Stratadrake's Full Review: Breath of Fire IV for PlayStation 1
It's been a long time -- too long of a time, at that -- since I last visited here. With school, work, and many other interests competing for my time, suddenly I do not have very much time available with which to write reviews here.
So, when I read in a game magazine about an upcoming GBA title called "Breath of Fire", I was wondering exactly what it was. Since the magazine stated that it was an SNES remake, I considered it worth my while to check out one of my video-rental stores in the neighborhood. The one I looked around at was a family business, and they do have SNES games for rent. Which is where I found the same game as mentioned in the magazine. Unfortunately, the SNES box for Breath of Fire didn't tell me anything about what the game was actually like, so I was a bit hesitant to try it out.
One of the other local video-rental parlors around town offered a similarly appealing prospect; this PSX game called "Breath of Fire IV". This is where I made a now-rare decision -- I rented it. Considering that this is, after all, a four-game series, I figured that playing Breath of Fire 4 would give me an idea of what the upcoming GBA title would be like.
If only I knew.
I had forgotten one of the first rules about playing a series: Always start at the beginning of a series. In other words, I should be playing the original Breath of Fire first, before trying out the fourth game in the series. What stopped me?
Circumstance... and convenience. the GBA version of Breath of Fire has yet to hit my local store shelves, whereas the 4th title in this series was sitting on the shelf of both my local store and my local rental parlor. Therefore, here I am, having rented the game from the parlor for a few days, and then liking it just enough to purchase the game and finish it.
Unfortunately, though, having "just enough" interest in this particular title may not be enough. You see, playing this game ressurects a whole boat-load of gripes that had laid dormant since the time I last played through SCEA's roleplayer, the Legend of Dragoon.
In other words, the first and foremost quality that cheesed me off about this title turns out to be the very dragons that the BF series itself revolves around.
Personal Tilt: -3
If you've read the majority of my other reviews, you'll already know what this means. "Personal Tilt" is a guesstimate of my own personal bias for or against the game in question, measured on a scale of -5 to zero to +5. I'll explain exactly what causes such a negative bias as I go along.
Graphics: 13 of 20
Technical Aspect: 7 of 10
Effectiveness: 6 of 10
Okay, so measuring the graphics on a scale of 0-20 doesn't exactly match the built-in rating meters that Epinions.com lets us use; but considering exactly how much can go into any single aspect of a game, I find that a 0-5, or even a 0-10 scale is insufficient. You see, graphics come in two categories: The technical aspect indicates how technically advanced the graphics are; in other words, how much they stretch the limits of the hardware they are designed to run on. Since BF4 is a game built for the PSX (a.k.a. Ps One) this means that I'll be evaluating the technical aspect of BF4 in terms of PSX technical abilities. Effectiveness is different (and more subjective), because it evaluates how effectively the graphics engine is used to provide cinematics for the game.
BF4 fares much better in technical merits than most other PSX RPG's. It seems that RPG companies like Squaresoft have this addiction to superimposing true-3D characters onto flat, "pre-painted" 2D scenery. Pre-painted scenery is, technically speaking, nothing more than an image developed using different hardware than what the game is running on. By that definition, I can't give pre-painted scenery anything more than a 1 of 5 (2 of 10) rating for technical aspect.
Fortunately, BF4 offs that tradition, using 2D character sprites walking around in a vast, real-time true 3D world. Therefore, the world of BF4 qualifies for higher technical merits. However, I have seen better graphics; while the graphics have a nice "flow" to their appearance and textures, there are no instances of transparency of translucency in the scenery (something that, had it been done, I would have given higher technical aspects for), which is all but necessity nowadays when trying to depict water.
There is also a minor technical demerit for pixelation -- but then again, considering that the characters are made of 2D sprites and the technical nature of the PSX, pixelation is inevitable.
