Which game to start with? Are the games easy or hard (I do not care either way just curious)? I dig the art style and feel curious about it.
game has NTR. do not play.
>>3675815Well, which one has NTR? Surely not all of them? ...and are you even telling the truth?
>>36758212. Only 3 - 5 are worth playing, and only 5 is good.
>>3675826No it doesn't.
>>3675828What the hell about the post does this reply even refer to? 'No, it doesn't have NTR?' 'No, it does not is good? durrr'?
>>3675843Yes.
>>3675843The only one that it fits grammatically too.
>>3675811BoF I - easyBoF II - easy, I don't remember very wellBoF III - easy except for one or two difficulty spikes that come out of nowhere.BoF IV - easyI suggest start either with I (since II and III are kind of tied to them as kind of sequels) or IV that is a stand alone story.There is a VERY SMALL scene that can be seen a NTR-ish in IV. I heard that it was added in localization to compensate one or other scenes that were removed due to censorship, I haven't confirmed. There is one or other element NTR-ish in some other games, very small, played for jokes mostly. It really depends on how sensitive to it you are, but I basically almost never saw anyone complaining about it.
>>3675811Play Dragon Quarter, skip the rest.
>>3675878This. The only breath of fire game that's really any good is Dragon quarter. It's a great experience.God tier ost
>>36758113 is overall the best one in the series. Start with that and maybe check out 2 and 4 afterwards. 2 is a bit dated, but has some neat things in it. 4 gets bogged down by awkward pacing and tons of minigames in the main story, but has some interesting and good stuff in it.5 is completely different, it's basically not even a Breath of Fire game. If we're being honest, it's not even a good game. It just does some baffling decisions some people find quirky and interesting, but as for the rest it basically does everything else worse (incredibly bland and ugly world, bad character designs, tiny """world"" (you're running around brown caves and dungeons), only 1 dragon transformation which you should mechanically even try to avoid using, etc). The combat system is also slow and bog standard grid based combat. Again, it's basically a completely different game with the BoF name slapped on.
>>3675917Bullshit. Dragon quarter is a top tier dungeon crawler with some truly unique gameplay mechanics.
>>36758111 can be ignored, 2 doesn't hold up, 3 is good but a very slow burn, 4 is great, 5 is very hit or miss but is enjoyed by those who like unorthodox RPGs.
>>36758781 and 2 are trash, 3 and 4 are relatively dull and extremely slow and clunky PS1 games. 5 is a timeless classic.
>>3675811Like some have said BoF really came into its own identity with 2.
>>3675959>Dragon quarter is a top tier dungeon crawleryou really need to play more dungeon crawlers if such a low tier game is considered top.>truly unique gameplay mechanicsexcept not. extremely generic as a whole with basic combat. no, shit people love to bring up like d counter is not unique and don't actually change much in how you play beyond "hey, try not to use it that much" in a bad way. when it could've been executed better in a more regularly moment to moment way intead of a binary macro one.dragon quarter is the textbook example of people with on paper interesting ideas but executing them poorly.>>3676108>5 is a timeless classic.except for the fact that only 5 people on the planet think so, 3 and 4 are by far the most widely regarded as the best and most well received in the series, followed by 2. you don't exactly see tons of fan art and shit for bof5, do you?it also aged like milk, both visually and game design wise. don't mistake your headcanon for reality.
>>3676140I've played a lot of dungeon crawlers. Few have as interesting a premise, characters, story, setting, combat, and music. The story in dragon quarter is great it's just minimalist like smt nocturne instead of making you watch hour long cutscenes like final Fantasy. That's what makes it good.Dragon quarter was a bold new vision from the series. Shame people like you just want to play a knock off final Fantasy game with dragons.
>>3676140>followed by 2Sorry but 1 is more popular.
