THE CRAVE GAMING CHANNEL
V'lanna
 

Breath of Fire 3 - Retroview

The Classic Role Playing Game.
By: kupomogli

Review Breakdown
   Battle System 10
   Interface 10
   Music & Sound 10
   Originality 8
   Story 9
   Localization 10
   Replay Value 9
   Visuals 7
   Difficulty Moderate
   Completion Time 20-40 Hours  
Overall
10

Ryu's not the only one who can change form.
Ryu's not the only one who can change form.
Breath of Fire 3

   Released in 1998, Breath of Fire 3 brings back the old school type gameplay that was found in the earlier titles back, but now on the PSX with added depth to the gameplay, a better story, and some very memorable characters.

   Like the entire BoF series, BoF3 is about a story of a boy/young man, named Ryu, who has this inner power to transform into a dragon. Early in the game he meets up with two characters named Teepo and Rei who are orphans. Later in the game is when the game truly starts, as the three characters end up being attacked by assassins where Ryu wakes up to find out his friends are missing, and the main reason he leaves on his journey is to find his friends, while it reaches to where he finds about his race and why they needed to be destroyed, where everything comes together in the end.

   The battle system in BoF3 is turn based, being based on speed, so the character with a higher speed would end up taking precedence of another, and also while the battles are random, they end up have no loading time entering or exiting a battle, as your characters will disappear, and reappear the same spot the main character was at and in the formation your team is under.

   During each battle, each character has magic spells, special skills, as well as the normal physical attack. A unique idea in BoF3 is the ability to examine enemies with characters, as characters will end up having a chance to learn an ability the enemy has as long as it is used by the enemy the turn it is used, where you can get advanced spells the character has not yet acquired, and even powerful spells and abilities that characters can't learn throughout the game. Also, just like in every other BoF, Ryu has the ability to change into dragon form, which is used by picking up to three dragon genes you find or acquire throughout the game, allowing Ryu to transform into one of multiple dragons, depending on the genes you used.

Nina!!.. I mean... A town!!
Nina!!.. I mean... A town!!

   In the game, there was no translation of voice acting from Japanese to American, but aside from that, voices for each character in the game seemed great, and didn't annoy you to an end. Also, the sound effect are great, as well as the music also having great quality, in both senses, as almost the entire soundtrack is perfect, and portrays well along each scene.

   While BoF3 has the feel of an old school RPG, the game brings many new elements of gameplay, like the dragon gene system. Another unique thing brought to the game is the master system, which from your basic normal stats, you can be an apprentice under a master, allowing your characters to give up gain for some stats, to allow your characters a greater gain in other stats, as well as the character learning multiple spells and abilities from each of the masters. The story, having the story of the dragon clan, like in all the BoF games, is a completely different story from each other the others, and original to any other type of series.

   Unlike the translation from the first two in the series, Capcom really came through this time (although the first translation was done by Squaresoft), as unless you are taking the time to find errors throughout the game, you most likely won't notice any throughout the game, unless there is some errors during the Australian translation of the game, but most likely someone wouldn't notice unless they are Australian themselves.

   For those who enjoy BoF3, then there wouldn't be any trouble for them to play through the game again, but other than that, there is so much stuff to do rather than just play the game again. The game features a huge fishing mini game, where you catch many different fish, up to a range of whales and sharks, where you can increasing your fishing rank, as well as collect many rare items from Manillo in exchange for different types of fish. Also, there being two powerful extremely powerful random battles, which easily compare to the strength of secret bosses found throughout the Final Fantasy series.

   While BoF3 has no CG movies that you would find in many other titles during this time, the graphics are still very good, with each of the areas being smoothly created, with a good amount of detail, allowing many things throughout the game to be interacted with, like slashing down a small bush, or even shaking a tree by slamming into it. The game is portrayed through 2d sprites on 3d backgrounds the entire game, where in battle, most spells don't look as graphically enhanced as they do on many other titles during and before this time, while they still look good.

   Where this game is mostly preferred by a sense of taste as to which types of games people enjoy. This game takes old school gameplay and adds to it, along with decent graphics, which many people would enjoy.

<- Back
© 1998-2017 RPGamer All Rights Reserved
Privacy Policy