With the summer comes a lack of time spent wondering how to spend it whilst sitting in a college computer lab inbetween classes, and thus, I'm gonna cut my rants back to just Mondays for the season. Yes, yes, I'm sure you're all devastated.
Anyways. I've always been a big fan of the Breath of Fire series--bigger than the good-but-not-fantastic series might warrent, even. One thing I've heard from a lot of people who've played some/most/all of the series, though, is that BoF3 is the low point of it. This is simply just not true. (Spoilers ahead, like, of the whole game).
Now, I can understand where this comes from. People I've encountered largely criticize it as seeming pointless, a long adventure without any satisfying aim or conclusion. The reason for this is that Breath of Fire 3 isn't your standard, shallow save-the-world deal. It's not a typical world-spanning quest ending with a climactic showdown with whatever mentally-imbalanced villain with unspeakably destructive powers is threatening the planet/universe for reasons one can only describe as "stupid." In fact, the conclusion of the game has your actions putting the planet's people in more jeopardy than ever, because you choose to kill the goddess who holds a slowly spreading, all-engulfing desert at bay, giving it no obstacle to continue its expansion into the last untouched continent of the planet, where almost all of the world's civilzation is gathered.
The problem is that people don't approach the game with an open mind. They go into the game expecting what they do from almost all RPGs--an eventual happy ending with the world safe and sound and evil banished forever, with several aspects of human nature and interaction having been examined along the way. Well, with Breath of Fire 3, the philosophy IS the plot. The whole quest is just a series of events and characters that all build up to the moment at the end when you confront the goddess who watches over the world, protecting it from the danger of the desert, but stinting its growth and freedom. This moment, in which the main character Ryu must choose whether or not he'll submit to the goddess and allow her to keep coddling the world's people and restricting their advancement, or trust in the determination and strength of the world's people and strike her down to free them to live life as it should be lived--with freedom and choice, even if having those important qualities brings danger, is the defining point of the game, everything it's built up to. It's not MEANT to be a climactic battle showing that Good will overcome Evil. What it's meant to be is a moment showing that despite the dangers and hardships that come with it, people need to have their freedom to live as they wish to, without a parental entity holding them back to protect them from the harsh realities of the world. It's an excellent and thought-provoking message of hope, freedom, and individualism all wrapped into one, but it nonetheless does mean an ending of uncertainty rather than happy security, and that's just not what most people expect from a video game. It's certainly not an inferior method, but if you can't appreciate this original twist on RPG story-telling, then the game will, indeed, seem as empty and disappointing as its detractors claim.
I think to prove a point - When they did Dragon Quarter, they had a standard Good Vs. Evil affair and the game brought the whole series crashing down.
ReplyDeleteThat beings said, it's gameplay was horrible too. I miss Breath of Fire...
Oh, I don't know about that. BoF5 was a very personalized plot--the question of right and wrong was a more morally-grounded one than BoF3's, I'll grant you, but BoF5's story was of a personal nature more than standard world-saving Good vs. Evil stuff, and honestly, I thought the setting, presentation, purpose, and follow-through of the game was well-done, creative, and memorable. If not for Breath of Fire 4, I'd easily say that BoF5 is the greatest of the series.
ReplyDeleteAs for its bringing the series crashing down, well, I don't know. I mean, BoF was never more than a mildly popular RPG series to begin with (and even a popular RPG series is usually a lesser sales success than a popular game in another genre); I'm frankly surprised it got to 5 titles in the first place. Yeah, there was some criticism of it by fans (most of which I find to be unfair and nitpicky), but I feel like the series didn't continue mostly just because people were largely unaware of it more than anything else.
You know.. I hate to say this, but reading this article and some of your others (such as Chrono Cross), make you sound a bit like a hypocrite.
ReplyDeleteYou say that we have to go into BoF3 with an open mind, not always expect a happy ending, and even allow for the game (a sequel) to branch out with new ideas and revelations about previously established characters and canon. This is, in fact, something that could be said of Chrono Cross. I'm not exactly defending the game, but I am saying that BoF3 wasn't a fabulous game for more than just that sort of reasoning.
Keep in mind, the Breath of Fire games have NEVER really had much in the way of a happy ending. In fact, they're known for having multiple endings and even the "good" ending is usually somewhat of a downer.. albeit probably not as big as BoF4's ending, but that was more of a disappointment.
What made Breath of Fire 3 a bitter pill to swallow was the fact that it DID take established information and characters, and then go in really unexpected and not entirely necessary directions with them. Did we need to see Dais/Bleu naked in a pyramid prison? If she's the sister of a friggin goddess (and wasn't THAT a bat outta nowhere) how the heck did she get imprisoned unless it was her very sister who did it - mind you, I haven't played the game in over a decade, so parts of the plot are a bit vague in my memory.
