Desperately wanted to like this one, but the high encounter rate mixed with the extremely slow animations and loading times makes me feel miserable. Not sure why it bothers me so much here because normally I can stomach this kind of stuff well.

Also doesn't help that the system with the different masters and the acquiring of new skills is extremely unintuitive ... And almost feels pointless given how you can just auto battle through everything. At least in the first 10 hours.

A shame, because the music and artstyle is great and I enjoyed the characters. Maybe I should just watch an LP on the side or something.

maybe id enjoy it more if i wasnt an idiot and played the psp version instead, but man the level design isnt good, the story has been at a standstill for WAY too long despite the constant interruptions for lengthy cutscenes, for some reason the opening of the game takes up a whole third of the entire game, the camera and having to constantly move diagonally due to the camera (despite only being able to move in 8 directions) is an incredible pain that you dont get used to, and worst of all, the difficulty is just way too high, it feels like i need to go through a dungeon 3 times before im ready for the boss, and thats not counting how often i need to go all the way to the start of the dungeon, go back in town to restore my magic and heal my health, buy stuff, etc, it just feels very padded out
and worst of all this game has an annoying habbit of REALLY punishing your party members if they die in a fight. see now, in most jrpgs, they would either still be dead after the fight, or be on 1hp. i prefer the latter method but i can deal with the former without complaining
this game gets the bright idea to put the party member on 1hp... and ALSO remove some of their max health (until you go back to town and rest at an inn)
so if one of your party members COUGH NINA COUGH doesnt have the best hp, and really needs to level, tough shit. oh and also when party members are dead, they dont earn xp from the fight
WHY
i know the psp version made some qol improvements and by god they better be good ones because im gonna take a long LONG time away from this game and then start fresh with the psp version, but until then, im done with this game
there's a lot to love about it, largely in the visual department, which is the main reason why i put up with the game for this long, but i cant do it any more

Probably the best Breath of Fire series of them all!

When I was a kid, I remember watching my older brother played this game on our ol' PlayStation. It didn't matter how long I waited for my turn to play, watching him unfold the game's story kept me captivated, and I always love how Ryu — the main protagonist of the game — transforms into these dragon forms of different shapes and sizes!

J-RPGs didn't click on me growing up, until I took interest in them in the 2000s. That's when I started playing Breath of Fire III.

Short intro of the story:

A long time ago, there was a dragon clan called the Brood that were feared for their destructive power that may destroy the whole world. But for some reason they went extinct, and through time their bodies turned into crystals storing an incredible energy called a Chrysm. Now in the present, people mine these Chrysms to power their machines that help them with their livelihood.

You play as a young boy named Ryu in his little dragon form, encased inside a giant Chrysm located in the mines. He was freed by the miners and caused chaos as he wanders around, killing the miners in the process. Suddenly he heard a voice coming from a large fossilized dragon nearby, telling him not to hurt anyone. Distracted, Ryu was knocked out by a mine worker using a crane. He was then caged and put on a small train, sent away to be disposed of.

Ryu got free by dislodging his cage off the train, falling down to the forest below. There he met Rei, a tiger-human who was hunting for food until he spotted Ryu in his human form; unconscious and surrounded by wolves that were about to eat him. Rei saved Ryu and took him to his hideout, where Rei's friend Teepo was waiting for him. They decided to let Ryu stay with them, and the three formed friendship and went on with their mischief adventures! But unknown to Ryu, this is just the start of his very long journey ahead. The story about his dragon lineage, the Brood, and the truth. You must help him guide to his destiny.

End of intro.

Right off the bat, it plays like your standard J-RPG. The map is viewed in isometric polygonal 3D. You can move freely in any 8 directions unlike the previous titles, and because it being in 3D means some walls and objects will obstruct some view from your camera's angle. Luckily you can move this camera by rotating it around to see things behind them, albeit pretty limited.

The battle system is turn-based, and whoever gets to attack first is determined by both the party and enemies' Speed stats by descending order individually. It has your basic commands like Attack, Defend, Use Magic, and Use Item.

There's a new command called Examine, and what it does is your character will observe your selected target and attempt to learn a new skill from them. It requires a bit of patience as sometimes the enemies won't use the skill you wanted them to learn, or can't learn it instantly. Once learned, other party members cannot learn the same skill, but you can swap them between other party member using a diary (it requires a consumable item called Skill Ink).

