Breath of Fire III review

(Also available on PSP via the UK and Australia. Why not USA?)
Not many people talk about this game, so I thought I might bring it up. As a little backstory, this was the first game I got for my Playstation. Keep in mind this was also my first experience outside the relm of Nintendo fandom so I wasn't sure what I was getting into. After a while though I was obsessive about the BoF universe.

Story: Where to start? Like all Breath of Fire games it has the same few characters, Ryu, Nina, and that snake woman who has a different name each game. BoF3 seems to follow the first two games plots since some of the former main characters make an appearance either as a race or as a npc like a merchant etc.

The story is probably better told than any Final Fantasy game I have played. First off, you don't need to take notes to understand it. Its also not so cut and dry as "go here, defeat this". Characters come and go, some die, and even the npc side stories are almost as deep as the main character's. There are so many plots that the game takes you through, the designers could have cut out half the content and still had a great game. The biggest plot twist comes in halfway through the game and it changes things so much it feels like you're playing an expansion or a sequel.

My favorite part of the game is the progression of the main character Ryu. At first he is weak and a coward. When he attacks he looks away and swings his sword randomly with a yelp. Later in the story he gets braver and he swings his sword professionally to reflect this. Did they need to add that different animation to reflect that he is getting stronger? No, but just watching your character change over time is very gratifying.

Gameplay:

RPG simplified. Attack, defend, items, magic/special attacks, and watch. Moves are all assigned to the control pad so if you wanted to defend you just press right and X. Simple. No complex menus at all. One thing that blew me away when I first played this game was the fact that all the battles took place where I ran into the enemy. Not many RPGs had that at the time. There isn't any tactics with the higher and lower elevations, but at least you're not teleported to a generic battle stage.

Magic in the game is varied. Characters can have varied attacks thanks to the watch move that allows your characters to learn the moves that enemies use on them. Very cool, but the character is an open target while they are trying to learn a new move. Each character has their own main magics, Nina being the magical powerhouse, and Ryu with his dragon transformations. Speaking of that, Ryu's transformations are quite creative on their own. Throughout the game he gets powers such as ice or mutant that can be combined to form new dragons. There are many different types, a small dragon, a larger dragon, behemoth, warrior, and several more. Some combinations can even result in errored, but rare transformations.


I might also point out that unlike BoF4 which had 3D versions of the dragons, those where only in game cutscenes whereas in BoF3 Ryu is always transformed.

The field gameplay is fairly simple. You walk around an isomeric area, use the R1 button to free look around the buildings etc, and use the triangle button to "steal". Stealing is just the player controlled character slashing, headbutting, or even using a cannon on NPCs which sometimes yields some coins. It is also like the Lost Vikings games in that each character has a specific ability that can be used on the field. Peco can hit objects, Nina uses magic to power things, and Garr can move big objects. There are many times where the game takes a break from fighting and you have to solve puzzles with the characters.

Anyone who has played the game can tell you that fishing is one of the main game highlights. Pick your bait, your rod, and cast out the line. Caught fish can even be used in battle to heal or cause damage to the enemy. If you catch the right amount of fish you can trade them for rare items. The other main mini game is the fairy village. It's kind of fun, but it is kind of tedious. I liked it because I could make item shops and a free hotel within quick access wherever I am on the world map. Along with this there are MANY smaller mini games such as training a weakling to fight his stronger rival. The desert crossing mini game is really annoying however. It does give you the feeling that you are taking part in Laurence of Arabia, but without any online guides it could be your downfall.

Graphics: Okay, looking past the aged square background polygons, the pixled sprites, and some of the effects, it still stands on its own really well. The sprite animation is really varied and full of reactions. Like I said before, they took the time to create different animations for the same character just to show what we already know. There are a ton of cute actions like Ryu and Nina "talking" in the background while Momo has a serious conversation.

