Breath of Fire III Review

By Simon Parkin Published 6 March, 2006

Extinguished.

Version tested: PSP

For five minutes, after the PSP's drive has accelerated and settled into that battery draining hum, the revolutions per minute spinning a scenic tapestry of dark hewn rock, purple half light and cold cave womb around you, Breath of Fire 3 seems delightfully different.

You're one of them: the kind of fire breathing dragon you've slain a thousand times in countless adventures before, each one's plastic case a transparent trophy on your gaming shelf. Left long unknown, silently un-hatched deep underground the game opens with your egg's discovery by treasure hungry miners. They're the kind of RPG people whose hungry shoes you're used to filling. In a flash of loud you're awoken from scaly slumber, virgin lungs itching with trinitrotoluene fire as your crystal eggshell cracks gloopy to their dynamite punch.

Three minutes to go: you crawl out, stretch terror and lumber toward incredulous stares, nostrils flaring in their speed-dilating retinas, bristling with the rush of being monster; Such foul elation to be hatched just for unjust destruction and ruin. As you burn their twitching torsos to ember crisp, lingering smoke trailing hot fingers around your newborn hide, it's good to be bad. You imagine what lies ahead: tearing down identikit RPG villages, ripping out the NPC throats which always existed only to repeat that one line time after infuriating time after time. This could be the ultimate revenge RPG; your chance to wreak havoc upon genre conventions that have grated year after year through developers lack of foresight, insight or bravery.

'Breath of Fire III' Screenshot 1'Breath of Fire III' Screenshot 1

If you're referring to the 222mhz cap on PSP software then yeah, I guess so.

You're four and a half minutes in, stumbling blind through the cave's hot white exit, squinting to find new prey, expectant excitement spiking synapses red raw.

Then stop. Load. You're being captured. Load. You're being transported away in a cage. Load. You fall off the back of the train. Load. You're lying tumbled unconscious in the forest. Load. You're found by a woodsman. Load. You're a boy now. Load. You have to talk to villagers and be nice. Load. Load. You must travel the world fighting other monsters on your way to find two friends while you uncover an unspeakable evil that only you can possibly defeat in the ultimate showdown. Load. You're in a cliché again. No save.

Breath of Fire 3 is a game that starts really well. Its premise promises to break free from rusty, crusty conventions, pledging freedom for those bored with all that the code-by-numbers Japanese RPG has settled into. But, five minutes in, it's clear that you're walking deep, deep furrowed ground after all. Ryu, your character, does have a dragon form and, while he does get to wreak wanton havoc in the opening scenes, he's mainly just a little RPG boy with the usual turn-based attacks, accompanying companions and orphan zero-to-hero complex.

The game packs the usual random battles (albeit mercifully just in dungeons - on the world map you can choose your fights), a disappointing three-member team set-up during fights (the second BOF game allowed four characters) and the customary set of skills, hit points, action points and learnable specials.

'Breath of Fire III' Screenshot 2'Breath of Fire III' Screenshot 2

This is the moment our best laid plans for total annihilation went downhill...

Perhaps it's a little unfair to rebuke the game for being so traditional. This old code was released nearly a decade ago, one of the PlayStation's earliest RPGs ported pixel for pixel here to the PSP. So these theoretical complaints aimed at the caution of script, gameplay and scenario writers are perhaps untimely (although no less valid as we're like, actually playing this game in 2006 you know). However, what, in real tangible objective terms, is a malicious oversight on Capcom's part is the abortive load times punctuating each...word...before...and...after...each...and...every...sentence...and...battle...and oh screw it let's put the kettle on and do something less boring instead.

It's not that we're spoiled ADHD brats weaned from slow burning media onto the sugary addiction of MTV chip chop suey editing technique for five second attention span children. It really is that this game has disgraceful, game-ruining, anachronistic load times that make the PSP feel like a console twenty years its age. Your head is plunged in and out of the game world with such force and frequency that soon you can't catch your breath and you'll be longing again for Game & Watch immediacy.

Still, if you are crying out for a solid traditional RPG and you don't mind a black space commercial break every fifteen seconds then this is the game for you. Positively, the battle sequences allow a pleasant level of freedom for players. Alongside the usual stock attacks and specials team members can use an ‘examine' command on enemies to pick up new skills. Also, the series' core Dragon Gene System makes a return from its SNES forefathers encouraging different combinations of the 18 different collectable dragon gems in order to transform into up different dragon forms. design. Also restricting your freedom is the ubiquity of random battles, which puts you right off any extra-curricular exploration or side-questing.