Charge command is an auto-attack function if you wish to end the battle sooner without your input (your party will use normal attacks and will always go for the weakest enemy first, but you can cancel this by mashing the cancel button). And lastly there's the Escape command if you think you're not strong enough to battle powerful enemies, or you can't be bothered to fight very weak enemies.

What this game is known for is Ryu's ability called Accession. You can access Ryu's dragon powers and mix and match genes together to your liking, turning him into different dragon forms depending on the combination. These genes can be found around the map; some are already visible on the screen, some are hidden behind objects. Powerful combination of genes comes with a price; it uses a lot of Ability Points (AP). So not only you need to spend a chunk of AP to transform into his dragon form, it also consumes AP per turn for as long as he stays as a dragon. His dragon form ends if you forced him to return to human or when his AP become insufficient.

Another neat mechanic is the Masters system. There are NPCs you can meet that are called Masters who will take one or more of your party members as their apprentice. Under their guidance the party member(s) will gain benefits of increasing specific stats as they level-up, but some stats may suffer. And if they leveled-up enough and return to their preferred Master they will learn new abilities from them. You have to experiment which party members work best for each Masters, but remember that each of your party members can only have one Master at a time. You can't have multiple Masters for one member.

The story is pretty good! The thing I told up there is basically just the intro and doesn't spoil anything. You have to experience it!

If you wish to save your progress you need to sleep in an Inn or camp anywhere outside if you're in overworld map. You'll find a diary inside a camp where you can save your progress before or after a night's rest. What's the difference between an Inn and Camping? The latter is for convenience, but if your party member dies in a battle and you failed to revive them as the battle ends, they'll suffer a Max HP loss (displayed as yellow text instead of white in their HP stats). Simply sleeping in a Camp won't work. You need to find and sleep in an Inn to completely remove this effect.

The most memorable thing to me about this game is its soundtrack! It was WAY ahead of its time! It's full of Jazz Fusion and epic Orchestra tracks that you'll either vibe or keep hyped! Even after you're long done with the game the soundtrack will stay with you forever. It's really that great and memorable!

Around the game are sprinkled with mini-games that you can play, like the Fishing mini-game. Some mini-games are tied to story progression and may take some bit of patience to finish them, but eventually you'll succeed as they're not that hard to do.

Now that's out of the way, let's talk about... the bad side.

※ The enemy encounter rate is annoying in maps that is full of them. In overworld maps you don't get enemy encounters, instead it will display an Exclamation Point (!) balloon over your character sprite as you walk around. Meaning you have a choice if you want to enter this tiny map and fight the enemies or just ignore it, but engaging the enemy encounter means you'll get a guaranteed random item if you can find it. It's a different story in dungeon-type maps: the enemy encounter rate is very frequent. I mean, it's fine if you want to grind, it's just that the flashy animations for spells and abilities take forever to finish and it's annoying. But that's not the most annoying part of it! You'll also have to deal with...
※ Enemies spamming status effects that will sometimes, if not always, guaranteed a successful hit. If you come in unprepared and don't have the items that can negate or cure the status ailments, then be prepared for a world of hurt. Not only you have to endure watching a long animation of their spells that takes 5 or more seconds to finish, once it succeeds to make your party member blinded, sleep, poisoned, silenced, confused, paralyzed, whatever, you're basically f'ed. Enemies love to spam these at every opportunity, and having these status ailments on you can really hurt your turn in battle. The worst offenders are Sleep, Poison, Confusion, and Paralyzed. There are also other unique status effects from specific enemies, but I won't go deep into that.
※ The game is too grindy. Believe me, this game is very grindy when it comes to leveling-up. It will require you to level-up to certain levels to just get even with the enemies in later maps that are difficult to beat. The solution to this is you just need to pick a good Master for your party members to increase the stats where they excel the most. So even with a bit of grinding you can already beat the enemies enough to get through the dungeon. That doesn't mean you're safe from their status effects!
※ Some enemies have weird high stats. There are some enemies having ridiculous high stats that fighting them can be annoying. Like for example, there're these group of enemies with high Agility that attacking them with physical attacks will have a high chance of getting a miss. The only way to deal with them is by casting magic that deals damage to all and pray that all of them get wiped out, or else you'll have to deal with their BS further. There's another type of enemy that has ridiculously high Speed stat that their only purpose is to steal HP from you or just deal a damage before running away. Like... Why.
※ The horrible typo near the end of the game. The Desert of Death. If you know, you know.

