can pop your enemy into the air and then try to continue the punishment with other moves, it's a very accurate, but limited, rendition of Tekken.

 This is not an "alternative" to Tekken 3, nor is it a game to practice your combos and what not on the go. This is a game for people that love Tekken, as a game and not as a competition, and for what it is, it works really darn well. It's probably one of the best fighting games on the GBA, and that's saying a lot considering the great fighters this console had, such as the fantastic port of Street Fighter Alpha 3.
 7.5 out of 10

Review #708: Astro Boy - Omega Factor

 The awesome factor, the Treasure factor.

 Man, where is Treasure? Everything they ever made is a cult classic, and with good reason: their games are quirky but incredibly fun. Astro Boy - Omega Factor is no exception. This is an action/beat'em up game based on Osamu Tezuka's most famous creation, Astro Boy, and as soon as you pick up the game you can tell that this is as snappy and flashy as any other game Treasure ever made.

 Omega Factor features a completely original story, starting with Astro Boy's creation and discovering how he came to be as well as stopping a war between humans and robots. Osamu Tezuka loved using his characters as actors, so Tresure paid homage to that, if you're a Tezuka connoisseur you'll recognize a ton of the characters in this game, each one playing a different role. Finding these characters is a pretty major objective in the game, as each character you meet or find will allow you to upgrade Astro Boy.

 Gameplay is very simple, and very fun. A is used to jump, press it twice and you can air-dash, which grants you invincibility frames so that you can dodge attacks or enemies. B is a four hit combo, B+Up is a finger laser and B+Down is a kick that pushes back enemies onto other enemies. There's a very fun juggling system in the game, so you can knock enemies onto other enemies, and if you're fast enough, catch them with an attack on the rebound. You also have 5 EX attacks: A+B is a powerful dash, R is an arm laser and L is a butt-machingun that, while weak, stuns enemies and grants you temporary invincibility. You begin every stage with your SUPER gauge capped at 5, and each EX attacks cost you a gauge, but you can just fill it again by landing hits, so you can be pretty liberal with your super attacks.

 While you'll meet a few characters during the story mode, there are a ton of characters hidden on some stages. And it's in your best interest to find them, since they'll let you upgrade Astro Boy's different abilities: His health bar, his attack power, his special move power, the amount of dashes you can link together as well as a your 'senses', so that you can find characters more easily. It's a great system, and I loved being able to upgrade Astro Boy according to my own playstyle.

 If the game commits one sin, its gating the ending behind a second playthrough. Beating the game ends with Astro Boy dying.... but Phoenix comes in and grants you the ability to Stage Select, while keeping knowledge of the events that happened. The Story changes a bit, although most of the dialogue remains the same, and as you clear stages you are able to revisit them if you like. And you'll have to, as the only way to get the good ending is finding hints and revisiting stages after you cleared them a second time. It can be a bit dull, and some of it can be a bit too unclear, but pressing SELECT let's you see your found characters, and characters with a "!" above them could have hints for you.

 The game is a bit challenging on the Normal difficulty, but not too harsh.... but the second playthrough can be a bit unfair, with enemies taking huge chunks out of your health bar with a single hit. One of the latter bosses can kill you in two hits with a maxed out health bar. Unreal. I wished I could've lowered the difficulty, particularly because Stage 7's final boss is an absolute nightmare in this mode, but I pulled through and unlocked the true final stages. All in all, I think the difficulty setting is fine for the first playthrough, but too harsh during the second one.

 I'm not gonna beat around the bush, Astro Boy - Omega Factor is one of the best games on the Gameboy Advance, and one of the finest games Treasure has ever made. The action is fast, flashy and, above all, very fun, learning to juggle with enemies is very entertaining, and searching for hidden characters feels rewarding thanks to instant upgrades that lets you evolve Astro Boy as YOU see fit. The game is rather short and shouldn't take you more than 4 hours, both playthroughs included, but it's very replayable. A ton of years ago, when the game first released and I got myself a rom, I stayed all night playing the game to completion, highschool be damned. This time, I couldn't put my Gameboy down as soon as I put the cart in. It's that good.
 9.0 out of 10

Review #707: Breath of Fire

 Not accurate, you'll get to breathe other elements.

 Alright, let's get one thing straightened out before we begin... this was one of the SNES' very first JRPGs, so before you even think about taking this game for a spin be forewarned that in order to enjoy the game you have to accept some of its most aged elements, like lack of direction and grinding. This GBA port redid the UI, made the colors clearer(So that it'd look better on a back-lit screen) and doubled the amount of XP and gold earned per battle, which helps make the game more palatable and might even make it the better version of the game.

