Gameplay, Story and Value:

The Breath of Fire series marks Capcom's entry point into the RPG genre. Breath of Fire II takes place many years after the first game, and while it does borrow elements and makes a few nods to the original, there's hardly any, if any, story connection between the two games. This is to say, you don't need to play Breath of Fire before Breath of Fire II. The game is, for all intents and purposes, your typical JRPG affair. You'll wander the world map fighting monsters for XP and Zenny, leveling up, buying new equipment, finding new companions, all in the name of saving the world from an ancient evil.

That's not to say Breath of Fire II is complete devoid of any originality of course. The story of Ryu and his Dragonbrood lineage is an interesting one, and the steady reveal of its relevance to the events of game keep it compelling while still allowing for other characters' stories to develop. Speaking of other characters, all seven of the companions you'll meet over the course of the game have large story arcs serving to really flesh out the personality of your party. As a result, even characters I initially didn't like at all (Sten) eventually grew on me after more of their backstory was revealed.

Combat is fun and fluid, and the addition of Auto Battle goes a long way in speeding things up. I'd be lying if I said I didn't desperately miss the macro system from Phantasy Star IV, but I know I won't be seeing anything like that anytime soon, so it's best not to worry about it. Every character has a unique ability both in combat and for use in the field. Bosch, for example, can use the Snipe ability in combat which has a small chance to instantly kill an enemy, while in the field he can enter hunting grounds to take down wild game for meat. Ryu, as in all Breath of Fire games, has the ability to transform into a dragon to deal massive damage to the enemy, at the cost of all of his AP.

The grind in Breath of Fire Ii is a slow one. Very slow. So slow, in fact, that the GBA port of the game actually doubled all XP gains, and tripled the amount of Zenny you get from combat! While the difficulty curve is pretty smooth across the game, you will still find yourself needing to take the time to grind levels and farm Zenny in order to purchase the best available gear. The money problem is most noticeable early in the game, especially when you only have Ryu in your party which makes combat significantly more difficult. After a point you'll be able to make clever use of game mechanics to permanently solve your cash flow issues, though I found that even without doing that you'll find yourself practically rolling in Zenny by the last leg of the game.

Breath of Fire II's story excels, I think, in its subtlety. You know from the outset that there are ominous forces at work, but it's a nice, slow buildup before you really understand what those forces are. It's very well done, and has a fun way of sneaking up on you. While the main cast of characters are great, the supporting characters are just as interesting. As you travel the world you'll find that nearly every settlement, city and kingdom has been touched by this underlying evil, and learning how and to what extent is always fun. The payoff is good as well, with all the major plot points getting tied up nicely as well as three possible endings.

In addition to the main story line, you can occupy your time with fishing, hunting and, best of all, expanding your very own town! Early in the game you'll unlock Township, your own personal plot of land where you can commission the construction of housing and recruit residents from around the world to move in and offer various services. The system is fun, if not as fleshed out as it could be, and you'll probably want to consult a guide before inviting people to move in as once a choice has been made, it's permanent. Township also provides you the ability to fuse your characters with various shamans you'll find around the world. These shamans offer a level of gameplay all their own, both in finding and collecting them, as well as the various effects you'll receive from combining them with your party members.

Eventually you'll have all the tools necessary to travel the world by land, sea and sky. With this ability you'll quickly find that not only are there many secrets to unlock throughout the world, but that there also seems to be a lot of wasted space. I realize I'm nitpicking here, but it's hard not to notice how much empty sky and ocean you'll spend your time traveling over.

That's a very minor complaint, and there are certainly others. At times the random encounter rate can seem astronomically high with battles triggering in as few as three steps. There are items in the game meant to reduce the encounter rate, but after using them I noticed virtually no difference. The menu system works well enough, but with items only stacking to 9 (if they stack at all) in addition to a limited inventory space, item management can get tedious. Similarly, your characters will get several skills throughout the game and with no rhyme or reason to their sorting, or the ability to sort them manually, you'll spend a lot of time hunting through your skill list to find the ability you actually want to use.

Of course there are also some great little features added. The Trade option in armories allows you to compare equipment, sell currently equipped gear, and buy and equip your new piece all in a single step. Additionally, when all of your party members fall you don't get a game over, but instead are returned to a previous save point with all your progress left intact. You'll lose half your Zenny, though even this can be circumvented by depositing it in a bank before setting out.

