The third entry into the Breath of Fire series doesn't reivent the dragon, but it will make playing him all the better.
Once again you start out as Ryu, the dragon boy we have all come to love. However this time you start out entirely on your own with no previous contact to the outside world and a much more direct vision of what you seem to be there to do. You will once again be in the same general world of human and half-human people, but this time you only returning party member is Nina, however you still get the same general cast of characters.
The story here unfolds quite a bit differently than the other 2 BoF games as you are quickly found buy Rei, a cat-man, and taken back to his home in the woods where you also meet Tepo, another orphan like Rei, and as far as they know, you. You get into a bit of trouble with the locals as the harvest hasn't gone too well and a vicious monster has been cause some major havoc. After a run-in with Bunyan, a rather familiar look grizzled old woodsman Rei is sent to deal with the beast while you and Tepo get to learn some discipline. After finishing your chores you go find Rei, who is acting rather strangley about you coming to help, but no matter as you take out the beast and get alittle love from the people. However not long after you undertake a quest to find out what the town Mayor is up to in his big mansion. After confronting him you find out that there is a rather dangerous force behind his greed, and after taking him out you get paid a visit from a couple of rather menacing fellows who batter you and leave you for dead. Luckily your dragon powers save you and the real story begins. It is around this time that you will have gotten into some of the more interesting new gameplay features.
The gameplay is very similar to every other BoF game, nothing all that new to do, but it has always been a solid system, so why mess with it too much. You will find the formation system coming back, but you don't start with all the possible choices right from the start. Fishing is also back, and quite easily the best it has ever been. This time not only are fish useful as free restoratives, but buy reeling in a Mallino, the rather large, human-esque fish, you can trade certain fish in for new items. You can't catch an chest this time around but buy getting good enough to catch the larger fish later in the game you can trade them for some very powerful items.
Also, right as summer comes around you will find that a particular tree has been cut down and if you wander toward it on the map you find you first Master. Throughout the course of BoFIII you will find a number of these sagely teachers hidden in nocks in the map, as well as a few in towns. All of them will require you to meet a certain requirement before they will allow you to study under them, but if you can meet it they will allow you to increase the growth of certain attributes while decreasing the growth of others. Not only this but after gaining enough levels with one character under a master they will teach you special skills.
These skills are very similar to the ones you can learn off any number of different enemies by choosing the watch command during battle, however they are generally harder to come by, since you have to get the master, and then get the level rather than just wait for the enemy to use it. Once learned these skills may be shifted around at save books as long as you have a skill ink at the ready. The skills range every possible category, from entirely pointless(yes a few of them really do nothing), to physical attacks, stat increasing spells, a number of magic attacks, and status effects. These not only allow each character to branch out past his/her limits but add some great strategy as well.
Every character once again has a particular out of battle skill that will come in handy on any number of occasions. And each character also seems somewhat more specialized in this versions, with each character being tied to a particular element or spell type rather than having a magic user and a fighter you get a magic user that only naturally gets wind and thunder spells and your figher is the one who has access to fire. This breakdown along with the unique skill collection system push the forthought and strategy allowed up somewhat.
The dragon system in BoFIII is where things start to get really interesting. Instead of finding particular dragon forms or spells you instead find a number of dragon genes. When you pick a gene, or genes as you can combine up to 3, the actually cost of your transformation will be calculated by the cost of eash gene used, and the dragon you become will also be based upon the selected genes. But unlike BoFII and back to the spirit of the orginal BoF you actually hold your dragon form until it is defeated, you choose to revert or you run out of mp. That's right, the transformations themselves are generally much cheaper than in the other BoF games but at the beginning of each turn a fraction of the original cost is deduced from your current mp total. This doesn't seem all tha bad a first, but more powerful dragons generally have powerful abilities that require pretty decent mp costs, and have pretty high upkeeps also. The one downfall for this system to me though is the fact that because of all the variety in it for the main character you don't have any way to augment or tansform you other characters like you could in the previous titles.
Graphically it is alittle weak, but not so much so that it is bad. It uses a 2d on 3d sprite system, that while a bit dated in comparison to FFVII is still very well done. The colors are all very nice, and it is all generally very very clean and sharp. The sound is a step up again musically for the BoF series, but the sound effects are still a bit one the ragged side on the whole.
The story unfold very nicely and it is one that seems much more unique than the last two, with some truly suprising twists. Also with the master system you also get one rather interesting sidequest/minigame. It comes in the form a Fairy Village that you save and then are asked to help rebuild by delegating the fairy population. You start out with a rather small number of fairies and very few options, but eventually you get a rather large number and you create a village that you can fill with shops, games, and a few other odd and ends. The shops will often sell some powerful equiment that you can get nowhere else, or before you could get it otherwise, the games offer some rather basic enjoyment, but generally nothing special. However the few other things you can make, like the copy shop and the explorers can allow you to copy and find some really helpful things.
So while BoF III may have its faults, it is still a refreshing and rather enjoyable return to the land of dragons that should not be ignored.