Breath of Fire was Capcom's answer to Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest and they mostly succeeded in putting forward a worthy contender. Built around the same JRPG rules established by the aforementioned competitors, it featured a serviceable, but somewhat dull story set in a pretty typical fantasy world.
Where the game shined for me was in the presentation of the combat, with an isometric view that allowed for the enemies and party to look more 3D than Final Fantasy while avoiding the lame first person view of games like Dragon Quest and early Phantasy Star games. You also had the ability to recruit quite a few people to your party who had unique abilities that could be used outside of combat. Unfortunately that's about where the innovative bits end.
The game is also marred by a ridiculously high random encounter rate and features an auto-battle option, presumably as a way to mitigate the boredom of so many repetitive battles. As I've said in other reviews, I hate auto-battle options because it's basically an admission from the developers that their game either isn't actually fun to play, or is incredibly tedious. Neither of these is particularly reassuring and it's the single worst aspect of the game.
Beyond that, the visuals and music are quite nice, and there's a decent world here to explore. As a first attempt to break into the JRPG genre, Capcom did a fine job with room for improvement in several areas for future titles in the series.
Where the game shined for me was in the presentation of the combat, with an isometric view that allowed for the enemies and party to look more 3D than Final Fantasy while avoiding the lame first person view of games like Dragon Quest and early Phantasy Star games. You also had the ability to recruit quite a few people to your party who had unique abilities that could be used outside of combat. Unfortunately that's about where the innovative bits end.
The game is also marred by a ridiculously high random encounter rate and features an auto-battle option, presumably as a way to mitigate the boredom of so many repetitive battles. As I've said in other reviews, I hate auto-battle options because it's basically an admission from the developers that their game either isn't actually fun to play, or is incredibly tedious. Neither of these is particularly reassuring and it's the single worst aspect of the game.
Beyond that, the visuals and music are quite nice, and there's a decent world here to explore. As a first attempt to break into the JRPG genre, Capcom did a fine job with room for improvement in several areas for future titles in the series.