This, like ActRaiser, is another white whale of mine that I bought long ago on Wii Virtual Console but never ended up completing. I even gave this one a second try years later when I tried to get through the GBA port, but I ended up putting it down then too. I pledged to myself that this WOULD be the time I finish Breath of Fire II, and I wouldn't let myself give up. I certainly did kinda wanna give up at some points, but after 30 or so hours and getting the best ending, I finally have beaten this game from my childhood.

Breath of Fire II is a 1994 JRPG made by Capcom and released in America in 1995. It follows the story of Ryu (not that one), who grows up in a small village until the day his father and sister disappear, and the entire village forget who he is. He escapes with another orphan, a dog person named Bow, and go to a nearby cave where they're attacked by a horrible monster. Following a time jump to Ryu and Bow as adults, they live in a completely different town doing odd jobs as "Rangers", and after trying to clear Bow's name when he's framed as a thief, a cascading series of events reveals that there is more to both of their destinies than either of them ever could've imagined.

Breath of Fire II on the SNES is pretty infamous for having a pretty terrible English translation, and boy howdy is that reputation ever deserved. Characters whose names don't stay consistent, poorly localized place names, basic spelling and grammar mistakes, constantly mechanical and unnatural dialogue. They don't completely prevent either understanding or appreciating the story, but they constantly get in the way and they really made me with I had picked up the Japanese version of this on VC instead. That all said, the story that's there is pretty good. It has very strong themes around sacrifice and what it means to be a good leader. There aren't many musical tracks, but the emotional ones really stick their landing when they're used (and what's there ranges from alright to pretty good, especially some of the unique boss themes). While I certainly wouldn't recommend the game wholly on the merits of the writing, I think it really speaks to the quality of the narrative that the story manages to be quite good despite the poor localization. For what it's worth, the GBA port does improve the translation, but from what I remember, that version's translation is still bad (although there has been a fan re-translation that apparently does a pretty good job of fixing things).

The mechanics are pretty basic for a JRPG. You have a party of four for battles, you have members that leave and join as the story goes on, you can swap out your favorites but sometimes you need one specifically for one section, Ryu always has to be in the party. There's a shaman-fusing system that can give certain characters big stat boosts that last until they're either killed or knocked to low health, but it's easy to miss a lot of those shamans and the game is still overall an experience that shouldn't feel very foreign to anyone who's played RPGs before. However, this game has its fair share of rough patches that can really test your patience at times.

In addition to some routinely very vague signposting (whether that's an effect of the localization or if the game has always been that way is anyone's guess), the game has a really uneven difficulty curve. Sudden difficulty spikes of normal enemies and bosses are quite common, and the XP and gold you earn is relatively low overall (they even made you earn 2 or 3 times as much of each per battle in the GBA port). You will very likely need to do some grinding at some point through the game, especially if you realize too late (like I nearly did) that only Bow can learn multi-person healing spells (don't make my mistake and leave him by the wayside! XD). It's certainly not Final Fantasy III-levels of vindictively hard, but the last dungeon or two of the game is pretty damn long and can really test your patience after a while.

The visual design and presentation of the game are quite nice. Given this came out the same year as FFIV, it's certainly not the best looking game on the system, but it still has some nice character and monster designs and some very fluid battle animations (especially on the big, pretty character sprites during battle). As previously mentioned, the music can get a bit repetitive for overworld and dungeon themes (to the point the game even has an option to just turn off the music, as if it expects you to put on your own music while grinding XP), but they do change after certain story events for a nice change of pace.

Verdict: Recommended. Even though I really was struggling at certain points to keep my motivation up during the difficulty spikes, the fact that I'm still considering doing a playthrough of this in Japanese to see that version of the script makes me think that I liked this game more than that initial emotional response. It certainly isn't Final Fantasy (although I'd' say I definitely enjoyed this more than FFIV last year), but it's a commendable effort by Capcom that has really piqued my interest in checking out the rest of the series. If you really want a SNES RPG and want something a little bit different than SquareSoft's stuff, Breath of Fire II may not be the best out there, but it's certainly not a bad choice.

Pretty substantial improvement over the first game but still far from being a great game. The random encounter rate is absolutely insane, most of the dungeons are gimmicky and a slog to get through and the combat is still barebones and leaving it on "auto" worked for 70% of the game. Besides that, the shaman system is a very interesting idea but it requires a massive amount of backtracking everytime you get to low health.
As for the story, it has some interesting ideas but doesn't flesh them out enough to leave a lasting impact (this point, however, might be due to the awful localization though).
All-in-all, it has Katt in it so it's a good game.

