A fantastic game that was ahead of its time with its characters and storytelling and would probably have been as acclaimed as the classics of the era like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI had it come out with a proper localization and the GBA balancing back in '95.
This game has a lot of issues which are pretty much all attributed to some of its more antiquated design choices. Once you get a decent ways in, random encounters are very frequent, characters take forever to level up and animations take too long. One of the cooler aspects of the game, the shaman system, is hurt severely by characters losing their shaman fusions when they hit critical health or die. Some cutscenes also remove shaman forms forcedly. Not being able to swap party members on the fly can be a bit cumbersome as well, but I understand why this feature was omitted when the original Breath of Fire included it. Inactive party members gaining no exp at all is also pretty not cool.
Now onto why this game is great. The intro sequence is a fantastic hook and if you stick around you'll see that the serious story parts will hold up to that quality and soar to even higher highs. That said a ton of this game is comedic and it really hits the mark. You're thrown into wacky situation after wacky situation for a large portion of this game and it never ceases to be entertaining. One moment you'll be chasing a fly that calls you retarded and soon after you'll be shrinking to microscopic sizes to kill an overweight queen's cellulite from the inside. It makes this colorful cast with awesome designs very likable and you'll have genuine attachment to them which makes the serious moments in this game that much better. The way this game connects to the original Breath of Fire is amazing as well. That game had its own (rather mediocre) complete story and II makes great use of that foundation it established to make its own world, characters and events even more interesting.
Now on the more game side of things, this game looks and sounds fantastic. Some of the songs got old and at times the battle theme or world map theme was replaced by one I liked less but the great songs are there and are very good in or out of context. No small amount either, the first battle theme, first two world map themes, boss theme, final boss themes, the great bird theme and many more.
Gameplay wise it is fairly standard at its core but there are enough deviations for it to feel different compared to other games of the era. All characters have a unique command to use in battle such as Ryu's Guts which heals him exponentially more the lower his current health is. Bosch can use Snipe for a chance to instantly kill any regular enemy, but if it fails it will deal 1 damage. You can lay out your characters in a few different formation types which will affect how much damage they can deal and take to suit your playstyle. Characters have their own spell learnsets by leveling up but the game also presents opportunities for you to learn spells early or choose to give someone a unique spell after completing a sidequest. Besides the traditional stats characters also have a Will stat which gives them a chance to survive a lethal hit at 1 HP and they shout a cool one liner when it happens. Characters also all have unique field skills and speaking to NPCs with a different character at the front of the party can yield different interactions. On the field Ryu can fish, Bosch can hunt animals for recovery items while other characters like Rand or Tapeta allow for different movement options like swimming through shallow water and going up ledges. Difficulty wise it is generally well balanced and a fun challenge, other parts can be a overly unforgiving but this is usually made fine by the game cutting your money in half when you die instead of booting you to the title screen. There are banks in most item shops to keep your cash safe.
This game also has a cool sort of community building mechanic where after leaving the starting town you create your own from the ground up and it slowly expands as the game progresses. Named NPCs found across the world can be recruited to live in your town. They can set up shops or provide unique services for you such as blacksmithing or cooking.
The most unique mechanic present in this game is the shaman fusion system. As you progress through the game you'll collect up to 6 shamans to fuse with your characters. On their own they usually just increase a single stat but proper combinations can give you extra bonuses that also give characters color palette swaps. A step further than that is each character's even more unique fusions where their design changes entirely, they become vastly more powerful and their unique battle command will change as well. Fusions are not limited, so provided you have the necessary shamans you can mix and match all you want and see what works best for you (or who looks coolest). Now this point can be a positive or a negative depending how you view it, certain characters will be required for you to use, especially once you hit the second half of the game. You'll need to speak with NPCs as certain characters to progress or be required to use a field skill to get where you need to go. I generally felt this was a nice opportunity to diversify the characters I was using and ended up using them all fairly equally until the finale where I decided on a set team. These portions are never without good reason either so it was hard for me to feel bothered. This would likely be no problem at all if the GBA version's money and exp balancing was present.
Overall Breath of Fire II is a really cool and memorable experience any JRPG fan should give a chance. There's a decent amount of archaic design and the game can be a little too unforgiving at times but after it was all said and done none of that could ever stop me from loving this game.
