Breath of Fire II Ranking: A
I played this game around the middle of high school for the SNES. It tells the story of a blue-haired boy named Ryu whose family strangely disappears after he falls asleep one day. Soon after a giant demon knocks him out and he ends up in an unfamiliar town, where he befriends a dog-person named Bow. A few years later, he and Bow are running jobs for money when someone frames Bow for a theft, and you go investigate. Eventually you meet new characters and get caught up in a battle to defeat an ancient evil demon king thing.
The game has many innovative aspects. The battle screen is nicely done and animated. Some characters can interact with the environment (e.g. Sten using his arms to pull the party across gaps). The Dragon's Tear changes color based on whether the person speaking to you likes you or not, and your party members will change their opinions of you based on your actions. Your starting hideout can be expanded into a large town based on who you hire to live there, creating a game-within-a-game.
Later, you can obtain Shamans, who can fuse with your characters to give them new and powerful forms and abilities. I loved this system, but it was flawed, as the transformation isn't permanent, and you either have to deal with that or backtrack a lot to re-apply it.
Character development is pretty good as well. Each character, except Ryu (whom you're supposed to provide the personality for), has a distinct personality and grows as the game goes on. Many parts of the game feature backstories of the characters, and some of the events are pretty emotional. The antagonist is…not that interesting, as he's just some demon lord who came from another demon (and his "secret identity" is pretty lame). Still, he was fun to fight.
I say this game is an old gem, worthy of its place among the SNES RPG classics.
I played this game around the middle of high school for the SNES. It tells the story of a blue-haired boy named Ryu whose family strangely disappears after he falls asleep one day. Soon after a giant demon knocks him out and he ends up in an unfamiliar town, where he befriends a dog-person named Bow. A few years later, he and Bow are running jobs for money when someone frames Bow for a theft, and you go investigate. Eventually you meet new characters and get caught up in a battle to defeat an ancient evil demon king thing.
The game has many innovative aspects. The battle screen is nicely done and animated. Some characters can interact with the environment (e.g. Sten using his arms to pull the party across gaps). The Dragon's Tear changes color based on whether the person speaking to you likes you or not, and your party members will change their opinions of you based on your actions. Your starting hideout can be expanded into a large town based on who you hire to live there, creating a game-within-a-game.
Later, you can obtain Shamans, who can fuse with your characters to give them new and powerful forms and abilities. I loved this system, but it was flawed, as the transformation isn't permanent, and you either have to deal with that or backtrack a lot to re-apply it.
Character development is pretty good as well. Each character, except Ryu (whom you're supposed to provide the personality for), has a distinct personality and grows as the game goes on. Many parts of the game feature backstories of the characters, and some of the events are pretty emotional. The antagonist is…not that interesting, as he's just some demon lord who came from another demon (and his "secret identity" is pretty lame). Still, he was fun to fight.
I say this game is an old gem, worthy of its place among the SNES RPG classics.