BF4 uses its animated sprites and 3D worlds to a high degree of effectiveness; but there are flaws. For starters, you can only view the world from four different isometric perspectives -- NE, NW, SE, and SW. Therefore, for a large part of the time, you will be pressing diagonals on the directional pad to move about. However, there is a significant plus for being able to rotate the camera to different angles. Most of the time, you can freely rotate the camera between the four isometric angles by pressing the L1/R1 shoulder buttons. At some times, however, the camera angle is restricted to two adjacent angles (NE and NW angles, for example) -- this is used for scenes such as the Dam and the village of Kyria, where the slope of the scenery is largely uphill/downhill, and the camera's movement is limited to the two angles that give you the best views of the scenery. At rarer times, camera rotation may be disabled entirely, forcing you to view the scene from one pre-set angle. There are but few scenes like this; they are constructed so that the few objects (if any at all) will be obscured from the camera.
Another, but fairly minor flaw is that the characters are drawn only from eight different perspectives; front, rear, left/right side, and the diagonals inbetween, which means that the characters do not rotate as freely and smoothly as the world around them does.
Yet another, and more serious, demerit for the graphical effectiveness is the exact way the 3D world is built. This 3D world is built on a grid, which is the 3D equivalent of a "tile-based" 2D engine (used widely in older games such as Mario, Mega Man, Zelda, Metroid, Sonic, etc. etc. etc.). Although each individual grid-square in the scenery is mercifully much smaller than the grid-squares used in the Tomb Raider graphics engines, it is still noticeable, and you'll spend the first ten minutes puzzling out exactly why your characters' movements are confined to eight directions (north/south, east/west, NE/NW, SE/SW).
But just because the characters are 2D sprites doesn't mean that all the objects are 2D sprites. There are a number of large enemies, such as the Skullfish, and Captain Rasso's summon machinations, who are rendered using 3D architechture. And the dragon forms which Ryu and Fou-Lu can transform into are also rendered in true 3D. Capcom took the "soft-skin" route in modelling the 3D creatures, which minimizes the risk of PSX graphical glitches and makes the 3D creatures better look and move like living, fluid creatures.
Overall, though, the graphics in BF4 fare much better than those seen in games like FF9, Chrono Cross, and Legend of Dragoon. True 3D gives you the freedom of camera-movement that pre-painted scenery lacks, and this is well worth the trade-offs of animated sprites and isometric angles.
Audio: 17 of 20
Musical Score: 9 of 10
Sound FX: 8 of 10
Since even the 16-bit SNES had the technical capabilities for digitized sound and quality music (FF3 had one of the best SNES soundtracks ever), rating music and audio for its technical merits is futile.
BF4's musical score generally fits the environment. This is even more true of the atmospheric-like music played in hostile environments such as hexed North Chamba. However, only few of the tunes are actually memorable. At the top of this short list is the music played for certain bosses like Ight at the end of Part 2, and the mini-game music. I love mini-games, and Capcom came up with a very entertaining "circus-like" tune for them. So overall, the musical score fairs extremely well.
Sound FX are, almost a given, quite good. My biggest complaint about them is Capcom's decision not to translate the dialog from the original Japanese into English. Because of this, unless you know some Japanese, you can't understand a single word said during the opening FMV sequence. This language barrier also appears during combat when spellcasting. When casting spells, the caster shouts out the name of the spell as it is cast. While each character does shout out something different for each spell in their own voice (something that can't be said for Bandai's recent "RPG", Digimon World 2), it's still in Japanese, so you can't really understand what they're saying. The saving grace, though, is that phrases like "Hiyah!" and "Aaaarrrrgh!" break through the language barrier, so if Capcom was going to translate the audio, they wouldn't be able to just translate some of the combat vocals, they'd have to translate all of them (shouts and jeers included). So, overall, the sound FX do average.
Gameplay
Learning Curve: 8 of 10
Difficulty: 7 of 10
Game Mechanics: 5 of 10
Gameplay has just too many categories to assign a single rating to, so I'll have to explain each in detail.
BF4 has an easy learning curve. While there are about 200 varied spells and techniques, the majority of your combat will consist of whacking the enemy with whatever physical weapon you've equipped on your characters, and I wouldn't have the game start out any other way.
