Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter is a really excellent RPG with some awesome and unique ideas that make up for its few narrative missteps and mechanical opacity. This is the best and most interesting Breath of Fire game.
The visuals and music in Dragon Quarter are great. The character models are well done and expressive and the environments are varied and look good.
The music is definitely a high point, a lot of it is reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story (same composer) and it sounds fantastic throughout the game.
The narrative here is very cool to begin with but runs out of steam towards the end. You play as a 'Ranger' in an underground, post apocalyptic society that seems to have formed after a disaster on the surface of the world, making it unlivable in some way. Over the course of the game you meet Nina, a girl who is a lab experiment of some kind, and Lin, a member of a resistance organization. These three main characters are cool spins on the Breath of Fire main cast (Dragon Boy, Flying Girl, and Cat Person), and it makes this game feel like a weird, far-future version of a Breath of Fire game.
The story itself is contained and drives forward effectively. The world and factions are all interesting and the game generally doesn't try to do too much. There are a lot of really good character moments and the graphical style and animations convey feelings really effectively. There are more than a few very striking character reactions of sadness and horror that are among the most effective I have seen in games.
Near the end the game throws in what is basically a boss gauntlet of a bunch of barely foreshadowed members of some organization that vaguely controls the Rangers and isn't really involved in the story up to that point. It all feels very disconnected and low stakes, even though they hint at some sort of metaphysical connection between these characters. It didn't work for me and just distracted from the main through-line of Nina trying to get to the surface with Ryu and Lin's help (plus interference and rivalry with the Rangers).
Exploration is fun, with distinctive, not-overly confusing dungeons and the ability to start combat by attacking enemies on the field. The environments look cool, in that classic PS2 sort of way, and even though most of it is underground and dark, there is a lot of variety to the areas you travel through.
There is also a fairy cave mini-game where you recruit ants to do various jobs. shrug Breath of Fire.
Combat in Dragon Quarter is tactical. Characters have action points they can spend on movement and attacks in a fairly straight-forward way. There is a twist that works pretty well, where you can build combos from abilities you have 'threaded' onto your weapons. Abilities have different costs and how they are set up in the weapon and how you string them together brings a lot of depth to the system. Each of the three characters also has things they are better at and each feels distinct to play, in terms of their actual abilities and how they combo them together.
Additionally, the main character can use a special dragon mode that gives him new abilities and can kill literally every enemy in the game in one turn. You have a percentage counter and if it hits 100% at any point, it is game over! This seems insane, but manipulating this counter is an integral part of the game that feeds elegantly into...
The real innovation in Dragon Quarter comes, strangely, from the save system which is, unfortunately, very opaque and weird. Getting your head around (and even remembering) how it works is definitely a challenge.
It comes down to basically one menu option (SOL Restore) that you can do whenever you want (and it triggers automatically if you die, which shouldn't ever happen). Using this overwrites certain aspects of your save file and boots you back to the main menu, letting you load your newly altered save. When you load, you are back at the location from the save file, at the level you were when you made it with a minimal set of items and (Importantly!) your dragon percentage at whatever it was when you saved. From the SOL Restore, you get your weapon inventory, item bank, any new skills you found, and your cash and freely assignable party experience points. This is all very complicated and seems arbitrary, but the bottom line is that the game wants you to save before a new area, then run through the upcoming dungeon using your dragon abilities to trivialize it (gaining massive amounts of party exp because of efficiency bonuses) while you pick up new weapons, learn new skills, and loot a bunch of stat bonus items. Then you SOL Restore (which resets your levels and dragon counter) distribute your party experience and use your stat bonus items, save, and do it again until you can easily make it through the dungeon without needing dragon form at all. Basically, a unique, interesting form of grinding is built fundamentally into the mechanics of the game that make it almost feel like a roguelike.
The SOL Restore system makes the dragon form work! You can use this massively powerful, fun form as much as you want to learn the level and defeat hard, optional side enemies then reset your counter and keep most of your rewards!
The level design exploits the SOL Restore system! The main path through a level is almost always short and straight, so once you learn the level and have gotten every item and skill out of it, you can just run right through to the next part of the game!
The system lets you bring weapons from the future back to help you in the past! You can run up to the boss of the level, steal their sword, SOL Restore, then use it to kill them!
New narrative events happen the second and third times through an area, so SOL Restore has some additional reward for effectively using it!
There are a few missteps with this system, unfortunately.
There is an additional SOL Restart feature, which does the same thing as SOL Restore, but sends you back to the beginning of the game. I think you would never want to do this, and it seems like it is included so that there can be a newgame+?
Saving is unnecessarily annoying, with a dependency on sparse save terminals and a pseudo-rare item (that is part of your basic SOL Restore inventory). The game would just be better if it let you save at every terminal for free.
A couple of things don't carry over but should, which just makes things fiddly. If SOL Restore saved new backpack slots, used stat items, and applied party experience the whole thing would just work more smoothly without losing anything.
All that aside, it is hard to express how awesome and unique the SOL system is and how much it truly impacts the game. It is really a triumph of game design that brings Dragon Quarter from 4 stars up to 5 for me, despite its other minor shortcomings. This game is worth checking out... just give it a chance to teach you how to play it and you will have a good time with its unique take on RPG advancement, interesting world, and solid, turn-based combat.