 The story sees you playing as the last remaining able warrior of the Light Dragon clan, Ryu, who survives an assault by the Dark Dragons thanks his sister, Sara, who gets taken captive by them. Entrusted with vengeance and the hope of saving his sister, Ryu sets out to defeat the Dark Dragons. But it's not as simple as it sounds, and this adventure of his' will take him through the entire world of Breath of Fire, meeting various different allies along the way, including winged Nina's first ever incarnation. While party members are pretty flat personality-wise, they are a varied bunch. Nina sports wings, Bo is a Wolfman, Ox is an Oxman, Gobi is a Fishman, Mogu is a Moleman, Deis/Bleau is a Snakewoman and, lastly, there's the thief Karn, who is human looking, like Ryu, but has the ability to fuse with different combinations of the furry members. Party members being so diverse is a direct consequence of Breath of Fire's huge variety in towns and races, which is something that sets it apart from other JRPGs. Mind you, it's not like there's a ton of lore in Breath of Fire, but it's nice getting to visit the Fishmen's underwater city, or the Mole's underground town... it's an appealing world.

 Breath of Fire has a few interesting qualities that makes it stand out even to this day. For instance, characters have various different abilities to use on the world map and dungeons. For instance, Karn can open any locked door and Ox can destroy cracked walls. If you've been keeping notes, you can backtrack to previously visited dungeons in order to get some very useful loot once these characers join in order to get stuff you couldn't previously get to. Gobi can turn into a giant fish while underwater, which allows you to move much faster and avoid random encounters, as well as barter in the Flea Market, the place where you can get a ton of your party's best equipment pieces. Bo can hunt on the overworld, which helps you get money, and eventually Nina gets the ability to fly on the world map. There's one negative about this, you need to have the party member on your active party in order to use their skills, which can be a bit annoying, say that you need to dig but aren't a fan of Mogu, tough luck, you have to enter the Status screen and swap him in, interact with the ground, proceed and then enter the Status Screen again and restore your initial party. To be fair, you could also wait until you trigger a random encounter and switch positions then, but it's a still an annoyance. There's also a day-and-night cycle, which was pretty rare for such an early SNES JRPG, with a few events that only trigger at either day or night.

 Don't think twice about it: Get yourself a FAQ and stick with it. There are numerous times in the game in which it's absolutely impossible to figure out what to do on your own. Like, where are you supposed to get the Flute to speak with the people of Tunlan, or how to get all the ingredients to make the Tonic. How about the part in which you have to dig inside the Obelisk? Of course, Mogu himself can't do it since it's too tough, so your first thought would be to enter the Mole's City and find an expert digger. But he can't do anything for you since he doesn't have the I.Claw. A villager will tell you that he lost a 'city treasure in the ocean', so you'll go snorkeling around the Ocean for the item. Wrong. You have to find this one hut in the middle of nowhere, talk to a woman, who wants to find another weapon fanatic, and hope to remember where the old man that praised your boomerang is due to this one single line of dialogue. It's absolutely ridiculous how bad this can get, but par for the course as far as ancient JRPGs go, so know what you're getting into before you tackle this game, and get yourself a friendly FAQ to aid you.

 Combat is pretty much your standard JRPG fare, with your tried and true turn-based battles. You've got a party made up of four different members, and if you so want it, you can switch between your reserve members. One of the funniest things about the game is that physical attacks are worthless for the earliest part of the game, but as soon as you get the E. Key from an early boss you're supposed to use this object as an Item during battle. This item never runs out and deals 30 damage to every enemy on screen, more damage than you could hope to do with a single attack this early. For a long while you'll be having your weakest member spam this item as your other characters do what they can. Ryu can equip swords and boomerangs, but hilariously enough, you're better off using the boomerangs, since they hit every enemy on-screen. These peculiarities aside, battles are pretty decent, and if you like to veer off the beaten path... or have a FAQ at your side, you'll be able to unlock Dragon forms for Ryu. Having a Super Mode for a protagonist is pretty neat!

 While the boosted XP and Money gain are welcome, you'll still need to grind every now and then, but it won't be as soulcrushing as it was on the SNES version. The worst moment would be this one time that Gobi needs to go underwater in order to get Gills for the other party members so that they too can breathe underwater. The enemies here are tough, and spamming the E.Key just won't do it since they have too much HP and Gobi has too little. Instead, you'll probably grind about 5-6 levels, spamming Gobi's spells, so that you can endure 3-4 hits and get to wherever you need to without dying. The game also has an unbearably high encounter rate. It seems a few areas have it worse than others, but it could get as bad as taking three steps between fights.

 Before scoring this game, let me admit that perhaps I was a bit too harsh with Breath of Fire IV back when I reviewed it many years ago. I mean, I was probably playing a ton of really great JRPGs, so maybe Breath of Fire IV couldn't stand out among them. Plus, the review was horribly written and is in need of a serious touch-up. So, with that said, I'm not saying that BoF 1 is better than 4, because it isn't, but after putting myself into the correct mindset for such an old JRPG... I was able to enjoy it. It's far from the best JRPG on either SNES or GBA, and its age shows a bit too much, but it's an enjoyable time for fans of the more classic JRPGs.
 6.0 out of 10