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 Normally when you hear of Capcom, you think of fighting or action games. So it was an unusual move in April of 1993 for them to release an RPG made in house. The team they put together was an interesting mix of game veterans and new faces who would later go on to become icons in their field. Many RPG's at the time were bland looking, text heavy, and using a basic soundtrack. But Capcom would put their usual heavy artistic flair in their designs and musical scores. Many of these concept art designs are around today, and I'll be sharing them in the videos and this post. While I don't intend to 100% the game, I will try to show off as much as possible including some secrets in the game. It was also re-released later on the GBA, but I'll be playing the SNES version since the differences are minor, and the music's better in this one. Spoiler Policy Breath of Fire 1 is fairly old and while I expect many people to have given at least one of the games in the series a go, there are some who might have not seen it yet so lets not spoil anything please! Plus I'd like to do runs of some of the following games later and rather not have those events revealed. Not even in tags guys. Please. Playlist #1 - Home Wreckers #2 - Of Traps and Toads #3 - Shaken not Stirred #4 - Birds of a Feather #5 - Off to see the Wizard #6 - Our Chief Concern #7 - Castles in the Sky #8 - Domo Arigato Mr Stone Robo #9 - Cash for Gold #10 - Chupacabra #11 - Tomb Raider #12 - First Intermission #13 - Everyone Loves a Twin Key #14 - Calamari Army #15 - A Fish Tale #16 - Olly Olly Oxen Free #17 - Second Intermission #18 - Wake Up Call #19 - Liquid Snake #20 - Fishing for Answers #21 - Honey, I Shrunk The Dragon #22 - Shock Therapy #23 - Battle Royal #24 - Pull Yourself Together #25 - Can You Dig It? #26 - The Weather Dominator #27 - Dream Sprites #28 - It's About Time #29 - Cerl's Story Arc #30 - Air Miles #31 - Kneel Before Zog #32 - Sibling Rivalry #33 - The Emperor of Balls #34a - This is the End? #34b - This is the End #34c - This is the End! #35 - The Wrap Up The Art and Music of Breath of Fire 1 thiswayliesmadness fucked around with this message at 11:27 on Apr 7, 2020 |
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Jan 6, 2019 06:25
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Revealed Concept Art Box Art      Character Art         GBA Portraits         Fusions     Misc. Characters    Monsters     Bosses           Dragon Forms    Goddess Keys       Music The Dragon Warrior White Dragon A Powerful Emperor Blood Relation Quickening Black Dragon A Brave General Premature Death Fate Starting The Journey Beginning of Battle Victory Song Sorrow Memories Skyscraper Day and Night Profit Dejection Small Hermitage Strong Fortress Ancient Ruins Culvert Gentle Breeze Deep Forest Emergency Swimming Distant View Song and Dance Secret City Sand Palace Dawn Trade City Music City Flying The Final Level True Ending Great Achievement A Road Battling Expedition The Empire God's Footprints Return thiswayliesmadness fucked around with this message at 05:20 on Mar 19, 2020 |
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Jan 6, 2019 06:25
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I keep going back to BoF3. It has a hard mode I want to try.
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Jan 6, 2019 08:59
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BoF4 has higher ratings, but 3 will always be my favorite in the series. I mentioned it in the sandcastle, but I'd like to do an LP of 2 and 3 soon after this one.
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Jan 6, 2019 20:14
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thiswayliesmadness posted:BoF4 has higher ratings, but 3 will always be my favorite in the series. I mentioned it in the sandcastle, but I'd like to do an LP of 2 and 3 soon after this one. BoF4 has one of the better antagonists I have seen in a video game. I'll leave it at that but, I look forward to this!
