Breath of Fire thread

So many fond memories…

the only BoF game I ever hear people talk about is 4. Should I start with the first one, or are they detached like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest?

i liked Dragon Quarter

There IS a connection, but it's a very loose one. The order doesn't really matter, ultimately, but stumbling across Deis in the later games may be more impressive after having her in the first one.

It's theorized they are connected, but never proven. You see tech shit in a well in a game and in the last game there was a highly advanced civilization underground and there's also the fact the characters have the same appearance and name every title, so people think the whole series is connected.

They're not really connected. BoFI is fucking horrible, so start with II.


I also liked Dragon Quarter. When you think about it, it's like proto-Nier.

what? its absolutely nothing like nier

Thin but relevant connection, each can be enjoyed without need to see the others.

BoF - classic RPG stuff

BoF II - doing "the church is evil and satanic" before it was actually cool

BoF III - comfiest journey of self-discovery ever pressed to disc

BoF IV - compelling story about gods, men, morality, and burning the orphan dog every chance it gets. Not actually connected to the other 3 chronologically speaking

BoF V - high level dungeon crawling you will sweat bullets I actually don't know much about this one haven't gotten a chance to play.

The big gimmick of the BoF franchise aside of DRAGONS FUCK YEAH is the part where you can fuse and transform, not just MC but also his friends. Great fun.

Ignore this faggot, he knows nothing of what he speaks.

It's depressing in a post apocalyptic world, and elites are lying to you, where you are trying to save someone. You try and try again to get a better result.


I bet you think final fantasy is good.

You'd be more credible if you said the translation was shit. The game's just fine.

Speaking of shit translations, BoFIV was censored out the ass to the point of even completely changing a pivotal plot sequence. Still waiting on that never ever retranslation.

Retranslating won't fix that. Someone has to work from the JPN version of the game to restore the content proper that was cut. It wasn't a script change, it was scene alterations.

- Bathing scene cut out
- Ursula dropping trou cut
- Fou-Lu beheading the Fou Emperor cut out

And so on.

Yeah, I know, that's why it's never ever. Fuck Capcom.

Start with 3, the first two are nothing special.

Not really. They cut a couple of minor scenes that were barely a few lines of dialog, and stopped the beheading scene a bit earlier.

t. someone who played the jap version

By the way
Momo best girl

Of course.

And who can forget those godly battle themes?

I can listen to this for hours nonstop

BoF is entry level furshit.

BoF3 is one of the triumvirate god-tier JRPG's that went mostly unnoticed by the plebs. Such a shame.

Fuck you I can't do another BoF3 playthrough right now, I'm already bouncing between 4 games at once.

Out of curiosity, since I've never touched it, how is the PSP version compared to the original? Any actual improvements? Downsides?

Why don't you learn Japanese, user? You can bypass all that bullshit.

PSP is widescreen and has an extra fishing minigame, but other than that I am pretty sure it's the same.

I have the game in Japanese. And I have no intentions of working on the aforementioned edit fixes.

smh oniifam

...

I never played 3 or 4, and I don't think my toaster of a computer would be able to emulate them all that well. I've been meaning to get a newer computer, so they'll probably be the first games I'll try to emulate. I loved the first two. Say what you want about the first game, but it's still good and worth playing.

Yes indeed, that is the best track in the game. I would always be loathe to hop off the world map and continue my business because this song is so fucking smooth.

Perfectly comfy.

I see more discussion of Breath of Fire III these days than anything. Breath of Fire I, II, and III have a chronology of sorts (III's title crawl even has a mural of the final battle in BoF I), but you could probably take them as being their own stories in the same universe, with some connections here and there.

If you do choose to play Breath of Fire II, do note that Capcom's translation of it was fucking terrible both times around on the SNES and GBA (for the record, Square handled BoF I prior). A full fan retranslation patch exists for the SNES version though.

I wouldn't say Breath of Fire I is bad, but it did feel somewhat bland to me, and loses some points for shit like censorship (that little knife wielding thief kid in the party was a niglet named Danc in the Japanese version; apparently Square decided that wouldn't fly due to the connotations) and that tower you have to repeatedly climb, only for the boss to rewind time instead of fighting you to send you back to the past/town again. Still helps introduce what sort of world the series is in though, as well as setting some groundwork, and if one wants to really see how the series improved over time, or see the series from the start, there's merit to playing it.


What said, as well as I think some other changes here and there. Stuff like Stallion getting a color scheme change (I suspect the rights holders for Ultraman or whatever it was weren't happy about it from the PS1 version and Capcom probably didn't want to pay royalties to keep using it). The wiki should have a full list of changes I imagine.

Also worth noting that it's the only version of Breath of Fire III on the PSN. Apparently the PS1 version was ineligible for whatever reason.


