The Breath of Fire Iceberg Explained

six titles make up the breath of fire series and much like final fantasy most of the games are not seemingly connected despite this the series always follows two beloved characters in a variety of different time periods and environments even though the creators insist there's not enough interest to warrant a continuation of the series there exists a passionate fan base that avidly supports the idea this is the breath of fire iceberg [Music] a resting franchise let's start off with the question that most people have as soon as they see breath of fire where's the modern day sequel unfortunately the franchise is currently put on hold and capcom has been very transparent about why former head of production of capcom kg in a fune has stated that breath of fire is on a hiatus due to lack of resources and the rpg market being very competitive he went on to say that there are too many rpg games that have a stronghold in japan and capcom can't consider making a new game in the series at the moment because of that however for what it's worth the series is not exactly forgotten and capcom considers it one of their most successful role-playing games back but not really the fifth main line game in the series was released in november 2002 called breath of fire 5 dragon quarter the franchise did not see another mainline game until 2016 with the release of breath of fire 6. however although capcom considers it a mainline entry it's often debated whether the game can truly be considered a revival because of the fact that it was a free-to-play multiplayer video game with microtransactions playable on pc and mobile phones so even though the franchise saw another game after 2002 it's not something that the fans were really looking for and was discontinued in 2017 and another piece of detail that makes this entire situation even worse is that this game was never released outside of japan and only six of eight planned episodes were released before it was shut down since then the game has been lost to time and there is no way to play it although this doesn't bother most people due to how much they disliked it the sole exception in every mainline breath of fire game although the characters are not always related to each other the protagonist is always called rio and sooner or later meets a supporting character called nina throughout the game however breath of fire 6 is an exception as it puts the player in the role of ryu's sibling who then has to look for him in the storyline so it's the only main game in the series where the protagonist is not a character called ryu but rather his sibling additionally breath of fire 5 is the only game in the series to not include a character called ds a direct sequel breath of fire 2 is the only direct sequel in the franchise even though every game has a main character called ryu and the player always runs into someone called nina they are all unrelated to each other they are self-contained storylines that follow a different version of those characters breath of fire 2 is the only game in the series that is actually a direct sequel and although it takes place 500 years after the first game it's still related and within the same universe a different era every breath of fire game takes place in a medieval ish fantasy environment with hardly any technology in sight with the exception of breath of fire five although the fourth game has a robot companion it's still a game that features ancient structures for the environment and the players use swords and magic to fight but breath of fire 5 takes place in a futuristic setting with a sci-fi theme so that means you see technology and modern clothing on the characters it's also the only game in the series to be completely 3d in both the character models and the environment as the other games had a mix of both this was not kept as a tradition since the next game in the series went back to 2d graphics again references to pop culture like any other role-playing game from japan there are many references to pop culture that can be found throughout the series in the first breath of fire a town called romero is filled with zombies if you visit it during the evening this is a reference to george romero who directed popular zombie thrillers such as dawn of the dead in the third game a boss called stallion is a parody of ultraman in appearance and has a move called utmost attack which is a beam-like attack similar to ultraman specium rey in the psp version of the game the colors of the character were altered in the third game one of the frames of rayu's dragon transformation contains the face of internationally famous robot cat doryman the enemy little omu is named after the omu from nausicaa of the valley of the wind in the first game the boss characters called bleeb and knight bleeb are named after a monster in the wizardry series of video games in the second game the great bird called millennium falcon is a reference to star wars two members of the resistance are named after mickey mouse peg leg pete goofy donald duck tigger winnie the pooh and more in the third game the character kyukais and his pet don are named after a character from mobile suit gundam and the seven senses technique from both the third and fourth game is a reference to saint seiya lastly there are references to the movie jaws within two scenes in the third game a reference to an x-men villain in the fourth game and a couple other less notable references censorship breath of fire 4 was censored in several ways when it was translated from japan to english to start off the language was toned down because in the original version it was a bit harsh at times then we have entire scenes removed such as fulu decapitating the emperor sonal in the first royal palace sequence nina and ursula bathing in a pond and ursula dropping her pants to prove that she's a woman to a bunch of sailors who don't believe it these scenes were completely missing from the localized version of the game and a few other things such as references to see as alcoholism being removed although these things weren't reinstated in any later re-release the production supervisor makoto icaro detailed all of the changes in an interview in the japanese art book for the breath of fire for a character called dank was changed from his dark-skinned appearance to that of a caucasian called karn the reason behind it is very evident as the character would have caused a controversy for almost looking like someone who is doing blackface in breath of fire five several story elements within development were censored because they were considered too shocking such as a locked room in biocorp labs that would contain headless cloned bodies of nina and a scientist that looked like adolf hitler references to capcom works no capcom video game is complete without references to their own series so naturally breath of fire has its fair share chun-li shows up as a