'Breath of Fire III' Screenshot 3'Breath of Fire III' Screenshot 3

...And this is where they perked up again. Until the AP ran out five seconds later.

For players of the original, other than load times, portability and sentimentality, the only PSP attraction is an online fishing mode. In the main game, fishing forms a distraction from the business of world salvation offering the chance to catch different status-enhancing fish such a magic restoring rainbow trout or poison neutralizing blowfish. It's OK fun but really, it's just a little side game and to promote it to PSP USP (with the prize of unlocking pictures in a new gallery mode HELL YES!) seems a little desperate. Some genuine new features or gameplay refinement would have gone a lot further in its place.

There's a dearth of RPGs on the PSP right now, something in part being remedied by ports of PSOne games such as Tales of Eternia, PoPoLoCrois and this title. Weighed against the console's in-house competition, this is a good game, head and shoulders above any of the PSP exclusive RPG efforts. However, played alongside its cross platform cousins and competitors, with nine years of intervening genre development since its inception, this is no wunderkind. Beware rose bespectacled shouty internet men that will seek to persuade you otherwise; those grasping at sweetly remembered gaming experiences often do so with a child's eyes: sweetly blinkered and devoted but wholly without a grownup perspective.

6 / 10

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Picture of Simon.

About Simon Parkin

Simon Parkin is an author and journalist on video games. A regular contributor to Eurogamer since 2005, his work has also appeared in Edge, The Telegraph, Gamasutra and Boing Boing.

Read more articles from Simon by visiting the Simon Parkin archive page.

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Comments (43) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • caligari #1 6 years ago


    When can we expect a nice RPG on the DS (yes, I loved Mario and Luigi: PiT, but I need more!).
    Edited by 1 at 06/03/06 @ 15:06

  • Blerk #2 6 years ago

    Hmm.... don't remember the load times being particularly bad in the PSOne version.

    Liked the game a lot back in the olden days!

  • tengu #3 6 years ago

    Awesome little game, rock hard in places, but it was a lot of fun. PSP version is more or less the same, though the load times are a bit annoying compared to the likes of Tales of Eternia.

  • Mr_Brown #4 6 years ago

    6/10, surprising, but fair. It is afterall an old old game and isn't for everyone (not even every RPG fan). I think I might pick this up eventually. I really enjoyed it on the PSone, but didn't get that far into it. PSP version has given me the excuse to go back to it...well after I finish the excellent Tales Of Eternia!

  • tentonipete #5 6 years ago

    how can you still give it 6/10 it sounds like absolute wank?

  • Nikanoru #6 6 years ago

    HOW DARE YOU GIVE BOF3 A 6 YOU BASTARDS IT IS TOTALLY AWESOME BLRAHFGEKLJBRTKJNGTRKRV

    *cough*

    Yes, the original barely had any load times. I would know, I played through it again fairly recently. So to anyone in need for this game, I'd recommend getting the original off ebay for five bucks.

    Also, the series' core Dragon Gene System makes a return from its SNES forefathers encouraging different combinations of the 18 different collectable dragon gems in order to transform into up different dragon forms.

    Not sure if this is meant to imply that the SNES games had the same gene combination system. Because they didn't, you just gained a few selectable dragon forms as you levelled up (BoF1) or passed certain points in the game (BoF2).

  • Daryoon #7 6 years ago

    The "omg it's another orphan boy destined to save the world!" complaints are getting tedious. I mean, that's pretty much all Harry Potter is!

    You'd have thought people would have realised by now that there's only a finite amount of stories, and the its way they're told that makes the difference :/

  • Scientist #8 6 years ago

    "I mean, that's pretty much all Harry Potter is!"

    And who says Harry Potter is any good?

    "that there's only a finite amount of stories, and the its way they're told that makes the difference :/"

    That's the problem; most of these J-RPGs tell the stories very badly.

    /ducks

  • Bradders #9 6 years ago

    Was thinking of buying a PSP, but the games available for it seem on the whole mediocre, give or take the odd racing title, and the load-time problem has been mentioned in practically every review. Excess, recurring load times are surely not acceptable in a portable console. Either the developers are being lazy or, graphics aside, the PSP just doesn't cut it. Either way, it's enough to put me off getting one.

  • tengu #10 6 years ago

    "That's the problem; most of these J-RPGs tell the stories very badly."

