A Conversation: Breath of Fire 3

TLDR: I dive in depth to a recent playthrough of an all-time favorite JRPG of mine and how this playthrough changed my sentimental view on an old classic.

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Every year I try to play through an older JRPG I played when I was younger, and this year I decided to tackle Breath of Fire 3. Breath of Fire 3 had always been listed as my #3 JRPG(Behind Chrono Trigger and Suikoden 2), and actually had several impacts on my real life, that I wanna touch on before discussing the game. BoF3 came out shortly before my parents divorced, and I started renting it from the local video store when I'd visit my dad on the weekend. Drawn to the game, as I had recalled my older brother playing Breath of Fire 1 on the SNES years ago, it became a staple of my weekend visits. Friday I'd go down to the video store, and returning it shortly before my return trip to my Mom's on Sunday. For the longest time I didn't have a memory card because I couldn't convince my dad that I needed one for the Playstation, so I would leave the Playstation on all weekend, and restart over from the beginning each weekend. I think I only made it to an adult one time before I did finally get a memory card. I started going to the GameFaqs site and eventually the message board they had, where several regulars had made a social post where people chatted and discussions were had on everything. Some of the members included speedrunners, guide writers, and just a bunch of JRPG lovers. After being a regular member for a number of years, I met DavidK519(Writers of the best and likely well known BoF3 Guide) in person, as we lived near each other, and had been chatting for years via the message board. Not long after we staged a small gathering with some other members at a nearby Theme Park, and forged some lasting memories.

Now that I've explained the importance of BoF3 to me, onto my thoughts and experiences with my first playthrough in a decade...

I. The Beginning:
To start off, I love the beginning of the game, it feels like a well designed hands off tutorial. Initially you have the section at the beginning where you awaken as a dragon and get to see the destructive power of the Brood, as you burn through the miners in your path. After that, you're quickly introduced to Teepo and Rei(Funny enough I pronounced his named Re instead of Ray until very recently), who serve as great hand holders, as they are both consistently more powerful than Ryu, allowing you a lot of room to learn the combat system, and on later playthroughs, use them to set yourself for an overpowered Ryu. One of the complaints I noted in the beginning was that it was weird for Ryu to dream about Adult Teepo , as there is no establishment of Time Travel, and IMO, doesn't seem to serve any purpose other than making you question who that was. Myria I had no issue with, as that made sense by the end of the game. The first 2 bosses of the game are so much fun, with the Nue making you feel a bit bad for killing it, and McNeil making you feel like your group of troublemakers were becoming heroes. Which on a side note, McNeil Manor is probably in my top 10 favorite "Dungeons", as the outside interaction with the several of the guards is entraining, the miniboss fights with the animals around the manor being memorable, and the story device to separate your party was well done, and that's before even mentioning inside the manor! Inside the manor you get to explore this giant labyrinth of a house, filled with lots of entertaining minibosses, and a crying rich boy. All through this beginning, you get to see our Hero Ryu towed through these situations by Teepo and Rei, enthralled and overwhelmed, these feelings reflected in his actions, how he covers his eyes as he swings his sword, curls up into a ball to defend, and his idle animation showing him looking around nervously. This all culminates beautifully in the end of the Tutorial/Start with your defeat at the hands of Balio and Sunder , resulting in the disappearance and speculated death of your friends and caretakers. With this, the game established Ryu motivations to begin his journey to find his friends.

To makes things more interesting for myself during this part, I kept Ryu dead this entire time, so that Ryu would be Lv.1 after the separation, as Bunyan is available as a master at this point, and I was able to take full advantage of his stat buffs from the get go. This actually made the game quite a bit easier as Power is one of Ryu's most important stats, as his Dragon forms multiply this stat. Although he had lower AP than normal, I never ran into a situation where I ran out of AP before my Dragon form ended.

