Is this good? What makes it unique from other RPGs?

You should play BOF1 that way.
Play the SNES retranslation of BOF2 and use the emulator speedup to pump out that grinding. The good translation is far more important than a few extra seconds of grinding.

Pretty sure the retranslation got patched into the GBA version too

Nope. In fact, Ryusui - the dude who worked on the original translation - warned someone who attempted that project that it would be a very complicated task to port it.

>Is this good?
Not really. Its alright for the most part, but the late game has hours upon hours of padding, you get to one of the final dungeons, but suddenly you need to find a random guy in a town who will give you a pass to enter the place, then you need to fix the broken elevator, so you have to back out and find some random guy in a town with elevator parts, but they're broken, so you gotta go to another twon where a smith can repair the parts, then once you fix the elevator, you're blocked by a cloaked figure who tells you to obtain some magical weapon before he'll let you into the dungeon. As if all that shit wasn't already bad enough, you also literally need to play mailman, passing letters back and forth between two old people in different parts of the world, just to gain access to the final dungeon.

The game also has some big balancing issues where enemies and bosses are just too powerful or too weak, like a boss you fight about 7 hours in has more HP than the bosses you'll encounter in the next 15 hours. Also party members require very wildly different amounts of EXP to level up, like the protag requires like 500,000 total EXP to reach level 40, but there's a woman who requires only 80,000 total EXP to reach that level, and some of the more powerful spells actually cost less MP than their weaker counterparts, its all over the place
.
>What makes it unique from other RPGs?
There are dragon shrines around the world, where the protagonist can unlock his true potential and transform into drakes, and later full on dragons, which are really powerful and fully heal him when he transforms. Everyone also has their own special abilities than they can perform outside of battle when you make them the leader.
Protag can fish, there's a guy who can hunt animals for items and can walk through trees, a guy who can disarm traps, a guy who can dig holes, etc.
One party member can also learn how to fuse with certain other party members to combine abilities.

Nah man. That shit's fucked forever.
Also the retranslation includes a pretty nifty opening with the JP licensed commercial music.
youtube.com/watch?v=Kae5AxB2T28

It's pretty cool, and it makes the impact of the cold open way, way better than hearing it on the title screen.
youtube.com/watch?v=4439q8mwqwc

The series is 100% worth playing for the sprite art and the music alone. It's absolutely fantastic in that regard.

They don't really make up for the boring combat in most of the games.

Attached: ULES00193_00052.jpg (1920x997, 294.95K)

I’m actually playing BoF2 right now, about 25 hours in. The translation is dogshit and the writing isn’t much better. I still don’t have a real villain, and I’m most of the way through the game.

The gameplay systems are actually interesting though, although barely anything is explained and there’s some buggy bullshit. It’s worth a look if you’re interested in JRPG design, but if you’re not even into JRPGs then run the fuck away. This game will teach you why games like Chrono Trigger are so highly revered.

>I still don’t have a real villain
you literally fight the villain in the first ten minutes

Yeah, but we have emulators and cheats for that. The first two are worth examining just from a gaming history standpoint given the staff.

I'm butthurt the series got snuffed out when Ikehara finally found something that worked, but it was probably for the best given how Capcom was consolidating (and re-consolidating after the mass exodus) during that period.

Start over with the retranslation patch, it makes the game significantly better. You'll actually understand what the fuck is going on.

>I still don’t have a real villain
it's an old jrpg, the main villain is god, dumbass

Trust me, it's not good. Some people here will try to convince otherwise, but they are deluded.

Yeah, I did play the "corrected" version and all that, it still sucked.

>This game will teach you why games like Chrono Trigger are so highly revered.
BoF2 is on the upper end of the SNES JRPG spectrum. You haven't seen shit yet. Most of those untranslated JRPGs didn't leave Japan for a reason.

I’ve been wandering around solving problems in different towns. Everywhere has a demon, but there’s nothing tying everything together. The only thing propelling characters forward something far is just weird happenstance and errand-running. Chrono trigger establishes the main enemy and the point of the entire story within the first couple of hours. I literally don’t even remember the first fight in BoF2 and no ones mentioned him since.

BoF2 is the epitome of "good ideas, shit execution".
>fusion system is a cool concept
>backloaded to the tail end of the game and a pain to use in the final dungeon
>fusion forms wear out as soon as a character gets to low HP or dies
>town building is a cool concept
>hindered by mutually exclusive NPC recruitments that can screw you out of some of the best equipment in the game
>get a flying city by the end of the game
>it moves at 2 mph and locks you out of certain overworld areas

Read the thread, nobody is gonna pretend BoF is good. Maybe that 3-5 aren't trash, but still.

Where'd this cliche start, anyway? Dragon Quest never went that direction and Final Fantasy didn't even brush up on it until 6. Phantasy Star was basically fighting Satanic influence, Tales of Phantasia was fairly divorced from the idea, Chrono Trigger only kinda brushes with some people revering Lavos. Who's Patient Zero for "the JRPG villain is god?"