It strikes me that that's more of a reimplementing content issue rather than the whole game needing retranslation. Either something like find a way to put the scenes back in and do some minor fan-translation of any dialogue pertinent to it, or rip the English script into the Japanese version and do a bit of fan-translation for unused scenes in the English script.

What does annoy me is that even years back on halfchan, a noticable amount of posters in Breath of Fire related discussion made claim that, aside from the stuff involving Fou-Lou, they found the censorship to have made the game more palatable to them. I'm not sure if that sort of mindset has a large presence throughout the western Breath of Fire fanbase (or just how many people in it are all that aware of the censorship even being there), but it makes me wonder if fans being split on the matter might be part of why Breath of Fire IV hasn't seen a reimplementation effort.


A CFW PSP can run Breath of Fire III and IV as PS1 eboots with ease if you've got access to one of them, and the PS1 version of Breath of Fire IV also has a native PSN rerelease.

I'm looking for a comfy JRPG and I haven't played these before. If I'm looking to play III and IV, should I emulate the PS1 or PSP versions?

I was so fucking autistic when playing this game as a kid that i farmed stat increasing items until Ryu had 999 of all attributes, i also had the Gooking Sword
It reached the point that Berserker and Archmage were no longer threats

Also i had beaten Myria about 5 times before i discovered Tiamat

Might also clarify that I'm certainly not supporting what those cucks back on halfchan thinking censorship good, just that it strikes me that a fanbase being divided on the matter might contribute to a notion of demand for restoring the game not being all that high (I kind of speculate that might also be the case for the Lunar games and why they've not seen a retranslation effort, given how split western fans are on Working Designs' work). Then again, even with full on fan-translation efforts, all it can take sometimes is one or two people devoted/autistic enough to a game to go and start an effort.


Breath of Fire III's pretty darn comfy, though some might say it starts off a bit slow for their liking (child arc introduces the cast and establishes relations and histories with each other). I really didn't mind that aspect though. As for versions, Breath of Fire III was the only one of the two (and of the series as well) to see a PSP port. Breath of Fire IV meanwhile was PS1 and, for some reason, PC in Japan and Europe. Both are now on the PSN as well, albeit with Breath of Fire III, only the PSP port is (and is thus can't be played on the PS3).

I personally love BoF3 much more than BoF4, but i gotta admit, it looks good (for a ps1 game)
Both are very comfy

Looks like terrible weebshit. kys

...

Touché.

Those are faggots, user. We call them faggots. And they certainly did not speak for the majority of the fandom. The fandom hub I knew of before it was ddos'd into oblivion, Dragon-Tear, was often and frequently salty about the various changes to the localizations. Not just the cut content in BoF IV, but also the alterations in the prior installments—names, the shitty translations, you name it.

There is a part of your suspicion that rings true, and that's simply it's impossible to entirely loathe something we played and treasured as kids. It's ingrained itself as a great memory, and something worth replaying today. It's good that most people can look past the nostalgia and also criticize the hubris and laziness of localizers back then.

Fuck Vic Ireland and may the industry drum him out.

Don't take the bait, user. Those faggots seem to hit any JRPG, or at least overtly Japanese game, thread these days.


Admittedly I haven't bothered with forums in a long time, so I'm not real sure of how big, or what sort of mindset, particular western fanbases for somewhat niche games have outside of imageboards. It sounds good to hear that a fair amount of other Breath of Fire fans were annoyed and angry about such changes; perhaps there's some solid hope for an eventual restoration, provided the games coding allows for easy enough hacking (which to my knowledge isn't always the case; think I've heard rumor before that part of why Dark Kingdom for the SFC has never been translated is that the way the script was stored makes it difficult to rip).

Got a story on why that happened? Just curious as to why a fansite for a series that isn't tremendously popular would get targeted for that.

Yeah, people here seem thankfully much more willing to call out cancer. And in regards to Viccy, I remember, either back on half/v/ or JRPGG on half/vg/ (possibly both, but it was years back and the memories all kind of flow together), you'd get rather loud faggots praising Working Design's work, as their rewrite-tier dialogue changes injected "charm" and "made otherwise boring JRPG stories passable". Even at the time, having not played stuff like Lunar yet, something about that sort of sentiment felt off to me. But as I was still rather new to JRPGs myself at the time I started to actively lurk threads on the matter (usually for ideas of what else to backlog), I can't say if that was a longstanding sentiment there, or if those sort of "WD did nothing wrong" types started showing up more after a certain point, perhaps once the site started getting more popular.

It's a shame that JRPG threads here tend to be few and far between, while /vg/ is pretty much dead and /jrpg/ was admittedly unwarranted (too narrow a topic).

I want to play all the breath of fire games, should I just download the games that I find, or are there any editions I should look for?

