BREATH OF FIRE 3 Review - PS1 JRPG Retrospective

[@Zerbraxi]

The audio is a bit off in this video. Apologies for that! It's fixed in all future videos.

[@cam9144]

One of my favorite JRPGs ever. Nothing beats that jazzy battle music.

[@Zerbraxi]

It's SOO good! The whole soundtrack is wonderful and so cheery.

[@Coxyworthy]

dude this rules excellent work I appreciate you keeping the retrospective straight and clean and NOT trying to do humor bits or insertion of jokes.

[@Zerbraxi]

Thank you very much. Funny enough I tend to try and throw some humor in the mix in most of my videos, but I've always made it a rule to not "try" to put a joke somewhere. If I think of something naturally, or if I have a skit that will help prove the point further, then I'll inject it but I care more for the deep dive information than my really bad sense of humor. :)

[@suiken3149]

Let me correct you about the skill mechanics: - It doesn't matter who you use as all of them can learn skills through examine. The best thing in it is you can actually transfer those skills to the character you prefer. Plus there is the master system which you didn't explore in this video. Being an apprentice will have you gain/lose stats and they will reward you some skills by finishing some specific task (reaching a certain level). I hope Capcom will pull their heads out of their butts when Eiyuuden becomes a success.

[@Zerbraxi]

Good to know about the skill system. Thank you. As I mentioned briefly in the video I tried BoF 1 and 2 but they never stuck. This being my first real Breath of Fire experience was great, but I still have a lot to learn about the series. I definitely should've mentioned the master system. I spent a lot of time working out the Masters & Apprentice benefits and it was lots of fun. It's been a little bit since I made this video, but thinking back I'm genuinely not sure why I left that system out. Really odd call to not talk about that. Eiyuuden looks really cool and makes me want to finally delve into the Suikoden games before it comes out. Seems like it's going to be a lot of fun from what I've seen.

[@phlowsion4088]

Great video My only major gripe with the game is that despite the story leaping forward a number of years, it wasn't really shown how the world and its inhabitants evolved and grew. You had a few npcs like a group of children that were now teenagers, but for the most part, you didn't get a great sense that time had passed. Still love the game though, especially its visuals. In some ways, the graphical design that was necessitated by the lower budget ending up leading to a more timeless look.

[@Zerbraxi]

That's actually a very good point. The gang in Wyndia really is one of the only representations of time passing. The visuals are still very beautiful. If you were to throw Breath of Fire 3 up against most of the 3D RPG's in terms of style then I do have to say that BoF 3 still looks better in most cases. Limited budget can 100% cause you to be more creative, but also sometimes simpler aesthetics just tend to stand the test of time better.

[@wootmann]

Honestly I think that was the point though. SPOILERS - Myria's whole shtick was to keep the world unchanging in an effort to prevent it from self destruction. So the time skip having little consequence was actually in line with the plot.

[@udaaz]

I really appreciate you being careful on spoilers that’s such a pro move I’m going to sub

[@Zerbraxi]

Thank you. 😊

[@daniel_cofresi]

Hi buddy, i just got this video recommended today and all i can say is ... Great work!! I really liked your review style. I'm subscribing and going though your other videos. Keep up the good work

[@Zerbraxi]

Thank you so much for the kind words. I'm really glad you enjoyed. Hopefully you like the other stuff I have as well. Enjoy! :)

[@segasdreamer]

It's in my top 5 best JRPGs on the PS1. What I love is how different the music is from so many RPGs. Also, the fishing is divine in this one.

[@Zerbraxi]

I definitely should've fished more :( The music truly is something special. The song, "Even the Sun's Happy" is just next level cheerful!

[@Zegreiart]

Maaan, I played the hell out of this back in the day. Between this, FFT, Chrono Trigger, Legend of Dragoon, and Super Mario RPG, the summer of 2004 was super badass.

[@Zerbraxi]

You just listed off a bunch of legends! I'd love to eventually make a video on all of these at some point or another.