>>3676140FILTEREDThe fact that no one has managed to make another game like it despite it being released in 2002 speaks volumes - It is, in fact, one of the top tier of dungeon crawling games that deliberately bucked every existing trend being driven into the ground by JRPGs of its time. There was nothing like it, and there still IS nothing else like it.
not sure what it is, but bof5 fanboys seem to live in their own little worlds where the game is treated as a messiah of games>>3676313>I've played a lot of dungeon crawlersyes and a large chunk of them do the dungeon crawling aspect better, because they actually focus on it and isn't a confused mishmash trying to do too many things.>Dragon quarter was a bold new vision from the seriesnothing bold about it, just dumb. like, shockingly stupid.even if we pretend the game design was amazing, everything else is a downgrade. you'd have to be drunk to think bof5 looks better than prior entries, so if you can't even admit that then you're just a deluded fanboy.>>3676328maybe in your local basement club, but globally? no.>>3676464>oh no, he says something that that i think is godlike is actually mid, w-what do it do? i know, i t-tell him he got filtered!the game tries too many things and execute on them too poorly to the point where it drags the entire game down. to top it off it tries to be a breath of fire game, despite the lead devs clearly not wanting to make a bof game, which hurts the game even more. it screams of an ego project.>The fact that no one has managed to make another game like itno one has made games like tons of other shitty games because.... guess what, they're not good. you don't see games like drake of the 99 dragons or mcfarlene's evil prophecy for the same reason.>It is, in fact, one of the top tier of dungeon crawling gamesno, it's one of your first dungeon crawlers you have immense nostalgia and bias for, while clearly having almost no experience or understanding of dungeon crawler games. no really, try posting that in some dungeon crawler threads or generals and enjoy people laughing at you.
>>3676498
>>3675959why even reply to someone who obviously hasn't played the game?
>>3676498>not sure what it is, but bof5 fanboys seem to live in their own little worldskek holy SHIT the self-awareness bros
>>3675811>Which game to start with? all of them, except for Dragon Quarter, are good to start with. If you play 2, seen a retranslation patch.>Are the games easy or hard (I do not care either way just curious)?moderate, except for Dragon Quarter which is hard because it places so many limitations on you due to the D Counter bullshit>>3676464>FILTEREDI see you are giving up the argument.>There was nothing like it, and there still IS nothing else like it.and that's a good thing>>3676498>not sure what it is, but bof5 fanboys seem to live in their own little worlds where the game is treated as a messiah of gamesand if you say otherwsise they go "FILTERED" and don't even try to refute any arguments because they know they can't defend the game so they attack the critic
>>36758113, 4, and 5.Dragon Quarter is the only true unique game in the series. 3 is peak comfy and it's a great coming of age tale, but lags horribly at the end with the desert sections. 4 is great, but get used to Ryu looking like a retard with his wide mouth and giant ears. Fou Lou is also more interesting than Ryu & crew.
>>3676927>but lags horribly at the end with the desert sectionswhat? That lasts all of five minutes.
>>3675811Okay, so 1, 2, and 3 are connected and take place chronologically. 4 is either a parallel universe or so distant into the far-flung past/future that it has no real bearing on the first 3 games. Same deal with 5.1 is an early SNES JRPG in every sense you can imagine. The story is light, the characterization is light, the plot is moving from town to town solving a problem basically. Very rough experience in this day and age, but if you like retro JRPGs it's still fun.2 is also on the early side of SNES JRPGs. The characterization is much better and the story is better... but bad. As an example, one quest is to find a certain someone and you basically do a whole lot of not really searching for that person at all only to have your misadventures just hand them over to you. If you like the characters though it's something that you'll look past which is generally why there are still some pretty strong BoF2 fanboys around. Awful encounter rate. You get briefly cucked but then he cucks your girl, lol.3 is where the series really caught it's stride... and peaked, and I say that because 3 is universally liked by all BoF fans. The game has it's flaws but it makes up for it with the dragon gene system which lets you custom mix your dragon forms. Also the fishing game is pretty decent and is relatively fun with some practice. The master system is also interesting for light stat min/maxing for fun character builds. Fairy village is neat.4 has some of the prettiest 2D animation in the whole series. It's narrative pacing is really fucking bad. The dragon system took a nerf and instead of custom mixes you get multiple forms... eventually. Unfortunately they don't even look different except for the dragon breath abilities. It's disappointing.(cont.)