There are so many things I want to list here, but it'll make this review too long than it already is. Once I learned how to become better prepared on my next playthrough all of these problems are alleviated a little.

My experience with this game is 5/5, because despite the problems it has there's genuine fun throughout my playthrough and not because I'm totally a fan of this game, I swear to dingus.

IN SUM: A JRPG with inflated ratings due to nostalgia rose-tinted glasses that fails to live up to the greatness of its predecessor Breath of Fire II. Please play BoF2 with the amazing fan translation instead!

BoF is known as CAPCOM's first meaningful JRPG franchise. It features very nice graphics, great music, and an anthropomorphic fantastic world. The storylines are sort of what you'd expect from a turn of the century JRPG: good vs evil, man vs god/machine, etc. Other common elements are a dragon humanoid protagonist, a female lead called Nina, and lead party members with specific overworld interactions for puzzle-solving.

BoF 2 was a big failure... but only due to sporting one of the most horrible official translations in existence. This was rectified with the very opposite: possible one of the best fan TLs I've had the pleasure of reading. Nonetheless, it made it so that the western audience had a bad impression of the game. I reason this rationale due BoF 3's status as the best of the franchise. After experiencing it, it's clearly not, but it's explained by the aforementioned barriers to entry.

This game is quick to disappoint. It has one of the most boring, redundant, and pointless early games ever. The first 15 hours have you wander aimlessly with similar events repeating, and very little worldbuilding, character building, or story hints. Most enemies are weak and all but boss battles are solvable by leaving the game on autobattle and stocking up on cheap but efficient healing items. This is a trend that remains throughout the whole game. It does not help that the animations are extremely slow with lots of redundancy, making the game an absolute slog without fast-forward. It also features some real stinkers for dungeons, but soon does the game shift its gears by introducing a story twist and segwaying into Act 2. I would argue, however, that no matter how good the individual scenes, a very tedious Act 1 heavily damages the subsequent acts.

Many of the disappointing points remained. Coming from BoF2, I was expecting the same intricate character-driven story arcs and emotional climaxes rivaling and at times surpassing those of behemoths such as Chrono Trigger. It's only near the end that the games does unravel itself and bring on the moments of character introspection. However, it's not helped by the fact that you don't have a strong affinity for these weakly developed characters, and that the game gives the player fake agency throughout, pretending you have a voice in the happenings.

Gameplay-wise, it features two big systems. First is the apprentice system, where you may leave a character under a master's tutelage. You get a trade-off of positive and negative stat growths and learn some skills in return. If you're careless, you could very well gimp your character and make them useless later on. If you just follow your intuition, you should be mostly fine. One of the best masters is met really early on, so it's hard to screw-up your MC. One of the best lategame ones could be permanently lost due to a simple "Do you like how I look'?" question. Coupled with this, with the usage of very restricted consumable items, you're able to switch master-learned skills around between your characters. So you could use some scrubs to gain skills quickly and transfer them to your powerhouses.

The other one is Dragon transformation. Ryu, the protagonist, has the ability to transform into a dragon. You can acquire crystallized genes from story rewards, or items in the overworld. With 18 choices and being able to combine them to up to groups of 3, there's dozens (hundreds) of different possible choices. It sounds pretty neat, but entering and maintaining this form costs a lot of AP (mana equivalent), so you'll only be using it during boss fights (which can be actually challenging). This actually means you'll be looking up the best choices, choosing cookie-cutter options, or picking the same ones as the situation fits due to overburden of choice. So this system can't be exploited to its fullest.

Since I mentioned translation previously, the game suffers from some issues as well. The dialogue is very weak and reminiscent of NES JRPGs with limited characters textboxes. It can even read contradictorily in the most important story moments, and I give the benefit of the doubt by attributing this due to being lost in translation.

The game has inflated ratings due to rose-tinted nostalgia. We have to keep in mind this was the same console that gave us games such as FF7 (and others), Xenogears, and Chrono Chross. The result was an above-average JRPG that fails to live up to the reputation of its predecessor, in big part due to unfortunate circumstances.

TLDR: Play BoF2 with the fanTL instead!