Sound: Its varied and never gets on your nerves. One thing that I really love about the Breath of Fire series is each game has a point where the battle theme changes. Its not the same rocking beat 100% of the game. In BoF3 it happens at that change in the game I mentioned earlier. Another thing that blew my mind at the time was that the characters had voices! Wait? You mean at one point characters just made slashing sounds when they hit someone? Yes, and you can just play Final Fantasy VII to hear/not hear that (man I am really bashing FF today). Sure its not full blown dialogue, but they do speak actual words. I used to play around with the custom magic spells to hear how other characters would say them since they all have slight Japanese accents. Most of the sounds are just exclamtions though, but still that's better than silence.


Afterword: BoF 1 and 2 are okay. The first BoF feels like an RPG Maker game and BoF2 feels like an advanced RPG Maker game. Then BoF3 blows out of the water keeping all the good of the previous games and adding to it. I'm still not sold on BoF4. It's like BoF3 with a clean layer over top of it. The character animation is beautiful and it has the added 3D dragons (but Ryu is always in warrior form). The story is very crazy because you play as the final boss throughout the game and learn about all the things he is doing while Ryu travels around. The ability to learn attacks, fish, and the fairy village return too. Despite all of this the story and game plot flow just aren't as interesting as BoF3's. However the point where the main cahracters finally find the princess is probably the highest point (not being sarcastic, it is a pretty traumatic moment). It was so-so which is probably why they changed things up for the fifth Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. I haven't played that yet, but it sounds pretty interesting. BoF in a futuristic setting and the reviewers say that dying in the game actually affects the game somehow.

All I am saying is PLAY THIS GAME. Screw next gen murder fests, Breath of Fire III is where its at.

Of Critters and Animation

Two new animations for the month.


Spiderbot rig by atezel at creativecrash.com. Story: Patrolling spiderbot encounters a flawed cube in the cube making factory.



Audio from Seinfeld "The Wink". Animated in Flash.

Both of these took me forever to get into a format and size that youtube would like. I like hd264 in mov format, my version of After Effects doesn't understand the new version of Quicktime I guess and it won't give me these options. I can get it to render out a version in avi, but its usally a gig and that would take forever to upload to any site. In the end I have to compress it until it looks decent. I have to upgrade After Effects so I can get some of that sweet HD264 compression action again.


I want to watch Critters again. I watched it when I was a kid and it freaked me out. It wasn't until I watched Dead Alive (Brain Dead) that my fear of horror films disappeared. It was so over the top that anything else won't bother me.

I love the first version of horror films. Its back when people aren't expecting Jason to appear or Chucky isn't cracking jokes. Sequels just spread the initial butter out until its just a thin layer. However some sequels, like Aliens and Chucky II, improve on the original concept.

Speaking of horror films, I watched the Mystery Science Theater version of The Beast of Yucca Flats this weekend. Wow. Worst Movie Ever. It's bad. There is barely any dialogue, and if there is its obviously a post production recording. Most of it is narrated but all his dialogue is confusingly poetic, such as telling the audience that the characters are "moving towards progress" over and over. There are a lot of scenes that have no purpose, such as people moving from one place to the other. There is a lot of violence, but no blood so you can never tell if someone is dying from a shot or just wounded. Most of all, Tor Johnson plays the Beast. The same Tor Johnson of Ed Wood fame. The movie is so bad but you can see the plot and how things could be better edited right in front of you. That's why I think its time for a remake of The Beast....starring Vin Diesel as "The Beast"!

New Year

What's new? Well I'm working on maybe redesigning my old short, LOST & Found as seen here I'm working the character model now. I'm reworking the plot too, just minor things though. Wilson will be replaced with a sock puppet on his hand. The pin-up girl will be replaced with a big boat, kind of like the one from the Triplets of Belleville. The rest is pretty much the same but I want to add some different direction this time, camera cuts etc.

Now that the holiday season is over I'm pretty positive its time to look for more work. Hopefully this time around I might manage to land a job with something more in my career line.