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Jan 8, 2019 14:50
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Episode #2 - Of Traps and Toads We start up our adventure, go through the basics, hunt with an intimidating stare, and get a ton of concept art. One piece of art I had planned on using this time but hadn't, was the advertisement I quoted in #1.  There, in red letters so it pops out is: "Brought to you by Squaresoft, the makers of the Final Fantasy series". Compare the size of the Capcom Logo to the Squaresoft one. The legal gobbledygook in the bottom right does mention it's a licensed product of Capcom's, but put it between the Nintendo and Squaresoft jargon so it's harder for your eye to catch. Let me know if you're a fan or not of me speeding up the random battles. New Music Beginning of Battle Victory Song Sorrow Memories Skyscraper Day and Night
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Jan 14, 2019 10:06
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Cutting out the walk out of empty dungeons would be best. Are there anyone who doesn't speed up random battles now that they can?
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Jan 14, 2019 22:03
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Episode #3: Shaken not Stirred Nanai has been occupied by the Dark Dragons so we'll need to sneak into the city. Then we descend deep into the earth to stop the quake machine and have a brawl with the boss. I discuss Capcom's music designers at the time, 'Alph Lyla', and we unlock a few more music tracks. Sadly, some aren't in good spots to get a good listen (eg. Strong Fortress plays on the first floor of the temple where there's nothing to explore or loot to get), but we'll hear them again later! New Music Profit Dejection Small Hermitage Strong Fortress Ancient Ruins Scalding Coffee posted:Cutting out the walk out of empty dungeons would be best. I don't believe it's something we'll have to deal with again for quite awhile, but I'll keep that in mind! thiswayliesmadness fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Jan 21, 2019 |
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Jan 21, 2019 10:14
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Can you get back to the town and check the other floors of the palace? Almost level 10 and you don't have any other attacks yet?
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Jan 22, 2019 01:45
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Scalding Coffee posted:Can you get back to the town and check the other floors of the palace? Do you mean the first floor of the Temple in Nanai? It had two side rooms with a table and a fireplace and is otherwise pretty bare. I was hoping they would have had something there as an excuse to show it off. And we can't go back to the town now. That explosion literally flattened the town and we'll just walk over it now... Scalding Coffee posted:Almost level 10 and you don't have any other attacks yet? Our hero will remain a somewhat basic beat stick for a bit, despite the level gains. However, we will gain access to a new weapon soon that gives us some versatility. And that key we picked up has a use in battle. It would get into spoiler territory, so you'll have to wait a bit to see our main character really shine.
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Jan 22, 2019 03:45
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Good job, Brix. After seeing what happens in other games, it is nice to see the hero do exterminations.
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Jan 22, 2019 05:37
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Jesus, that is one terrible boss. If I had gone into this fight with my modern expectations of an RPG, I'd think I was missing something. He takes way too long to kill, hits way too hard and unless he's scripted to not do that somehow, could have killed you at any point when you were below half health with another Thunder spell. Were you just lucky every time you decided not to heal? Also, no save point before the boss, that always kills a game for me.
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Jan 22, 2019 10:40
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Simply Simon posted:Jesus, that is one terrible boss. If I had gone into this fight with my modern expectations of an RPG, I'd think I was missing something. He takes way too long to kill, hits way too hard and unless he's scripted to not do that somehow, could have killed you at any point when you were below half health with another Thunder spell. Were you just lucky every time you decided not to heal? Thunder does 20 damage and the LPer always healed when Ryu got under 20 health, so there was in fact no danger. And yes, this is a lame boss fight, but not really uncommon for this time. It was not unusual to face bosses whose only requirement to beat them was grinding levels (and/or cash for equipment upgrades) beforehand. We've come a long way in game design since then.
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Jan 22, 2019 10:50
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One thing I hated about this game was that boss's health bars lied to you, you'd reduce the bar to nothing and they'd keep going. It's why I hated Zog so much, you had to do more damage to 'finish him' than he had in his entire bar.
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Jan 22, 2019 12:31
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Torrannor posted:Thunder does 20 damage and the LPer always healed when Ryu got under 20 health, so there was in fact no danger. Though I might have misread the health bar/values during the fight. TheKirbs posted:One thing I hated about this game was that boss's health bars lied to you, you'd reduce the bar to nothing and they'd keep going. By the way, for all I think the game does really dumb poo poo at the start, it's no reflection on the LP - I'll gladly keep watching, you're doing a good job with editing and commentary!
