Capcom is a wonderful company. They have taken bold new steps in several different genres and even created a few of their own. They revolutionized the fighting game with Street Fighter, and made an incredibly addictive action game with the Mega Man series. That's why I was so excited about Capcom taking a stab at the RPG with Breath of Fire. As far as I was concerned Capcom couldn't do anything wrong, and after Breath of Fire, I was still confident in their abilities. Breath of Fire was an interesting, fast paced game with a cool story and although the battle system was simple, the fights were still fun. They came with entirely new ideas for Breath of Fire like being able to morph into dragons and including religion in the story. So, when Capcom announced Breath of Fire 2, I figured that if they used what made Breath of Fire so good, that they would have another hit on their hands, and they did…sort of.

There were many things I liked about Breath of Fire 2. I liked the graphics in battle, and the dragon morphing. I liked the several innovations Capcom created, and I liked how Capcom made a mature story. But there were also many things I didn't like. The normal graphics while walking around were sub-par, the majority of the characters had boring personalities, and the way the game moved from one section to another was bad. I'll start with the good things.

You are Ryu, a young boy living with your father Ganer and sister Yua in a village called Gate. Yua has run off and Ganer asks you to find her. Yua is cornered by a small monster and you fend it off with some help from your father. Yua says that she has dreams about your mother when she sleeps next to the giant dragon carcass near the town. After some discussion, you leave to go back to Gate, but when you get there no one recognizes you. You find a church, and the priest, there, thinks you are an orphan and sends you upstairs with a young orphan named Bow. In the middle of the night, you wake up to see Bow leaving, and you go with him. While outside it starts to rain so you go into a nearby cave. After exploring the cave, you meet up with a horrific monster that viciously attacks you. You black out. Ten years later, you and Bow are good friends and are Rangers, or people who hunt monsters and do jobs for the citizens of HomeTown. Your first mission is to find someone's lost pig, and that is where the adventure begins. After a while, strange things are happening involving demons and a strange religion that honors the god St. Eva. Ryu decides to investigate and ends up fighting for the safety of the world.

I really enjoyed the story of Breath of Fire 2, because the plot was sophisticated, and the villain wasn't just some weirdo who wanted to take over the world. It had some intriguing plot twists and overall it pleased me. But the characters of the game weakened the strength of the game. Some of them were cool, like Ryu and his abilities as a member of the dragon clan, Nina the magician in training who has wings, and Katt, the tough but kind feline warrior. But those three weren't enough to make me forget some of the blander ones. There was Bow, a stupid dog creature that hunted and had no interesting features, and Jean, a big fat frog prince. Whoop dee doo.

Capcom was lacking in the character department but they did have many cool little ideas that made for some replay value. At first you could only travel by foot, but by the end of the game you can use a gigantic whale or a huge bird. And each character had an ability they could perform while walking around like rolling into a ball to travel faster or turning into a massive frog to jump over holes and rivers. Capcom also refined the hunting and fishing game from BOF and made them a whole lot better. Now there were three different ways to hunt, with a bow and arrow, with a huge stick, or with a magic wand, and fishing was great because you could buy many different poles and bait to catch a variety of fish. Also, in the middle of the game, you meet a woman named Granny who uses Shamans to mix characters and give them higher stats or completely new abilities. This was very cool and there were tons of different combinations that you could think of. Also, you build your own town and hire a carpenter to make one of three different styles of homes. Then you can travel the world and invite people to inhabit your homes and give you new things. There were painters and hunters and singers and guards and a whole truckload of people you could hire, some opened shops or made statues of your characters. These things were very cool and made me play through the game a couple of times to see what kind of town I could make.

The graphics of the game were OK. There were ups and downs. The battle graphics were really nice and had smooth animations and fantastic spells that changed depending on where you were. But the graphics while exploring caves and such were not so good. They weren't bad to look at, but they weren't anything we hadn't seen before. And the music had some catchy tunes but had nothing you would hum in the shower or tap your toes to. It did have replay value though. There were two different endings depending on a decision you make far into the game and if you can find a secret person to help you. And going through the games twice isn't so easy. It's reasonably long and is kind of difficult. Some enemies are real easy but some of them will have you tearing your hair out, especially near the end of the game. Also, at the end of the game, there is a huge dungeon that can take hours to go through if you want to find all the treasures. This is not a game you will finish in one sitting, that's for sure.

There was one thing that really bothered me about this game though. There are so many times you have to find this to do that, so you can do this, to open that and find that, it's unbelievable! I'll give you an example. You are walking through the forest and you find a huge frog under a spell. He needs you to fight the witch that cast the spell. You beat her, but the frog is a prince and the people of his kingdom have been fooled by an imposter, so you need to find a royal ring to prove to the kingdom who is the real prince. The witch has it. So you go all the way back to the tower, but she is not there. So you go to a restaurant to find her, but first you have to fight a wild cat while standing on a barbecue, then you find the witch, but she dropped the ring down the toilet so you go in the sewers and find it. Finally you have the ring, so you go back but the people still don't believe you, so you need to find ingredients for the prince to cook his famous meals that only he can make. So you need to get into the basement, but to do that, you need the key, so you find a soldiers girlfriend who tells you where the key is, you get it, travel through the basement and find and battle the gold fly, giant cockroach, and swimming worm, and finally you chase a crazed princess to stop form blowing up the castle and finally you defeat the evil imposter. Are you sick yet? I mean that is so STUPID! I also have one more tiny insignificant complaint. One thing BOF 2 is really good at is abbreviating everything! Even when it's not necessary, like BoyDR, and FalseRG, and CrsntSD, and TreeST, and LifeBR and WiseBL! What is a WiseBL? Who knows!

Well, although BOF 2 has some major problems, I enjoyed playing it and recommend it if you crave a RPG that challenges you and has a great story.