With the retranslation patch which comes with qol and various other improvements? Genuinely one of the best snes rpgs. Has some genuinely poignant character and narrative moments and no grinding whatsoever. An improvement on the first game in every regard. Feels like the first true Breath of Fire game and really shows the groundwork that BoFIII eventually built upon.

The vanilla release? Somehow worse than the first game in every way. Grindier, slower, and even harder to understand.

It's crazy how far those fixes go. I'd recommend breath of fire 2 with the retranslation any day of the week (on top of just avoiding the first game altogether) but it's incredibly upsetting how capcom not only did basically nothing for the translation and grinding in the gba port, but continues to re-release the vanilla snes release without any improvements.

Obviously, it's not totally fair to say "I think this game is great because there's a patch to fix most of its issues", but I'd bump it at least down to a 3 stars if the grinding and tedium were kept the same, because the writing really shines when it's actually comprehensible English.

I played the original Breath of Fire about a month ago, and while I did enjoy it, I found it to be a bit average, and at times unpolished. However now getting around to Breath of Fire II, I really enjoyed it! It improves a lot upon what the original did, especially in gameplay. However it definitely feels like for every 2 steps, they go one step back.
Gameplay still feels quite similar to the original Breath of Fire, but it's massively overhauled to feel more balanced, while also just more polished. The major rebalancing I want to mention are the Dragon Abilities and Fusions. In the original Breath of Fire, Dragon Abilities are in-battle transformations that change the main character's form and abilities in battle, while Fusions combined multiple party members together to create powerful new characters. Though these were fun, they were way too powerful, and removed any challenge the game originally had. Breath of Fire II improves upon these mechanics though! The Dragon Abilities now take the form of powerful spells, though I personally wish they didn't require ALL of the Main Character's AP. While on the other hand, the Fusion, in the guise of the Shaman System, doesn't require specific combinations to create the more powerful fusions, and even then they aren't as powerful as the ones in Breath of Fire I.
The story is also a lot better than the original, I feel. Breath of Fire I's story is a typical fantasy story, and I'm gonna be honest while I'm typing this, I can't remember many specifics. Breath of Fire II's story is a lot darker than its predecessor, and especially the later half of the story was really remarkable.
But as I said prior, for every 2 steps forward, Breath of Fire II takes one step back. I think the biggest issue with this game relates to managing your party members. In Breath of Fire II, you can only change your party members either at the TownShip, or at certain Dragon Statues. The problem is that the game requires you to switch specific party members into your party to do certain actions only they can do. One example is that only one character can traverse through forests. This would be fine enough, as it would be an annoyance sure, but only that. The other issue though is that in this game, characters not in your current party do not gain XP, which means while your main team may be level 40, the one character you need to progress may still be level 10. I feel like the issue is that while the game requires you, it doesn't incentivize you to switch party members, so you come across this situation multiple times, which I found to be an issue. And I wouldn't be making a big deal out of this if it wasn't for a fact these issues were not present in the original Breath of Fire.
I also want to mention, I did a bit of research before deciding which version of Breath of Fire II. I heard that the GBA version gave triple the regular amount of XP, that's the version I chose. And believe me, I can't imagine how grueling the grind on the SNES version could be, the battles are already quite lengthy as is.
But with that aside, I still really enjoyed my time with Breath of Fire II. While it still has its issues, it's definitely a step up from the original. I really can't wait to get into Breath of Fire III though, I've seen screenshots of the game and it looks gorgeous.

On one hand, this game has one of the most hilariously bad translations of all time. On the other, the fact that nobody at Nintendo was checking means that they got to put blood and religion in this sucker in 1994 and it kicks ass, so who can say if it's bad or not. The fact that they let it stand as-written for the GBA release is harder to defend, but it is extremely funny to crack open this script, remove a single swear and one (1) reference to Othello, and then call it a day.

But you know what? The script isn't actually mistranslated the vast majority of the time. You can get the intended emotional beats and gameplay instruction. The fact that this sucker remains a very solid game despite it stands in testament to the strengths of the game.