    No, they don't.

    "Excess, recurring load times are surely not acceptable in a portable console."

    Excess and recurring? No. Most of the games I've played for it have perfectly acceptable loading times. In the case of this game it is Capcom's laziness, as another RPG, Tales of Eternia, which looks every bit as good as BoF3 has practically no loading times. Though you seem to have written it off already anyway.
    Edited by 1 at 06/03/06 @ 16:58

  • goz #11 6 years ago

    "You'd have thought people would have realised by now that there's only a finite amount of stories, and the its way they're told that makes the difference :/"

    Of course there are only a finite number of stories but why do JRPGs have to try telling just the one? That is the point of the first half of the review: that the game starts off differently, standing out through it's reinterpretation of the usual clichés, sparking your imagination and promising something, anything different before falling back on convention for the next 15 hours.

    If you really have to tell your story make sure you do so amazingly. The world has enough mediocre anime styled orphan to hero plots to last until Armageddon. If an RPG tells a clichéd story in a clichéd way with a clichéd form and function then game-buyers have a right to be warned. If mediocre, identikit adventure storytelling doesn’t bother you then gloss over that aspect of the review and use your brain to make the judgement. Like the disastrous loading times, just because they might not irk you, dosn;t mean they shouldn't be pointed out or criticised.
    Edited by 2 at 06/03/06 @ 17:00

  • Lutz #12 6 years ago

    Gotta agree with the reviewer on the loading times. BoF3 was a fairly slow game even back on the PSOne, but on the PSP it really is almost unplayable. Even the spells are loaded mid battle; you can see all animation stop for about half a second whilst the files/graphics etc are loaded.

    Bad form there Capcom.

  • tengu #13 6 years ago

    Why do people pretend that RPGs are the only games that use the same cliches over and over? It's incredibly rare you get ANY game that does anything different story wise. Unoriginality does not automatically make it a bad game, if it's fun to play and entertaining, hey, mission accomplished!

  • Scientist #14 6 years ago

    "No, they don't."

    Put aside your love of the genre and be objective about the quality of story, script and dialogue. Maybe if you got into them as a child you will alawys have a rose tinted place for them, but to defend J-RPGs for their narrative complexity is a step too far.

    And when they do try to be all serious (Xenogears) you are often left with a mess of influences and excessive cut scenes.

    "Why do people pretend that RPGs are the only games that use the same cliches over and over? "

    For me it's most videogames. It's an area we as an industry need to work on and explains why pretty much every game-to-film port is a pile of Boll-ocks.

    I like J-RPGs but I still think the stories are more charming than intellectually engaging.

  • tengu #15 6 years ago

    "I like J-RPGs but I still think the stories are more charming than intellectually engaging."

    Yeah, that's pretty fair I'd say. I wasn't trying to say that RPGs were somehow an intellectual tour de force, I was just saying that while the stories are often unoriginal and cliched, they can be well told and engaging at times. Not all the time perhaps, but they can be fun.

  • dudefella #16 6 years ago

    Yeah I don't know about this game but the lion's share of all JRPG's really have a very kiddy story and most of the time the storytelling is very trite. Of course there are exceptions but even the best JRPG stories aren't really that good on their own right.

  • Daryoon #17 6 years ago

    Then, by all means, come up with a "mature" plot that would fit the framework of a JRPG!

    mediocre anime styled orphan to hero plots

    Eh, I think you'll find that's not limited to anime, JRPGs or any single medium. In fact I think you'll find that basic archetype has been floating around for millennia!

  • freedumb #18 6 years ago

    Dunno about JRPG's but if you're looking for a mature, well tought out and deep plot for an rpg, look at Deus Ex. It still hasn't been bettered.

  • Azazel #19 6 years ago

    Well, apart from PS: Torment...

    ;)

  • Dirtie #20 6 years ago

    BoF4 would be awesome though, that was a very nice game.

  • goz #21 6 years ago

    "I'm enjoying this game. What does that tell you?"

    Pretty much the same as a 6/10 score and the words "if you are crying out for a solid traditional RPG then this is the game for you" says.
    Edited by 1 at 06/03/06 @ 20:29

  • abigsmurf #22 6 years ago

    hmm I was under the impression that there was no real underlying evil in this game except maybe for yourself and it's something of a theme for most of the latter half

  • GordonJ #23 6 years ago

    Wander, wander, pause while loading, random battle starts, random battle ends, pause while loading, xp screen, pause while loading, cash/item screen, pause while loading, back to wandering about, wander, wander, pause while loading, random battle starts.....