With the first game, the SNES original and GBA port. Use the same script, and there's no retranslation option. Not sure off the top of my head how much of a color/audio difference there is between the GBA and SNES versions (given the usual status of SNES-to-GBA port jobs), but I think the GBA version does have an added run function for the field. I'd have to check if anyone's since hacked it into the SNES version as well. Breath of Fire II also has the same official translation between the SNES and GBA versions in the west; a translation which was notoriously bad. The SNES version does have a full fan retranslation courtesy of Watercrown though, so that should be the version you go for; I don' think anyone's bothered to recode it for the GBA port. Breath of Fire III's PSP port has some differences/changes compared to the original, but the PS1 original is quite good. To be fair though, I don't see the PSP version brought up much, which makes me think most anons likely gravitate to the PS1 original. Likewise, with Breath of Fire IV, I don't hear much about the PC port other than it existing; PS1 seems to be the go-to, but I think in the west the game is censored either way. Dragon Quarter is PS2 only. I don't think any of the games saw any Director's Cuts or the like (the way, say, Shadow Hearts: Covenant did in Japan), so you shouldn't have to worry about that either.

20 years? Don't that just beat all.

Couldn't tell you for absolute certain since I stopped frequenting long before it closed. What I hear about its end comes from secondhand sources. To their telling, it was just a group of assholes constantly trying to put the site offline until Casey just said "fuck it" and closed the domain entirely.

I still own my copies of Silver Star Complete and Eternal Blue complete. Which means I still have access to that pompous "Behind the scenes" disc they did for both games. I remember watching them quite passively when I was little, thinking all the technicals looked cool right up until they said they took the old man just outside of the Frontier's reach with the air balloon and changed all his dialogue to add in fart jokes. Both that, and the hick redneck incest town left me puzzled. Nowadays it just makes me angry.

I say angry because most of the original talent that worked on Lunar is either out of the business or dead, now. The story they wanted to tell with those two games got fucked largely by Ireland's influence and Ireland's gambling that he would be the face of localization. That shit taints the legacy of the great stories those that have passed on left behind.

I feel you on the rpg front. I'd rather not be angry remembering this stuff, but getting/keeping conversation is next to impossible unless you want to talk current trends. Which I'm sadly not equipped to do because western style rules the trends and that is not my cup of tea.

That sucks. Still makes me wonder why it would be targeted though. Was that back when the series was still actively alive, or after it went dormant during that time from Dragon Quarter until that mobile cancer BoF6 was announced?

Given how the NA version of Dragon Song (handled by Ubisoft, no less) proudly proclaims that it was "by the original creators of Lunar: The Silver Star" on the cover, I have to question how many of those creators were left at that point, if they were senile, or if Ubisoft was outright bullshitting.

And now he continues to taint games like Summon Night out here, because Namco can't be bothered to handle it themselves, or even outsource it to Atlus, who had handled SCS1 and 2 and Twin Age prior. I can only pray that someday Lunar 1 and 2 can receive retranslation efforts, though I could see some of the existing fans get up in arms about someone wanting to "waste their time" or whatever.

I know what you mean. Holla Forums's primary focus naturally gravitates towards discussing (and often times justifiably shitting on) current games, systems, and industry trends, and unfortunately due to the nature of how all video game discussion seems forced to come back to Holla Forums, older games, or just plain niche stuff, doesn't really have a good, active home, meaning you've got to wait (if you're not to type to create them yourself; there some subjects I'm always up for discussion of but I'm not sure how many others would be interested) for a proper thread for a game/series/genre here and hope it gains traction of good quality, instead of rotting in the catalog or getting shitposted to death. I miss JRPGG being a place to get discussion on their topic of choice at any time of day or night, but not enough to ever go back to halfchan. So I have to take what little I can get here.

GBA version also has a lower encounter rate and I'm pretty sure it has an updated combat UI

I respect what he did on Lunar 1/2. Not because I'm a shit-eating retard who prefers the bowdlerized rewrites and scripts, but because that man had the balls to go all-out with it. He never makes any pretenses that 'you're getting the full experience!" - no, he just outright rewrites it all and inserts whatever the fuck he wants based loosely on the source.

I can respect that, and I find that sort of confident, upfront fuckery vastly preferable to the new-age slick-dick they try to jimmy into your unsuspecting anus. That said, in an ideal world both sorts would fuck right off.

I'll have to contemplate murder if Ireland ever gets his hands on [email protected]/* */

Of what, Breath of Fire I GBA? I hadn't heard of that, but if so, it's certainly a perk for it. Shame Capcom couldn't be bothered to retranslate it or BoF II when they brought the GBA versions over though. I highly doubt they were unaware of the reputation BoF II's SNES script had in particular, and yet just went right on ahead with porting it over.

I think both but it's been a long time so I'm not 100%. Anyway for BoFII if I'd say go for the fan retranslation.