Note: I played this with the popular retranslation patch. Avoid the original SNES localization.
This game has a lot of issues which are pretty much all attributed to some of its more antiquated design choices. Once you get a decent ways in, random encounters are very frequent, characters take forever to level up and animations take too long. One of the cooler aspects of the game, the shaman system, is hurt severely by characters losing their shaman fusions when they hit critical health or die. Some cutscenes also remove shaman forms forcedly. Not being able to swap party members on the fly can be a bit cumbersome as well, but I understand why this feature was omitted when the original Breath of Fire included it. Inactive party members gaining no exp at all is also pretty not cool.
Now onto why this game is great. The intro sequence is a fantastic hook and if you stick around you'll see that the serious story parts will hold up to that quality and soar to even higher highs. That said a ton of this game is comedic and it really hits the mark. You're thrown into wacky situation after wacky situation for a large portion of this game and it never ceases to be entertaining. One moment you'll be chasing a fly that calls you retarded and soon after you'll be shrinking to microscopic sizes to kill an overweight queen's cellulite from the inside. It makes this colorful cast with awesome designs very likable and you'll have genuine attachment to them which makes the serious moments in this game that much better. The way this game connects to the original Breath of Fire is amazing as well. That game had its own (rather mediocre) complete story and II makes great use of that foundation it established to make its own world, characters and events even more interesting.
Now on the more game side of things, this game looks and sounds fantastic. Some of the songs got old and at times the battle theme or world map theme was replaced by one I liked less but the great songs are there and are very good in or out of context. No small amount either, the first battle theme, first two world map themes, boss theme, final boss themes, the great bird theme and many more.
Gameplay wise it is fairly standard at its core but there are enough deviations for it to feel different compared to other games of the era. All characters have a unique command to use in battle such as Ryu's Guts which heals him exponentially more the lower his current health is. Bosch can use Snipe for a chance to instantly kill any regular enemy, but if it fails it will deal 1 damage. You can lay out your characters in a few different formation types which will affect how much damage they can deal and take to suit your playstyle. Characters have their own spell learnsets by leveling up but the game also presents opportunities for you to learn spells early or choose to give someone a unique spell after completing a sidequest. Besides the traditional stats characters also have a Will stat which gives them a chance to survive a lethal hit at 1 HP and they shout a cool one liner when it happens. Characters also all have unique field skills and speaking to NPCs with a different character at the front of the party can yield different interactions. On the field Ryu can fish, Bosch can hunt animals for recovery items while other characters like Rand or Tapeta allow for different movement options like swimming through shallow water and going up ledges. Difficulty wise it is generally well balanced and a fun challenge, other parts can be a overly unforgiving but this is usually made fine by the game cutting your money in half when you die instead of booting you to the title screen. There are banks in most item shops to keep your cash safe.
This game also has a cool sort of community building mechanic where after leaving the starting town you create your own from the ground up and it slowly expands as the game progresses. Named NPCs found across the world can be recruited to live in your town. They can set up shops or provide unique services for you such as blacksmithing or cooking.
The most unique mechanic present in this game is the shaman fusion system. As you progress through the game you'll collect up to 6 shamans to fuse with your characters. On their own they usually just increase a single stat but proper combinations can give you extra bonuses that also give characters color palette swaps. A step further than that is each character's even more unique fusions where their design changes entirely, they become vastly more powerful and their unique battle command will change as well. Fusions are not limited, so provided you have the necessary shamans you can mix and match all you want and see what works best for you (or who looks coolest). Now this point can be a positive or a negative depending how you view it, certain characters will be required for you to use, especially once you hit the second half of the game. You'll need to speak with NPCs as certain characters to progress or be required to use a field skill to get where you need to go. I generally felt this was a nice opportunity to diversify the characters I was using and ended up using them all fairly equally until the finale where I decided on a set team. These portions are never without good reason either so it was hard for me to feel bothered. This would likely be no problem at all if the GBA version's money and exp balancing was present.
Overall Breath of Fire II is a really cool and memorable experience any JRPG fan should give a chance. There's a decent amount of archaic design and the game can be a little too unforgiving at times but after it was all said and done none of that could ever stop me from loving this game.
Note: I played this with the popular retranslation patch. Avoid the original SNES localization.