    Then the battery died :)

  • tengu #24 6 years ago

    I'm sure you could break any genre of game down into a simple set of repetitive actions like that if you wanted to, what's your point?

  • BLACKSHEEP #25 6 years ago

    PSP v1.5 anyone? Guess that's the only way to have comfortable load times ^_^

  • Shadar #26 6 years ago

    Abigsmurf: After a fashion. Should we now start talking about how ludicrous the endgame is? I really, really loved the part where ...

    :) I mean ... Heaven?

    Edit: Oh, and two of the screenshots actually include spoilers. :) You might want to change them.
    Edited by 1 at 07/03/06 @ 03:38

  • SirScratchalot #27 6 years ago

    Sooo.... what can be done about this bloody load time situation?
    Of all my games Burnout Legends sticks to the UMD slot just because it dosen´t take two train stops to boot up. I just wish devs realised what a game-killer load times can be.

  • Nikanoru #28 6 years ago

    Dunno about JRPG's but if you're looking for a mature, well tought out and deep plot for an rpg, look at Deus Ex. It still hasn't been bettered.

    Except that Deus Ex, as well as so many games with supposedly superior plots, fails miserably in capturing the interest of anyone but the most hardened nerds, due to its dull run of the mill premade FPS engine design that feels like "just another quake mod", no personality in anything, from the characters to the environments to the enemies.

    Say what you will of some of the more popular JRPG's, fact remains that they have the "whole package" of visual design, music, direction, etc. down perfectly. Even if you don't like the way the plot summary sounds. In which case maybe books are a more suited pastime for you than games. No, seriously. Nothing wrong with reading a book.

  • Genji #29 6 years ago

    OMG HE DOESN'T LIKE DEUS EX.

    BURN THE HERETIC. BUUUUUURN HIIIIIM!!!!

  • SirScratchalot #30 6 years ago

    Nikanoru=Japanese wannabe nick so I´m not shocked by your opinions.
    Everyone dosen´t enjoy the same things lad, no need to get your blood pumping.
    There´s plenty of personality in Deus Ex, it´s just the dystopian kind. You want a bit more color and people with cat ears, then JRPGs are the way to go.
    You want to be tricked into believing you actually are living in a dystopian future with local color added in with newspapers, news bulletins and some damned fine characters then go with DX. See? Easy.

  • itamae #31 6 years ago

    "Dunno about JRPG's but if you're looking for a mature, well tought out and deep plot for an rpg, look at Deus Ex. It still hasn't been bettered."

    Which would explain why most people still don't take videogames seriously. Besides, I disagree with you. Deus Ex's story is just some run of the mill conspiracy shlock that Fox Mulder wouldn't have touched with a shitty stick, and the characters are one-dimensional Matrix rejects. It's fun in its own retarded way (otherwise I wouldn't have completed it twice), but any form of reverence is wasted on that game.

    Anyway, BoF 3, well that is a crappy game. Totally generic, ridiculous difficulty spikes later on and just not a lot of fun. BoF 5 however, now that is a great piece of software.

  • lambtron #32 6 years ago

    Gotta agree with the load time problem on PSP its a joke. And for a portable system its a heinous problem. I play PES5 on the bus and during a 30 minute journey I would estimate up to half of that (if I'm unlucky) is spent loading or in the fecking frontend. This isn't why I play games. :(. The only titles I've played with really good loading times are Wipeout Pure (platform exclusive) and Burnout Legends. i.e. games where there is fook all to load in-game and very little to load pre-level. Although thinking about it the problem probably is mostly symptomatic of lazy ports from the PS2 which is probably why PES is so bad.

  • Shadar #33 6 years ago

    "Aquinas spoke of the mythical city on the hill, soon that city will be real and we will be crowned its kings. Or, better than kings... Gods!"

    Well, I still think that's less pretentious than paraphrasing Nietszche and fitting fuzzy animals and fetish doll superrobots into a story about the death of God. Deus Ex may not exactly be academy award stuff, but it's one hell of a lot better than the flaccid teenage angst that passes in JRPGs. Quoteth Mike Krahulik: "There's a hole in my mind (...) it prevents me from bothering with stuff teenagers find deep."