[@alexandrezeddam7817]

Awesome review! Lots of good points made, both positive and negative. As you've said, Breath of Fire III is a personal adventure, an experience to be had. Something that either draws one in or completely out. The party limitation is really annoying and something a lot of people don't discuss due to the prevalence of minmaxing. As for the main villain, they are foreshadowed since the very start of the game, through obscure dialogue. Even though you never directly hear about them until that part you mentioned, you do get puzzle pieces that end up fitting together and portraying what they have done and the reason why you seek them much earlier. Sadly, some of these bits are easily missable, coming from one-time events like major character dialogue or camp discussions. The game was likely meant to be replayed multiple times, with each replay adding something to the overall experience! Now, onto a thing or two that were not true (it happens and it doesn't discredit anything you have said otherwise): There isn't a single skill in the game that can only be learnt by specific characters. There are a couple things that you sadly didn't talk about: the Master system, the World Map, the minigames, the Desert of Death, the cleft between childhood and adulthood, etc. which are all things that may drive more people to/out of playing the game. Of course, the game is quite massive and some details ought to be missed. Again, for a channel of such a small size, this review was amazing, with great editing and commentary. Great job!

[@Zerbraxi]

Thank you so much for the great compliments and criticism. I really appreciate the feedback and there's A LOT of value to what you mentioned here. Something interesting, at least to me, about this video is that I never planned on doing it honestly. I felt that I had my fun making stuff online but was done, but for some reason I had this desire to play Breath of Fire 3, and, I genuinely don't know why, but I recorded the gameplay. It was probably out of habit. However, I enjoyed the experience so much that I just felt compelled to talk about it. The good thing about that is that I fell in love with making content online again. Along with that, I went about a slightly different style than I had in the past with this video and I feel like its working out pretty well. The downside to all of this is that this video, in hindsight, is super undercooked. I plan on going through the entire Breath of Fire series, going back to the first one and playing through. Not sure if I'll return to 3, but a part of me REALLY wants to redo this video with more intent. I think Breath of Fire 3 deserves better than I gave it. I genuinely enjoyed it so much more than I expected to.

[@Kaftan]

Good video, but some things to consider. Hints to the Eden zone boss fight and end boss villain are sprinkled in the game, sparingly. - Special caution against naming them to avoid spoilers. First in Ryu's dream after being taken in by Rei, and again after speaking to Deis in conjunction with Garr's telling of the history of the war. Addendum: Enemy Skill learning is universal, there are no constraints on who can learn what enemy ability but there can only be one copy of that skill among the party members and List within the camp interface.

[@Zerbraxi]

I did look back and ya, I do notice the hints of the villain, but you never get a real sense of the motivation or purpose behind their resolve. Thank you for the clarification of the skill acquisition. I shoudlve done a better job researching that. This was the first video of this new style I've been doing and I'm learning a lot along the way. Thanks again!!!

[@kingmasterlord]

pretty sure Peco can learn things the others can't

[@Kaftan]

The Breath attack spells he learns are from leveling, not Examine.

[@Zerbraxi]

I have no idea why but KZbin evidently hid your two comments Kaftan and were marked as "Likely Spam".... I re-approved them but I have absolutely no idea how anything about them was spam. Thanks again for the additional details. As a noob to the series I very much appreciate it.

[@El_El_Plays]

Great video!

[@Zerbraxi]

Thank you very much! I'd love to return to the Breath of Fire series for another video.

[@sandystar3890]

when you said you only spent 50 hours playing i was pretty bummed. all the extra quests add about 10 hours, once you get all the dragon genes you can waste several more hours with that, then there's getting the ultimate equipment (and duplicating it at times) building the fairy village, getting every spell from every master, getting all the examined spells and then catching all the fish. YOU CAN USE AN ACTUAL FISHING CONTROLLER TO FISH IN 3 AND 4. there's over a hundred hours of stuff to do. and it's all in this comfy, colorful mysterious world. strongly urge getting a walkthrough and doing a full playthrough. PS: this gets touched upon in the review, but zerbraxi didn't like the final twist: he was having a bad day and expected something more, but the endgame is fairly apparent after the temple arc where your party acquires garr. the twist was so good that i actually played breath of fire 1 and 2 just to get the complete backstory. finally, my endgame party (desert -> myria station) is rei, ryu, nina

[@Zerbraxi]

