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Game: Breath of Fire 3
System: PSP
Release Date:
11th September 1997 (Japan)
30th April 1998 (US)

What is it about?
You start out as a young Ryu, a silent protagonist Brood (people who transform into a dragon), which you would wander around the world to discover the origin of your race and the truth behind the God’s genocide of the Brood race.

Completion Hours: Estimated around 30 hours




Storyline: 6/10

Despite being a 30-hour game, the story in this game feels incredibly short. Trying to avoid spoilers as much as possible, you spend the first half of the game playing as a young Ryu, which would eventually develop the story into his adulthood.

During the Young Ryu’s arc, I have to admit that the story is interesting as there’s a bunch of fun adventures going around. However, when you start the Adult Ryu’s arc, the story is pretty much straight forward about searching for God. From there it’s just a straight line and when you reach the end of the line, it falls flat. The story is overall mildly entertaining, but won’t leave a deep impression in your mind.



Gameplay: 7/10

The thing I love the most about this game is the world map. You access a dungeon or an area in the map and once you’ve cleared it, you can just walk pass through it in the world map! Not only does it makes backtracking easier (you don’t need to go through the dungeon again), it also reduces the amount of those oh-so-annoying-and-easy random encounters.

But let’s talk about the battle system. For a game developed in 1997, the battle system is quite innovative for it’s time. You got the standard attack/magic/defend commands, but they also included an additional command called “Examine”, which you can learn enemy’s skills (ala Blue Mage of Final Fantasy games). Not only that, there’s a Master system, which if you set your characters to apprentice under your choice of Master, they will gain (or loss) additional stats and also learn new skills. For example, you can set your magic character to be train under a High HP and Def Master and make your magic character super tanky. It involves good planning so that your characters will have an edge in battles. Let’s not forget that since your MC is a dragon, you can mix and match different genes (which were found throughout the map) and transform into various types of dragon with different stats and abilities! This adds another layer or strategy to your battle to defeat your foes. But becareful though as transforming into a Dragon will eat up a lot of your AP, which is vital for using skills or spells. Did I also mention that the auto-attack button is also incorporated to help you save up time on battles if all you do is only attack, attack and attack.

Nevertheless I have a lot of fun with the battle system, but it could be frustrating at times because of the difficulty and how the enemies will only tend to target your weakess character in the party. That’s really uncool, bro.



Sound/Music: 7/10

Music for the most part is memorable and enjoyable. It certainly fits the cartoonish world perfectly. However, it is not high-level amazing (definitely not Nobuo Uematsu level). Still, the tunes are catchy and fun to listen to.



Graphics: 8/10

For a game that’s released in 1997, its cartoonish design is delightful to look at. There are 3d graphics used for the building structure, and it certainly doesn’t feel out of place. The map, town and dungeon design are good for the most part and it will easily draw your soul into the world.



Final Score: 7/10

I hate to admit it, but this is my first Breath of Fire game. But on the positive side, I do enjoy it throughout the game. Unfortunately, the story is too direct and short that it really makes me want to crave more out of it. I guess I just have to satisfy myself by playing other Breath of Fire games.



Will I replay the game for a second time?

Unfortunately the answer is no. The random battle is difficult at times which makes it very frustrating to get through the dungeon, and sometimes you have to play through some annoying mini-games to proceed on. (I swear to god, it was the AI’s fault that broke the rope at the beach! It’s not my fault!).

I am just glad that I was able to add this rpg to my list of completed RPGs, and I certainly have tons of fun with the battle system. If the random battles and the mini-games can be tweaked better, and with a better written story, I might come back to this game again. For that reason, this game won’t be in my “RPGs that need to be replay” list for a long long time.

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Score: ★★★★★★★☆☆☆ 7/10

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