I didn't like that they went and killed off the Dragon Clan, or that the plot relied on the player knowing facts which simply weren't available back in the day. Hell, I had no clue what half of the plot was about, or even the Goddess' sudden appearance and overall significance until years later when I had stuff like fansites, fan translations, and Wikipedia to go to for information.
I will, on the other hand, concede that BoF3 is not the series low point. I actually enjoyed the game in general when it came out, and after playing BoF4, I looked back on 3 with some fond memories. Or maybe it's because BoF4 was so awful that it made me like BoF3 cause it wasn't nearly that bad. At least the dragons were dragons and not hideous abominations.
I think what would've made BoF3 a better game is actually better translations of the original 2 games. There's a lot of information and tie-ins that were lost in translation. Also, I didn't care much for the Master system and preferred learning my spells via levels.
Really, when you think about it, the reason a lot of people didn't care for BoF3 is because it was so radically different from BoF 1 and 2. That in itself isn't a bad thing, but as I've said, this is the same situation other sequels which have a lot of hatred associated with them find themselves in.
Also, the whole "thought-provoking plot" is also one of the ways people defend CC's plot. Not trying to cause an argument, I'm just saying that it does seem strange to find one confusing storyline to be a thoughtful discussion on life, and the other a pointless debate on the ethics of time-travel. :p
I don't really think I'm being a hypocrite though. My position on CC has been made clear in several rants to be that it DOES suck horribly as a sequel and disappoint on every level for a fan of CT, BUT, more importantly, CC also is a terrible game on its own lack of merit. Its connections to CT are cause for ire, but if you look past them, the plot of CC is still an incomprehensible mess, and the characters are still almost entirely irrelevant and empty. Whether you go into CC expecting a sequel that does Chrono Trigger proud, or if you go into it with an open mind, it's still an extremely lousy game.
ReplyDeleteThe anonymous person above needs to learn to stop bitching about pointless things. So he/she loathed BoF 4? So what? That doesn't mean that it was a bad game. I hate it when people with closed minds criticize certain things such as nudity and the concepts of dragons. Uh hello? Did nudity really ruin things for BoF 3 like you stated? No it didn't. Why not? Because it wasn't overdone and unnecessary. One scene of a naked Deis that lasted for a minute or two... Oh man it's the devil! Stop the media! We have a mild nudity scene in a video game! If you hate nudity so much, don't play JRPGs OR any games with M rated content.
ReplyDeleteWhy are you (Mr Anonymous above) even bitching about how Deis was captured? Does Capcom need to go into every bit of detail about this part of the game when it wasn't even a big part to be concerned over? A flashback shows a hint about Deis' disagreements with Myria, therefore, Myria's Guardians turned on Deis. Isn't this enough to let someone with half a brain know that maybe this was how Deis was captured? Why are you even whining about the fact that Deis is the sister of Myria? It did not come out of nowhere and it made sense. Deis doesn't seem to age at all, she's lived for thousands of years, and there's an aura surrounding her character that gives hint to players that she may know more than what she's willing to let on about all the events in the first three BoF stories.
You're also really complaining about the dragons in BoF 4 as well? Wow really? So just because the BoF 4 dragons are not the stereotypical fire-breathing lizards found in Western folklore, you label them as "abominations"? You seriously are closed minded. If you look closely at the culture influence for BoF 4, you would have known that numerous things in the game are based off of Asian themed supernatural creatures and legends. Eastern dragons are not the same as Western dragons. At least Ryu and Fou-Lou actually turn into dragons, unlike many of the dark dragon bosses in BoF 1 who turned into strange creatures that are not even dragons period.
As I like to do on occasion, here's a reply to some post you wrote over a decade ago.
ReplyDeleteI've long been a detractor of Breath of Fire 3. Of the PS1 games I own, it's easily my least favourite. I'm not sure if like Breath of Fire 3 less than Breath of Fire 2, but, regardless, I don't consider it a good entry in the series or a good game, for that matter. It's news to me that people (other than me) generally consider Breath of Fire 3 the low point in the series, though; I often see 2 and 3 cited as the best Breath of Fire games.
In any case, the ending of Breath of Fire 3 has almost nothing to do with my low opinion of the game. My problem is that the story prior to the conclusion bores the hell out of me, and I don't really care much for its characters. When I think of Breath of Fire 3, I mainly remember hating the stupid lighthouse fetch quest and the miserable time I spent in the Desert of Death. If anything, I'd say the ending is one of the few interesting parts of the game. It just happens far too late for it to redeem Breath of Fire 3 for me. I can't say I cared whether the characters had their freedom or not (I would have been fine if they all died)--I just wanted the game to be over by the time they confront Myria.