The first demerit of the game's learning curve is figuring out how to move about the 3D world. Since this is a grid-based engine, you'll find that your characters' movements are not just limited to eight directions, but they are also limited to the grid squares. In other words, when you move your characters about, their movements start and stop directly in the middle of a grid square. Therefore, you can't "inch" or "creep" your way forwards like free-roaming 3D games permit you to do. At least, once you get going, this demerit becomes minor.
A good benefit to the learning curve is the ventriloquist you find first in the desert town of Sarai, then later in Kyria and Shyde. This individual always talks through the little green puppet he wears on his hand, which makes him a slightly strange citizen, but his help is invaluable for early players. He describes vital game elements such as combos and dragon transformation, and if you talk to him enough, he'll even give you a secret ability called "Shift" so that you can teleport around the world map with ease.
BF4's difficulty is average. It is also invariable; you can't set the game to modes such as "Easy" or "Difficult", it only has one difficulty level. As such, once you develop a strong strategy and/or tactic for battle, you can walk all over most minor monsters with little trouble whatsoever. Sometimes you can walk all over bosses if you have simply the right strategy. One boss in particular becomes stunned for one turn if you perform a Fire+Wind combo on him, allowing you to inflict double damage for a moment and interfere with whatever attack the boss was planning.
And now for the actual mechanics of game play themselves. It is here where most of the game can be described, but I find it to be nothing more than average -- that is to say, the features equally offset and neutralized by the flaws and demerits.
The story of BF4, I presume, draws from a number of previous BF elements. And this is where my largest personal gripe about the BF series comes into play. Dragons. This is the second game I've seen where the Japanese can't assign one overall visual description to a dragon. And why not? Dragons don't exist in reality per sé, so it is true that dragons are whatever the authors/artists want them to be. But I personally find BF's concept of dragons to be repulsive. I'll give you a quick 101 to show you what I mean:
In the BF world, dragons are summoned from a different dimension into the BF world to be deities. As such, dragons are unbelievably powerful and mighty. They are also revered by many citizens as gods. As one character, Fou-Lu, states early on, in their world, "dragons give birth to thee, rule over thee, and destroy thee; in ohter words, they be gods." They are also referred to as "The Endless" meaning that, while they possibly can be killed, they do not die of natural causes.
This by itself I can look over, but only to a point. And BF4 comes pretty close to this point. The main character, Ryu, is one of these dragons. A deity? Not in my universe; but then again, it's Capcom's game, isn't it?
Now, as for exactly why I gripe about these dragons, it's their visual appearance that cheeses me off the most. As I said, the Japanese haven't settled on a single visual description of a dragon, and this goes against my grain. There is a Sand Dragon that looks like a cross between a Dune sandworm and a leech, a Mud Dragon that is as transparent as a jellyfish (and you don't even see the entire dragon, just its head and neck), a Wind Dragon that looks like a huge serpent, there is even a "tree dragon" that looks just like that -- a tree; heck, even Ryu's and Fou-Lu's transformable dragons lack a single defining visual quality. In this game, both Ryu and Fou-Lu have the ability to change shape into dragons. (The exact reason for this is vital to the game's story, so I won't explain) However, in what looks like a step away from the earlier BF games (I'm guessing here, since I haven't played the earlier games...yet). Changing into a dragon in battle doesn't actually change the character into what I can call a full dragon (even by BF standards). Rather, it changes the character into what looks like a half-dragon hybrid, and the only moments in battle where the character can actually fully transform into a dragon is when executing a dragon-breath attack. (Go figure).
