Introduction

Breath of Fire is an RPG released on the SNES in 1993 and later rereleased on the Gameboy Advance in 2001. It contains the standard fantasy fare of dragons, magical powers, adventurous princesses and an epic quest to save the world. There’s nothing truly mindblowing about it, but it’s not terrible either. It’s a solid game with some decent (If very, very repetitive) music and memorable characters.

The Story
The story of Breath of Fire is pretty simple. Centuries before the game begins, a wish-granting goddess named Tyr descended from the heavens. The Dragon Clan that governed the world was attracted to her power and beauty, and it didn’t take long before the clansmen began to fight amongst themselves for the goddess’s favor. Tyr herself spurred on the carnage, reveling in the destruction and chaos.

The conflict grew to such a degree that the Dragon Clan was split into two warring factions, the Light Dragons and the Dark Dragons. In the end a hero from the Light Dragon clan stepped forward and, with his seven companions, sealed the goddess away, binding her with six keys.

Years later the Dark Dragon Clan have begun making attempts to unseal the goddess. Unfortunately, the Light Dragons chose to withdraw from the world after the great war, allowing the Dark Dragons to rampage unimpeded. And thus it is that a single hero must step forward to stop the Dark Dragon clan and put an end to the revival of the goddess.

Essentially your typical fantasy plotline.

The Gameplay
Breath of Fire is a turn-based jRPG with a World Map, featuring plenty of dungeon exploration and journeys to exotic locales. Characters all fulfill specific roles – you have the all-rounder hero with a special power, the party healer, the ranged attacker, the black mage, the slow but strong bruiser, etc.

My Thoughts:
Breath of Fire and its sequel, Breath of Fire II, remain two of my favorite jRPG’s. Some of that has to do with the fact that they were some of the first RPG’s I played when I got my Gameboy Advance way back when, but coming back to them now I’m surprised at how threadbare the narrative is. This is naturally a disadvantage in some respects, but it also allows the player to come away with their own views on how a character thinks and feels and the reasons they have for doing what they do.

With that in mind, I’m going to try my hand at a narrative-style LP. Normal in-game character dialogue will be typed normally, whereas my own additions will be in italics. Through this I hope to fill in some of the gaping holes in the game's own narrative, as there are a number of times when the text simply doesn't tell the player where to go next.

Hopefully it won’t turn into some sort of bizarre Breath of Fire fanfic. I'm sure I can count on the gentlegoons residing here to tell me if it happens.

After this is done I have plans to LP Breath of Fire II at some stage, so there’s also that to look forward to.

Let’s Play Details
This will be a screenshot LP of the GBA version of the game. I will also post videos for most of the boss battles, so you can have fun watching me flail around like an idiot. I'll be posting the SNES version of the soundtrack as we go, since it's far superior to the GBA's compressed version. Since the music can get extremely repetetive I won't be reposting the tracks every single time they pop up.

The Let's Play Archive

Breath of Fire

by Scintilla

Introduction

Table of Contents

Extra Content