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Jan 22, 2019 13:20
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Torrannor posted:Thunder does 20 damage and the LPer always healed when Ryu got under 20 health, so there was in fact no danger. There was one point I was at 20 hp exactly and rolled the dice he wouldn't kill me. Worked out as you could see, but gaining a few levels or grinding for better armor would have helped some. That boss isn't too bad if he rotates his attacks or does the melee a lot. He healed more than usual that fight which made it so tough, but bolt spam would probably be worse. A full stack of 9 herbs for safety is never a bad idea this early. Simply Simon posted:But this game came out after Final Fantasies 4 AND 5, both of which are insanely far better about having sensibly designed bosses with gimmicks that don't require you to grind at all, give you at least two party members at the start, a bunch of tactical options... I'm going to talk about it in Episode 5 but two things really inspired Capcom to make Breath of Fire. They were pretty buddy buddy with Squaresoft, so it's not surprising they used some base elements from their games. When I bring up the second one, I get the feeling a few game mechanics might click for some viewers. Or a few groans. Simply Simon posted:Yeah, that is an absolutely idiotic design decision as well. Why even have the bar at all, then? Most RPGs don't bother if they want to keep players guessing. Or they tell you for normal monsters but not bosses. It was their attempt at trying something new, and the 2nd health bars certainly have their flaws. I guess it was to make base enemies more predictable while you never knew if that next swing would finish the boss. Some behavior changes happen too like the knight boss doing more damage. And glad you've been enjoying! I'll admit I'm still learning a lot about editing, but having fun as I go. My connections being a bit slow but update will be up in a few hours!
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Jan 28, 2019 13:29
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Episode #4: Birds of a Feather After we visit Winlan, we switch over to their princess for an adventure of her own! Lots of travelling today so it's a longer episode, but we visit an homage to George Romero, get an important item for later, and see how bird people do in combat. New Music Culvert Gentle Breeze Deep Forest
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Jan 28, 2019 21:06
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Fun fact about the Glooms by the way, those ghost-head enemies: Their graphic uses something SNES and GBA games love do to, and have a flickering effect that makes them look transparent. The downside, is that this effect only works at 60 FPS. Less than that, and the actual flicker effect is lost with the lost frames, resulting in them appearing either solid instead of the intended transparent, or worse, they appear to vanish entirely, and become straight-up invisible. The only game I'm primarily familiar with this from is the Fire Emblem GBA games, which make frequent use of it in Critical Attack animations.
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Jan 28, 2019 22:20
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Most games would give you that broken attack item much later in the game where it is less than useful. This is admitting that early encounters suck.
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Jan 29, 2019 01:19
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Scalding Coffee posted:Most games would give you that broken attack item much later in the game where it is less than useful. This is admitting that early encounters suck. And Nina only got a single level from that forest? This game's balance seems...pretty good
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Jan 29, 2019 18:07
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Simply Simon posted:There is so many of them oh my God And the forest isn't set to the highest encounter rate either! Oddly, each character has their own exp table. Nina's is built to skyrocket her to level 7 when she's on her quest. After that she literally has the worst exp table out of any character. It dips lower than Ryu's at levels 22-48 for some reason, and then goes nuts again. But overall, Nina's levels will be few and far between each other. If I had more free time, I'd graph out those exp tables since so many of the numbers feel like odd choices. Scalding Coffee posted:Most games would give you that broken attack item much later in the game where it is less than useful. This is admitting that early encounters suck. Note that the game doesn't tell you to use the key in battle. Most curious players would give it a go sooner than later I'd hope, but I get the feeling the game expects you to know about it by the time you hit the forest. I'd also be higher level if I was doing the normal player things like trying to mess with hunting animals too early or just trying to figure out where to go. But I shouldn't make excuses for the early fights. Many of them really do suck. Early 1993 gaming!
