Breath of Fire II (Wii Virtual Console)
Whenever anyone mentions RPGs (Japanese style, rather than, say, Neverwinter Knights) conversation rapidly moves to Final Fantasy. As a result there’s little or no talk about the other awesome RPG franchises on the SNES. Foremost of these is the Breath of Fire series. This goes for me as well – I hadn’t played a Breath of Fire game (for some reason I missed it on the GBA) before it appeared on virtual console and my first reaction (at a little over three hours in) is WOW.
From the title screen onwards, the game oozes 8-bit high production values. The music is beautiful, alternating between mournful, epic, sweeping and joyous as the situation demands. The story is involved, passionate, and a good deal more adult than many similar titles.
Underneath is a solid RPG engine with random encounters, turn based combat and all the usual trappings. The animations, however, are where it stands out – it animates more like Fire Emblem than Final Fantasy, with colourful, detailed sprites leaping about and making sword slashes.
Anyhoo – I’ve barely scratched the surface at the moment. I’m sure more coherent commentary will be made once I’m a little further in.
December 3, 2007 at 10:34 pm
although i agree with most of the above, it should really be dragonwarrior/dragonquest that comes up instead of b.o.f
i’d go so far as to say the dragonquest game on the ps2 (8) i think, is the finest rpg i’ve ever played. evar.
so there.