II. The Fearsome Brothers:
For here, things move quickly, with Ryu's capture, imprisonment, and meeting with the BoF Motif Princess Nina. Ryu's actions here quickly change, going from the scared child, to the Princess's Protector. This is seen in how he now confidently swings his sword, stands up straight and braces while he defends, and his idle animations changing to apple eating. Ryu is now your best character, with the addition of his ability to transform into a Dragon, and most of your boss battle strategies revolving around Ryu. The theme in this section of the game really centers around the Capture, Escape, and Fleeing from Balio, Sunder , and their crew. This theme felt like it was starting to wear it's enjoyment as the section was ending. To touch on some quick thoughts on the highlights of this section, the crypts under the Wyndia Prison felt pretty Monotonous to me, but I did surprisingly remember the answer to the exit after all these years. Escaping from Fahl's bar was amusing and I loved the inclusion of Garr in that scene. The situation with the foreman at the top of Mt Boumore felt justifiable, but the part that always annoyed me, including this time around was Sunder catching up to you so quickly even though you disabled the controls on the lift. Momo's Tower was still kind of annoying, and I still think the group should have fought their way out instead, but the escape scene on the rocket is still hilarious. The Cave where you met Peco was much shorter than I had recalled, and I wasn't a fan of how Palet betrayed you, as it didn't feel well executed(Why would wanted criminals be able to set up a known inspection point on the main road?). The tournament of Champions is an absolute favorite section for me, with all three sets of boss fights being unforgettable. The resulting fight with Stallion felt like the perfect ending boss to this section of the game. I did find the part shortly after where you play as Nina in Castle Wyndia to be unnecessary tiresome, and the weakest part of this section.

During this section, I kept Momo at her initial Lv so I could put her under D'Lonzo ASAP. I also kept Peco out of my party until the end of this section so I put him under Fahl at Lv 1, and turn him into an absolute killing machine. I let Momo defeat the Dodai so I could get D'Lonzo's abilities ASAP. Following the end of this section, I transitioned Ryu from Bunyan to Giotto so he could finally start getting some AP. I unintentionally kept Nina low Lv, which ended up working out for me well when I unlocked Meryleep.

III. History of the Brood:
This next section of the game shifts the goal of our journey from our presumed dead friends to learning about Ryu's power and the history of his race. While this section of the game is rather small, they did a considerable job with the flow in this section. The training of Beyd to defeat Zig is easily a top 5 moment in the game. The exploration of the Lighthouse was a bit mundane, but the Boss Battle with Gazer was weirdly fun(Did you know if you blind this boss, he gives double EXP?). I feel like this would have been a better point to introduce the Faerie Village Management, but story wise I understand why they make you wait. Anyone else always feel bewildered by the 2 versions of dialogue with the Dolphin ? I found myself more annoyed this time around with Mt Zublo, as it felt like the environment gave a lot of unnecessary damage and my followers seemed to love walking through the lava and confusion steam. That being said, the boss fight with Gisshan, Scylla, and Charybdis remained one of my favorites in the game. I thought I would understand better what Gisshan 's deal was, but it still felt nonsensical to me, which seemed intentional. This led us to Angel Tower, and the closure of Ryu's childhood. The way Angel Tower was designed, made it feel like you ran into an obscene number of random encounters. That said, I loved the graveyard in the basement, the stone tablets listing the feats of the Guardians, and Garr's purpose for bringing you there(He was just trying to shoot for a clean 300).

During this section, I kept my party primarily to Ryu, Peco, and Momo. Thanks to my low Lv Nina, after unlocking the faerie village, I was able to put her under Meryleep to quickly unlock War Shout for Peco, and Momo's best skill, Shadowwalk. I decided to avoid doing any cheesing in Mt Zublo, as you can get tons of Exp there from both the easily killable Vulcans and the abusable Lava Men. I wanted to keep Ryu and Momo as low as I could until I unlocked Deis as a Master, as I intended to keep them under her for the remainder of the game. At the end of this section, I was only had 20 hours on my playthrough, and this kind of shocked me, as I had thought BoF3 was a long game.

