15 out of 15 people found this review helpful.
Just Name Your Diablo Characters "Ryu" and "Nina"
Date of Review: Jul 12, 2003
The Bottom Line: Is there such thing as too many new ideas?
The Breath of Fire series has always been one of the great undiscovered gems in the world of console RPG's. Every entry in the series has featured solid and engaging gaming goodness. While not precisely on the edge of innovation, each game did everything well that an RPG was supposed to be all about. Fun battle systems and interesting plots were the orders of the day, but for the series' first outing on the Playstation 2 console, Capcom felt like they had to shake things up a little. Where the first few titles in the series took few chances but covered the basics well, the latest in the series, Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter rewrites everything we previously knew about the series. Are all of the changes necessarily good ones? In my humble opinion, some of them miss the mark pretty badly. Striving to make a unique new game is always appreciated, and at the end of the day, Dragon Quarter is a pretty fun game. However, at times it seems like a random grab-bag of ideas, and it feels like overkill.
You start out the game, as usual, as a young man named Ryu. In this dark and gritty futuristic setting, humans are living below ground. They also have a strict society set up in which their place in the social hierarchy is determined by a ranking called their "D-ranking." Ryu starts off at the very bottom, so he is basically treated like dirt, and sent off to kill monsters in the grungy underground tunnels. While in the middle of one of his missions, he discovers a frightened, mute girl named Nina (another Breath of Fire constant). This may come as a huge surprise, but Nina (::cue dramatic music::) is actually involved in something far bigger than Ryu could have imagined! Ryu's low ranking in society doesn't help him all that much, so the powers that be decide that since he's involved, it will be much cleaner and easier to just kill him. Ryu also discovers he is a rare chosen one who has the ability to change into a dragon, and this comes in mighty handy when the entire military is trying to rub you out.
Graphics
Like pretty much everything else in the game, the graphics are also a bold step away from previous Breath of Fire titles. However, this is probably the greatest success of all of the latest changes. Dragon Quarter has a cel-shaded look that has a very cartoon-like feel. Everything looks extremely well-defined and colorful, and the animation is smooth and glitch-free. While it closely resembles the cel-shading seen in Wild Arms 3, I feel that Dragon Quarter actually looks better. The battle animations run flawlessly, with spell effects that look fantastic. The backgrounds feature great textures that really capture the dark and futuristic atmosphere of the game. While the characters very much resemble cartoon characters, they manage to show a wide range of emotions with many different facial expressions. If all you had to do was look at this game, it would be a real treat.
Music/Audio
Also in the sound department, the game really shines. The tunes are loud, brash, and full of emotion. Even when you are just wandering aimlessly through the dark tunnels of the underworld (which you will be doing a lot of), your ears will be pleased with a tasty mix of nice music. The sound effects are also nice; monsters snarl at you, swords cling and clang, and everything seems to sound just right. The cinematic scenes in the game are raised to an entirely higher level by the powerful music that accompanies them, and that to me signifies that it was done well.
Gameplay
In my opinion, this is where the game falls on its face, because there are simply too many chances taken, and some of the innovations don't really work. First off, Dragon Quarter abandons many RPG staples that have been featured in the previous Breath of Fire titles. It's hard to know where to begin, because essentially everything from the ground up has been given an overhaul. For starters, random battles are extremely different now, and really aren't even random anymore. For all intents and purposes, Dragon Quarter is a dungeon crawler in the same vein as Diablo. You can see your enemies ahead of time and even possibly avoid them with special traps you can set. You will be able to find pieces of meat that you can set out in the open and attract the enemies. Once they run up to eat the meat, you can either use the distraction to your advantage by pouncing on them, thereby gaining the element of surprise in the battle, or you can slip past them entirely. Likewise, you can also find offensive items like dynamite that you can hurl at the bad guys to take off a few hit points before plunging into battle.