>>3675811cont. from >>36770375 is the first fully 3D game and it looks nice enough for what it is. It probably has the strongest story of the bunch. However it's less of a JRPG and more of a rogue-lite dungeon crawler with difficultly to match. Sometimes the game is just unfair. The game intends for you to die multiple times before completing the game, but you get bonuses like getting to see new cutscenes that give you more context as the story unfolds along with starting XP to level up your characters so they're not so soft for the next run. Have the ability to store weapons and armor that will be saved to be picked up and used for a different run. Need special tokens to just save the game (though not a problem with save states, lol.)All that might sound daunting except for the fact that, again, the game isn't fair, lol.You get access to the most powerful version of the dragon transformation in the entire series in this game. It is so powerful that it can *easily* solo bosses, and the bosses aren't jokes in this game. The big catch with the game is that you have a "D-Counter" and it slowly ticks up as you walk in game and it sharply ticks up if you use your dragon powers. If that counter ever reaches 100% (minus one scripted encounter)? You instantly game over.Now there are speedruns of this game where the prevailing strat is leaning heavily on the dragon transformations for every single boss and there's plenty D-Counter left over so you really do have more than enough to beat the game. It is a pressure though, and it's not like bosses are the only hard thing in the game, you can get into some pretty weird and difficult situations if you engage monsters awkwardly, and it can be awkward enough to merit having a dragon just barrel through it real fast.(cont.)
>>3675811cont. from >>3677038So, in summary:Technically you should start from 1, but you could be forgiven for just watching a plot recap of the first 2 games considering their rough state and skipping straight to 3. You could also be forgiven for skipping 4 and 5 because 3 is the only non-controversial one of the bunch. 4 isn't the worst experience. Neither is 5 if you've got the patience for that kind of game.
>>36758154? Really?
it's so tiresome seeing Dragon Quarter trolls ruin every single BoF thread with their "defending" of this awful game.
>>3677118>it's tiresome seeing people talk about the unequivocal best entry in the seriesAll right, Low-D.
quarterlets have no dragon forms as well as no good faith in posting. Sucks to suck I guess.
>>3677133Quarter is the only time when the Dragon feels like the big threat it's supposed to be. >But muh formsYour scalie dress up fantasy doesn't mean dick when the dragon forms frankly are about as meaningful and threatening as regular magic spells.
>>36772602's "dragon system" is equivalent to magic spells. 3? The dragon forms tear through pretty much everything. It's really hard to fuck up Ryu the power imbalance is so ridiculous. Ryu is in fact so ridiculously overpowered that people actually still master him under Giotto when that is the worst master to apprentice under and even a hobbled Ryu from Giotto *still* rips through things.If you actually have an inkling about what you're doing? ... a Bunyan or even mostly Bunyan Ryu is ridiculously powerful. A Mage Ryu makes magic actually viable. You get the Eldritch gene early enough and the AP reserves to start casting end game spells before the Dolphin fight.Like the only thing that can even come close to the hard carrying Ryu does is if you slap Peco on Fahl from level 1 and throw his ass in front in attack formation and Peco will reprisal everything, take little to no damage, and has auto-regen on top of it.
>>3677260>>3677269I don't know about the narrative power of 1 and 2s Brood, but the reason the tribe was mostly killed off in 3 was not because they were weak, but because they would have caused massive collateral, possibly world destroying damage had they put up a meaningful resistance against Myria's goons.
>>3675811
>>3677286Well in terms of narrative power, it's all the same dragon clan/Brood, basically, in 1, 2, and 3.In 1, the dragon clan split into two factions, the dark and light dragons. They fought over the Goddess Tyr/Myria's favor which caused the initial split. Once the light dragons got the big idea that the Goddess was actually evil they fought to imprison and seal her away using the Goddess keys and had to ward off both the dark dragons and the Goddess herself to do so which points to the light dragons being stronger. After that initial conflict, the dark dragons swore to eventually free her and the light dragons made the galaxy brained move to renounce their powers which only served to allow the dark dragons to amass and still have the power of the dragon clan on top of it while the light dragons languished firmly resting on their laurels, confident there was no chance the dark dragons would find all the Goddess Keys. Well the light dragons were fucking wrong. Hence Ryu going out into the world to not only try and save his sister but re-awaken his light dragon powers to have any hope of saving the world from the goddess and the dark dragons.(cont.)
