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Review  Breath of Fire 2
- By Eric Tajchman
[Associate Editor]
It’s been a recent trend to revive classic SNES on the Game Boy Advance. Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, Earthworm Jim, and Aero the Acrobat are just a few examples. Now, Capcom revives its classic Breath of Fire RPG series for the Game Boy Advance to deliver one of the best RPGs out for the handheld.
The game takes place 500 years after the original Breath of Fire and the mystical powers of the Dragon Clan have been long forgotten. You play as Ryu, a descendant of the brave Dragon Clan leader of the same name. One day, Ryu’s father, Ganer, asks him to find his sister, Yua. Ryu finds Yua at the front of a dragon mountain shrine. A monster attacks Ryu and Yua, and Ganer saves them. Ganer asks why Yua is out in this dangerous area, and she replies that when she sleeps by the mountain, her dead mother comes into her dreams. They talk, and decide to head back to talk about their mother, but Yua tells Ryu he should sleep in front of the mountain so that he may see his mother. He does so and when he awakes he heads back to the village. However, no one seems to recognize him, and his family is gone. He must search out what happened to his family and ultimately embark on a quest to save the world.
Gameplay:
There’s good news and bad news; fortunately, the good strongly outweighs the bad. It’s a long game, I’d say quite a bit longer than Golden Sun. The story this time around is much better than the first and is much more complex. The game itself is a traditional RPG-style interface. You travel on an overworld map, visiting town and cavern, and engaging in random battles. The game is nonlinear, and many twists and turns can differentiate one game from another. The world is huge, the environments are varied, and spells and abilities are both traditional and unique. Breath of Fire 2 has a fusion-type system where you can fuse different elemental shamans with a character, making the character stronger. Though this is not a necessity to progress through the game, if used properly, this can be extremely powerful and effective.
The battles themselves come quite often, which I’ll explain later, so you’ll have a lot of time to almost familiarize yourself with how the battle system works. Breath of Fire 2 features one of the more complex turn-based battle systems. You have the traditional options: attack, defend, run, item, magic. However, Breath of Fire 2 goes beyond and gives you the option to choose a formation that offers a different incentive during battle: normal, scramble, defense, and parallel. You also have the option of an Automated battle, where the computer can battle for you. This is one of the greatest features in the game as the random battles are . . . rather frequent.
There are only three major faults in this game: dialogue, spell/item identification, and random battles. The dialogue in this game is true to the SNES version, bad Japanese translation and all. The way the characters speak sounds very unnatural and a lot of times it’s hard to discern what you’re supposed to do from the NPCs. Also, neither the game nor the manual includes a list or description of what a lot of spells and items do. I still have no clue what some of the special combat abilities do, as when I used them, the character did nothing until the next turn. The item descriptions given in the game are also plagued by the translation problem. For instance, many items are described as “Used only during fighting,” and don’t actually tell you what they do. Finally, the random battles in this game are the most aggravating I’ve ever seen in an RPG. Every five steps you’ll hit another one, and when the game requires you to traverse back and forth across a very large map, this becomes extremely frustrating. Without the Auto Battle feature, I would have had lesser thoughts about this game.
Aesthetics:
The game is well designed but as it is just a port of the SNES version, it doesn’t utilize what the GBA can do, so it’s not as graphically impressive as Golden Sun. The game uses a bright color palette, which makes the game look neat and organized. The menu system is also organized and visually appealing. The battles are a little disappointing, as the spell and attack animations are modest and weak at first. More advanced attacks and spells that you obtain later on in the game do increase in size and flare, but are still a little weak. Overall, the graphics get the job done, but not much more.
Control:
Controls are relatively great in this game. When not in battle, you can walk by pressing the directional pad, or you can dash by holding B and the D-Pad. You can also quickly shuffle between party order using the L and R shoulder buttons. Some characters also come with after-combat abilities, like fishing and hunting, while others come with overworld abilities, such as swimming and flying. Simply pressing A with the proper character in the overworld map can perform these abilities.
Sound:
The music and sound effects are nothing impressive. The overworld music does fit the mood most of the time, but the same music is kept throughout the game, so it will quickly become repetitive. The battle music does change as you progress further into the game, but because you’re going to be in so many random battles, this also becomes redundant. The sound effects are also less than impressive. Battle sounds and spell effects are just way too tinny and small. They don’t take away from the game, but they don’t add the awe and marvel that larger sounds could have.
Multiplayer:
Yes it seems that every game, nowadays, has to have at least some sort of player connectivity. In Breath of Fire 2, you can link up with a friend and . . . exchange items. Yep, instead of offering a colosseum-type place where you can battle your friends, you can only swap items, and just about all items in the game can be easily purchased or found.
OVERALL:
Capcom delivers one of the greatest Game Boy Advance RPGs. There’s not a lot that separates itself from the original SNES version, so those who have played it on the SNES should not expect anything new. If you’ve never experienced a Breath of Fire game, I suggest picking up Breath of Fire2. It won’t be the best RPG you’ll ever play, but it is definitely one the most entertaining Game Boy Advance titles out there.
The Lowdown on  Breath of Fire 2
| Aesthetics: Above Average |
Control: Very Good |
| Gameplay: Very Good |
Multiplayer: Below Average |
| Sound: Average |
Innovation: 4/6 |
| Lasting Appeal: 5/6 |
Rating Explanation |
Overall: Very Good!
"A Must-Buy"
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This game is:
Very Good
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IN A
NUTSHELL: |
| Capcom revives its classic Breath of Fire RPG series for the Game Boy Advance to deliver one of the best RPGs out for the handheld. |
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