Gameplay: Very good
Story: It has a very interesting and somewhat engaging story
Music: Really good
Replayable: Kinda
Streamed: Nope

Man, what an insane step up from Breath of Fire 1 and 2. I was able to appreciate 2 immensely thanks to the fan retranslation which included some qol updates, but thinking back to my playthrough of 1, and how much of a slog it was compared to this game, it's night and day. One thing that helps is that the translation is actually pretty good - there was the occasional odd reading line of dialogue, and full stops are never used to punctuate sentences, for some reason, but for me, one of the most important, defining things that Breath of Fire 3 does is that it takes the unique quirks that worked in its predecessors, and really goes in on them, to the point that there's just such an overwhelming amount of charm that it easily stands out compared to its contemporary jrpgs of the ps1. From the expressiveness of the character sprites, to the groovy soundtrack, the many poignant story beats, even the minigames. It doesn't have the most complex, philosophical jrpg narrative or fleshed out characters, nor does it have the most mechanically engrossing gameplay, but almost every moment of this game was just really fun.

If I had to compare this to anything, it'd be Dragon Quest V. If you love that game as much as I do, you'll love this too, the similarities are evident from the get-go, but this game does a lot to still give itself its own identity.

This game also has Momo so it's literally impossible for it to be bad.

"I just wanted to be with… you rei and you, ryu… my family…"

after putting more than the hour counter can actually count (it maxes at 99:59) I can finally review this fucking game

there's absolutely nothing that feels quite like breath of fire III it sits right there into the classic JRPG genre and cornucopia of titles and still it's one of the most unique and innovative title in the scope of the genre legacy and its so weird to me that a game filled with love talent and professionality for a game that is sure to leave an impression may it be good or bad but you WILL remember bof3 for something even the most minuscule detail

breath of fire has always been sitting there as one of those really interesting series that I wanted to check out but never really gotten into because of reasons i guess

ive tried bof1 many years ago and it was honestly kind of an underwhelming experience i never finished it because it seriously got to be a fucking chore just after a couple of hours into the game and I can't honestly really say im that excited to get back to it

bof2 was an interesting step up from the predecessor but still it wasn't THAT gripping to make me insanely enthusiastic in continuing the journey so it got dropped really fast im so sorry

now bof3 is the one bof3 is the super hot mysterious guy sitting in the corner that gives you all kinds of emotional ecstasy and turmoil and this is probably now one of my favorite games not only in the franchise but in general as a whole in the wider sense like I'm completely hooked on this I just cannot begin to tell you how emotionally attached I am to the story to the characters and to each and every single aspect of the game

still having the skeleton of the first 2 games bof3 delivers an experience that feels true to the series in itself and yet tries something completely new in all departments

gameplay wise this is the usual jrpg experience youre gonna find everywhere you get a simple battle system you get some party members you level up and you defeat god as usual but of course its done with incredible care and love I cannot overstate enough how good this shit is

the battle system is something that blew me away for how simple it is but also for how customizable it can be when you know what you're doing apart from the usual stuff like leveling up skills shit like that you're also gonna get some nuance that the game DOESNT even tell you about like theres the ability to examine enemies and this will give you some additional skills like the blue mage in final fantasy and you have the possibility to make your party members study under masters now this master mechanic is fucking amazing you can basically change the level progression and points attribution making the character study under a physical master or a magical master you can do whatever you want AND after some levels you can learn some skills from the master itself and thats where it all shines PLUS you can also use some skill ink to move the skill from one character to the other so the possibility of customization is beyond what I was expecting forreal

that being said the battles are pretty uneventful and straightforward if it weren't for another mechanic which is the dragon genes . your protagonist being a dragon breed is able to turn into a dragon and throughout the game you can acquire something like 20 something genes and you can mix them up however you want theres genes with elemental values theres genes that change the attributes of the character and genes that make things that I genuinely don't know because I didnt experiment enough honestly also my ryu build was mainly physical so I didn't have that much AP to do enough dragon breed play

and what's interesting is that most of these have different sprites ??? THATS SO FUCKING COOL UGHHHHH

understandably enough this is actually gonna add a lot to the gameplay which is already pretty rich and that means that you can tackle the main bosses of the game in so many different combinations of abilities skills tactics and party members that the possibilities are rightfully endless you can do whatever you want and the game always rewards a little curiosity here and there

allegedly this was dubbed as one of the hardest jrpgs around and honestly after playing smt3 (which isn't the hardest jrpg by any means anyway) I can tell you that this is a breeze to go through maybe this is the SMT aficionado DNA doing all the work during this game but I didnt have that many issues apart from the final boss which is honestly pretty tough