Thanks, user

don't forget motherfucking scias who was originally habitually drunk but got "fixed" to be an autist

Nah, he's the same. I dunno where that rumor came from.

Was that back when the series was still actively alive, or after it went dormant during that time from Dragon Quarter until that mobile cancer BoF6 was announced?

Far after BoFV/Dragon Quarter came out. It went down around 2010 or so—I recall this because I used to actually get birthday wishes from the script set on the forum and I stopped getting them around that time.

That game wasn't developed by Game Arts. Marvelous got publishing rights and had Japan Arts Media develop it. What makes that strange is that JAM helped develop the Lunar titles for the Saturn, to it wasn't like they didn't know how to make a Lunar game. My beef with the game isn't even the story, as I think the story's mediocre but serviceable. The problem is the gameplay is an outright fucking nightmare that should have never been birthed. There's no value to playing that game unless you've hacked it.

As far as future installments, contrarian as it is, I don't want anymore Lunar games. I don't want the series to come to a sad publisher conclusion like Grandia did. Technically it did (Dragon Song), but recall there was a Game Arts remake that XSEED published for the PSP which is a fairly good love letter to the Silver Star Story. I'd much rather they end on that note. Hell, if anything, I'd request Game Arts and Ninty work together and brink The Walking School/Magic School Lunar to international audiences.

As for Summon Night, it's a writeoff. I want nothing to do with anymore of the western releases and have, in fact, bought all of the PSN/PSP Japanese versions. Much more satisfying than Ireland's shitty handling. Reminder: this bastard wants hands on the [email protected]/* */ titles as well and fully-intends to delet any/all sexual innuendo, jokes, or references within because he hates loli.

You do get the good gem here and there. There's a Wild ARMs bro that pops up during JRPG threads who's damned fun to talk with, and actually is the reason I bought those games again despite saying I didn't need to as I already have the originals. And going through each of them is just as fun as I remembered.


I remember this rumor, and honestly it escapes me just how far it goes. But iirc there ARE some elements to Scias that were toned down in the western release. It's hard to recall since unlike the other games in the franchise, I only ran through BoF IV twice. He's a stuttering retard in English, that much I do remember.

He's the same in Japanese. I was aware of the rumor beforehand so I made sure to pay extra attention to him when I played the Japanese version, and there was nothing about him being a drunkard or whatever.

Something I'll keep an eye out for when I do my third run. That guy was always hard to really figure out so I often ended up ignoring him against my best efforts.

I just bought a snes controller and I was about to download both games. Any recommendations? Should I play the remakes instead?

nevermind already posted

Dragon Song is a absolute pile of shit and only worked to help bury the game series for good. Nothing about it works. Anyone who had a hand in its making should be killed on sight.

I know it's kinda of a nitpick, but I wish the series didn't died with the PSP remaster. Yes it's a remaster, don't let them fool anyone thinking it's a remake. RE for gamecube? Remake. WA alter code F for ps2? Remake. This? Remaster. Though it is a good remaster. I still wanted the franchise to had at least 3 more games before it was over for good. Why?

Because of those two. I wonder if it was just me, but when lunar 2 came out, I always thought we would have two other Lunars, because it kinda looked like each of the main games would have a dragon of each color that shows in the game (white, red, blue and black) to go with. So, we got white and red, still need blue and black. And then, a game like "Langrisser V: The End of Legend" which would show all four of them and tie all games together, ending franchise in a majestic way. So it just feels weird to me ending franchise with just Eternal Blue.

Huh so that's why some people love and other people hate VIc. I do wonder how game story and characters would be different in the original script…

Ah, I would guess that would make for a nice indicator of something going down if their automated scripts stop sending stuff. I still get a birthday emails from a few forums I used to use, despite having stopped posting and frequenting them for probably over fifteen years.

I know what you mean. Better for a series to end on a decent note (or at least a game that's solid in gameplay, even if the rest can be prone to being hit or miss) than a game that is a massive flop all around.

Glad you've been enjoying returning to a series that quickly became a favorite of mine.


What I'm curious about is why the first Lunar saw so many ports and varients, while Lunar 2 only saw a PS1 port (remake? Not sure as to which exactly is the case) in addition to its original release.


Given some of the reactions I've seen over the years, I speculate that some of the people that liked how Vic and Working Designs "spiced up" the scripts were people that weren't real prone to enjoying JRPGs in the first place, given how they'd complain in the same post about how otherwise "bland" an accurate script for such games are. In retrospect they came off a bit as being apologists for these "translators" that are more along the lines of creative writers that can't find work writing their own games, and thus do reimaginings of other peoples' works. Just my own thoughts though, and I'm not sure how often WD tended towards rewrites with the other games they handled, or if it was mostly the Lunar games that got hit with it.