Welcome to the weekend edition of Capcom Retro Idol! For your reading enjoyment, today we have Red Waltz defending Breath of Fire II for the Capcom Retro Idol title! Breath of Fire II is currently available on the Nintendo Wii’s Virtual Console for 800 Wii points!

You can now head over to the official Capcom Retro Idol Experience forum thread to start posting about tomorrow’s game, Bionic Commando!

From Red Waltz: 

At first glance of the steroid induced box art of the Super Nintendo role-playing game “Breath of Fire II” one might think that it was a game akin to a Conan-like romp by a band of hard-nosed warriors through the wastelands of some God-forsaken world, desolate and depleted of hope.

You would be mistaken. The protagonist of Breath of Fire II is not a muscle bound invincible he-man, as he is portrayed in the art, but in reality he is a sixteen year old teenager, vulnerable, lost and alone. His allies on his journey are not a hardnosed mercenary group, that would make even the stout in spirit quiver in their shoes; instead, they are a motley crew, made up of mostly inexperienced and uninitiated warriors, made up of anthropomorphic characters (e.g., a dog-man, frog prince, bird princess, etc. etc.) who have been thrust together by circumstances to stand firm together against an unknown evil or face certain annihilation.

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Rather than an adventure through some empty world, you are given a vibrant and lively world, where ancient terrors lurk in shadows, but have yet to wither the beauty that persists in the light. Within that Super Nintendo box laid not just an amalgam of plastic and computer wizardry, but a memorable adventure full of wonder that would transcend the lifespan of any videogame console.

Many of you may think I speak in hyperbole when saying such things about an RPG that has been unheralded and mostly forgotten in this day in age, but I disagree. Breath of Fire II was released in the States at the beginning of 1996, the same year that the N64 was released.

It was one of the last pure RPG’s to be released for the SNES and it captured all those things that made early RPG’s exciting to play. It had a primarily silent protagonist, Ryu, who may or may not be related to the Ryu from the Street Fighter franchise, since the BoF Ryu turned into a dragon and the SF Ryu threw dragon punches. Further, the game did not lead the player by the hand, making the player use his wits to figure out where to go and what to do. Again, the bosses were not pushovers and were unforgiving, requiring strategy to overcome.

Also, the game allowed for four party members, which would be shrunk to an industry standard three in more contemporary games. Finally, though the story was complex to some degree, the characters themselves were not so much. Yes, there were plot twists (which I will not ruin here), but they were not “deep” headache inducing Matrixesque twists, they were turn of events that one might find in a good political thriller, not a post-modern deconstruction of reality.

Yes, Ryu was on a quest to find out who he was and what happen to him and his family when he was younger, but he was not dark and brooding, nor were his cheerful companions. The adventurers were not on some existentialist journey that would attempt a metaphysical explanation for the world, like many modern RPG’s do; rather, they were on an adventure to destroy the evil that threatened those things that they loved.

The mechanics of the game were not revolutionary, featuring a turn-based system, but they were fun nonetheless. It did not have the complexities of BoFIII or IV, but it didn’t need them. Like most early RPG’s, the game was not based around confusing and complex options, but rather on the simplicity of the journey and taking on quests where the world itself was at stake.

However, throughout the adventure, the player was offered the opportunity to not only build their own town and invite strangers to populate it, but he could relax and pass the time by hunting or fishing (fishing, which is now almost a staple in all fantasy-world based MMORPGs).

Also, the game featured an awesome ability to combine your characters with various shamans, turning your heroes into larger than life versions of themselves with awe-inspiring abilities. Who could forget Jean, the frog prince, as the gallant sword-master slicing his way through his foes?

Why should Breath of Fire II be considered for Retro Idol? Simply put, Breath of Fire II was one of the pinnacles of retro RPG’s, encapsulating almost a decade of progress and nostalgia, right before the whole RPG world would be turned upside down with the advent of overly complex RPG’s, which focused more on style than substance, and whose androgynous protagonists need psychiatrists to convince them they are the hero.

Breath of Fire II represents a simpler time, one which has become increasingly popular with the release of such games as 3D Dot Game Heroes, and hopefully will see a return in the near future. Capcom does not make many RPGs, but with the Breath of Fire series, and in particular Breath of Fire II, they should consider making more.