apart from that maybe the real difficulty spike is during the beginning of the game where you don't really know what is happening and how to actually exploit the main mechanics of the game but after that it's pretty chill not really a surprise because of the BIG difference that makes leveling up (this is no +1 atk the difference is pretty massive and youre gonna finish the game at around level 40 or something and at least as I managed to understand by watching levels go up every level counts)

that being said the exploration aspect is also interesting but it's more about treasure hunting than real exploration the main traveling you will have to do is strictly entwined with the main quest and youre not going to have the entire map available to you until you actually get pretty late in the game and you're gonna get there through the story events so yeah the real exploration is gonna be like scavenging for treasures here and there until you find new equipment new items or even new masters sometimes

there's a fishing minigame which is pretty great I was purposefully ignoring it but a main quest requires you to actually fish so I went there and actually had a lot of fun what the hell I was NOT expecting that but ideally im not one of those "I love fishing minigames" guys so i cannot really give this minigame a rating of course it didn't make me change my opinion on these ones but at least it didn't bring me to mental anguish

and another thing that I didnt actually MIND that much but it made me kind of confused and weirded out is the fact that during the second part of the game which is obviously the climax of the story in itself youre stuck with doing a lot of minigames and a lot of puzzles here and there now as I said I don't think this is inherently an issue but when you're going after the true bad ™ and the games says OK but actually why don't you just do a "getting water from a well" minigame or a "tug of war" minigame or like 10 others like this its actually pretty anticlimactic and it broke down the pacing but whatever this game is still perfect im not gonna say a single bad word about it

another shit that absolutely FUCKS ASS is the art direction and music department

now yknow I'm a sucker for art style and art direction more than I am of graphics because everybody can get a 4k texture or model from the web and put it into your game development engine but most of the people here don't actually know how to work IN FAVOR of these aspects you can't just put RTX on graphics with zero sense of design and call it a day cmon and thats also why sometimes old games shine brighter than some games releasing nowadays NOW PLEASE dont say shit like "UGHHJ BOOMER YOURE SAYING ALL MODERN DAY GAMES SUCK" no im saying either old or modern games with no sense of art direction are doomed to suck AT LEAST in the art department maybe they're gonna be the best fps you'll ever play but I won't be here to praise it one bit

and this game UGHHHH the pixel art is GORGEOUS every single expression and action is animated not only during the cutscene segments but the animations during battles are absolutely fucking insane when you cast a spell with garr his necklace is gonna break and hover around him making a circle and when you cast a spell with momo her rifle is gonna make some fleshy enchanting lights

and the bosses have some bomb ass sprite work and the animation pushes them to their limit like the dragon lord is hot as fuck the gazer blew me the fuck away and then myria being myria she's absolutely gorgeous incredible to the end and to top all of this kaiser dragon form is the hunkiest transformation for ryu like it made me sweat like crazy this guy8

like this is not the best pixel art ive ever seen in the entirety of my life and doesnt even compare to the one in bof4 but the sheer amount of love put into every single character design every single animation every single pixel can be felt through the screen and right in front of your fucking face theres nothing that feels quite like this and it would amount to nothing if it werent for the jawdropping character designs

and also the character portraits in the menu are so cute im sorry I love each and every one of my kids

the 2d sprites also have a 3d background the entirety of the world youre gonna traverse is made up of 3d models that make such a great contrast with the characters this is something that I also saw in xenogears and yknow that game is also gorgeous as fuck the ps1 jrpgs are absolutely out of this world I cannot believe this

all of this accompanied by such a great OST that it still really surprises me by how different and unique it is from the usual jrpg flare you get in other games songs

some people say this soundtrack is not really memorable and I have to both agree and disagree . people when say a soundtrack isn't memorable they probably mean there isn't a strong score in the repertoire and to that I have to agree theres not really a song that shines brighter than the other or a song that's catchier or bouncer and to that I have to say that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE SONGS IS GOOD SO OF COURSE ITS NOT GONNA BE "MEMORABLE" UGHHHHHHHHHH this score is full FULL of amazing tracks theres not a single track that made me go "ugh this again" and they also have such a nice vibe most of them are jazzy moody tunes with simple and straightforward instruments but also a lot of variety in the genre and every single one of them pumps like they're absolutely fucking incredible this cannot be a coincidence this is masterfully done by a composer that lives and breathes my same air in this planet its pretty insane if you think about it (unless they're that and at that point im really sorry)