cameo and breath of fire one and breath of fire 3 while sakura makes a cameo in the third game 2 alongside her breath of fire 6 includes costumes and weapons from many capcom franchises such as devil may cry resident evil monster hunter dark stalkers street fighter and mega man there's a ghost and goblins reference too as you can see portraits of arthur hanging inside houses in the first game the boss goda in the first game looks very similar to stone man from mega man 5 which is on purpose a currency from black tiger called zinni is present in several breath of fire games also enemies named after characters from final fight slam masters and resident evil occasionally show up as well rush development one thing that is well known about the breath of fire games is that aside from the intended censorship the games generally have poor translations with the first and second game suffering the most but the problem extends past the localization too breath of fire iv had a rushed development and some of the planned features and story content were removed the most notable example here is of an extended ending which would have been related to the death of yuna the next game in line breath of fire 5 suffered in a similar way due to rushes throughout development a lot of planned features and story related things were cut out for example there was a planned online mode which was abandoned since it wouldn't have been completed on time and a fishing minigame was dropped for the same reason there was also going to be a scene that showed how the surface world was destroyed but it was removed due to deadlines and was never included in the game despite the fact that it played a major role in the story references to the series as shown earlier in the iceberg the breath of fire games include many references to other series however other games especially capcom ones return the favor going with recent references first the mobile card game tepen included several characters from breath of fire similarly the knights of avalon added breath of fire characters as cards too monster hunter frontier g includes costumes of rayo and nina from bof3 there's also a costume set of ryu and nina from bof6 in monster hunter explore in the archie comic sonic and mega man worlds unite crossover event breath of fire 3's world is visited which shows characters like ryu nina momo honey and others a rescuable reploid in mega man x6 is named after nina from breath of fire nina from bof4 is featured as a costume in dead rising 3. while several art books and billboards based on breath of fire can be seen in dead rising 4 other games like onimusha blade fantasia dragon's dogma marvel vs capcom pocket fighter and snk vs capcom include references to boss characters and magic spells too and lastly street fighter 5 arcade edition has a cat costume for the character falk religious themes like most fantasy role-playing video games from the old days breath of fire is ultimately about the battle of good vs evil however the game focuses on religious elements in the story and in each game the protagonist is usually the last surviving member of a messianic dragon clan while the antagonists are either demons or goddesses the player then has to save the world from the false gods and almost every time they come across a corrupted religious cult that turns out to have aided the false god in some way not only that but there are even plot twists to be encountered such as the third game in the series being revealed to be a post-apocalyptic world that had lost most of its technology rather than being set in a past that never had any and in some of the games such as breath of fire iv there are strong political themes that deal with things like nations at war and how a hero can turn into a villain in the 16-bit days of gaming having such a focus on religious themes was not too rare within japan although not too incredibly common either since many games did not even bother having a story but in america breath of fire became particularly well known for its focus on always including religious themes even in its sequels because most rpgs that were localized in those days were greatly censored losing any religious content that could be considered offensive for a western audience although breath of fire did lose some references here and there it mostly kept the narrative intact through the translations and that sets it apart from the other games at the time rumored victory in breath of fire 2 you fight an unbeatable boss called tiga it's a part of the game's story that the player loses to him in some cases unbeatable bosses have been defeated by players using methods the developers did not expect and sometimes they are beaten by the use of third-party tools such as game genie so several players started spreading the rumor that they were able to beat tiga and it led to many players stacking up on as many items as they can in attempts of defeating the boss only to learn that it does not work this was eventually debunked entirely through the use of a game genie code which makes every enemy in the game die in one hit however the fight against tiga is an exception in which the code does not work because the game is scripted to keep him alive no matter what for those who really care about the technical details though someone managed to edit a rom file and killed tyga through emulation but the game just goes on as if he is the one who beat you instead of crashing like some other games a delayed development rush development is all too common in the gaming world as mentioned a bit earlier breath of fire 4 and 5 suffered from it however a reversal of that exists with breath of fire 3 as the game went through a long development with several delays these delays were caused by the writing and design related changes that occurred mid-development which included some story events and character designs this is one of the reasons as to why the in-game appearances of some characters are different from the promotional material one example is child ryo as his hairstyle is evidently different between the game and the promotional imagery general connectivity and fan theories outside of poor localization causing random inconsistencies fans believe that there isn't much of a contradiction in any of the games that would keep themselves from being connected to each other the first and second games are considered a direct sequel but the connectivity of the later games is a topic that is often debated by the fans the most popular opinion on this topic is that all of the games in the series are connected to each other but are set in different time periods and the rebirth of ryu after hundreds of years every time is a prophecy similar to the resurrection of christ as the hero always arrives just in time to save the world from shady religious cults corrupt politicians and evil deities bent on controlling or destroying the world the chronology is something that isn't