The first Breath of Fire endeared itself to me with nothing more than its experimental spirit, with all sorts of silly ideas for mechanics and area gimmicks thrown into the mix to keep you on your toes. The sequel is a bit less goofy, and focuses on refining some of those ideas, or at least remixing them. For example, the character fusion idea got turned into the shaman fusion system, which applies more equally to all characters, has more depth, and deactivates if a character goes below a certain health threshold so it's no longer just objectively correct to have it on all the time. I even found it factoring into my party composition, my god.

That's not to say there's nothing new: the town building aspect of the game was more novel back in 1994, and while it is an absolutely baffling mix of mutually exclusive choices that you don't know you're making, it's at least a fun idea. Honestly, making you choose things permanently (you can't give this poor beggar a house without sacrificing that slot for someone who can actually help you mechanically) isn't a bad idea, but everything is so arbitrary so as to be nonsense. I suspect future games will bring this back and remove the friction entirely so I'm glad we have this entry at least trying something.

I think it's ultimately the story and presentation that shine, here: you have a variety of party members again, and their battle sprites just ooze personality. Capcom absolutely the best to ever do it these are some fuckin great furries dude. Bosch Doggy walked so that Vanillaware could put a cunty owl sorceress in Unicorn Overlord. The actual plot has an actual focus and development now unlike in the first game, and while everything that happens is very broad, archetypical melodrama, it's well executed enough that-- again, even through the butchered script-- I could lose myself and say 'hell yeah' at it. Sometimes you just want the mysterious goofball in your party revealing his tragic backstory dude! Sometimes you have a duel with your old friend on a bridge during your unexpected and bittersweet homecoming! What the hell else do you want this is the good stuff!!

Holding the game back is the fact that the combat is the most workhorse stuff possible. Even though every character has unique abilities, very few are even slightly interesting. Offensive magic is extremely spotty in terms of effectiveness so most fighting is just mashing attack and healing when you need it, and only towards the end were a few more interesting bosses thrown at me. Levels are really important here, but benched characters do not gain XP and this is a pain in the ass.

In fact, it's pretty interesting to come to this after playing some old JRPGs that famously "aged poorly" or "are grindy" or whatever and be able to conclude that like, Dragon Quest 1 is way more mechanically interesting in the combat. The random battles in BOF2 are insanely frequent, uninteresting, and largely cannot be mitigated. The enemy sprites look absolutely sick as hell though. I think Capcom still being new to the genre shows here, as this is kinda what people who played these games as kids and haven't touched them since think NES JRPGs are like.

Overall, Firey Breath The Second gets a heck yeah from me. I am stoked to see what sorts of shenanigans they were able to get up to on the Playstation.

It's larger, bigger, deeper than Breath of Fire 1, but strangely works worse.
Everything bout visuals, plot, world and exploring is perfect. Characters are awesome, locations are beautiful, etc.
When it comes to combat, though...... nahhhhhh it's illegally annoying. The amount of random encounters is indescribable. There's no any variety during fighting, like it was in BoF1. Mb cuz of items, that are pretty boring. (example: u can heal 100hp at once, when u got 300+ hp; 20ap at once when u got, like 200+ ap n this item also takes 20Hp when u use it and so on). Last boss was just "HEAL - PUNCH - AP - HEAL - HEAL - AP - PUNCH". This part of the game barely works properly.

U still gotta play it though. It's a cool gameplay experience!

That was a pleasant surprise. I liked how the first Breath of Fire was essentially a Dragon Quest clone, but with the second game, Capcom decided to expand and create a larger game with serious themes, more elaborated characters, and a bigger world. I'm all for it! The plot gets kind of dark at some parts, reminiscent of some older RPGs of that decade, and the game becomes brutally difficult at times (honestly, I had an easier time with some Megami Tensei games).

I believe this one needed a better battle system to become a SNES classic. Debuffs don't work well, and the way the Dragon transformations functioned was a bit lackluster. The shaman fusions were cool, though implemented in a somewhat awkward way too.

(played with d4s retranslation)

UN ESPECTACULAR SALTO DE TITÁN

Tras un inicio interesante pero simplista con el primer Breath of Fire, con la segunda entrega se decide dar el siguiente paso en todo y entregar un JRPG que esté a la altura del resto de su género en la legendaria SNES.

