While still Old School, the game's story and playability are Worth It

User Rating: 9 | Breath of Fire III PS
I've asked many of my friends about this game, and many of them tend to tell me how they've never played it, yet they've heard good things about it. Well finally I came to look on the Internet and found how many people both disliked it and liked it at the same time. I'm going to be quite honest in my opinions with this game, this review may seem too late for an old game, but i'm going to give it my all to this game that i've had so long. As my rating states, Breath of Fire III is very underappreciated. I asked around in my local Hollywood Video and many gamers I talk to there told me how the game's initial look reminds them of Final Fantasy, except with a different layout. Personally I am tired of hearing games compared to Final Fantasy, I'll be honest when I say that this game is what inspired me to continue playing RPGs. The game's story is mostly revolved around the main character, as is in many RPGs. The character of course looks to find more about themself as well as make friends with the people that he meets. In the process, he runs into the game's different in-game problems, such as the first village's bad harvest, also an issue later on with the dispirsing of a criminal syndicate. Though many of these issues are part of the main story, they don't give too big of hints until later about where the final portion of the game will take place. ----------------------------------------------------- Difficulty At the start of the game, it appears the game is going to be embarassingly easy. As in many games, one of the biggest keys to RPGs is levelling up and making characters strong enough to take on the hard events that will erupt upon you later. This is rather difficult to do to the fullest at the start of the game unless you are really serious about it. Many of the beginning monsters are just too easy for you to actually build experience on, and you actually will have to go into the harder battles while still unsure of yourself. This is one of the best aspects of Breath of Fire III though, in many large battles it will relate on how well you know your enemies and their weaknesses, though many of those boss battles, you will either find an obvious weakness, or you will find a hard time finding a weakness and mind wind up just beating the enemy to death old-school style. Towards the beginning of the game, you are given some hints as to how to defeat enemies rather easily, such as when fighting the Eye Goo, use blind, and when fighting the Nut People (Nut Mage, Nut Troop, etc) use Fire to burn them up. All in all, I enjoyed the game's versatility in the difficulty department, made me want to try things again and again to different approaches. ------------------------- Graphics While not too showy until you progress later on, some of the monsters look rather good for the game's time period, and the bosses also tend to look rather fearsome. ------------------------- Sound Some of the music was of course music you'd expect for the areas you were in, while other music, such as later on in the game, will actually sound very emotional and close to the heart. Other times you may also find comedical music. ------------------------- Value The game throws a little bit of everything at players, the game isn't all about combat as it may seem like, it throws a little bit of humor, drama, mystery, even some horror in some cases. In my opinion it makes this game a keeper, one that you'll want to replay over and over again to understand how it all unfolded correctly. ------------------------- Characters One word, Uniqueness. The characters you get in the game are completely unique in each and every way. When you camp in the game, you can speak to every character in your party to see what they are thinking in your current position. They will all have something different to say, and will all have different approaches to it. --------------------------- Added Bonus There's two things I want to speak highly of in Breath of Fire 3 that I find to be the most useful within the game. Well, two that are emphacized into more, but two nonetheless! 1: Master System: Probably THE most useful aspect in the game is the Master System that allows you to study under a teacher of some sort. There are many masters throughout the game that you can meet with and learn from. Masters will train you in their specialized skills, but as they do, some of the other skills they lack in, for your character as their apprentice, will not go up as fast when under a certain master. For example, if you were under the tutilege of Magus, the first Master you can meet, he will raise your character's Intelligence and AP (Mana) by a lot, but because he is not skilled in Strength and HP, they will not go up as fast. Certain Masters will have prerequisites before they offer to train you, in Magus' case, he wants all your money before he'll teach you. The other great thing about the Master System is that if you level up enough under a master, you will also acquire special skills with them that you can use in battles. 2: Faerie Village: When your character later grows up, you can return to an earlier portion in the game to help a group of Faeries build their own village, in return, you can reap the benefits of their village as if you were it's lord or king. Though the village never gets attacked, the villagers in the city can die if you don't take care of them, so make sure you do! 3: Skill Book System: Okay, so I lied about there being two things I wanted to emphacize. Anyways, the Skill Book System allows you to place skills you've learned into a journal of acquired skills, which then you can use to train to other characters. In battles, you can choose to examine monsters to learn their abilities, an early one to learn would be Influence, which allows you to bait a monster to cause weaker-minded or confused monsters to attack the monster you just baited. Certain skills work better for certain characters, so it's up to you to choose who should know what! --------------------------------- Overall While not a revolution, this game's storyline and gameplay inspired me to continue playing RPGs after I had been deprived of them for a long time. I would reccomend this game to many people for many reasons, but if you want the specifics, I just said them above.