| Breath of Fire | |
|---|---|
| Genres | Role-playing video game |
| Developers | Capcom |
| Publishers | Capcom |
| Creators | Tokuro Fujiwara |
| Platforms | Cellular phone, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Windows |
| Platform of origin | Super Nintendo Entertainment System |
Breath of Fire (Japanese: ブレスオブファイア Hepburn: Buresu obu Faia) is a role-playing video game series developed by Capcom. It originated on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1993 as Capcom's first foray into the role-playing genre. The series is notable for its recurring characters and ambiguous continuity; though each game is its own self-contained story, the names of the two lead characters are, invariably, Ryu and Nina.[1]
The story commonly involves an adventurer named Ryu who can shapeshift into different types of dragons.[2] Over the course of his journey, he befriends Nina, a girl with wings. At its inception, Breath of Fire took place in a medieval-style fictional world, a frequently-seen setting in western role-playing games. Following the mainstream success of Japanese role-playing games in the 1990s,[3] the series began using the original anime-style artwork for later releases of the games (rather than the Westernized art that was drawn specifically for the Western releases of the first two games), post-apocalyptic themes, and an increased emphasis on character development. Despite these changes, the core structure of Breath of Fire remains linear and plot-focused. As of 2003, five Breath of Fire titles have been released, with three games being ported to handheld game consoles as well as Nintendo's Virtual Console. To date, the series has sold over 3 million units worldwide.[4]
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The setting of Breath of Fire is a fictional world populated by various anthropomorphic species, ranging from humans to bipedal felines, canines, fish and plants.[1] The smallest of these groups is the Dragon Clan, a once-mighty tribe whose members are able to morph into dragons. In-fighting between the "Light" and "Dark" Dragons caused the group to break apart,[5] eventually sliding toward extinction. Although the Light Dragons are consistently depicted as being few in number, the Dark Dragons occupy a large empire in Breath of Fire. The Dragon Clan is depicted as near-extinct in subsequent games.
The main antagonists of the series are of a decidedly religious nature—a demon or demigod -- often masquerading as a monotheistic deity. The plot often involves corrupt or misled religious leaders who are conspiring against the people they represent. The protagonist, Ryu, is the last surviving member of a messianic dragon clan who must save the humans from their false god. Ryu is always depicted as a young man with blue hair and eyes wielding a sword. Another recurring character is Nina, a winged woman of similar age to Ryu with blond hair that is typically a princess and Ryu's love interest, the exception to this being in Breath of Fire V in which Nina is a mute girl younger than Ryu who he arguably has a sibling relationship with.
The theme of challenging or slaying 'god' is not an uncommon one in Japanese video games;[6] however, it was not until Breath of Fire II that such a concept appeared so overtly in a game marketed in the West. The deities in Breath of Fire are often presented with some degree of moral ambiguity, with mankind being described as having misused their power in the first place.[7] While religion has long since been considered proper to include in Japanese video games, the topic was largely unwelcome in the United States until the 32-bit era. Typically, when a game with religious content was ported to an American console, such references were carefully edited out[8] (as seen in SNES versions of Ultima). The antagonist of Breath of Fire II is a fictional religion called the Church of St. Eva, visible through the ubiquitous churches scattered throughout the game's towns. As the story progresses, the church leaders are revealed to be in league with a demon who is channeling believers' prayers into evil energy.
In addition to his dragon transformations, each separate incarnation of Ryu is adept at fishing,[7] a skill which surfaces in several Breath of Fire games as a fish-themed minigame.