Of the transformable dragons, both Ryu and Fou-Lu's "basic dragon" shape looks somewhat like an overgrown reptile with translucent, insect-like wings. Another pair of transformable dragons, "Kaiser" and "Tyrant", are quite noticeably more formiddable in appearance (however, I can't quite explain what they look like, one has to see it themselves). The "Behemoth" transformable dragon is so bulky that it hardly moves, looking more like some otherworldly elephant/hippo mix than what I could call a dragon. There's also a transformable dragon called "Mutant", which looks as cute as a stuffed animal, despite that it's rather weak in combat. The only saving grace I've found so far in the dragons are the Wyvern and Serpent transformable dragons. Ryu gets the Wyvern, and Fou-Lu gets Serpent. Both of these transformable dragons, in my personal preference, actually looks like a dragon. That is to say, their overall shape is most reminiscent of what I would call a dragon. Inevitably, those are the two dragon shapes I ended up using the most during combat, even to the point where Ryu's Wyvern form "levelled up" to a more powerful state called Weyr (different in color, stronger in abilities, but otherwise the same) .
The actual mechanics of dragon transformation are iffy. In this game, each character has "Ability Points", which are BF4's equivalent of the MP you find in almost every other RPG. First off, it takes a significant amount of AP to actually transform Ryu (or Fou-Lu) into their dragon state; and second, a certain amount of AP is expended for every combat turn spent in that dragon form, the exact amount varying depending on the particular dragon form.
Now comes a more interesting quirk: each transformable dragon-form uses a separate HP meter than Ryu and Fou-Lu's own. This gives you the benefit that if Ryu is running low on HP, you can change him into dragon-form at full HP. However, for some bizarre reason, Cure spells and items do not work on dragons. I don't understand this; spells like "Heal", "Rejuvenate", and "Vitalize" work just fine on most of your party, but if you try to use it on Ryu while he is in dragon-form, it doesn't work. At all. Only certain methods can restore a dragon's HP; one is to equip an item such as "Ring of Fire" which absorbs HP from certain enemy attacks, and the other is the rare item called Ambrosia.
The flipside of this separate HP meter means that if Ryu/Fou-Lu are knocked out while in dragon form, they simply revert back to their human form and continue fighting from where they left off.
Which brings to mind another gripe about BF: The Front/Rear rank systems. While you can have up to six members in your party at any time, only three actively participate in combat at any time. The remainder of your party rests in the "back row" during combat. They are not attacked, and their AP replenishes every turn by a certain amount. Here's a quirk, though; Ability Points actually come in two varieties: blue and red. Red AP are what is shown on the Status screen outside of combat; Blue AP are accumulated by resting in the Rear rank in battle. Unfortunately, blue AP recovered during battle do not remain after the battle ends. The flipside, though, is that you can use both blue and red AP to use magic in battle, and AP-curative items always restore red AP.
The Front/Rear rank system is a nice step away from other combat systems you see in RPG's, but flawed. First off, if one of your characters is struck with a disabling status ailment like Sleep, or if they are knocked out, you only have one turn in battle to revive them. Otherwise, they get sent to the Rear rank, and you can't use curatives on members in the Rear rank. Which means that if one of your six party members is KO'd in combat, and you don't revive them the next turn, they are sent to the Rear rank and remain KO'd for the rest of combat because you can't use apply curative items/spells to members in the Rear rank.
Similarly, if a character becomes Confused, you can't put them into the Rear rank to rest; they remain in the Front rank.
All other status ailments except poison (mute, egg, blinded) can be cured by placing a character in the Rear rank for three consecutive turns.
Another quirk about the combat system is that if a character becomes KO'd, then after combat, their maximum HP will be temporarily reduced by about 10%. This reduced max.HP can be restored only by resting at an Inn; while you can set up "camp" anywhere on the World Map to rest for free, only sleeping at an Inn can restore max.HP lost by being KO'd.
There is one more important aspect of combat to mention, and this is where BF4 shines: the Combo system.
BF4's Combo system works like this: Whenever two or more characters in your party cast magic, the second magic may inheret a few attributes from the first, making it more effective. For example, using two Fire spells in a row causes the second one to inflict some additional Fire damage to your opponents. Furthermore, casting spells in a Fire - Wind - Water - Earth - Fire order causes the second spell to become a powerful, dual-element attack. For example, Burn + Cyclone = Simoon, Cyclone + Ice Blast = Lightning, and so forth. Similarly, any skill learned from an enemy can be used as part of a combo to increase its damage or its # of hits. When a combo is performed, a status box appears telling you how much damage you inflicted and how many hits you made.
