After the international success of Persona 5 and Dragon Quest XI, maybe it's time for publishers to take a look at some of their long JRPG series. Capcom Breath of Fire, full of strong ideas and in the hands of a financially viable publisher, is a good place to start.
In December, Nintendo updated the Super Nintendo library with its Nintendo switchch Online service to include a few new games. Among these were Fire Rescue II, a Japanese role-playing game from 1995 that opens with an image of an eye-catcher begging you to become a god power.
Fire Rescue II it is full of moments of fun like this, and it's tightly designed, but the legacy isn't as strong as other JRPGs in a similar system The Last Tradition VI either EarthBound. You can say the same about everything Breath of Fire Series: It's been fun, but it never felt important. Just as the series began to gain a slightly different voice by trying to rely on the progler roguelite mechanic on 2003 & # 39; s. Fire Rescue V: Drag Quarter, is silent.
It wasn't the only one. In the 90s, JRPGs were huge in number and varied in concept. It helped that games were cheaper and faster to produce. Over the last twenty years, as the cost of development has increased, many smaller Japanese stations have closed or bought. A few advanced players have kept JRPGs alive by adopting a model for large-scale, multi-year-old input.
There are still new ideas. I love how indies are like Undertale, Visible, again Cross Code keep the genre spirit alive, but they don't have a broad vision that can be shared with big budgets and studios. The days when JRPG can always contain both subtlety and testing in one game may be gone.
Breath of Fire is a series that can close the gap. To be honest, I'd rather have some of the same old printers Suikoden either You die come back. However, almost all of those old-fashioned items are made in studios right now she is sleeping either he is dead. Breath of Fire he is one of the most questionable JRPG agencies left in the hands of an active and profitable company. Capcom recently success they have to say that they have good money and a good reputation. They have to use one of them to do something big and bizarre, like waking up Breath of Fire.
I understand it would seem to be a denial or a sentiment to argue that we in any way need the middle child JRPGs to return. However, Breath of FireThe generic name reflects its beautiful, diverse genre.
SNES entries, 1994 & # 39; s Breath of Fire and 1995 & # 39; s Fire Rescue II, show that the series always holds in the living world with a sense of adventure and therefore the key to the genre. The games come from the JRPG-as-anime design style, where you get the most basic information from a series of experiments and landings. They live in the inevitable shadow The last thought and Dragon Quest, but they intend to build on that legacy by painting a new perspective on technicolor. The first game has no romance, but the second, dark world and light spread are really shiny – if you ignore terrific local production. The second game also emphasizes the quality of the animation, generally looking at everything as good as some of the best games on the SNES. The focus on visual quality is a constant trend throughout the series.
The series made a jump on PlayStation for 1997 & # 39; s Fire Rescue III. It's a powerful game, full of beautiful 2D pixel images in the 3D world. It's over – by mistake. Unable to present its new ideas clean enough, or far enough away from frustrating old ones (I am usually a standard meeting point in older JRPGs), the encounter has become very classy that it wants to be.
It will not be until 2000 Fire Respiration IV, and on PlayStation 1, that the series will get that right combination of all its capabilities so far. It's a solid rock-solid RPG in the series, pushing PlayStation to its limits to create characters as hypocritical and animated as those of Capcom's fighting games. The modal, imaginative narrative, reinforced in the end of finding a good place, explores the personal effects and world of war and introduces the influences of some of the Eastern myths into that knowledge. It is the ultimate idea of the ambitions of the art series.
This is what makes 2003 & # 39; s possible Fire Rescue: Dragon Quarter, the only entry in the PlayStation 2 series, a fun time in the heels. It transforms the setting into an underground apocalyptic community divided into stages where the sky itself is treated as a myth. In Dragon Quarter, the entire JRPG standard program is framed as a horror horror game to highlight the desire for your ascension. Failure is not the only option, it is to be expected: You aim to start the game from scratch, with your overpriced items and the penetration of character development, many times before you are strong enough to finish it. Dragon Quarter it was a brilliant approach to the JRPG formula that marks the exciting future of the series, but it was its death.
There is no other Breath of Fire The games were released until 2013, when Capcom was released Fire Rescue VI. Unfortunately, it was a free multiplayer online game for PC and mobile that never left Japan. Gameplay Videos show that the worst version of expectations, microtransaction and all, if the established series is play-free. It found an average of 1.5 out of 5 on the Google Play Store and closed permanently in 2017, almost a year and a half after its release.
That should not be there Breath of Fire it ends. Capcom recently discovered how to find itself Monster HunterThe formula in front of a large audience, and has been raised Resident Evil from a hell of a movie-action, so it's out of the question that it can do the same with detection Breath of Fire basic strength. Dragon Quarter & # 39; s The mechanics were read as hating by the players at the time, but in the post-Souls world there It's a very dark hole a brutal war is flourishing, those same decisions may seem bright. Recent achievements of An Octopath traveler proves that there is a desire for older JRPG applications, and the kind of 3D-2D visual design that Fire Respiration IV refined. The focus on the series – the urgency of the war, the mistrust of the authorities, and the fact that those living in the midst of the consequences trying to fix the sins of the past – has not gone out of style.
I know it's a long way off. I know that if we were to write a Capcom game that focused on the dragon enough that something new could happen, we had a lot more The doctrine of the dragon games. Still, I can't help myself. I want another resurrection in this period of reincarnation, but not because I need the dead to live again. Because I see something that used to kick in, and I think it could still be a fire.
Ben Morgan is a freelance writer and game designer who lives in Portland, ALSO. She loves cats, JRPGs, and movies where Michelle Yeoh kicks ass. You can find her on Twitter @benji_ray.