I really appreciate the feedback on this. I've genuinely thought about going back and doing more in the game because of just how much I enjoyed it. Also, despite not enjoying the twist personally, Breath of Fire 3 has definitely encouraged me to jump in to BoF 1 &. 2 again to see them through and I'm extremely excited for the fourth game. I normally would've spent more time, and by my standards today I would've completed more no matter what in order to give a better representation, but funny enough I wasn't planning on making this video. I tend to record all my gameplay, just a habit I've formed over the years, but I did not go into this planning on talking about. My girlfriend actually encouraged me to cuz I wouldn't shut up about it while I was playing LOL!! Final point, I really wish I used Rei more. Such a cool character that I grossly underused. Thanks so much for the discussion! It's my favorite part of making stuff.

[@sandystar3890]

Appreciate the reply. Here's a tip: in the endgame, use charm (fairy master skill) to stop red in weretiger mode from mauling party members. After that, hes a powerhouse.

[@Zerbraxi]

@@sandystar3890 Ooohhh good to know. I'll definitely try that out. Rei definitely destroys but half the time he destroyed his own team lol

[@astaynax7531]

Breath of fire 3 was my first PS1 game and I loved most everything about the game. Looking back on it without the rose colored glasses I can see a few issues with it like the mandatory mini games could become annoying but even still I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys traditional jrpgs.

[@Zerbraxi]

For sure! I loved it too. I enjoyed my time with Breath of Fire 1 & 2 but didn't "love" them really. Playing this though, I genuinely loved it and had such a fulfilling experience. I can't wait to try Breath of Fire 4 eventually.

[@astaynax7531]

@@Zerbraxi I started with breath of fire 2 so I have a soft spot for that one. The encounter rate was high which sucked but story wise I thought it was one of the better ones.

[@Zerbraxi]

@@astaynax7531 Maybe I'll go back to it. I enjoyed 2 more than 1, but I also only ever played the GBA remakes of them. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

[@astaynax7531]

@@Zerbraxi I've only played the originals so I can't really say. Idk what changes were made or if they were supposed to be for the better or worse.

[@frankiecardona1656]

this the game that started me on jrpgs

[@Zerbraxi]

That's really awesome! There's always a special fondness for that game that introduces you to a new genre.

[@neovillen]

If you liked 3's story focus on a personal and sensible tale with interesting use of well known aesthetic settings, I think you would like Dragon Quarter. It's personally my favorite game of the series and my favorite JRPG in general, with a lot of intricate interesting systems that are much more appreciated nowadays than they could've been at the time, and a stressful and oppressive atmosphere that matches the game relatively high level of difficulty. Also, it's funny how you say 3's world is colorful and whimsical compared to something like FF6, but my experience was the opposite: since I played IV and V before 3, and those are very bleak, I saw 3 as equally bleak. Those burnt corpses in the first minute of gameplay plus having to steal to survive set the tone, I think. I also actually liked how some things were inaccurate in the video: it shows you played the game and formed your own opinion instead of just remixing any other bullet-point focused video.

[@Zerbraxi]

Ohh that's interesting how different our perspectives are on that. The opening is definitely rather harsh but I found the general journey to be so whimsical. I love how two of us can have such vastly different impressions. I left out so much in this video though. It was the first time I made a video in this more long form, retrospective format, and looking back it's pretty evident. I'm still evolving the format, and I'm hoping that going into the next year I'll be able to tell a better story in each of these videos, but I may come back to this Breath of Fire 3 video at some point because I'd love to tackle the whole series. BoF 3 definitely won me over. I'm totally open to being wrong in these videos. My absolute favorite part of making stuff online is that I get to have conversations about games with people I would never normally have been able to. Some of the fun of that is being wrong and learning even more new things about games. I'm still a bit nervous about Dragon Quarter from some of the hostility around it, but I think that since I'm so aware of its pivot from the traditional format that I won't be caught off guard by that. I'm also pretty excited for it though since it's so controversial. I tend to love diving into games that are so divided. One of the next videos I have in the pipeline is Star Fox Adventures as I work through the entire Star Fox series, and the controversy about Adventures will be fun to tackle.

