GamesJRPGBreath of Fire IVRevisiting this 24-year-old JRPG classic from the PS1 era proves there’s no smoke without fireWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesJRPGBreath of Fire IVRevisiting this 24-year-old JRPG classic from the PS1 era proves there’s no smoke without fireWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Capcom)
Capcom’s Breath of Fire series was always a solid performer, but it played second fiddle to Square and Enix’s JRPGs throughout the ’90s. The fourth instalment – released on PS1 after Final Fantasies VII-IX had redefined the genre, and attention was turning to PS2 – was never going to buck the trend. Yet those who gave it a chance found a compelling adventure with new tricks of its own.
Breath of Fire 4 is still a traditional JRPG, and while not a direct continuation of previous games, it retains their recurring motifs. As ever, the main character is a boy named Ryu, who discovers he can turn into a dragon. And it should surprise no JRPG veteran to learn that Ryu is an amnesiac, whose destiny intertwines with that of a godlike being recently awakened from a long slumber. Naturally, before the two meet in a final showdown, Ryu assembles a gang of fight-happy friends and gets embroiled in the political shenanigans between two warring continents.
Burning down the house
(Image credit: Capcom)
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This feature first appeared in PLAY magazine -Subscribe here to save on the cover price, get exclusive covers, and have it delivered to your door or device every month.
Expect the usual cocktail of towns, dungeons, plot twists, and random battles, then, plus occasional distractions like rearranging barrels or searching for kids playing hide-and-seek. Oh, and fishing. No fantasy RPG is complete without its angling subgame, and Breath of Fire 4 contains one of the more comprehensive examples. Ignore your quest and you can while away hours on rivers, lakes, and oceans hooking anything from jellyfish to whales.
It’s not only the lure of the aquatic that makes Breath of Fire 4 one of the better JRPGs of its time, though. For one thing, it has some great characters, drawing on the series' penchant for human-animal hybrids to bring us the likes of fox-eared military girl Ursula and Scias the mercenary sword-spaniel. Wisely, when it came to depicting this crew and the land around them, Capcom didn’t try to compete directly with the cinematics of Final Fantasy. Instead, chunky sprites are laid over polygonal backgrounds, showing off Tatsuya Yoshikawa’s striking character designs. It’s a forward-thinking step that fills the world with personality, right down to routine monster encounters against square-jawed dinosaurs and bipedal mammoths.
All these neat touches weren’t enough to change the fortunes of the series, however, and when Capcom got more experimental with the fifth game on PS2, the results were even less favourable. Breath of Fire was put on ice, and since then there’s only been one short-lived revival, a free-to-play mobile and browser game in 2016 that never made it out of Japan. It’s fair to say the series' flame has been extinguished for good now, but Breath of Fire 4 is still worth tracking down, to see how brightly it once burned.
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1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
1Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
1
Nemesis review: “A magical sense of tension”
2Arcs review: “A whole lot of game in a small package”
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Arcs review: “A whole lot of game in a small package”
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Path of Exile 2 review: “A stellar start to a thrilling and brutal dark adventure”
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