Presentation, Music and Sound:

Visually, Breath of Fire II delivers in spades, and I think I even prefer Capcom's bright colors and large sprites over the graphical styling of Squaresoft's offerings on the SNES. Characters are all highly detailed and full of personality. The unique fantasy of the game is further emphasized by the anthropomorphic nature of your entire party (Yes even Ryu) as well as the majority of the NPC's. Battle backgrounds are all well drawn and, when applicable, well animated. There's not a huge amount of variety in the different environments across the world, but the consistency does make sense. Still, it's not hard to spot the very frequent re-use and re-coloring of many of the game's assets from start to finish. That doesn't make them any less enjoyable to look at, however.

Animations, both in regards to basic attacks as well as the multitude of special abilities, are all smooth and fun to watch. It's worth noting that every single enemy and boss in the game is fully animated, which is just fantastic.

The music on offer is all very good and memorable, and perfectly compliments the gameplay moments in accompanies. In addition, the overworld music will change based on what point in the game you're at, making for a good way of noting chapter progression. The sound effects are all mostly what you'd expect from the genre, which is to say they're all pretty good, especially the nice dragon roars you get during transformations.

Regarding the Re-Translation:

It wouldn't be fair to review what I played without making special mention of the amazing re-translation by d4s and Ryusui. I wanted to continue playing my games on actual hardware, so I went ahead and commissioned a reproduction of the game with applied re-translation patch to go along with my original cartridge.

What I realized in playing this game is just how amazing it really, and just how much the poor localization betrays that. To quote Ryusui, "...imagine running an entire script through Babelfish, if Babelfish could be trusted not to completely mangle every single sentence put through it. That's BoFII's translation in a nutshell: a slavish, artificial-sounding, word-for-word conversion from the Japanese script to English."

It's true.

It's bad enough that the translation does severe damage to the interface resulting in weirdly truncated item, spell and character names, but it completely undermines the breadth and sincerity of the story, and robs the characters of all of their personality. Basically, you end up with a game that's simply impossible to take seriously. The re-translation fixes all of these issues, even adding little features like a dash button and animated/vocalized introduction to the game, as well as a much better font. Here's some comparison shots from the very beginning of the game, original on the left and re-translated on the right:

I recommend the translation to anyone who's never played Breath of Fire II before, or for those like me who played it many years ago and are interested in playing it again. Here's an interview with Ryusui with more information on the patch.

Afterthoughts:

It's hard not to just restate everything I've already said in this review, but the fact is that playing through this game with a proper localization took Breath of Fire II from being a semi-obscure SNES RPG that I thought was "pretty cool" to what I can easily say is one of my favorite RPG's on the console.

I can't wait to play Breath of Fire III.

Review:

Playthrough:

Finished 4/9/20. Some spoilers.

Many many years after experiencing this for the first time, I've finally made it through. I give it a solid 3 stars. Decent graphics, okay music, nice enemy design, satisfying-feeling battle system, marred a little by difficulty level, very stingy rare item drops, and a lot by the shit translation.

The story is interesting (maybe the first of all of these "hey let's go kill god!" games?) and I understand the re-translation is quite nice, but unfortunately I don't have access to it. That leaves a laughably bad script in place. While the ideas are communicated, it's obvious this was a total hack job and lots of nuance, clarity, character development, and plot direction are muddled. Mix in the awful menu items and character/enemy names and inconsistencies, and... yikes. It's too bad because the game really is good and the story interesting. There are good moments though, such as Tiga's "That's not a god, it's just a fraud!" or Deathevn's "I will rend the flesh from your bones. Killing you is only a start·· There will be songs written about the beauty of the pain that I shall inflict on you all!" That's pretty dark.

Speaking of, I'm a bit shocked at what Nintendo let through on this title. Tons of references to God, religion, church, saints, a spell called Angel, death, killing, execution, some blood, and so on. I can't think of a single other US SNES title that has as little censorship of the subject matter as this one.

I guess my last gripe is with the music. I like a lot of it, but compared to other games of the time, or even BoF1, it's just lacking. Every tune is super short for some reason. And because they're so short, the music really starts to grate on you after a while. The dungeon music is awful and insanely annoying. I keep thinking of FF6's final boss music which is what, 12 or so minutes without loops? BoF2's is 46 seconds. That's with a six bar (plus two beats :) intro.

Oh, just kidding, my last last gripe is a naming thing. Beyond many of the wrong translations and then messing the names up again in or out of battle (Algernon becomes Owljornan). But anyways, the big bad - Deathevn? Deathevan? Deathevans? St. Eva? Eva? Evan? Evans? I answer a question near the end of the game about his name being Evans and then when you meet him, his name is Evan. ..That probably sums this game up the best. :)