so yeah tracks like the main battle theme which is already pretty incredible and the boss battle theme which is absolutely fucking insane honestly I just vibed to the tune every single time tutututuuuuutu stuck in my head for weeks and weeks to come theyre amazing

also theres something so hypnotic about the cedar woods theme I can't really explain it it feels so familiar and so nostalgic at the same time to the point that even if you just encountered rei and teepo they feel like family already and possibly the greatest game over theme ever like this has such a nice vibe to it its amazing and also one of the saddest theme ever created in the universe thrown at you in the most unexpected moments ever and yknow many other different soundtracks that I'm not gonna talk about or else I'm gonna just link the whole ost here ong

so now we're gonna get to the juice of the game and the main reason why I think this is actually such a strong addition to the jrpg catalogues out there

the characters are perfect I care for them I love each and every one of them I absolutely enjoy seeing them smile and having fun and shit like that and to talk about them I'm gonna get into SPOILER TERRITORY SO HERES THE TIME FOR YOU TO GO BACK

ryu is a silent protagonist so there's really nothing incredible to say about him apart from the fact that most of his motivations are pretty straightforward and clear and he's kind of a hotty when he grows up seeing him go from powerless little baby to godslayer is a recurring them in the industry and yet here it's treated with so much care to the point that you also grow up with him when you see how he changed through the timeskip and what the world has come to you suddenly get a sense of scale and responsibility that wasnt present in the time of ryus childhood and still he's an interesting character to explore and its pretty funny to me that the main way to know what ryus thinking is by "talking" with peco and hearing his thoughts about him . probably not my favorite character in existence but it's unbearable to me that this game isn't sitting in the rightful throne of unique jrpgs experiences out there
NSFW WARNING rei is my favorite character in this one and apart from the fact that he's so fucking hot and I want to suck him dry either in human form OR tiger from and I want to be wrecked from the insides out and railed to hell and back and spit in my mouth and called slurs and derogatory terms and left without any power in my legs and also with a myriad of babies in my ass umh what was I even saying oh right rei he's pretty interesting and seeing him go from chill little thief of the hometown to scarred big bro in just a timeskip is devastating as shit and while most of ryus childhood he tried to be a father figure to both teepo and ryu you can actually feel his care for the little guys to the point that in times of danger he protected them in every conceivable way and when you get to the timeskip he's absolutely powerless he's no more the big bro figure to ryu but instead it's ryu trying to save rei from complete madness where the grief for losing teepo consumed his well being to the point that he goes ape shit crazy into weretiger mode and kills people all around . he doesn't really change that much after you get into the party but the striking realisation that he's no more the easygoing cheerful pal of the prologue hurts like he'll he's great and he's design is incredible I want him in my ass
nine may be the second best character of the bunch for me mainly because I love her type of characterisation . when you first get to know her she's the little rebellious princess of the main kingdom of the land with responsibility and honor to think about but she's just gonna leave home and follow ryu and friends like its nothing to my surprise she was also a fairly conflicted character because of her gratitude to ryu but also for her ties to her parents and this actually follows her throughout the adventure with her regretting from time to time her decision and STILL she's incredibly tough she cares for ryu like nobody else around and probably is the main person of the OG gang to defend ryu in front of absolutely everyone and everything she's willing to go to the end of the world for him and this kind of friendship really takes the cake for me . when she grows up its not a surprise to see an accomplished woman who's rightful empowered and outgoing to the point that you're gonna meet her while she doesn't some arrest around the town like ok miss girl do your thing and even though she's grown up she has a bomb body she's hot she's fierce and whatevet the hell she's still that little baby you remember at heart she still cares for both ryu and her parents and this create a great fissure between what she wants to do and what she has to do and THIS KIND OF CHARACTER IS UGHHHHH I LOVE IT plus her entire design is probably the best nina design in the series like the dress the hair the wings
momo is also great im saying that every single character is great because its true she's kind of the comic relief of the bunch and while she IS a fucking clown she's still some of the most charming and easy to love character of the entire circus she's absolutely in love machines due to her ties with her father who was also a mechanic and shes absolutely obsessed with them but this is not the main point of the character her main character issue is the distance that she feels from her worth and her father's worth and this makes for some real depressing moments in her character development that will probably feel close to some of you like it did to me and yet even though she struggles with this she cares for the other guys and always does her best shes a sweetheart I love this woman
garr is an enigmatic character and I can't really put my finger on it he's an angel ???????? yeah pretty weird if you ask me he's built like a dragon and he's…… pretty beefy and hot at that I really want to see his cock if I'm being incredibly honest with you but no hes an angel and the main issue is that he's from a long line of guardian angels whose main mission was to annihilate every single dragon in existence for the peace of the world and thats also the reason why he's gonna join ryu and trick him to kill him in angel tower and this really gives some kind of perspective into the character and also when you get to the town of the guardian you begin to understand that garr is actually hiding something like why is everybody calling him guardian angel and didn't think of saying that to the others but anyway after the timeskip he realises that he's fucking dumb and that ryu isn't a bad guy to begin with he's not gonna get into manslaughter or shit like that and thats when he gets into this redemption arc type of way UNTIL he just sacrifices in the ending like WHYYYYYY GARR WHYYYYYYY UGHHH I wanted to see your dick first the fuck
peco is an interesting one since he's basically a plant and doesn't talk or think or anything UNTIL he does because he's a root of yggdrasil or whatever and that also makes a lot of sense because when you see yggdrasil in the overworld where he can become your master peco is the only single who can talk to him I was suspecting something like this when he began to talk in ryus mind but I didnt think it was actually this anyway hes a nice addition unfortunately I didn't use it at all during my campaign also due to the fact that he has few skills and can't equip most stuff
teepo I'm so sorry … I loved teepo as a kid he's shrewd and charismatic he's a little bro to ryu or like equal age bro and still sometimes acts as a big bro to him too since he's the latest addendum to the party and honestly he's cute he's intelligent and he's the sweetest baby who didn't do anything wrong in his life after the timeskip where you just lose track of him when you meet him again you get to know that he's a dragon too and that he's living in an artificial world as the goddess is asking to and while he's living comfortably in there ryu can't do the same and so they fuck each other up and teepo dies . this is actually insane if you ask me after years of searching for your childhood friend due to dissenting opinions youre either gonna get killed or kill him and even though he's become more mature and more gloomy I feel like he's still the teepo I know at heart I love you

