Man, what an insane step up from Breath of Fire 1 and 2. I was able to appreciate 2 immensely thanks to the fan retranslation which included some qol updates, but thinking back to my playthrough of 1, and how much of a slog it was compared to this game, it's night and day. One thing that helps is that the translation is actually pretty good - there was the occasional odd reading line of dialogue, and full stops are never used to punctuate sentences, for some reason, but for me, one of the most important, defining things that Breath of Fire 3 does is that it takes the unique quirks that worked in its predecessors, and really goes in on them, to the point that there's just such an overwhelming amount of charm that it easily stands out compared to its contemporary jrpgs of the ps1. From the expressiveness of the character sprites, to the groovy soundtrack, the many poignant story beats, even the minigames. It doesn't have the most complex, philosophical jrpg narrative or fleshed out characters, nor does it have the most mechanically engrossing gameplay, but almost every moment of this game was just really fun.

If I had to compare this to anything, it'd be Dragon Quest V. If you love that game as much as I do, you'll love this too, the similarities are evident from the get-go, but this game does a lot to still give itself its own identity.

This game also has Momo so it's literally impossible for it to be bad.