The battles themselves are also extremely different than what you have come to expect from the series. The battles are turn-based, but positioning and movement is extremely important in your strategy, as they take place in a 3D setting. Each character has a set amount of action points that they can use during each turn, and moving around uses these points just like attacks do. If you are fighting multiple enemies, you must use strategy in order to avoid an a**-whupping. Like in Xenogears, you have the option of using light, medium, or heavy attacks. Of course, the heavier attacks use the most action points, but you can chain several attacks together to pull off devastating combos. After a little practice, you will figure out how to use your different characters' abilities together in order to do the most damage. For instance, Nina can cast a fire spell in front of an enemy, so when he steps forward, he gets fried, right before Ryu bashes him with his sword. Many magic spells are only effective within a certain range, so you must try to hit far away enemies first. Also, some spells can be cast in anticipation of the enemies waling in to them, so you must try to guess what route the bad guys will take.
Honestly, you are going to spend almost all of your time in battle while playing this game. There is a plot to follow, but it really plays second fiddle to the dungeon crawling. Luckily, the battle are deep and fun (at least at first), so it could be worse. However, the battle engine would have to be to even more interesting in order to carry the weight of the title. The battles get extremely repetitive after a while, to the point that you want to just breeze through each level in order to move on. The experience system is clear cut enough (you gain party experience after each battle that you can spread around to each character as you choose), but gaining levels really becomes a chore. The battles tend to drag on a little more than they really should, mainly because it seems like you are always under-leveled, and not doing nearly as much damage to the enemies as they are doing to you. It's my understanding that the game is really designed for maximum replay value; you have the option of starting the game from the beginning with all of your weapons and experience. It almost seems like the game is pushing this option on you, since it seems you always have to be at a higher level to get through certain areas. Also because of this, gaining the element of surprise is absolutely essential in the game. If the enemies get the drop on you, they will stomp all over you, so setting traps and sneaking up on them is fairly critical.
One aspect of the Breath of Fire series that is still included is Ryu's ability to change into a dragon during battle. Even that has been given a tweak, however. Ryu only has one form of dragon to change into during the entire game, and there are serious consequences to using this ability. A counter ticks away percentage points in the corner of the screen as you play; when the meter reads 100%, the game is over. Changing to a dragon speeds up the rate at which this meter fills, so you should only use the ability when you really, really need it. So there is a certain sense of urgency added to the game, since the meter fills even if you are just standing around. If you get the feeling that you won't be able to finish the game before the meter fills, you do have the option of resetting the game.
Which brings me to the bizarre save and reset options. You will only be able to save your progress at certain stations in the game, and you will have to use an item called a "save token." These items are found and purchases throughout the game. Don't have a save token? Well, sucks for you. Where things really get interesting, though, is when you discover that you have a couple of different options if you want to retry a certain area that you have already passed, or your "dragon meter" is filing up too quickly. To be quite honest, I never really figured out these options, and that made up a big part of my dissatisfaction with this game. Apparently you have the option of restarting the game from the very beginning with a portion of your current experience and items. Since there are quite a few areas that seem to require higher leveling, perhaps this would be a useful feature. In my opinion, however, this is just a tactic to get a little more replay value out of the title. Really, all you're doing is going through the areas you have already seen, only you're not getting your butt kicked as thoroughly. Capcom may call this "hours of replay," but I call this a cheap way to get me to play the same game over and over.
So what's the final verdict on Dragon Quarter? In my opinion, it stands apart from the rest of the Breath of Fire series, but this is not necessarily a good thing. The first four games in the series, while they didn't really have anything all that innovative to offer, were solid and satisfying gaming experiences. With Dragon Quarter, Capcom obviously wanted to throw out the rule book, and start with a fresh new idea. In that regard, mission accomplished. However, the final product just isn't that fun. If you really, really work at it, Dragon Quarter probably has something to offer some gamers out there, but for the rest of us, all that work doesn't seem to have much of a payoff. With a game that offers a lot of replay value like Tactics Ogre, I gladly spent countless hours leveling up and getting hidden items, because I had fun doing it. Dragon Quarter asks you to spend the same countless hours, but the thought of actually doing it made me cringe.
Graphics - 4/5 - Yummy cel-shaded goodness.
Music/Audio - 4/5 - Dark and emotional techno tunes, and sound effects that fit the mood perfectly.
Gameplay - 2/5 - Fun at first, clunky, repetitive and confusing as you get deeper.
Replay - 2/5 - There is lots of replay value here, but you're basically going through what you have already seen, and the game itself doesn't really let you know just how to do this.
Fun Factor - 2/5 - The battle system is interesting, but not nearly interesting enough to carry the weight of the entire game, which is what happens.