It was one of my first jRPGs, along with second one. Said second was confusing since I was devout catholic child back then and premise of evil church was weird. But overall it didn't matter back then. Im both catholic AND anti-clerical now as adult but whatever.

Overall, game is simple and somewhat linear but characters stand out. It was also fun, albeit a bit hard (hidden boss hp). Second one is sad at times but much better in terms of plot and characters presentation. Weirdly, third always felt bleak in comparison. Never played other two games. I only remember first as really fun but that might be nostalgia.

Nina is waifu material, always.

It's all tied together by the church. Your pastor dad gets replaced in the beginning of the story and everyone forgets about him, all the demons mention their god when you fight them, if you think you're towards the end of the game you should have run into BoF2's version of the Vatican by now. I know the translation's crappy, but you could certainly pay attention more.

I’m well aware, just goes to show how bad most JRPGs are. There’s a shitload of bad game design in BoF2.

To be fair I played the first ten minutes maybe a few months ago and didn’t resume until a month later.

And yes, I’ve noticed the demons all reference a God. But the actual thing propelling the characters forward is not them seeking a confrontation with this God, like it is in chrono trigger. What actually drives the plot is a Rube Goldberg machine of happenstance and macguffins.

>furbait: the series
The later games aren't bad, and you'll get your money's worth on a decent JRPG, but there's a reason half the talk about Breath of Fire is Kat's ass and Nina's tits.

Attached: ursula a cute.jpg (782x1200, 116.13K)

It's impossible for me to give an unbiased review of BoF1 because it was so significant to me as a child. Fuck knows why, it's not that great a game, but we don't really get to choose our past, do we? I remember so much of it fondly, fuck me. At least I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Bleu is best girl and fuck anyone who claims otherwise.

Attached: Deiscollage.png (961x694, 714.61K)

Bleu is only best girl because she's ludicrously overpowered and levels up ten times faster than everyone else.

The game does have an ensemble cast and all the characters have their motivations that cause things like this, yes, but it does coalesce around that point at around the same time they get into Rand and Katt's backstories.

They probably picked up on how unfocused it all seems for BoF 3 since that game cut the number of playable characters in half and essentially had exactly that focus that you think BoF2 lacks. You're spend the whole game explicitly trying to make it to and confront God.

Got a problem with strong women, huh?

I just want to play it for the bara dragon.

>Yeah, but we have emulators and cheats for that.
Yeah, but basing your experience with a game alongside using cheats and fast-forwarding through battles is kind of being dishonest about how it really plays, don't you think?

>The first two are worth examining just from a gaming history standpoint given the staff.
I think the staff working on these games are part of the problem. Capcom knew jacking fucking dick about how to make good JRPGs. They just sort of winged it when it came to combat and character progression mechanics and filled their games with a bunch of mini-games and other field interaction gimmicks to flex their action game dev muscles.

Attached: ULES00193_00054.jpg (1920x997, 322.38K)

Yeah, but that's why I'm saying "the art is worth experiencing, just cheat, the game sucks" and not "the game is good, but..." There is no pretense of BoF1/2 having good gameplay.

Fou-lu is a good boi and didn’t do anything wrong.

Attached: YuaEndingGBA.png (564x397, 582.26K)

I actually like the combat. The formation stuff is neat.

BoF1 is generic. Only novelty is that you can transform into a dragon.

BoF2 fixes a few issues, but is also very generic. Adds a shaman system allowing you to upgrade character abilities, and has some cool sprites.

BoF3 is widely praised as the best in the series. It features what I consider to be the best iteration of dragon abilities. You collect about 20 dragon 'genes' throughout the game, and combine them for some new abilities and a ton of neat looking sprites. Introduces a 'Master System,' which allows you to apprentice under certain masters throughout the game. Each master will have certain requirements for you to follow them, and will modify your stat increases upon leveling up. This lets you modify characters to fit different rolls. Unfortunately, as complex as it may sound, it typically boils down to 2 options. Do you want your character to use magic, or be a fighter? Magic is pretty terrible, so fights can often boil down to mashing the attack button with occasional heals. This game is CHOCKED. FULL. of mini games. Most of them really suck, like really, really suck. There's one mid game that often kills peoples will to finish. I think most people forget about the shitty mini games when reminiscing about this game. Nice, jazzy music.

BoF4 modifies the dragon system into what I consider to be objectively worse than its predecessor. Every dragon form looks essentially the same, the the exception of your breath attacks. Even then, the dragon forms look stupid. Dragons you encounter throughout the game look even stupider. Master system remains essentially the same, but some major QoL improvements are made. This one briefly touches on some more adult/dark themes, though certain versions cut out that material. I enjoyed the flow of this game, towns were cozy. Good music.

