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Review by: Druss
Greven
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Reviewers Score:
9 / 10
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Posted: November 23, 2005
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Breath
of Fire II
This is the when Capcom took over the Breath of Fire franchise,
and in my opinion, made it soar. Unlike the first BoF which was
made by squaresoft, this one shows, I think, better graphics, as well as
better gameplay. Even though there are a few minor flaws about it, I'll
get into that in my review. This would be a game I would recommend
to beginners as well as veteran rpg gamers. With many hours of
gameplay you should definately try this one out.
Storyline 10/10
In my opinion the storyline for this game was pretty well written, and
kept you guessing. The characters were awesome, everyone of
them has a purpose, so you will never "throw one aside" like
in many other rpgs with multiple characters. You start as Ryu, a
boy from a small village, who in the middle of the night has dreams of
strange voices calling to him, when he wakes up to find Yuri, his
sister which was last seen heading north into the forest. So, you
head north to find Yuri, and a baddie, you get creamed pretty bad and
your uncle comes to save you. Strange thing is when its over and
you walk back to town. Nobody knows you and everyone and everything has
changed. That is the start of your adventure. The rest of
the story pretty much focuses on Ryu trying to find out what is
happening to himself. You meet comical, and sometimes rather
unusual characters along the way. One charater in particular, is
playable throughout all of the BoF games. I thought this game had
a pretty good storyline to it and I give it a ten.
Graphics 9/10
The graphics for this game were in my opinion pretty good. Nothing
was real bad at all. It sort of had a cartoonish feel to it, which
may be because it was so nicely colored. Not too many character
animations here unless you consider the thought bubbles they have.
I did like that when you attacked the enemy, you accually went up
to the enemy and hit them, instead of standing in a line and then take a
step forward, swing your weapon, and fall back in line, like in many
other rpgs. There were a few things that I didn't really like.
One, instead of making a new enemy sprite for a higher difficulty,
they instead used the same enemy sprites over and over, but they changed
the color and/or the attacks it used. This game had a deceint
world map, it was sort of interactive in few parts. The
backgrounds to the battle sequences were so so, nicely drawn, but
nothing spectacular. I did however liked that you changed from
night to day. There is also a little dancing guy in the top of your menu
screen, and whatever his mood is, determines what enemies you will
fight, as well as how often you encounter them. I like the clouds
too, they were pretty cool and they gave the world map a better look. I
gave graphics a nine.
Sound 7/10
The music and sound effects were alright. The music got a little
tiresome after a while The music set the mood for the right time,
other than that I really didn't care for it too much. The sound
effects were average, at least everyones attacks didn't sound the
same. It's not like they were bad, its just nothing to get excited
about. So I give sound a seven, nice music, but it wasn't par to
other great rpgs of its time.
Gameplay 10/10
This game will give you many hours of gameplay. As it has many
different sidequests, plus you will spend a lot of time leveling your
characters up for future battles. The only thing I found that I
didn't care for, as with the first BoF, was the health bar, they
should of just stuck with hit points instead. Yes they do use hit points
but only for your characters, so you don't know how much health the
enemy has except for the health bar it uses. The gameplay I would
have to give a ten. It's a great game and will keep you busy for
hours.
Replay Value 6/10
I think once you do manage to complete this game all the way through,
you won't wanna go all they way through it again. There are
however a few things you can do differently each time you play. Other
than that, there really isn't much to say about replaying it. I
like the game myself and have replayed it many times, yet I think I gave
myself like a year inbetween each time. The game is pretty good
and you will indefinately end up playing it at least once or twice,
unless your like me and like the nostalgia, as with other Snes titles,
and play them over and over to master them. You won't really find
yourself playing it that many times over. I give it six for replay
value.
Overall Score 9/10
Its a pretty good game overall, and is definately something you should
play. As this is the true start of the series, or at least when
Capcom took over and made it what it is today. I give it a nine. |
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