    Videogames are usually poorly written. Why? Because they're usually the result of a nerdy programmer's singular vision of what's cool. Quite often, that ends up being pretty lame. Repeat after me: We must separate the role of designer and programmer.

  • lambtron #34 6 years ago

    Hmm I think you'll find that the days of nerdy programmers being the visionaries behind computer games ended some time ago on all but the tiniest projects. It would certainly be extremely odd for a programmer these days to have any input whatsoever on something so obviously design-related as story. "No you can't have a well crafted story - for technical reasons, it will be too big a hit on the framerate." LOL.

    In my experience most designers want little to do with stories anyway as they're not in geneal frustrated writers and don't see story as something that will improve their game. I think the bottom line is if you really want a decent story a professional is going to have to be paid to do it and your publisher should have little or no input into it otherwise their marketing dept will just make it all urban and "4 teh kids".

  • Cosmopolitan #35 6 years ago

    Excellent discussion, thank you guys. Not that my opinion matters, but I enjoy JRPGs, somehow. Sure the stories are cookie-cutter and the dialogues are mostly horrible (this is what I hate the most about them, probably) but if you are in the *right* mood a JRPG can be an enjoyable experience.
    I mean, why not pretend you are a teenager with a big sword and spiky hair who saves the world from destruction?

  • Daryoon #36 6 years ago

    Because they're usually the result of a nerdy programmer's singular vision of what's cool.

    Which is pretty much what I saw the plot to Deus Ex as...
    Really, it was just another cyberpunk conspiracy-me-do. About as much originality as any of these JRPGs, let venerated as if it were a standout!

  • Genji #37 6 years ago

    "Really, it was just another cyberpunk conspiracy-me-do. About as much originality as any of these JRPGs, let venerated as if it were a standout!"

    Well... you're wrong! So there!

  • SirScratchalot #38 6 years ago

    "Which is pretty much what I saw the plot to Deus Ex as...
    Really, it was just another cyberpunk conspiracy-me-do. About as much originality as any of these JRPGs, let venerated as if it were a standout! "

    Dead wrong. Any game where you can get in trouble for walking into the ladies room, or told of by your brother for being a bloodthirsty bastard is already leaps and bounds ahead of the pack. It made me believe in it´s world and pulled of the conspiracy thing extremly well and thouroughly fleshed out.
    It might not have been your thing but I can´t believe you put any time into it if that´s your take...

  • Daryoon #39 6 years ago

    Any game where you can get in trouble for walking into the ladies room, or told of by your brother for being a bloodthirsty bastard is already leaps and bounds ahead of the pack.

    I don't exactly see why. When it came down to it, the whole "multiple choice branching story" was a ruse, because the only real choice you had that affected things was how to complete the last level!

  • Khab #40 6 years ago

    Since it's a game the quality of the story is not the primary concern, it's how it's TOLD.

    Having text-boxes and non-interactive cutscenes progress the story in a medium where YOU are the one who should be making things happen is poor. It doesn't matter that 99% of all games still are guilty of not realising the success of Half-Life was due to the fact that it made you feel as though it was YOUR story, and you played it. IT wasn't told to you, you experienced it. It's still unbettered in its narrative, IMO. And before you say anything, it matters not that the story is standard Sci-Fi conspiracy fare, it could have been about bananas from Mars for all I care - it's not the writing, it's the telling.

  • SirScratchalot #41 6 years ago

    "I don't exactly see why. When it came down to it, the whole "multiple choice branching story" was a ruse, because the only real choice you had that affected things was how to complete the last level!"

    Well, what do you mean by affected things exactly? There are more plot points than that that stick through the story, at least one MAJOR one. There were also a lot of things that stuck through parts of the story such as the aformentioned girl you walked in on tattling that you were a creep to her new boyfriend.

  • DFawkes #42 4 years ago

    I doubt very much if anyone would bother reading the comments this long after release, but if like me you saw it cheap in Gamestation, this might be worth knowing.

    The UMD disc cache feature of the PSP Slim and Lite significantly reduces the amount of loading. I had it switched off (to play Driver 76), and then switched it on. With it switched off, it'd pause to load all the time.

    With it switched on, it pauses almost never. For example, after random battles, without caching it pauses with Ryu jumping up and down for several seconds. With caching, no pause at all. So if you get this for the Slim and Lite, just know the loading problems are severely reduced :)

  • xythen #43 4 years ago

    Thanks for the info DFawkes! I think I'll pick this one up now, and re-live my early teen years :)