BoF5 AKA Dragon Quarter. Nothing like it's predecessors. I suppose the genre would be a survival RPG? Introduces bizarre mechanics, like limited saving and incentivizes restarting the game.

Either Xenogears or SMT II, moreso Xenogears

>I think most people forget about the shitty mini games when reminiscing about this game
Because you put them under the wrong game. It's IV that has all the shitty minigames (dig for the treasure, control the dam valves, play hide and seek, push boxes in a warehouse, move cargo onto a freighter, etc etc). The only minigames that III has aside from the usual fishing shit is the sushi roll thing you were probably thinking of (and even that's more of a fetch quest than a minigame) and like one part on the black ship where you move crates around and that's about it

BoF II came out before Xenogears. It really is one of the earliest examples of the concept out there, and it's noticeably more involved than the usual fare

Hard to say honestly, there were a lot of dark gods being the final boss before so its only a logical jump. BoF is literally just an evil God being worshipped as good.

3>5>4>2>1

>Ershin.......is correct. I am.....but a suit of armor.....
Ershin is the best character in the series and nothing any of you say can convince me otherwise.

Attached: 1555102785722.png (894x943, 857.82K)

Dragon Quarter is really fucking great. It has some time-reset shit like Majora’s Mask but more consequential, but the entire game can be beaten without resetting time once.

a suit of armor shouldn't be this based

The praise of BoF3 is super overblown. It's a solid 7/10 at best.

Attached: ULES00193_00051.jpg (1920x997, 446.13K)

You're right about 4 having shit mini games. I just found that they went by a lot faster. Treasure dig was like 2 minutes. Crate game could be cheesed by just destroying everything. Loading the freighter was pretty easy, don't think I ever failed it.

Whereas 3 had the Beyd fighting mini game, which takes like minimum 20 minutes, even with backhand. Maybe my strats are shit. The shisu quest was the absolute worst, specifically the vinegar mini game. There was also hide and seek, though it wasn't as bad as in 4.

I also neglected to mention that they ruined fishing in 4. It was best in 3.

It's impossible for me to give an honest opinion on BoF3 and 4 because of how special those games are to me.

They'll always be the best games ever made in my heart and I'm blinded to all their flaws. I tear up just listening to Truths and Dreams.

How can one character be so based?

Attached: scias.png (340x524, 119.97K)

>all these people saying 5 is good
Weird... I heard it was total dogshit from a retrospective video on the whole series, where the guy said that turning into a dragon was now bad and got you an instant game over, you had limited saves that were hard to come by, and you were on a time limit to beat the game or else you game over, or something like that.
I though there were just people being contrarian in this thread, but apparently there's a lot of you that like 5, so redpill me on it. I've been making my way through the series, and I'm only at the beginning of 2 at the moment, but I want to know what the hell is up with 5.
I won't be around to respond since I have work in a few minutes, but I'll appreciate the info when I get home.

As a side note, the guy in the video basically rated the games as 2=3>1>4>5

I have to give it to you user. You must be a next level masochist to put 25 hours into it and still keep going. The translation isn't just dogshit, it's completely incomprehensible. And even if you were somehow just in it for the gameplay, the fact that you get a random battle literally every second step should be enough for most people to drop it after an hour or two. The only reason anyone even talks about the SNES BoF games nowadays is because the graphics and animation were nice and they had cool shit like a day/night cycle. .

I'd say

4=3>2>1
4 and 3 depends on your preferences, they're equally great games for different reasons, and have different flaws.
2 and 1 aged horribly, but 1 is also bland as fuck.

III and IV are good. Great, even.

V is fucking weird but, I like it.

You're an alright lad

Attached: 1579254958214.png (419x249, 6.75K)

Shame they changed his drunkenness to a stutter.

10h into BoF4, like everything for now, but it's a bit too easy. When does it get more difficult tho ?

Never, it's always easy.

The last 2 bosses are a jump in difficulty

Won-Qu would like a word

13 years old me that couldn't understand a word of english finished it with barely any trouble.

It's that easy. Just enjoy the ride.

I don't like using the word but it's funny how zoomers can't stand regular turn based combat because it's "too slow"
You haven't seen slow and you haven't seen masochistic either
BoF1 i'll give you, but 2 is a perfectly fine game

Breath of fire 1? Not really, it's really really slow to walk around and shit. Bof2 is great, but it's old so has a bunch of missing qol. Bof3 is masterpiece, bof4 is pretty good but less engaging storywise than 3

The games have a few unique systems like some other posts have said, shamans, dragon gene mixing, the masters system to alter your stat growths and learn their custom abilities is pretty good

From what I remember, it doesn't get harder. It just gets more annoying with higher encounter rates and a labyrinth of a final dungeon.

>Capcom knew jacking fucking dick about how to make good JRPGs. They just sort of winged it when it
And for a couple of games that worked perfectly and turned out amazingly, dunno what the fuck you're complaining about.