>>3677286cont. from >>3677304In 2, after the defeat of the evil dark dragons of the dark dragon clan, the remaining dark dragons and light dragons set aside their differences and become one unified dragon clan again, albeit newborn dragons are born with traits and characteristics that reflect either the light or dark dragon clans. Hence Ryu and Ray. With the Goddess defeated, a peace did return to the world, however the Goddess didn't go down without a fight. In her death throes she gave birth to another alien, shapeshifting, creature with otherworldly powers known as Deathevan, however it hadn't taken physical form yet. So the dragons went underground to serve as guardians and protectors until the day Deathevan and his demons would rise and threaten the world. They did a pretty shit job of protecting and guarding, if we're being honest. At any rate, Ryu is born, has to re-awaken his latent dragon powers, and is given the power of "Infinity," the true source of the dragon clan's power, to rise up to, face, and defeat Deathevan, and so he does. In both games, there is plenty of strength in the clans of the world but it is always the case that the dragon clan is just on some other level entirely.
Do you have to worry about the Master shit in these games? I hate min-max bullshit like that.
>>3677363Games are easy enough you can skip it almost utterly. They're useful for learning some skills, though BoF3's system of "stay under the same master for [certain amount of levels] and check back for new moves" was awkward enough they changed it to just doing sidequests and tasks in BoF4.
>>3675811Do NOT under any circumstances play BoF1. Easily one of the worst rpgs ever made. It's fucking awful and wastes so much of your time. It's not entirely bad, but where it counts it fails HARD. BoF2 is a huge improvement. I would definitely recommend starting with it.
>>3677037Is 4 really that distant when several characters are present from 3 and even make references to it, maybe being about one generation older than before at most? Granted they could simply be just references, but it seems silly to me to be just that.
>>3677363The Master meta for BoF3 can be interesting, but can be ignored. The real question is what your main party is going to be because every single character has a special move they can use to interact with the world. This can dick a newbie over pretty hard actually--this is the real shit you gotta worry about. Because if that character is not in your active party when you need them then they may as well not exist if you don't have a Save Book in that dungeon to give access to ability to swap characters. Gotta leave the entire ass dungeon, swap characters, and march your ass through all the random encounters all over again.If you don't mind getting dicked over, then don't read the spoilers. Some people like surprises, even if the surprise is ass.- So Ryu is always going to be in your party--it's that kind of game, and he's also insanely powerful so it's not like you'd swap him out anyway--so don't worry about him. It's the other 2 slots you need to worry about.- Nina only has one dungeon her field skill is used and that's Momo's Tower. You only go there once, she must be in your party for it. So once that dungeon is over you never have to use her again when you get the option to swap her out.- Peco has no dungeons he's necessary in. He's only used to gain access to the Plant dungeon in the second half of the game and once you have access you never need to use him again. He also can kick a rock into a lack to get access to Meryleep, a master, that has some powerful skills.- Garr only has one dungeon he's necessary for and that's Angel Tower where he'll be moving some blocks around to complete bridges across the basement of the dungeon. You have to take him in anyway. After that you can swap him out when able without concern.(cont.)
>>3677363cont. from >>3677523- Rei can pick certain locked doors but the game has precious few of them. Be that as it may, in the final dungeon the game places one asshole locked door to progress that *must* be picked by Rei. So Rei is going to be fighting in the final dungeon at least for a bit.- Momo is the asshole dungeon queen. The game will fucking punish you if you don't use her. There's a cracked wall that you'll want to shoot open in your first visit to Angel Tower. Want to walk her ass all the way back to Duane Mine when you can. Colony has some caches that need to be shot into, and that's as start. She's the only character that can interface with Tech, so naturally she's necessary for the Plant dungeon with all it's mechanical shit. Where the game will fucking screw you starts with the Black Ship. If you're stupid enough to not take Momo with you, the game will force your ass to go back, get her, and then complete the dungeon because the Black Ship is a mechanized freighter with CPU controlling it. The Factory is just fucking painful. The literal door to the otherside of the dungeon is a blast door that *needs* to be shot by Momo or else your ass is, surprise surprise, going aaaaaaaallll the way back through to the very fucking beginning to go get her. Lastly, Momo has an overgrown door that she needs special plantlife killing shells in order to shoot through, but you must shoot through it to progress and it's only then when the game stops forcing her onto you.