[@kingmasterlord]

I'm seriously tempted to build this entire game in Minecraft

[@Zerbraxi]

That would be wild!!! Such a cool project idea.

[@frankiecardona1656]

this got me on final fantasy lunar, persona and so on

[@Zerbraxi]

Some great series! I'd like to try more of the Lunar series. Only touched the first one thus far.

[@frankiecardona1656]

@@Zerbraxi 2 feels like the same experience but just as good to me

[@Azureakz820]

Getting that covid beard big and bushy! Anyway I've never heard of this series though I've seen the cover going through the ps store. Though I was intrigued (I usually am by older jrpgs) I just dismissed it as some obscure knock off of "real" jrpgs like final fantasy (plus I didn't have money). I looks a lot better that I thought it would. I like how it's sort of a mix of 3D and 2D elements. I can't believe FFX would be made just 4 years later. I will definitely be getting it as well as some others since I hear the ps3 store is closing down. Though this does remind me of one my favorite series: Shining Force.I would recommend it if you're into the jrpg genre. It too started in 1993 and I played and loved some of their first titles. I heard they were popular back in the day. However, I've also seen their later entries are not as highly rated and have personal experience to confirm that. Shining Tears was terrible! It had an innovative two person system but the computer sucked. There were tons of loading screens, and fighting was repetitive and really hard. I have bought other ps2 titles out of curiosity and maybe they will redeem it but I'm not sure. Also trying to figure out how to play their sega saturn title without torrenting, which actually reminds me of this game.

[@Zerbraxi]

Ya my Covid hair is getting out of control LOL!! So I've not actually played through the original Shining Force trilogy. I really want to though. I own Shining Force 1 and 2, and I've watch a full Let's Play of Shining Force 3 on the Saturn and it looks so good. The only new Shining Force game I played was EX, and it was hot garbage lol. Seems nothing like the original games though.

[@Azureakz820]

@@Zerbraxi Dooo it! Personally I prefer one over two but I guess sequels always have a disadvantage.

[@rashid2898]

bof3 one of the greatest rpg's iv ever played i stumbled on it when my uncle gave me a snes and bof 1, than years later i saw him play bof 3 i was drooling what an insane game was 3, fuck Capcom for ruining it.

[@Zerbraxi]

I've not seen where the series goes but BoF 4 looks quite nice. I'm a bit torn about Dragon Quarter and I can't play 6 even if I wanted. This franchise is in such a weird situation.

[@iantaran2843]

Breath of Fire 3 is one of my favorite game if all time. I've never beaten it And i have a weird relationship with it. IT was the game i was playing when my step dad decided i wasent doing good enough in school and put my systems and games in the trash compactor. One day I'm going to beat that game as a middle finger to that twat 😅

[@Zerbraxi]

That blows. Ya...F that guy

[@CuShorts]

based and subbed

[@Zerbraxi]

Thank you so much!

[@hawtdawg2821]

Legend, legend, legend! BOF 1-4 Best.. BOF5 garbage.

[@Zerbraxi]

I've been getting that itch to replay Breath of Fire 1 & 2 to make a video so I can have a video for the entire series. I really, REALLY, want to play BoF 4 though. It looks so wonderful.

[@wilkerfonseca4712]

eu adorei este vídeo, por favor futuramente de uma chance a breath of fire 4

[@Zerbraxi]

Thank you. I definitely plan to play Breath of Fire 4. I'm really looking forward to it and after having now played Breath of Fire 3 I'm even more excited than ever! Obrigada. Eu definitivamente pretendo jogar Breath of Fire 4. Estou realmente ansioso por isso e depois de ter jogado Breath of Fire 3 estou ainda mais animado do que nunca!

[@wilkerfonseca4712]

@@Zerbraxi eu sei falar inglês, porem não o suficiente para me comunicar bem, então só digo uma coisa, adorei seu canal eu vou ver vários vídeos em sequencia

[@Zerbraxi]

@@wilkerfonseca4712 Thank you so much! :)

[@begochiddy]

2nd

[@Zerbraxi]

Fancy meeting you here.

[@DecDarkmar]

1st.

[@Zerbraxi]

Probably the only LOL