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A VERY BAD GAME

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 19
Date: February 23, 2001
Author: Amazon User

This game really makes me mad. I cant believe i paid 40.00 for this peace of junk. If you want a really good RPG get Chrono Chross or ff9.

Mediocre at best.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 1 / 4
Date: December 21, 2001
Author: Amazon User

From the first BOF down to this one, the quality has gradually declined. Sure, it looks prettier than it used to, but with few weapons, fewer spells and less variety with each passing episode, the series is looking more than a little thread-bare.

The combat system is good, though it hasn't changed hardly at all since the last time. The spells and skills are copied more or less directly from number III, including such goodies as Flare, Jump and other low-cost, useful abilities. The multi-elemental spell thing was cool but made less useful by the inclusion of a variety of useless or near-useless combinations. Some of the high-power spells require the combination of elements boss-level monsters are immune to and do an overwhelming amount of damage to regular monsters; they simply aren't necessary.

The monsters are just slighter higher resolutions of old beasties from the last three games and the dragon spells, while nice to look at, just aren't all that useful or interesting. I used them once and then stopped using them alltogether.

The fairies are about the only thing that's improved over the last installation, with multiple uses for fairies and the opportunity to build a significant and powerful attack force with the fairy spells.

The movie clips were a nice touch, but they aren't as good as some other RPG movie clips. Check out the new Chrono Trigger/FFIII disc and you'll see what I mean.

On the whole, it just wasn't all that great. Still, I've now defeated all four games several times over. When BOF V comes out, I'll check it out before buying it, though.

Still room for improvement

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: December 12, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Breath of Fire 4 is a remarkably good game, having improved vastly on BOF3, by having better music, and definately better Dragon summoning sequences, and the Anime intro is colorful and really well done. Another new feature is a 'combo' system when you pile together magic and special attacks and sometimes they combine, or do additional dammage, or have added effects etc. So, what could bad about this game? The control is absolutely horrible! Although the RPG is fully 3D, the control makes the character movement jerky because the controller seems to only want to move the character in 4 directions. This can become frustrating fast. Also, the Camera angles are probably the worst possible. A lot of times, the player's vision is obstructed even in towns, and although the camera can be rotated sometimes, it can only move to fixed angles (90, 180, 270) which generally doesn't help out at all. But with only those flaws, BOF4 is still a worthwhile game to get, hopefully CAPCOM will fix these mistakes for BOF5.

Unlike previous games, you cannot move freely on worldmap!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 6 / 22
Date: December 02, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This was recommended to me by one of the regulars at a video game store I frequent... he knows I like RPGs (like Final Fantasy). He said it's like the old type RPGs, but you can move freely and do what you want. UNTRUE! I bought it last night, and played it for an hour... all I did was hit my arrow buttons! (Okay, a few times I hit my action button to slay a monster!) I kept waiting for an area to "save"... it never came. So I guess I'll have to start it all over if I want to play this game again! BOOOOORING!

You get a small movie at the beginning of the game -- graphics were awesome, but they spoke in Japanese! I'm sorry, but I don't speak Japanese, so that was disappointing! I had to go to the strategy guide so see if it would tell me anything about what was said.

Well, that's when I read that "unlike previous games, you cannot move freely on worldmap!" Soon enough, I found that out when I started the game. The feel of this game is a lot like the Mario Bros. RPG game for the SNES. (Sorry, I haven't played a whole lot of games to compare it with.)

So I guess the guy didn't play this game before he recommended it, even though he acted like he did. It also says "special controller" on the back, and he didn't know what that meant either.

I know I'm going to start the game over this weekend (since I just spent ~ ... on it + strategy guide), but I usually feel much better about it! It's not what I expected.

A typical sequal...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: March 20, 2001
Author: Amazon User

I would like to start off by saying that I loved Breath of Fire III and was excited to hear about the newest installment. I rushed out to buy it. I was expecting cool dragons, great game play and best of all....ANIME! I was VERY suprised to find that there is only one anime sequence in the opening...and it's in Japanese..... One strike. The control , I couldn't navigate very well even by the end of the game. Fishing was REAL bad this time around. There is no way to see fish, you can get snagged very easily and the fish have no real health meter (which means it takes 5 minutes to reel in a dam* jellyfish). BADDD fairy village BADDD, tedious and not worth the effort..BADDD. The fight system is just like the last, the characters can learn abilities from masters or by watching enemies perform them. Nothing new. That's two strikes. The redeeming quality of this game was the character design and background art. The scenes for some of the towns are done in futal Japan style...I loved it. There is also a hint of Japanese tradition and custom in many of the Fu Empire cites...I loved it. And yes, the dragons were uber cool. The story was better than some, but not extraordinary...it involved the nature of humanity toward gods and the such. It was nice, but not that nice...

Run of the mill at best.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: May 10, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Breath of Fire IV is a run of the mill RPG. There is nothing new or exciting in this game. In fact, for every good thing about it, there seems to be something that is bland and boring. For example, while the graphics are fairly good, the controls and camera angles are poor. While the load times are fairly short, some of the areas you visit are SOOOO BORING (like the town, for example...beyond tedious). The story line is not exactly original, but it does offer an interesting enough journey, however you seem to spend alot of time wandering around waiting for something to happen.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't a BAD game, there just doesn't seem to be enough substance to it and it is obviously a sequel, which would account for its lack of originality. My advice would be,unless you are a die-hard series fan, rent it first.

