Breath of Fire II is an RPG that was released for the SNES and recently released for the GBA. I’m going to review the GBA version, which was released in 2001 although basically it is identical to the SNES
version. Being an RPG fan, I bought this game.

This game is rated E for everyone and has mild violence. I’ll review on an unoriginal scale of 1 to 10. 1 is pathetic, 10 is excellent.

Story: 8

This game’s story is very good. Not spectacular, but very good nevertheless. I’ll explain a little without giving TOO much away. It starts out with the hero (whom you can name) as a small child in his village with his father (a preacher) and sister. His sister runs away to the back mountain and the hero’s father asks him to look for her. When the hero gets there, he gets his sister and the sister goes back to the village with the father. Before the hero returns, he closes his eyes and gets a vision of a demon slowly gaining strength. He gets frightened and runs back to the village only to find that nobody recognizes him, and when he goes home his sister and father are nowhere to be found and there is a different preacher called Hulk. The preacher thinks the hero is an abandoned street rat and tells him to stay in the church. Sigh, too much detail… anyway, he runs off with another child there to a cave outside of town and encounters a big monster. He hit’s the hero once and the hero faints. Next you are an adult in a ranger guild and the journey starts without the hero knowing who he really is or what he will have to do.

Graphics: 7 1/2

Well, it was originally for the SNES so the graphics aren’t spectacular. The characters are very small when
walking and don’t have many details, but are improved when a battle starts, unlike SMRPG where enemies look identical when walking and in battle. Everything looks ok, especially big stuff like the bosses and such.

Sound: 8

The sound and music is ok; it never annoyed me, and the battle and boss music was good. About halfway through the game, the battle music changes. All the sound was right, from the sword slashes to the thunder bolts. The music was almost always right for the location, but sometimes after spending a long time in a dungeon or cave the music got somewhat dull.

Battle system: 8 1/2

The battle system is very simple. The basic stuff, nothing unusual. Attack, Magic, Special, Item, Defend,
Run. When I say Special, I mean that certain character’s unique ability. The only bad thing is that after, say, five hours of playing, the battles get somewhat dull. That’s all.

Characters: 9

There are eight different characters you can use, each with their own unique abilities. That’s very good, in my opinion at least.

Difficulty: 7

The game is very challenging, Sometimes you’ll be stuck on the world map or any place wondering where to
go next. Aside from that, the many bosses are hard if you don’t prepare yourself or level up enough. One complaint is that sometimes it gets kind of tedious. After playing hours upon hours you just don’t want to see another monster appear. Well, too bad because there are many battles. MANY. Often times you’ll only take like ten steps and encounter enemies. Another ten and you'll encounter enemies again.

Items: 9

If you count the different types of equipment, there are a lot. Even if there are a lot, I never got overwhelmed by the items. There are enough. I’ll say that.

Replayability: 4

This game is kind of long and you probably won’t play it again after beating it because it‘s not enough fun
to make you want to play again. Well, you could try to get a different ending… but I really wasn’t incined to play again for that.

Fun Factor!: 8

The fun factor comes down to if you like RPGs or not, because if you don’t you probably won’t have much fun with this game. If you do then you probably will. If you didn’t like RPGs, it would be more like a 2. I did have fun with this game because I like RPGs.

Overall: 7 1/2

As I said before, this is only a good game for you if you are an RPG fan. If you are, I suggest a rent first to see if you like it. If you are not, you probably won’t enjoy this game.

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