Breath of Fire Review

I had to speak up after seeing so many 5-star reviews.If epics like FFIV can be given 5 stars, then semi-epics like Breath of Fire have to be categorized differently.

This game has a lot of great features--a good battle system (with the exception of GUTS mode, which irritated me--just give enemies higher HP if it's gonna take so long to kill them); nice graphics, a pretty good story, and--the best part--VERY original characters.The problem is, the dialogue is so drastically abbreviated that I couldn't feel very much about anything that was going on!I can understand that there are capacity limits in making games, and that the makers can only do so much, but the dialog scenes?All they have to do is insert a bunch of text, maybe a few flashbacks here and there--it's not like it would have been difficult to have the characters interact with each other more or explain their feelings better, or sometimes just explain what the heck was going on (example: every time you approach a human villain to fight them, when you go into the battle screen they're suddenly a monster!I guess you're supposed to just assume that they've turned themselves into monsters by some magical power, but maybe that could've been explained a little better?).I don't know--I'm sure a lot of people have had this problem while playing the game, and maybe it was really one of the best when it came out, but I recently replayed FFIV and even though the graphics and gameplay were on a similar level, there was a HUGE difference in the dramatic presentation of the story.(Part of this may also have been that the music was better in FFIV.)
In short, if you are okay with an RPG feeling like the Legend of Zelda games--where you only have one character in your party and the game is all about performing quests that don't involve emotional scenes pertaining to your character, then you'll like Breath of Fire.If you need more from an RPG, however--emotional cutscenes, drama between characters WITHIN your party and not just NPCs, etc.--then you probably wouldn't like this game.My overall impression of it was just, "Important NPC says one line telling you what to do.Travel to next place, battle battle battle, go through five dungeons, battling all the way, retrieve artifact, battle your way back to town, get one or two lines of appreciation from the NPC who gave you the quest, and SOMETIMES (not always) a vague hint about what to do next.Thing to do next: same as above, rinse and repeat."

Oh, and the music changing when you go from outside a house to the inside of a house annoyed the crap out of me. :)


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