STATUS

Yep. Almost twenty years later since its initial release and I finally just finished kicking Deathevn's ass and his stupid, but frustratingly hard Infinity dungeon that gave me nightmares when I was kid straight to the curb.

For many years I could always get to the end of the game but never could quite finish the job. I'd walk straight in only for somebody to carry my sorry butt out. Even with everybody at level 50+ I still had trouble.

But alas, it is finally over now...

And I owe all of this sudden accomplishment to Nina's fairy shaman form and her amazing "Banish" ability - oh, how I love you!

Thanks (mainly) to her, I was able to finally get through the whole Infinity dungeon with very little trouble at all. And it's actually pretty ironic, though, because I was almost considering taking Sten over her but decided last minute that "F** it, I need a f**king mage, just in case" - and it payed off.

Now I've finished every single main series Breath Of Fire game...except for Dragon Quarter - but I refuse to count that.

Now that that's done, I finally can get back to playing and reviewing some RMN games now and work more on my own. (It's been a while since I've reviewed anything lately.)

...Somewhere out there, in Australia land, Liberty is smiling.

I was thinking about taking Katt instead of Bow but I really thought that having a second healer for back-up healing duties was probably for the best bet (also Def-Up X really helped a lot down there since I was a bit under-leveled). But after seeing how Deathevn can suck away your HP and AP on the exact same turn, I spent most of the fight just restoring Rand and Ryu’s AP’s more than anything with tons and tons of W Fruits, so Bow pretty much became the water boy(dog?) of the team.

I would have taken Bleu as well, but seeing how that I gave Nina the Cure 2 spell from Ray and pretty much was using her all the time I was not going to substitute her for Bleu.

Anyways, it definitely was very intriguing to see how the story finally wrapped up and all that. The whole scenario where Ryu has to sacrifice one of his friends in order to gain the ultimate power was absolutely fantastic and totally came out of left field for me (The first time I did it I was going to sacrifice Katt, lol. That's why I found it funny when she was the first one to greet the party upon return. "OH, BTW, KATT, I ALMOST WAS ABOUT TO KILL YOU IN EXCHANGE FOR THE ULTIMATE POWER BUT IT TURNED OUT TO BE JUST A DUD. I HOPE YOU'RE NOT MAD, RIGHT?). And finally knowing more back story on Valerie, Ryu’s mother, was pretty cool too. When Ryu talked to his mother in Gate, I was just like “WTFFFFF!?” Because up to this point, the only BOF game that I can remember that Ryu ever talked was at the end of Breath Of Fire IV.

Also, I got the good ending (not killing Ganer and making Township fly), but for a brief second there when the depressing music started playing I thought for a second that I got the bad ending. I was like, “What…? But I got Township to fly, god damn it! I got Township to fly! What the hell, game!?!?!?” But I then I was like, “*phew* Good... They made sure to go back and check on him. Good job, team.”

Anyways, playing this again – and finally finishing it – made me realize that this game was ahead of its time back then. It’s too bad that games like Chrono Trigger, Secret Of Mana, Final Fantasy 6 and Super Mario RPG overshadowed it for some because this was a fantastic game. Definitely one of the top 5 RPG’s that I’ve played on the SNES, and still the best BOF by far.

(I was just thinking, when Township crashes in front of the gates was that the location where you fight Myria again many years later in Breath Of Fire 3? Remember how you had to cross a desert, like the one just outside of Gate, and climb up a massive tower just to reach the goddess? Also, the dragon town wasn’t too far outside of it, if memory serves me correct. Makes you think, doesn’t it? Oh, and what ever happened to Deathevn? Myria comes back twice but not Deathevn? I guess Ryu sure made sure that he stayed dead UNLIKE some heroes.)