This brings up another good quality of BF4's combat system: The Skills system. This incorporates both magic, melee, and miscelanneous tactics that are initially not available to your team. Therefore, Skills can be described as "Alternative Attack Options" -- options available to you other than using items, defending, or attacking.
The Skills system works like this: When you guard against certain enemy attacks, you stand a chance of learning that attack from an enemy. You can judge what types of actions can be learned by watching for techniques whose names appear in blue. Pressing Square to see information about an enemy may or may not tell you if you can learn a skill from them, but by spending time guarding when you meet a new foe, you improve the chances of learning something from them; one of your characters will "!" whenever they are about to learn a new Skill from an opponent. Skills vary widely, but two of the most valuable are "Rest" and "Transfer". Rest restores about 10% of your character's max. HP and AP for free, while "Transfer" gives 20 AP from the caster to someone else. "Transfer" can even be directed at its caster, which means that one of your characters can use it on themself to convert blue AP to red AP.
There is one more way to learn skills for battle, and this is called the Masters system. As the adventure progresses, your team may meet a number of "masters" who offer to train some of your characters. Accept, and they'll give you a challenge to do. One master, Rwolf in Kurok, asks you to perform a combo attack with at least 5 hits; another master, Una of the Worens, asks you to perform a combo attack of at least 1500 damage. Still other masters will tell you to do other tasks -- talking to people, encountering new monsters, fighting a lot of battles, and one master will simply ask you to come back later just to talk to him! Sometimes, you need to meet a certain challenge just to have a master accept your team for training, such as accumulating 3,000 "fishing points".
The mention of "fishing points" brings to mind one other favorite aspect of BF4: Minigames. Minigames are, largely, things that you do to take a break from the main adventure. The largest mini-game in BF4 is fishing. Yes, fishing! Fishing is either a love-it or hate-it type of event in BF4. Fishing works as follows: acquire a fishing rod and some lures, find a fishing spot, and start hunting for fish. Depending on the rod, lure, and the fishing spot you choose, you can catch almost anything from angelfish and trout to whales! Fish can be used as curative items in battle, or you can trade them to Manillo for items and points; these "Manillo Shops" can be found in almost every town, and they have some rare items for trade. Most of their items are high-grade lures or other fishing equipment, but if you trade enough fish and collect enough points, you may be able to buy rare weapons and armor for your characters.
There are also a number of other mini-games in BF4. Digging up treasure in the Sandflier valley just outside of Sarai, helping a merchant load cargo onto his sandflier, herding chickens into a pen, trying to knock a sailor off of the mast, even racing across the desert on a sandflier for record time! These particular mini-games are actually required to progress through the adventure, and some of them can only be played until you win. And if you want to know what the mini-games are good for, be sure to ask the ventriloquist when you get to Shyde.
In addition to mini-games, there is also a small number of side quests that can be accomplished. Hunting up the deities of the world to gain summoning spells is one of them; finding additional crystals for more transformable dragons is another. But by far, the largest side-quest is the Faerie village. After you are first introduced to this side quest, you can visit the Faerie village anytime you set up Camp from the world map. Managing Faerie village is like running a sim; you need to have faeries gather food, build houses, and other things. There is a good side to this, though: you get to construct this village any way you wish, you can get hard-to-find items (like Aurum) from the right Faerie shops, there is yet another mini-game that you can play, and most interestingly, you can set up a museum of game art (concept sketches mostly) and even listen to music anywhere from the game! The faerie village doesn't require much management either; all they really need to survive is about 1/3 of their total population assigned to hunt food.