the other characters apart from these guys are actually just addendum to the story like the pegasus guys deis the 2 guys in port whatever that end up fucking the sea guy ninas parents the other guardian who is also HOT AS FUCK UHHHHH guardians are damn hot im sorry so yeah nothing to say about them I want to eiffel tower with the 2 horse guys

the story is actually a highlight too and flows accordingly

the prologue is probably my favorite part of the game where you escape from the mine and get to know the other main characters of the game and create the very first trio you go thieving you go scavenging you live life and make memories until NOT and they set your house on fire and kidnap you

its probably one of my favorite prologues in general it feels reminiscent of childhood as a whole and it has this really specific vibe of big bros trying to help out this stranded little kid creating a somewhat functional family and the found family trope is soooo MMMMMMMMM to me like these people cared for each other and if it weren't for this they would've continued to live together and thats why it makes it even worse to actually confront teepo at the end of the game all of this wouldn't have happened if it weren't for some weird coincidences of fate and a bad luck all around and there's that

after this during the childhood days the main quest will concentrate around trying to find rei and teepo and in the meantime you will get to know the other main cast of the game nina in her steel fortress momo in her ruins and garr during the tournament and this last encounter actually seals the deal to head to angel tower and shit

the pacing in this part of the game is absolutely enchanting back to back to back incredible stuff story unravels and mysteries increase you begin to slowly grow up and grow accustomed to how the world works to how friendship is actually cultivated and to how stigmatised you are for being a dragon something that people treat as either a circus attraction or a menace to society as a whole

the events of angel tower seal the deal for the timeskip and actually kind of make up for actually not really advancing the story for 20 something hours

the timeskip events are weird because youre gonna meet back your friend group soon enough but garr is actually more introspective and actually sorry about what happened nina changed for the better and peco is still peco everything changed you yourself changed but the hatred for the dragon kind is still there and that's why the new mission for these guys is to go directly to god herself and speak to her as to why this is happening

after recruiting rei and doing some more main quests stuff that actually feel like side quests stuff and a LOT of time later you will get to the new continent in the other side of the outer sea and be confronted with the greatest place of the game with a weird name