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Jan 30, 2019 05:05
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thiswayliesmadness posted:And the forest isn't set to the highest encounter rate either! Early fights suck until you can get the boomerang and start sweeping. The first few times I played this I never knew you could use the keys. [spoilers removed by OP request - crow]  . So much wandering around and going in and out of towns.I honestly never noticed Nina not getting as many levels because she she never left my party except story reasons. She's just so useful to have with her heals and buffs, especially as this is the least frail Nina across all BOF games. Somebody fucked around with this message at 09:57 on Feb 1, 2019 |
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Jan 30, 2019 13:51
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Episode #5: Off to see the Wizard After pausing outside the Wizard's tower last episode, we start climbing this maze of stairs taking on two of his henchmen as well as the main man himself! But he's got a trap prepared for just this kind of situation... I discuss how Wizardry 5 ended up being the inspiration to create Breath of Fire, and we find a brand new weapon! Realized a little late, I hadn't included the concept art for the boss general we had a drawn out brawl with. Which is a shame since he's so happy to see us!  New Music Emergency
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Feb 4, 2019 21:00
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Just a quick reminder about the spoiler policy. I know it's an old game many have played, but I'd like to keep it fresh for the new comers.
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Feb 4, 2019 21:02
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I think the high encounters are to get you more healing items (and stones) if you were too cheap to buy enough. Until you beat that soldier, your levels didn't seem that impressive and you got two levels from two bosses that gave you a bunch of stats. Maybe you should have everyone be in back and use the key on encounters.
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Feb 4, 2019 22:08
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Simply Simon posted:There is so many of them oh my God Breath of Fire splits EXP among the party so she gets 1/3 of the amount that Ryu would get on her own because she's traveling with the soldiers.
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Feb 5, 2019 00:28
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Scalding Coffee posted:I think the high encounters are to get you more healing items (and stones) if you were too cheap to buy enough. Until you beat that soldier, your levels didn't seem that impressive and you got two levels from two bosses that gave you a bunch of stats. I've always kind of wondered if that was added in to make the Nina segment easier, since it really does. I have Nina use that key when she's not healing for a long, long time.
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Feb 5, 2019 00:37
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I gotta say, it's kind of neat to see the generic NPC soldiers actually join the party and help.
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Feb 5, 2019 02:21
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Scalding Coffee posted:I think the high encounters are to get you more healing items (and stones) if you were too cheap to buy enough. Until you beat that soldier, your levels didn't seem that impressive and you got two levels from two bosses that gave you a bunch of stats. Jason Sextro posted:I've always kind of wondered if that was added in to make the Nina segment easier, since it really does. I have Nina use that key when she's not healing for a long, long time. If you spend a bit of spare time in the tower, you're likely to have a few c.stones, herbs, and even life's saved up, making the boss much easier. The key and Nina go hand in hand really; Her attack power doesn't keep up with enemy defense soon, so a static 30 damage magic hit is better than a 7 damage stab. While I did say it can be used unlimited times, it's technically 1/round of combat. Night10194 posted:I gotta say, it's kind of neat to see the generic NPC soldiers actually join the party and help. I was seriously amazed the first time I played and soldier 3 dropped me off, then -didn't- proceed to fly away or just stand by and wish me luck (which he soon does anyways).
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Feb 6, 2019 20:16
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I think you could start cutting out encounters entirely instead of bothering with the speedups. The tenth time you see a group of two bugs and a spider wiped out with an E.Key and attack before they get a hit in really drags, imho. You can still show new ones and those that give you level-ups, of course, but I think so much downtime with absolutely nothing interesting happening is not great to watch. It would maybe be okay if you had a co-commentator you could shoot the poo poo with, but you're often silent for a minute, and in that minute, you fight three samey encounters and that's it. When you ARE commenting, you're doing a good job, and you're showing off the game well, but it's getting kind of a drag tbh. EDIT: They should have sent Soldier 1 to get help instead, he's way faster Simply Simon fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Feb 7, 2019 |
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Feb 7, 2019 19:44
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All those encounters made the music restart so often it was like the Labyrinth Zone music track in Sonic 1. 15 seconds followed by drowning.
