Breath of Fire IV

One of my favourite JRPGs of all time. I have put 100 of hours in this game as a kid and I can see my selfe do it again. This game got everything, compelling story, lovable characters, amazing music and art style, even better battle system, humour etc. Game works on linux via Heroic launcher on desktop and steam deck without problems. On desktop you need to chage Environment Variables in Heroic or it wont launch (click on game, chose game settings and go to Advanced) In Variable name put WINEDLLOVERRIDES and in Value ddraw=n,b;dinput=n,b On steam deck i suggest to add game in Steam as non steam game so you can configure controls because you only get keyboard layout.

It's hard to believe that after all thy years this game finally has been dusted off and brought into a form that can be run on modern systems. The game itself has a deep captivating story, which is told from different perspectives. Both main characters - Ryu and Fou-Lou are bounded to meet each other, but their views on life and thus philosophy is different enough..

I played and beat the PS1 version and love the hell out of this game. I know BoF3 is the fan favorite but I think 4 pushes ahead in many, many ways (they're both great so who cares). Without spoiling the story: characters are fun and interesting and really get a good amount of screen time each. Some are more focused than others but goodness they're all great. BoF4 solves my biggest gripe with earlier BoF titles, you ALWAYS have your full team with you. So it's not like 3 where if you went into a dungeon and 10 minutes in you find a door you can't access because you didn't bring in Rei or Momo? Well that was you leaving the dungeon to go get them. 4? You have ALL of them, so you just gotta swap to them to handle whatever comes up. Not all characters have an ability to do something on the field but those that do, you'll find that it's huge that you got 'em all with ya. (Well unless the story takes them out of your party for a bit which does happen) The port: The port is so far, exceptional with only a few issues. My biggest issue is there's a bilinear filter over all the pixel art that really takes away from the lovely pixel art. I really hate these filters and the GoG port as of this writing? It's not something you can turn off without a mod- which there is one. This GoG port is a lot better in terms of load times, instead of 4-5 seconds to load into each battle and a lot of slow fades to black for a lot of little things? Battles are near instantly loaded. Everything feels FAR snappier because all the masked loading is just gone. It also runs better than the PS1 version which, really pushed the hardware at the time to it's limit. Some towns would slow down real bad when turning the camera or having Nina fly. Not here so far. If GoG could just add an option to disable the bilinear filtering, it'd be the go-to way to play this game. There's a mod so it still is the best way to play it but, you know there's an asterix.

I never post reviews. Breath of Fire IV breaks that trend. One of the "holy grail" JRPGs from the Playstation 1 era (which for me is the greatest JRPG era), an absolute masterclass in pacing, design, and presentation. The visuals are unlike anything from the generation, and still have a cohesiveness that puts a majority of new games to shame. The fact that this is not only back, but part of the GOG Preservation Program, is astounding. I genuinely didn't think it would ever happen, but it did! Now, about releasing Breath of Fire III...... If you are, or have EVER been, a fan of turn-based JRPGs, this one is a no-brainer. A cream of the crop release, something that will last a lifetime. I mean, over 20k fans voted for this on the GoG Wishlist, 4 console generations (and damn near 30 years) after its initial launch, which shows the longevity and impact this one had. Breath of Fire for life!

I had forgotten how beautiful the music in this game is.