Outside of the original Breath of Fire and its immediate sequel (which take place in chronological order), there is some debate over the continuity of the later games. Because Breath of Fire IV traces the origins of the two feuding Dragon Clans, some theorize the game to be a prequel, taking place before any of the previous titles.[9] A timeline for the series has never been explicitly stated, and Capcom has stated that the latest game, Dragon Quarter, takes place in an entirely separate universe.[10]
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Original release date(s): |
Release years by system: 1993 — Super Nintendo Entertainment System 2001 — Game Boy Advance |
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Original release date(s): |
Release years by system: 1994 — Super Nintendo Entertainment System 2001 — Game Boy Advance 2007 — Virtual Console |
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Release years by system: 1997 — PlayStation 2005 — PlayStation Portable |
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Release years by system: 2000 — PlayStation 2003 — Microsoft Windows 2011 — PlayStation Network |
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Original release date(s): |
Release years by system: 2002 — PlayStation 2 |
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Beginning in November 2003, Capcom began releasing Breath of Fire titles specifically for mobile phone devices in Japan.[11] Each game was developed for use on NTT DoCoMo, au, and SoftBank brand cellphones that use the i-mode, EZWEB, or BREW services. The first title, Breath of Daifugō (ブレス オブ 大富豪), is a replication of the Japanese card game daifugō featuring characters from Breath of Fire IV, and would be followed by a sports game called Breath of Fire: Ryū no Tsurishi (ブレス オブ ファイア 竜の釣り師 lit. Breath of Fire: Dragon Fisherman) in October 2005, which contained an expanded version of the fishing minigame also from the game.[12] Two action role-playing spin-offs of Breath of Fire IV titled Breath of Fire IV: Honō no Ken to Kaze no Mahō (ブレスオブファイアIV 炎の剣と風の魔法 lit. Breath of Fire IV: The Sword of Fire and the Magic of Wind) and Breath of Fire IV: Yōsei-tachi to Hikari no Kagi (ブレスオブファイアIV 妖精たちと光のカギ lit. Breath of Fire IV: The Faeries and the Key of Light)' were released in November 2007[13] and November 2008 respectively.[14]
The music of each Breath of Fire games has traditionally been produced by rotating members of Capcom's in-house sound team. While the themes from first game were composed by four members of the company's sound team Alph Lyla, which included Yasuaki Fujita, Mari Yamaguchi, Minae Fuji, and Yoko Shimomura, the second game's score was produced entirely by fellow company composer Yuko Takehara.[15] Breath of Fire III's soundtrack took a jazz-inspired approach, and was written by the team of Yoshino Aoki and Akari Kaida, with the music of Breath of Fire IV provided solely by Aoki herself. For the first time in the series, the music of Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter was created by an outside employee, Hitoshi Sakimoto, with Yasunori Mitsuda serving as music producer on the project.[16]
In March 2006, Capcom released the 11-disc Breath of Fire Original Soundtrack Special Box boxset on their in-house record label Suleputer, which contained all music from the first five games in the series.[15] The set includes the first-ever soundtrack release of the original Breath of Fire, as well as the first complete soundtrack releases for Breath of Fire II and Breath of Fire III, which had previously only received single-disc selections during their original printings, with a total of 307 tracks from all five titles.[17] Capcom produced a limited run of only 2000 copies of the boxset, which was distributed on their online store e-Capcom, as well as special retailers, and included a 28-page booklet featuring art from the series.[17]
| Game | First-year sales (Japan only) |
GameRankings | Metacritic |
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| Breath of Fire |
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| Breath of Fire II |
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| Breath of Fire III |
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| Breath of Fire IV |
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| Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter |
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As of the fifth game in the series, the Breath of Fire franchise has sold a total of 3 million units worldwide, with Capcom calling it their "best known and most successful role-playing game."[4] Sales of each successive title continued on an upward slope which peaked at the PlayStation entries in the series, with the fifth game, Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter on the PlayStation 2, representing a significant dip.[29] Each title received mostly positive reviews from aggregate review websites GameRankings and Metacritic, with critics such as Gamasutra finding each game to be good, but largely formulaic, calling the franchise "always solid, if not particularly ambitious".[3] The series has routinely been compared to Square Enix's popular Final Fantasy games, with GameSpot stating that "Though the Breath of Fire games have never been as well received as bigger RPG names like Final Fantasy, the series indicates that Capcom is definitely learning something about the fine art of RPG development."[30]
In May 2009, nearly seven years after the release of the latest game, Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, readers of Japanese Famitsu magazine voted the series 6th in the publication's survey of the Top 50 Most Wanted Game Sequels.[31] IGN would later name Breath of Fire the 4th greatest Capcom franchise of all time in June 2010, stating that "Though the Breath of Fire games evolved across the SNES to the PlayStation 2, the core held steadfast to Japanese RPG formulas – something that many gamers still celebrate."[32]
In a December 2008 interview with gaming website 1UP.com, Capcom's former Head of Production Keiji Inafune stated the Breath of Fire series would be put on hiatus due to the company's lack of staff and an increasingly competitive role-playing game market, stating "There are currently no plans on making a new Breath of Fire game. Apart from that, regarding RPG titles, they are very popular in Japan, but only certain RPG titles sell so Capcom doesn't really need to even consider making these titles as an option."[33] Capcom USA Vice President of Strategic Planning Chris Svensson would later claim on the company's official message boards in June 2009 that the series remains a "resting IP".[34] Other companies such as Camelot Software Planning have expressed interest in developing a title for the series if Capcom remained unwilling to do so.[35]
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