IV. A New Purpose
This section starts with one of my favorite features of this game, the Time Skip. I've always been a huge fan of Time Skips in RPGs and Anime, as IMO it allow the world to breath new life into every aspect of it's world building while simultaneously evolving our core characters. Thinking of all the characters who would actively search for Ryu, Garr, to me, makes the most sense. He has this new purpose with determining if everything his life was based upon was as just and holy as he originally thought. I was actually surprised how short the Dauna Mine was, as I recalled it being much longer, but it was roughly 5 minutes between gaining control of Ryu and fighting the Dragon Zombie boss. This boss is actually where I started to have issues with the story, as we know the Brood are cataclysmically powerful, and with this boss we learn that there were some Brood that did want to fight back against the Goddess and her Guardians but something prevented them from doing so. I felt like this piece was never elaborated on further, causing the first crack in my relationship to the story. From here we get to explore the appropriately named Syn City, and a fun encounter with a random Weretiger. I loved that they used some of Rei's sound effects here, hinting at your close reunion. I loved reexploring McNeil village, and actually took the time to talk to every villager for their new dialogue. I loved how they executed the scene where you finally meet up with Rei again, finding out he was still alive, and how Teepo and Ryu have fueling his actions for the last decade. It still brings me joy to see Loki get torn up by Rei. The reunion with Nina felt underwhelming, but that feeling was quickly replaced but the raw destruction at Syn City. It did still annoy me that either no one died or they were all replaced by identical clones, but it is just a game. The leads us into the boss fight with Mikba which felt like an additional reward to an already tied up story thread. Rei motivation here for joining Ryu's journey felt like he had nothing better to do now, but honestly was a better reason than Nina's. The final section leads up back to the plant, and I personally didn't like the way they handled this piece of the story. It doesn't make sense to me that Palet would allow Momo to work there given that he had already betrayed her, she was the daughter of the man who had abandoned his research project, and she was studying a mutant that was a direct result of the research he was hiding. Palet was actually a pretty fun boss and we do unlock the best Dragon Gene here, Force! The conclusion of this section has us back in Wyndia in a scenario mirroring our last castle visit. Thankfully it is much more steamlined this time. I recall thinking as I went into this section that it didn't make sense that they found out who Rei was, but this time it kicked much more effectively for me.

During this part you're generally locked in on who your party will be, but as I obtained Rei, I decided to switch from a plan of using Rei/Peco to Momo/Peco as I had never before attempted a playthrough with Momo, and wanted to take steps to make this a different playthrough. I unlocked the Faerie Village Management, but wasn't as interested this time around on the mechanic as it's primarily focused on grinding random encounters.

V. Through the Eastern Checkpoint... Again:
As before, it was a lot of fun to check up on familiar faces like Beyd and Shadis. This section moves rather quickly with you traveling to Angel Tower, and a hilarious scene with Deis beating up Garr. The trip to meet Guardian Gaist took me longer than planned as I caught the tide wrong in the tidal caves resulting in frustration with the dungeon. The scene with Gaist felt a bit drug out, since they make you choose multiple times that you want the truth, but the fight itself was as epic as I remembered(Why didn't Garr get a sweet powerup transformation?). Now our lovely lady Deis can return to her recurring design with her lovely snake curves. I was luckily able to win the rope pulling game on the 1st try and the Angler boss went down easily, even though my Garr was vastly underleveled. Then our once adversary Zig joins the crew, reforging our view of his character. At this point it felt like they were really trying to extend out this section of the game by making you go to the fishing village to get information on the Legendary Mariner, leading to a quest to make Sushi so the mayor will provide you information. I was dreading the Sushi quest, and luckily I passed on my 1st try, I still found the whole thing cumbersome. Finally we meet the Legendary Mariner who expands the world building. It doesn't seem logical to me that a character who says he's not a mariner, and came from a desolate place across the ocean would then choose to live alone in a house on the ocean, but maybe it makes sense to others.

This was another short section, with the very end unlocking access to Deis as a master finally. At this point Momo has begun to become a Glass Cannon for me, with her competing with Ryu for damage, but unfortunately being 1 shot by just about everything.