Storyline
Length: approx. 40-50 hours
Replay Value: -----
Fun Factor: 5 of 10
And finally, what exactly is going on in the world of BF4? I can't say too much, because it would spoil a lot of the fun factor, but the action starts with two characters, Cray of the Worens and Nina of the Wyndians searching for the Wyndian princess, Elina. In the middle of the desert, their sandflier is attacked and damaged by a sand dragon, and afterwards, Nina is sent to find help. Turns out that she's not the only one needing help; on the road to Sarai, a merchant's wagon has fallen into a crater. There, Nina discovers a grayish-colored dragon, which flies off. Nina also finds Ryu right there in the crater. Ryu is lost; he doesn't know anything about where he came from or who he really is.
Meanwhile, halfway across the globe on a different continent, an ancient and powerful warrior named Fou-Lu has awakened from a 'deep sleep', and upon discovering that the Fou empire he founded wants him dead, he sets out to destroy the Empire. There is but a fragile armistice standing between the Empire on the west continent and the Alliance on the east; it was but a few years back when both continents made war against each other to the point of exhaustion, and a few cities have paid the price for it dearly. Chamba, for example, was struck by the Empire's dreaded "Carronade", a cannon that fires magical hexes -- think of it as the magical equivalent of a nuclear missile -- and is still being cleaned up by a group of Purifiers. Another city called Synesta has been purified from the hex it received during the war, but the city is still being repaired from the physical and structural damage caused by the hex.
Things get mixed up in Sarai when Captain Rasso makes his appearance. This Imperial captain was sent to find a dragon somewhere on the east continent, and when he discovers that Nina's a Wyndian, a fight breaks out. Captain Rasso is the evil, arrogant type of soldier who takes pride even in the torture and murder of innocent lives, and soon Ryu and Nina are on the run.
As things progress, you meet more characters who join your team. There's a character called "Ershin", who wears a completely-sealed suit of armor. Ershin always talks in the third person (i.e. "Ershin says...") and has a tendency to say "it seems that". The reason for this is also important to the storyline, and is revealed near the end of Part Two in an ancient city called Chek.
There is also a mercenary named Scias, who is hired at the beginning of Part Two to watch over your team. However, it seems that his employer never ordered him to actually prevent you from doing whatever you want, so Scias is along for the ride. Although his speech is stuttering, his combat abilities are formiddable.
Near the end of Part Two, Ursula appears as an Imperial captain who takes your team prisoner. However, when Captain Rasso meets an untimely (but very poetic) end against one of Ryu's dragon forms, it is Ursula who is taken prisoner by your team. Her orders are to take Ryu back to the Empire, but since your team begins planning to go there anyway, she sees fit to simply tag along as you go.
Ultimately, Ryu's true identity is made known, and the path ahead laid out, and the adventure proceeds from there across miles and miles of terrain, seafaring, at least eight fishing spots, many more villages, and countless monsters.
Given how cynical I am when looking at this title, I don't feel I can give BF4 a fair evaluation of its replay value. The story is the same each time around; it is fairly linear. Therefore, while I am interested in finishing the adventure to see how it ends, I do not feel like replaying it, even once more.
It's not because of the graphics, or the quirks in the gameplay. The real-time true 3D graphics are more effective than the pre-painted scenery you find in many other RPG's for the PSX; the gameplay quirks are relatively minor considering the strong battle strategy I've developed through 30 hours of game time. The story is something that I can abide by, if not love; but it is the dragons who I find the most distasteful.
I'm part artist, part writer, part programmer. My artistic side likes to spend time drawing dragons and other creatures; my writing side likes to think up fantasy/sci-fi stories while I'm at work or any other time that I have nothing to do. And my programming side has a dream to build my own RPG using the other two sides as co-developers of a hobbyist sort.
The programming side of me loves the combo and skill system, as well as the mini-games that Capcom stuffs into this game.
The writing side of me likes the concept of Ryu's dragon-transformation but dislikes the BF dragons being deities.
But it is the artistic side of me that wishes to throw this game out of a window, being for a second time cheesed off because this Japanese-fantasy concept of 'dragon' doesn't match my own.
But of course, BF4 isn't my type of universe, nor is it my type of art.
So, having said that, I kindly return to my writing and my artwork.
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