Genre: RPG
Year: 1994
Developed by: Capcom
Published by: Capcom
Platforms: SNES, Game Boy Advance
#152
Feeling Like: Bum’s CL
Dave and I discovered RPGs together, mostly by accident. We rented Super Mario RPG and Final Fantasy 4 not knowing any of the basic fundamentals of combat, experience points, or leveling up. They were foreign concepts, but we liked the stories, characters and music enough to keep persevering in the face of constant defeat. It helped that we could pass the controller back and forth, and Dave could keep grinding enemies once I fell asleep.
I always fell asleep first at sleepovers. Always. It’s one of my things, like how I always fell asleep in movies, or in the car. It’s not as if I’m sluggish throughout the day, I like to think I’m so overly energetic throughout the day that I need a constant recharge.
Once we got our footing and began to understand the genre, we started seeking out other games cut from the same cloth. It didn’t take long for us to discover Breath of Fire 2.
The introduction is surprisingly solid: there’s mystery, danger, and an incredible song to start things off. It’s not your typical beginning cut-scene, it’s nothing but a creepy eye talking about God and how you need to give yourself to God. It’s quite unsettling and the game certainly does not shy away from making the Church the main villain. It’s nothing new that a Japanese RPG has you up against a God, but this feels like a very Christian-y church, something I hadn’t seen in games before. I was compelled, and a little freaked out.
It’s good that we played this one when we were in Grade 6 with no responsibilities and an abundance of free time – there’s no way to play this game quickly. The pacing is slow, random battles are frequent and the…speed….of…..the….text……is……really……slow.
I might as well get the worst part out of the way, the translation is awful. Beyond bad. Because Capcom decided to translate the game themselves instead of letting Squaresoft take the reins, there are frequent spelling mistakes, or nonsensical jargon. The grammar leaves a lot to be desired and because of the baffling decision to have very little text fit on the window, words have bizarre nicknames. For example, the starting armor “Bum’s Clothes” is shortened to “Bum’sCL”. We had no idea what a Bum’sCL was, we just knew the stats weren’t very good. Even spells are impacted. “S.Boom” doesn’t quite have the same ring as “Sonic Boom”, but at least it looked cool. I’ve heard there’s a fan translation out there which massively improves the dialogue – I’m tempted to give it a try, or at least hope for a remaster that includes it.
It’s classic JRPG fare, but this one stood out for being far more difficult than we were used to, particularly in the first few hours. When you die, and we died frequently, you lose half your Zenny (gold). Trying to grind up for better gear, only to have your money wiped out in this manner was doubly demoralizing. Saving happened frequently as a result. This challenge occurs curiously early in the story and some bosses came out of nowhere to decimate us, like that jerk egg monster in the sewer. Praying for dodges and critical hits is not a recipe for success, but we managed in the end.
Besides, I never minded grinding. As long as the level ups occur with relative frequency and the story hums along, I sort of relished soaking it all in while I auto-battled weaker dudes until we got just strong enough to handle the next area. There is no hand holding here, which made the long-awaited major victories all the sweeter. I don’t think this style appeals to many, but it appealed enough to us. Especially since the soundtrack, at least during the battles, rocks. It helps that they basically sound like tracks ripped right from Mega Man X.
The scenarios were meaty, and strange. I remember the SimaFort one took us absolutely forever, but the intrigue behind an imposter frog-prince and a food competition was wholly original and quite odd. As tropey as the rest of the game is, there isn’t a single area that feels rote. While some of the songs are downright irritating (imagine this looping for hours on end), the graphics and characters ensured we wanted to see everything.
I think it’s the cast that’s emerged as the best part of the game. Ryu is the only basic looking character, everybody else is either a cat lady, or a magic angel princess, or a stacked horse dude, or a crossbow-wielding dog. I’m a massive fan of anthropomorphic characters, always have been. It was genuinely tricky to choose who was in the party at times, particularly because your bench players didn’t receive any experience points. Fucking brutal, especially with a game as difficult as this. I landed on Ryu, Kat, Nina and Rand as my main foursome but I was warned to not ignore Sten, the monkey soldier.
As much as some of the drawbacks are endearingly quaint, like a flawed friend, the Sten scenario is downright unfair. Without warning, you’ll be controlling Sten and Sten alone at one point. It’s very easy to paint yourself into a corner here because you’ll become trapped. If you haven’t leveled him up properly, you’re stuck. You can’t win any battles, let alone the boss encounter and you’ll have to revert to a previous Save Point or restart the game. Ridiculous.
It’s strange how the 500 works. I sounded much more positive with my Blue Dragon and Xenoblade Chronicles posts, but I still have more fond memories for a game that’s more than a decade older than either of them. I’m positive playing alongside Dave helps. You’ll see many more RPGs higher on the 500 due to Fuzz’s presence. Buddies make everything better.
While there are quite a few quibbles, the overall package sold me. Transforming into a dragon is badass, regardless of the circumstances. Spells hit hard, there isn’t a useless fighter in the bunch, you can build your own town and recruit NPCs a la Suikoden, the Shaman system lets you Super Saiyan your characters and Twisted Bridges is one of my favorite “whoa, where are we?” tracks. I don’t know if it’s one of the best RPGs on the Super Nintendo, but it’s certainly up there. I can only imagine what it would be with a few balances regarding the difficulty and an improved translation.
The 500 