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Feb 7, 2019 20:46
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Simply Simon posted:I think you could start cutting out encounters entirely instead of bothering with the speedups. The tenth time you see a group of two bugs and a spider wiped out with an E.Key and attack before they get a hit in really drags, imho. But that's the authentic Breath of Fire experience! Although I would say this period when none of your hitters are very hard hitters is probably the worst part.
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Feb 8, 2019 00:35
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Simply Simon posted:I think you could start cutting out encounters entirely instead of bothering with the speedups. The tenth time you see a group of two bugs and a spider wiped out with an E.Key and attack before they get a hit in really drags, imho. Appreciate the advice! I was tempted to do something different in the tower with all the fights going on. I think next time I hit an area with high encounters that are pretty samey, they'll just get pulled. Good news is, the encounter rate is much more reasonable next episode and we get a wave of new enemies. Plus you'll likely appreciate my 'Previously' segment coming up. Jason Sextro posted:But that's the authentic Breath of Fire experience! Although I would say this period when none of your hitters are very hard hitters is probably the worst part. Pretty much this. To kill enemies right now I have 3 options: Fight, use the key, or random item drops. If they gave us a high encounter area after we had our next party member instead, it would have been more tolerable.
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Feb 8, 2019 20:22
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I think the hitters hit hard enough (that is, the Key still one-shots entire groups), but it's simply a LOT of attack and death animations playing with just a few steps in-between. Auto-battling everything with little consequence would make it a bit easier on the hands, but barely speed up battles, all the attacks still have to play out after all. In fact, if every encounter is trivial enough to be auto-battled, that makes the game even WORSE. It's actually an interesting problem to think about: how to even make random encounters not terrible? There's a few solutions to the problem: - not random: map sprites you can run away from, dodge or interact with at your leisure (Chrono Trigger) - every encounter could be A Rare And Awesome Thing You Want (Pokemon) - you can just turn them off (Bravely Default) - battles are not actually hard, but the real challenge is figuring out how to do them the fastest with your awesome skills (Final Fantasy V) - every encounter is a tough challenge either for actual difficulty or to make it as quick as possible (Final Fantasy 13) - there's something to do in every fight, and multiple rewards for winning beyond "XP". Example Final Fantasy 7: you can steal, you can get enemy skills, you can Morph, you can get hit to build Limits, then after winning, you get drops, and each kill also builds your limits so it's never wasted time to fight an encounter BoF seems to take the worst and laziest approach: you barely do anything in battle except deal damage (so far at least, but I played a bit of BoF2 and that also didn't really change), you only get XP (but it's necessary to get a lot or you're underleveled), there's no way to mitigate the encounter rate, and the drops are rare and mostly crap (attack items excluded). I hope it'll get more interesting later - again, not a knock on the LP, I just find it baffling for an entry at this point of JRPG design to be this...barren.
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Feb 8, 2019 21:38
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It was said that Marbl3 stops random battles.
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Feb 8, 2019 21:46
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It does. The item drops actually do improve later, this part in particular is just kind of a drag.
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Feb 8, 2019 22:34
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Episode #6: Our Chief Concern We're travelling east today to help out a pair of villages who have had their water supply cut off by the Dark Dragons. More of the races are shown as we get to see members of both the Forest and Iron Ogre clan. And our journey through "The Forest of Despair" reveals hidden secrets... While there isn't any new music, you get a ton of new art including my new side bars from the GBA European/Asian release:
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Feb 12, 2019 08:53
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Seems odd they didn't make Bo's hole in the wall a quick exit from the dungeon.
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Feb 12, 2019 20:49
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That was a terrible blacksmith if the saw barely handled a tree.
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Feb 12, 2019 23:28
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Episode #7: Castles in the Sky Our return to Romero finds the zombie problem has escalated and we need to locate a cure. Helping their chief out of this situation rewards us with the tablet, which allows us to explore the floating tech tower of Agua! An ancient guardian within guards a treasure we need...
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Feb 19, 2019 07:01
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