always decided easily with the main argument being focused on whether the fourth game comes first or last in the story two exceptions to this rule are the fifth and sixth games fans were unsure of whether the fifth game is connected to the rest of the series or not but it was then officially confirmed that breath of fire 5 takes place in an alternate reality and is not connected to the rest of the games which also revealed that the other games are in fact connected to each other and within the same world on the other hand although it's officially the sixth main game in the series breath of fire six was generally disowned by fans and newcomers alike who considered it a blatant cash grab that tainted the image of the series it also destroyed their expectations for the franchise since there hasn't been a traditional game since 2002 japan only a lot of the things related to the breath of fire games are only found in japan first off we have the translations which leave out many details for the first two games so you don't get the proper story details and themes in the translation and miss out on quite a bit which even includes entire scenes that were censored and to make matters worse unlike most other japanese rpgs breath of fire 1 and 2 did not receive a re-translation of the games on the gba ports even though they improved the games in a number of ways otherwise then we have all of the merchandise there are several manga works that have adapted the series such as one that covers the first game then one manga that acts as a sequel to it as well as a spin-off story then we have the manga series for breath of fire 5 which ended sometime in 2010 several years after the game's debut additionally there are novelizations of some of the games art books and other various medias everything that has been mentioned here is completely exclusive to japan so our only option is to rely on fans for translations unfortunately the series is not popular enough to receive a fan translation for everything western fans simply have to live with never experiencing these companion projects to the game last but not least as mentioned briefly before breath of fire 6 was entirely exclusive to japan as a whole not just in terms of a bad translation or the merchandise controversial ending alternate endings are not a rare thing in the breath of fire franchise and players always expect to see them since the games have a fair amount of alternate scenarios for example saving a certain character can lead them to helping you out later on in the game however breath of fire 4's alternate ending was a bit too dark for most people it shocked many fans when they experienced it for the first time at the end of the game if you answer all of the questions presented to you by fuluwith maybe so it leads to a second ending in which ryu's god form is merged with fulu and the player then controls the infinity dragon then they can kill their party members it is then implied that the infinity dragon might eradicate humanity in revenge after the ending of the game this is especially dark considering the fact that the deuteragonist of the game gives a heartfelt speech about how she prefers the world the way it is with the protagonist in it while fulu tries to convince him to turn against them cut content there is a lot of cut content in all of the games which is not all necessarily removed due to a rush development so let's take a look at some of the notable examples in breath of fire one we have an unused item called doctor warp that allows players to teleport anywhere that they want and this also leads to many unused areas that were cut out from the game such as the unfinished shrine which was possibly going to be used as a dungeon in the second game there's a couple of unused graphics and areas one of the unused graphics include a blowing kiss animation similar to what the shopkeepers did in the first game but it was removed for unknown reasons you can also enter a second floor in ryu and beau's house using proaction replay which has no npcs but can be interacted with in the third game there is a lot of unused dialogue items and skills most of it useless but there are several inaccessible locations that serve as an extension of existing areas that you visit in the game such as mayor mcneill's bedroom a bunch of shops railroad tracks in the donna and earl regions and a few others using walk through cheats you can even get into interactions that are normally not possible for example shelves behind shop counters include money for you to find interacting with robots in inaccessible places make them talk to you with generic dialogue and you can see sunder doing something a bit private if you enter mount manig after he complains that it takes him a while to finish not much is there in the fourth game that can still be found in the files since the things cut in development were simply left out and the same applies to the fifth game bof3 and four sequel theory some fans believe that breath of fire three and four are directly connected to each other it emphasizes on a bunch of different points the first one considers the intro scene of bof3 as a clue since it explains that the dragon prince has fought the goddess before then in the second clue it focuses on the plot point where rey brings ryu home an adult tepo comes to rai while he is sleeping talking against humans then when you meet tipo in the town he guesses ryu's name and says how did i know that maybe i dreamed it which implies that adult tipo told his younger self to talk to ryu the purpose of the dream is vague and that's what this theory tries to make sense of if rio and tipo are the only two living dragons at the end of bof3 then it makes it a bit confusing as to how dragons exist in bof4 if they are connected the theorized explanation is that tipo didn't want to stay at the murria station anymore and tries to turn rayo against mankind raya must have used the dragon genes to restore the power of dragoneer and might have lost to tipo being forced to merge with him then they must have become an endless being and eventually turn into fulu until ryu breaks free and thus triggers the events of bof4 despite the developers lack of confidence for the franchise the fan base remains loyal and without question many of the fans would support any new project they announce we're rapidly approaching the 30th anniversary for the series so maybe we'll hear some good news then like and subscribe if you want to see more videos like this and let me know what subjects you want to see covered in the comments below

Channel: Maker

Views: 48,038

Keywords: breath of fire, breath of fire 3, breath of fire 2, breath of fire 4, breath of fire 5, breath of fire 6, breath of fire I, breath of fire II, breath of fire III, breath of fire IV, breath of fire V, breath of fire VI

Id: a9UStuayav4

Length: 18min 53sec (1133 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 11 2021