Donde el primer juego era un amasijo de clichés, aquí se le da un enfoque narrativo menos lineal donde comienza con el misterio para darnos intriga de que hay algo importante que va a suceder pero se deja en impasse para presentarnos al resto de sus interesantes personajes poco a poco y cada uno con su respectivo arco.

Donde la jugabilidad del primer título era un simple JRPG por turnos sin mucho que mostrar, aquí se nos dan muchas mecánicas para jugar a nuestro favor. Personajes con roles marcados y habilidades propias, diferentes formaciones en cuestión de los personajes elegidos para nuestra party, dificultad que te obligará a pensar bien tus turnos, e incluso la capacidad de poder personalizar a nuestro gusto nuestra propia ciudad.

Identidad propia y gran calidad hacen de este, uno de los mejores JRPGs de SNES.

It has a horrendous translation and a lot of that classic rpg jank and I love absolutely every second of it. It’s a charming little masterpiece.

I’ve never tried this specific version myself but I definitely recommend the recent fan translation should you check it out yourself, it should make it a lot easier to get into and actually understand and appreciate what’s going on. But I’ve replayed this game many times now that I don’t need it, and I only found out about said new translation after I’d already blasted through it all so I’m not in a position to give it a try quite yet.

The lies the original translation of the game gives just add to my experience everytime anyway. Sometimes you gotta trek for hours for an item then be told incorrectly that the item is useless by an npc.

There’s a gettin place I usually go to find old games, and the admin for that place basically said the patched version of this game is too complicated and he’s straight up just not going to update it anymore on his websight. I’m mostly interested in this series for the later psx titles, but I figure if I’m going to play it I might as well play the best version, and it can’t be that complex, right? How bad could it really be?

Folks, I’m so glad you asked. Let me tell you how bad it could really be.

First of all, there’s a heavily reworked script that fixes the apparently poor translation from the nineties. It’s the twenty first century now so there’s no reason to play this game with a script localized by Japanese technical writers for electrical appliances that capcom found on whatever the nineties equivalent of fiverr was. We have the technology to make it better stronger faster. But in order to do that, the game has to do this annoying checksum procedure first. You also have to generate a special .srm file first or the patch won’t work. The odds of that working properly are about 50:50 and you have to sit through about a two minute screen for each attempt. I’ve played a lot of retranslated SNES patches and I’ve never in my life heard of any other game that requires this bizarre step. It’s a pain in the ass but ultimately worth getting through if that were the only thing you had to worry about. It’s not though, not even close.

The rebalancing patch is completely separate from the retranslation and offers various quality of life improvements for characters, adjusted exp and gold, among others. There are, however, an absurd amount of different features and options for this patch as well. Where do I start?

Do you want the encounter rate reduced and the exp and gold and item drop rates boosted to compensate, or do you hate yourself? Pick one or the other. Did you maybe want the main character to have his dragon form completely neutered, you know, the main thing the series is known for, and replaced with a bland magic user build? What’s that, no, you never asked for that even once? Well, the patch creator took it upon himself to make that anyway so you can pick one or the other. Did you want the standard opening screen, or did you want one custom made with one of the worst anime opening theme songs you ever heard in your life? Or maybe “through the fire and flames” by dragonforce (really!)? Well, he went ahead and did it anyway, so go ahead and pick one. How about one where the shaman fusing power gets a little bit unfucked? Oh, that’s a different patch, but go ahead and put that in if you want to.

Oh wait, I almost forgot to ask. Did you want any of these patches… with the retranslation patch? I mean, of course you do, why the hell wouldn’t you, the vanilla version is on switch online anyway. Then guess what, I hope you liked that checksum screen, cause you have to sit through that fucker again, and again, and again, for each individual patch you want.

I know exactly what the admin means now. To host this, you have to to first pick retranslated or not, then dragon or caster ryu, then normal or reduced encounters, then fusing fixed or not, then the lame anime opening screen or the one from planet earth. That’s 32 different permutations for this stupid ass patch, and each one could set you up for failure and time wasted by that damn checksum screen. There’s no way a children’s toy from over thirty years ago could be worth all this trouble, is there? Should I even bother playing Breath of Fire II if it really needs so many skin grafts to be playable? Does it really make that much of a difference?

…yeah, it kind of does. It’s actually pretty good now. I give Breath of Fire II for the SNES, the “1. retranslated 2. standard ryu 3. less encounter rate 4. unfusing less patch 5. non anime-ass opening screen“ version three and a half stars out of five