The visuals and music in Dragon Quarter are great. The character models are well done and expressive and the environments are varied and look good.
The music is definitely a high point, a lot of it is reminiscent of Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story (same composer) and it sounds fantastic throughout the game.
The narrative here is very cool to begin with but runs out of steam towards the end. You play as a 'Ranger' in an underground, post apocalyptic society that seems to have formed after a disaster on the surface of the world, making it unlivable in some way. Over the course of the game you meet Nina, a girl who is a lab experiment of some kind, and Lin, a member of a resistance organization. These three main characters are cool spins on the Breath of Fire main cast (Dragon Boy, Flying Girl, and Cat Person), and it makes this game feel like a weird, far-future version of a Breath of Fire game.
The story itself is contained and drives forward effectively. The world and factions are all interesting and the game generally doesn't try to do too much. There are a lot of really good character moments and the graphical style and animations convey feelings really effectively. There are more than a few very striking character reactions of sadness and horror that are among the most effective I have seen in games.
Near the end the game throws in what is basically a boss gauntlet of a bunch of barely foreshadowed members of some organization that vaguely controls the Rangers and isn't really involved in the story up to that point. It all feels very disconnected and low stakes, even though they hint at some sort of metaphysical connection between these characters. It didn't work for me and just distracted from the main through-line of Nina trying to get to the surface with Ryu and Lin's help (plus interference and rivalry with the Rangers).
Exploration is fun, with distinctive, not-overly confusing dungeons and the ability to start combat by attacking enemies on the field. The environments look cool, in that classic PS2 sort of way, and even though most of it is underground and dark, there is a lot of variety to the areas you travel through.
There is also a fairy cave mini-game where you recruit ants to do various jobs. shrug Breath of Fire.
Combat in Dragon Quarter is tactical. Characters have action points they can spend on movement and attacks in a fairly straight-forward way. There is a twist that works pretty well, where you can build combos from abilities you have 'threaded' onto your weapons. Abilities have different costs and how they are set up in the weapon and how you string them together brings a lot of depth to the system. Each of the three characters also has things they are better at and each feels distinct to play, in terms of their actual abilities and how they combo them together.
Additionally, the main character can use a special dragon mode that gives him new abilities and can kill literally every enemy in the game in one turn. You have a percentage counter and if it hits 100% at any point, it is game over! This seems insane, but manipulating this counter is an integral part of the game that feeds elegantly into...
The real innovation in Dragon Quarter comes, strangely, from the save system which is, unfortunately, very opaque and weird. Getting your head around (and even remembering) how it works is definitely a challenge.
It comes down to basically one menu option (SOL Restore) that you can do whenever you want (and it triggers automatically if you die, which shouldn't ever happen). Using this overwrites certain aspects of your save file and boots you back to the main menu, letting you load your newly altered save. When you load, you are back at the location from the save file, at the level you were when you made it with a minimal set of items and (Importantly!) your dragon percentage at whatever it was when you saved. From the SOL Restore, you get your weapon inventory, item bank, any new skills you found, and your cash and freely assignable party experience points. This is all very complicated and seems arbitrary, but the bottom line is that the game wants you to save before a new area, then run through the upcoming dungeon using your dragon abilities to trivialize it (gaining massive amounts of party exp because of efficiency bonuses) while you pick up new weapons, learn new skills, and loot a bunch of stat bonus items. Then you SOL Restore (which resets your levels and dragon counter) distribute your party experience and use your stat bonus items, save, and do it again until you can easily make it through the dungeon without needing dragon form at all. Basically, a unique, interesting form of grinding is built fundamentally into the mechanics of the game that make it almost feel like a roguelike.
The SOL Restore system makes the dragon form work! You can use this massively powerful, fun form as much as you want to learn the level and defeat hard, optional side enemies then reset your counter and keep most of your rewards!
The level design exploits the SOL Restore system! The main path through a level is almost always short and straight, so once you learn the level and have gotten every item and skill out of it, you can just run right through to the next part of the game!
The system lets you bring weapons from the future back to help you in the past! You can run up to the boss of the level, steal their sword, SOL Restore, then use it to kill them!
New narrative events happen the second and third times through an area, so SOL Restore has some additional reward for effectively using it!
There are a few missteps with this system, unfortunately.
There is an additional SOL Restart feature, which does the same thing as SOL Restore, but sends you back to the beginning of the game. I think you would never want to do this, and it seems like it is included so that there can be a newgame+?
Saving is unnecessarily annoying, with a dependency on sparse save terminals and a pseudo-rare item (that is part of your basic SOL Restore inventory). The game would just be better if it let you save at every terminal for free.
A couple of things don't carry over but should, which just makes things fiddly. If SOL Restore saved new backpack slots, used stat items, and applied party experience the whole thing would just work more smoothly without losing anything.
All that aside, it is hard to express how awesome and unique the SOL system is and how much it truly impacts the game. It is really a triumph of game design that brings Dragon Quarter from 4 stars up to 5 for me, despite its other minor shortcomings. This game is worth checking out... just give it a chance to teach you how to play it and you will have a good time with its unique take on RPG advancement, interesting world, and solid, turn-based combat.