All that said, I think it's really cool how Capcom continues the ending in Breath of Fire 3's sequels. In Breath of Fire 4, the desert has spread much further, and by Breath of Fire 5, it's gotten so bad that people have moved underground. I've always thought that this continuity is well done.
Always appreciate readers, regardless of which rants they're reading. Hell, it's kind of more fun to have the old ones gone over; I get to engage with something I haven't for a long time and speak from a more experienced perspective.
DeleteI still like Breath of Fire 3 a fair amount, and respect it for what it wants to do and what it has to say. With that said, 14 years of RPGs since I made this rant have tempered that enjoyment and appreciation a little, particularly since some of that time has been spent on games that tried something different from the genre's storytelling norms earlier than BoF3, and did so with better quality. I think if I played it now, I'd be annoyed with the relevance of most of the game to its ending. While the events of BoF3 do indeed lead up to and lay some groundwork for the ultimate purpose of the game, the coming-of-age leaving-the-nest living-free-with-risk-instead-of-safe-with-restraint stuff, there isn't enough and what's there isn't overt enough most of the time to really qualify for much praise. Good idea for the destination, not enough done on the journey to connect to it--the adventure itself all comes together well enough in its pace and sequence of events, but not enough is done during that time to emphasize the game's values before they're spotlighted in its conclusion.
This is something that BoF4 much improved on, thinking about it, in having many key moments of its journey (both Ryu's and Fou-Lu's) that connect to the question of how one perceives the human race's worth that Ryu and Fou-Lu oppose one another over. Much more standard a save-the-world premise, of course, than BoF3, but the method of getting to its main idea was far better.
Really, BoF2 and 3 are cited as the best nowadays? Interesting. I might agree on the point of BoF2 (did really like BoF5, though), but back when I wrote the rant, I generally saw mostly criticism for BoF3 and not a lot of praise. Time does change popular opinion substantially sometimes.
So yeah, while I still stand by this rant's core message that BoF3 deserves some appreciation for a good conclusion that has a little something different from the norm (for its time; certainly not hard to find such stories in the time since its release), being able to see where it fails to make the most of that message along the way makes me have to admit that your disdain for the title has legitimate basis. Thanks for the comment!
There are definitely some RPGs I really loved back in the day which I'm not quite as enthusiastic for now. Like, Super Mario RPG was the first RPG I got into and was one of my five favourite games ever in 1997--it wouldn't crack my list of top 10 RPGs now (or maybe not top 20 or 30; I don't actually make such lists). Thankfully, I haven't totally turned on any RPGs I loved when I was younger.
DeleteAnd, yes, Breath of Fire 2 and 3 are often cited as the best. Breath of Fire 4 gets a fair amount of love, too, while Breath of Fire 5 gets a lot of hate. Personally, Breath of Fire 5 is the only one in the series I really love, although I enjoyed 4 (I might have liked Breath of Fire 2 if I'd played it with the improved translation patch; most of what I remember from the game is getting into random counters constantly and being lost due to the incomprehensible NPC dialogue).
Ah, but in the case of Super Mario RPG, is that a matter of your perspective changing, or just expanding? Like, from my point of view, Breath of Fire 3 isn't as good as I had thought it was back in the day, but Super Mario RPG absolutely still is. But SMRPG wouldn't make it onto any list of mine now of the best RPGs, while it might have back when I played it--not because my opinion changed and I like it any less than I did then, but because my experience has expanded and I just have played so many RPGs that happen to be even better. I dunno if it's the same for you, though.
DeleteHuh, yeah, that's funny. I know BoF5 didn't get the adoration it deserved, but I'd have been very surprised back in the day to find any substantial number of people who would have put BoF4 below 2 and 3. Interesting, that. For me, I'd list'em as 4 > 5 > 2 > 3 > 1.
"In Breath of Fire 4, the desert has spread much further,"
DeleteWhat? I thought Breath of Fire 4 took place before 1?
"For me, I'd list'em as 4 > 5 > 2 > 3 > 1."
ReplyDeleteI see you haven't mentioned about the abomination that is Breath of Fire 6 aka the low point of the series.
Well, I haven't actually played that one, so I couldn't rightly judge it. Although I haven't heard just about any positive thing about it, so there's a fair chance I'll be with you on its position in the franchise.
DeleteIt was an ONLINE ONLY game, and a very poor one at that! So bad, that the servers were shut down! Way to go Capcom! You are even more incompetent than Square. You can read more about that trash heap on Wikipedia.
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