Unreleased Sketches

A whole lot of stuff I've been sketching in my free time. The conjoined twins one is from some request I got recently. Some people are weird.

Currently I have two part-time jobs that I have been trying to juggle. Nothing great, but I really need to pay the bills and most decent jobs are getting taken up really quick.

The first job is at Macy's. I can never remember the job title, but basically I do whatever I'm assigned to. One day I was signing people up to be on a list for assistance, another day I was putting shoes back on their podiums. Its a good job for me because I can use that OCD gene to clean up all the unfolded clothes or hangers that are lying around.

The other job is with UPS. I'm a driver helper again so it shouldn't be too hard, as long as I don't twist an ankle or wear out my back.

Like I said, I would rather have a career job, or something relating to my career, but times are tough and a job is a job.

Lost Artist

I used to know this artist on Deviantart called Killamangiro. Her signature is DRX though.

When I first saw her art I was skeptical. I mean, its all simple, and everyone has long arms and legs. But after looking at it for a while I realized that she had the makings of a really interesting style. It reminds me of some European illustrators I've seen. I managed to con her into an art trade, one of my characters for one of hers. I did Tobias and she did my character Euna. I would show you her version of Euna, but she deleted everything from her account. I blame the artist depression/modesty.

Artists come in two packages, those who are too modest and those that are too egotistical. Modest artists are usually good, or on their way to greatness, whereas egotists are either so good they know it or so in the dark that they don't know they are bad.

DRX was one of the modest ones however. In most of her posts she would grumble about how bad things looked, but I was always there to bring her up. It was really sad to see that she not only gave up on art, but took away all the art she had put up. I was tempted to post the two pieces I managed to keep before see deleted them all, but I figure it was her right as the artist to remove them so I shouldn't go against her wishes and post them.

That being said, I've decided that now that I have most of Brandon Graham's style, I think its time I added a new style. Since DRX is pretty much gone, its time I learned her style and implement in.

Graphic Designs

I'm working on making a few graphic design type illustrations into my portfolio. It is hard to apply to a job you think you can do when you don't have any examples that support it.

I have been obsessed with Godzilla lately so that's why I drew up Gigan. The text is 'kaiju' which is basically Japanese for giant monster. I really got into Godzilla after watching James Rolfe's "Monster Madness" videos that featured Godzilla (Which is here). Like all of his reviews he throws in a lot of humor, trivia, and history.

On the day-to-day scene I'm still applying to jobs. I have a few lined up that could go somewhere, and if they all work out I might actually have to quit a few to manage them all. Although, in this economy, that is highly doubtful. I wouldn't mind two part time jobs though.

As always I have some crazy stuff that I am into that I have to post up here. This time it involves Arnold Schwarzenegger. I found a band that does nothing but songs themed by the man himself. The band is called Austrian Death Machine. "Get to the Choppa", "Who is Your Daddy and What Does He Do?", and even "Jingle Bells". It is all heavy metal, or as Arnold calls it, brutal!

Old but New Stuff

Art from the student made game, Gold Rush. Well, pre-production made anyway. It should be in development right now though.

I liked how crazy our style guide was on this one. All it was, was a slanted ! shape and make everything worn. Those guns are an example of how crazy I got into making things old and squared off.

I had a blast working on that project. Working in a group makes your art explode ten fold from what it was before you started. Which is why I hope one day I might be working on another project.

Sadly, I haven't found that project yet, or maybe it hasn't found me? Either way I'm cutting back on my loftier goals of getting a awesome job and going for contract jobs and regular jobs like at Macy's.

Aside from that I'm working on a 2 minute animation of a bit by Nick Swardson. Its the dumbest two jokes I have ever heard, but that is why I wanted to animate them. Its all in flash and I'm trying to make it sort of like the show, Shorties Watching Shorties. That was a great show and I'm surprised that there aren't that many bits on youtube. The baby scenes were so-so, but when you take animation and the best comedians throw at you, its a great combination.