OId School RPG with Certain OBVIOUS Downfalls

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 7
Date: December 09, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I have been a game for 6 years and RPGs are what I've taken a liking to.The Breath of Fire series has always been Mediocre compared to Final Fantasy Games.I was amazed at Breath of Fire 3's gameplay.This game is about Nina on her quest to find her sister.You take control of Ryu,Cray and other Characters that u find on your Journey.The story is not bad and they make good use of the 2-d sprites.The battle system is REALLY Old-school,but adds traits that spice it up a notch.

I would recommend This game to anyone that liked the past 3 games or is into Lunar:SSSC and waiting for Lunar:EBC Its a nice little RPG that will tie you over until the Good ones come this Christmas

A Grave Disapointment

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 0 / 4
Date: October 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

When I bought this game I expected something as good as BOF III or better. Sadly it turns out this game is the Mystic Quest (for those familiar with the Final Fantasy series) of the BOF RPG's. Since I only paid 16 dollars including shipping I don't feel too bad, but I can recomend this game only for completist collectors unless you can get it for what I paid or less. If you have an old Super Nintendo game box and don't have BOF and BOF II, get them first, they're better.

A huge leap from previous games in the series

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 15 / 17
Date: February 06, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Every aspect of this game was improved a truckload since BoF 3...namely, playing the game isn't painful anymore. I'm a huge fan of the series (played it since the first, loved them all, even if after 2 hours or so the game got repetetive), but this game still lacks in several ways.

1) Control is...less than stellar. Poor camera angles, rigid movement (8 principle directions, not free range like FF series games), and awkward speed changes make it hard to move exactly where you need to be to read that dang sign.

2) Graphics - The sprite animation is incredible, but the 3d graphics this game posesses just hurt my feelings. If Square can make leaps and bounds, you can too, Capcom!

3) Fishing - Capcom made this way too hard in this game. They kinda perfected the system in BOF3 and then decided to butcher it again for 4, I suppose.

On the bright side, the game has several plusses:

1) All the mini games are really fun, worth your time, and actually beneficial towards the flow of the game. Thank God.

2) The music and plot get increasingly more complex, linear, and sensical as the series progresses.

3) YOU CAN SKIP THE ANIMATION SEQUENCES FOR LONG SPELLS! Square, take notes! This makes the game SO much less painful to play.

The Fourth Installment

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 12
Date: February 28, 2001
Author: Amazon User

Ah, the Fourth installment of the Breath of Fire series. It's finally here, BUT...! Was it worth the wait?

I had been waiting for this game for a long time. So when I was waltzing through my local Blockbuster Video, I saw it, and the next thing I knew it was in my hands. After paying the rent fee, I sped home and threw it in my Playstation without glancing at the instructions. Here's what I thought of it.

First, this game is about Ryu, who once again, can transform into dragons. He's trying to figure out who he is, yet again. The story first involves a search for Nina's sister, but then it soon evolves into something much greater, involving Nina, Ryu, Ershin (A strange woman who wears armor), Scias (A mercenary who was hired to watch over the party), Cray (The leader of the Woren Tribe (AKA Cat People) and Nina's companion), Ursula (A woman toting a magic gun), and Fou-Lu (An emperor that has risen from the dead).

When I saw the anime intro, I was expecting it to be in english, but Capcom needed to put more work in it. They shouldn've translated it! The title screen was almost completely japanese as well and I was afraid I had somehow gotten an import copy. After that, much to my relief, the language was completely english. The 3D enviornments were horrible, as I noticed when watching the opening. The sprite cahracters, however, were perfectly drawn. The battle effects were nice, except for a bit of pixelation in some spell effects. The camera angles were frustrating as well. Overall, the graphics needed a small tune-up.

The music was GREAT! I was expecting repetitive songs and other things like that, but I got a surprise when I heard the musical score. The battle theme was good (Both Ryu and Fou-Lu battle themes), the victory theme was good, same with the boss theme. The world map theme, however, needed a boost. The minigame theme was one of the only musics that got repetitive. But we need a translation! caughanimecenimacaugh. Other than that, the music overall was perfect for the game.

The controls were a tad frustrating. The akward camera angles left me searching for the place to find Sandflier parts for at least half an hour. We need a free-following camera! The other controls are fine, just positioning yourself can be frustrating. It can be hard to get yourself jst right so you can get that item or read that sign. Battle controls are simple, yet effecive. It's easy to choose what spell to cast or who to attack. It's alse simple to switch party members from the front to back rows. The world map controls are simple because there are only a few things to do on it. Overall, the controls could be a lot better in this game.

Ah, the gameplay review. The storylne is greatfrom beginning to end. The combat system is ingenious, leaving the option to learn advanced abilities from enemies. Only isntead of a completely different command to learn abilities, the game usus the "Defend" command to both reduce damage AND learn abilities. The out-of-battle abilities are simple, yet effective. For example, Nina can fly up and look around so you can see everything that's around. Overall, this game was worth the wait and should land itself in any RPG player's collection. While not quite as good as BoF2 in storyline, it surpasses BoF3 in almost any way.

RATINGS (Out of 5)
Graphics- 4.0
Sound- 4.5
Control- 4.0

Overall Gameplay- 5.0

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