The changes, additions and advances to mechanics in Breath of Fire II are a mixed bag. On one hand, the quality of life improvements to menu & combat, and new features such as settlement building (predating Suikoden) are welcome, but the changes to transformations (now a mere attack instead of altering character control) and the overall grindy gameplay is disappointing. Not to mention that obscure progression rears its ugly head in this game as well. At the very least, the game takes some cues from Final Fantasy IV and began focusing on meaningful character sub-stories.