now little excursus the environments in this game are unmatched everything in the overworld is alive and brimming with life each town has different layouts general aesthetic and vibes the town of the tournament feels like a nighttime casino city ryus village is calm and chill the castle town is overpopulated and so on so forth and that applies to the dungeons too theres not really a dungeon that I can deem as bad at least in the artistic department each one is distinct and beautiful but what I wanted to say is that most of the stuff youre gonna go through here and there is mostly natural when you get to the new continent youre gonna get a stark contrast in which most of the towns and the final dungeon will have heavy machinery hi tech technologyyy and claustrophobic vibes something that doesn't happen in other parts of the game and thats already an incredible accomplishment

the final dungeon is kind of a pain in the ass but I dare you to find a final dungeon that isn't mostly shit so anyway theres this stark contrast between the final dungeon AND where teepo is living which is a Eden full of green and trees and other stuff and this kind of feels even worse to do because this kind of world was something ryu and rei and teepo were trying to achieve together and instead it's the place where you're gonna kill your childhood friend for the sake of your ideals

there's nothing I can say to give justice to this scene its something so fucking powerful you have to experience firsthand and im still kind of sad how things proceeded even though that was to be expected

that being said the final final dungeon with the kind of long and tedious traversing but not AS MUCH as other games honestly this one is pretty chill apart from some weird tricky endgame enemies and the fact that you'll need to heal every 3 seconds

the final boss is nothing TOOOOOO difficult but still difficult and the emotional final confrontation is done SOOOOO well with you speaking with every character and just going there and smashing the face of the bitch ass goddess of the dick and after that garr is gonna sacrifice himself for ryu :*(((((((( garr I'm so sorry I loved you so fucking much and then youre gonna just escape from this fucking place and youre gonna be left with an ending scene where the characters actually have sprites that resemble their clothes in the character art

and thats it this game is incredible

this may not be the most perfect game in existence but it sure managed to not only surpass my expectations but soar the highs of my tierlist to the point that it became one of my favorite games of all times characters are great art is impeccable gameplay is fun and story is unmatched there's literally nothing out there that can emulate the uniqueness that this game oozes from every pore

teepo you will always be in my heart I just wish you could be happy with your family

Rolled this game off of a backlog marble race. I liked it even though it’s fairly long. I ended up putting it aside a few times and it wasn’t even the first game in the backlog marbles I finished, rendering the whole thing fraudulent. It could’ve probably shaved off like 10 hours, specifically eyeing that part of the game where you have to do a long string of side quests in order to cross the Outer Sea, including being told the ship you spent a while working on fixing is worthless for crossing the Outer Sea and you actually need to jump on board the enemy ship to get over.

Game was still solid though. Garr is my guy and his theme, Fighting Man, is probably my personal favorite in the OST. They should put him in the next Capcom Versus game, or like literally anyone else from this franchise.

"It was a long, hard journey... But we did the right thing... Didn't we, Ryu?"

Going in, I expected a pretty simple, old, and generic JRPG. After playing, I was honestly surprised by how charming the game is.

BoF3 has a pretty simple narrative, but it really allows each of its characters a lot of time to shine. Like, COME ON I LOVE THIS DUDE REI!!!!!! DUDES THE GOAT!!!!! I also really appreciated how expressive Ryu was for a silent protagonist. You can really tell how much of a goof he is as a kid just from a few interactions. A surprising amount of those interactions are genuinely funny and caught me off guard with some of the scenarios multiple times.

The combat in the game is also really fun when you get access to mix and match the spells, genes, and party members. Unfortunately, this leaves the first 40%-ish of the game mostly lacking (both in combat and story) and tedious. Though once you make it past that, then the game really opens up. I would have given the game a lower score but MAN was I surprised by just how COOL stuff gets near the end (KINO FINAL BOSS).

This is also the only game I've played with a little onion dude and the best fishing minigame ever so yeah. kino/10

An amazing campy old-school PS1 JRPG with beautiful art direction, sprite work, and music. Definitely check this one out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

inner monologue: okay, you can do this, just tell everyone how important this game was to you in your formative years and how it represents a kind of nostalgia for a time past that you'll never reclaim; that this game, in essence, represents the hopefulness of youth

...rei.... titty big

inner monologue: goddammit that's it, i'm outta here