VI. Across the Ocean, leading to the finale:
To start this section off, I love how they established the continent across the ocean, as we just know that it's impossible to get there and even if you get there it's filled with danger and death. It reminds me of things like the Demon Realm from Yu Yu Hakusho or the Blue Star in Lunar. To compare it to real life, like explorers of America, so far from home, no easy way to return, and danger awaits you everywhere. Exploring the Black Ship was also shorter than I recalled, as I believe boarding the Black Ship to reaching the other side of the ocean only took about an hour. Reaching the city of Kombinat, I had forgotten how robotic all the NPCs were, which felt like it kind of explained why the citizens didn't seem bothered by a giant ship at their dock. I quickly made my way through the next two dungeons of the Steel Grave and the Colony, which results in the crew being teleported back across the ocean. I love how bewildered the crew is after all their hard work and weeks of crossing the ocean, they end up back at square one. From here we unlock a quasi fast travel system to specific locations and the ability to go to the next section of the game Dragnier. When the crew steps off the portal, they find themselves in a village of Brood, where we find out there was another option to being slaughtered by the Guardians, in which they could just give up their powers. Shortly after we learn that there was a 3rd option, which they were also able to hide underground to avoid detection. This is where my previous crack in the story grew, as we now know the brood had multiple options other than just being slaughtered. It doesn't make sense to me that a race would willing be killed because they feared their own power when there was an option to flee, or hide, or for some, fight back. I was really hoping the discussion with the elder would address these issues I had, but it didn't and only re-implied the power the Brood had. Also, I forgot that you have to have Nina and Garr for this section, so it became rather tedious going from the Elder's room all the way outside multiple times to change my party. From the fight with the elder, we find out the Goddess is only a Desert of Death away. It's kind of funny that the guide actually gives you the wrong directions but the notes he gives you are the right directions. When I was a kid, I was stuck at this section for a long time because of the incorrect directions. I choose instead to use a short cut where you just aim yourself between the N Star and Fake N Star, as it was less tedious. Overall I do like the DoD, as it really emphasized the task at hand. To gloss over a few details, we begin to explore the Goddess's city of Caer Xhan and Myria Station. Before too long we run into an Old Friend, Teepo. While I knew this scene was coming it still brought me great joy to see Teepo again. I always enjoyed what they did with Teepo, although I wish they had expanded further on how he had gotten to Myria Station. I don't think Teepo had the personality to submit to Myria outright, but I can imagine a depressed Teepo, thinking his friends dead, and convinced his power is to blame, coming to that junction. Seeing Teepo revert to his Dragon Whelp upon defeat still tugs at my heart to this day. Just before we get to Myria, we're faced with several challenges that I actually wish more JRPGs would do. Preventing you from reaching Myria are several clones of previous bosses you've faced throughout the game. Some are left unchanged, while others have multiple copies or new abilities. I thought this was a great way to show how much you've grown throughout the game, which is what I think a lot of people love in RPGs. Finally we confront Myria, and I liked that she actually served a purpose other than the killing of the brood, which was her separating and containing the technological destruction on that continent. I've actually always wished for a game to explore what a world would be like after you've killed the God of that world, but I digress. We get a fun scene of Myria vanishing off your friends, but Yggdrasil/Peco preventing it, and appearance of her true form, calling back form from Breath of Fire 1. The fight, over too quickly, greeted me with the only anime cutscene in the game and one of my favorite songs playing during the credits. The game oddly makes you wait a long time at the FIN screen before allowing you to save your clear data, and it made me wonder if someone previously had shut the game off before they had the chance to save.

Just to quickly touch on the final section of the game, I was able to breeze through most of the content thanks to the master and skill system. I decided to drop all my ivory dice on the Elder Dragon, resulting in my team each gaining 5 levels. I probably would have finished the game around 34-35 hours but I decided to spend some time trying to farm the rare drops at the end of the game. After about 5 hours of trying for the Goo King Sword and Diana's Dress, I gave up and decided to finish the game. I thought it would be fun to get all the rare gear at the end, but it honestly became far too tedious due to the low drop rates, I would have been better off going to the DoD and getting the Royal Sword.

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Summary:
So I just put a lot of words down, many more than I expected but to summarize my thoughts, while I still enjoyed BoF3, I didn't enjoy it as much as I was expecting. The game was about 20-30 hours shorted than I expected, which kind of shocked me. The Master System, the Dragon System, and the Skill System were still as great as I remembered. The story unfortunately didn't live up to memory and it honestly felt like they couldn't find a compelling reason to explain the reason behind the ultimate goal of the game, which was "Why did the Brood die?". I loved the minigames scattered throughout the game and it's interesting that they had so many that were 1 time only, such as the Wood Chopping, the Rope-Pull, and the Sushi making. Fishing in this game is one of the best versions of fishing out there, although I decided to stop fishing at the very end, as I had unfortunately got unlucky and lost a couple of the rarest lures.

If you took the time to read all this, or you even just skipped to this point, what are your thoughts on Breath of Fire 3's story?
What are your memories playing this game?
What aspects of Breath of Fire 3 were your favorite? What were your least favorite?
Are there games that have had a similar important impact on your life?
And for fun, what's your Breath of Fire Chronological order? Mine's 5-4-1-2-3.