Reviews of Breath of Fire

[note: this playthrough was done with the War of the Goddess fan translation patch, but the bulk of my thoughts are only on the game itself. I tossed some notes at the end regarding the fan patch. Will say I think it was the right way to go, really enhancing the flow of the narrative.]

Breath of Fire is a series I've played a few hours of across all the titles, but never completed any. Something always seemed to come up that stole my interest, going all the way back to my days in middle school. My friend was hugely into the series, but it was always second fiddle to my JRPG love series, Final Fantasy. Finally diving into it with full plans to complete it in 2026 was a great idea, because despite the rust of age, Breath of Fire 1 really held up quite well and was a blast, once it finally started cooking.

A slow burn of a JRPG isn't always a bad thing, and I think Breath of Fire showcases how to do it well. Ryu starts off alone without magic or gear, just a low-level silent protagonist, and slowly over the course of the story you build your party and your power with other human and non-human characters. I think the game shines really well here - as the player, I could feel the impact of growing my roster and gaining new abilities.

You gain both in combat and out, with the majority of the characters also helping you in the overworld. One may allow you to pass through trees, reaching areas locked off before. Another may be able to dig at certain spots, providing items. And yet another may serve as a way to travel from town to dungeon faster. Did I completely miss this being taught to me in game and have to pull up GameFAQs to figure it out? 100%. Possibly something that the beautiful manual the game would have come with back then would have discussed. Sometimes I forget to check those first, which is inexcusable as someone who grew up with that feeling of amazement, opening the jewel case and reading the manual cover to cover before even firing up the game.

Combat is exactly what you'd expect from a 16-bit JRPG with turn-based random encounters. Its difficulty starts a bit on the high side, but quickly settles into comfort, which leads to a pretty easy time by the last third. Bringing the main character's abilities online really aids in that, and I was also glad the game includes a basic auto-battle button, as many fights can be won easily with just auto attacks. The encounter rate is high, but the game offers an extremely cheap item to avoid them, so I feel that's a fairly balanced system. Dungeons are standard affairs, with only one or two standing out for their uniqueness. Not boring, but certainly bland.

Overall a really fun, short adventure, clocking in just under 25 hours. I'm definitely eager to check out more of the series - perhaps try BoF II on GBA, as I've heard that's the best version available.

*[War of the Goddess is recommended everywhere I look when it comes to the first Breath of Fire. I sampled a bit of both, playing through the first 90 minutes or so, and can certainly attest to WotG being the superior script. What I disliked were all the changes to names, items, towns, and abilities. I wish more fan translations - re-translations, if you will - would include options without these changes. Looking items up became a bit of a chore, because I'd have to figure out what they should be called, since there's not a lot of documentation on WotG out there. Nitpicky stuff, but still a thing when you're playing a game of this generation, where often you could be stuck or just not know what the heck an item does. I would still recommend it.]