Menu navigation allows the party members to execute standard attacks, use items, or cast spells.
Random combat encounters interrupt overworld and dungeon exploration, plunging Ryu and up to three companions into turn-based battle with enemies on a separate isometric landscape. The player navigates their party through an overworld, towns, and dungeons from an overhead perspective as they proceed from one story beat to the next. Gameplay heavily echoes Final Fantasy IV (1991). The latter would reappear in Breath of Fire II. Capcom’s Breath of Fire launched on the Super Famicom in Japan on April 3, 1993, before being localized and published by Squaresoft for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in North America on August 10, 1994.Ĭharacters, from left to right: Nina, Bo, Mogu, Ox, Ryu, Gobi, Karn, and Bleu. The upbeat soundtrack, which has more in common with platformers than the rousing anthems of Dragon Quest‘s Koichi Sugiyama or the atmospheric compositions of Final Fantasy‘s Nobuo Uematsu, was written and recorded by Yasuaki Fujita, Mari Yamaguchi, Minae Fuji, Yoko Shimomura, and Tatsuya Nishimura. Mega Man co-creator Keiji Inafune provided many of the game’s pre-production character illustrations before that role was taken over by Tatsuya Yoshikawa early in development. Yoshinori Takenaka, Yoshinori Kawano, and Makoto Ikehara – all comparative rookies at the studio – designed the game’s systems based on what they enjoyed in earlier RPGs.
Buoyed by an overwhelmingly positive critical reception, Capcom soon assigned a small team to produce the company’s first RPG. By the early 1990s, RPGs were nearly as popular in Japan as sidescrollers and other studios were looking to try their hand at the genre.Ĭapcom, which was known for challenging 2D action titles like Ghosts and Goblins (1985) and Mega Man (1987), began to branch out into other formats with the pioneering one-on-one arcade fighting game Street Fighter II in 1991. Dragon Quest (1986) established a turn-based gameplay template that most other Japanese studios would emulate over the next few years, while Final Fantasy (1987) offered an even more appealing visual style in which characters could be seen from a third-person perspective while battling oversized monsters. Please consider supporting that website, as its staff tirelessly catalogs key information and art assets for an often ephemeral medium.Įnix and Square brought the role-playing game (RPG) genre to Japan in the late 1980s following a decade of RPGs like Wizardry (1981) and Ultima (1981) being restricted to Western audiences. Cover art is from MobyGames unless otherwise noted. This week we’ll be inhaling the history of Breath of Fire.
Older entries can be found in the archive here. Welcome back to Franchise Festival, a fortnightly column where we explore and discuss noteworthy video game series from the last four decades.
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