BREATH OF FIRE 3 IS AWESOME!!!!!!

I liked BoF 1, but really fell in love with 2 and 3, especially. Unfortunately, my brother sold my copy of BoF3 along with Legend of Mana and several of my other PS1 RPGs when he needed some cash, so I haven't replayed it in years.

When BoF4 came out, a friend at the time said it was terrible, so I avoided it. I'm starting to think that I owe it to myself to check it out after all these years, if I can get ahold of a copy.

I was warned ahead of time that Dragon Quarter wasn't much like the other games in the Breath of Fire series, so that allowed me to bypass a lot of the aggravation that I might have had for its departures from the way the series feels.

But I found myself really intrigued by how the game played, and while I will completely agree that having to start the game from scratch to be powerful enough to survive is a frustrating mechanic, if you totally embrace it and build the game around it, it can really build a neat atmosphere. I'd like to see that concept used even better, with more significant changes to the world each time you reincarnate, or maybe a more open world or something.

EDIT: (Since I wanted to address this part in my post but completely forgot :P )

author=Liberty
I'm also not a fan of Nina being a kid. Ever. A helpless one, at that. Especially given my favourite incarnation of her as a kick-ass magician (II).

I completely agree. I'm mostly fine with the inclusion of a weak, near helpless character that you're escorting to the surface in that game (and if you use her enough you can actually get her to be very useful) but the fact that the character is Nina really bothered me as well. If they had made the helpless kid a new character and added a competent badass Nina to your team, then that would have been a lot better.

But seriously, everything else aside, this thread is really making me want to play BoF 3 again :D

I played all but 5. Only 4 is the one I have not beaten.

From those I would say 3 & 4 to be the best of the series.

I forgot 5 had a perma-death as part of the game play. It is seen more often now with games like Dark Soul and Demon Soul so it wouldn't be a bad idea to re - release 5.

I don't think Dragon Quarter was a bad game. It was definitely a bad Breath of Fire sequel. It was an interesting gameplay experiment, and it was engaging enough that I at least bothered to play through it multiple times. I got a 1/4 D-ratio without ever needing a guide, which I appreciated, since I feel like too many games rely on hidden stuff on the presumption that players who want completion will just look stuff up online. But it didn't share the sort of elements that gave the other installments in the series their charm, so Capcom really had no reason to expect that people buying on the strength of Breath of Fire's reputation would be looking for the sort of experience it offered.

author=Feldschlacht IV
Your friend is smoking that crack rock. BoF IV is interesting however in the fact that its a technically superior game in BoF III in almost every respect

Eh, when I compare the two in technical quality, the first thing that comes to mind is IV's dramatically dumbed down dragon transformation system.

To be fair, synthesizing new dragon forms out of a mishmash of gene fragments would probably have created a significant thematic clash with BoF IV Ryu's status as a literal god, but that doesn't mean III's system wasn't more fun.

The Master/Apprentice system though, was certainly improved compared to III.

I loved 3, until I got to that stupid trash heap dungeon with the slow one-way conveyor belt walkways and mushroom boss.

That cemented BoF4 as the better of the two Playstation releases in my mind.