Breath of Fire



Breath of Fire is a long-running console Eastern RPG series from Capcom. Each entry can largely be considered a Spiritual Successor to the previous entry, with stories that are only tenuously connected and recurring gameplay elements and mythology. Each game features:


 * A blue-haired hero, at first unnamed but later established to be "Ryu", after the Japanese word for "dragon". He always has the ability to change into a dragon, though the mechanics differ from game to game.
 * A winged princess named Nina. She's always a skilled mage rather than a fighter.
 * Worlds where humans live side to side with anthropomorphic moles/dogs/any other animal, as well as the occasional anthropomorphic plant. Bizarrely, they can all interbreed.
 * Enough psychological drama to make your head spin.
 * Laughably bad translations, at least for the first few games.
 * A connected storyline between games, albeit separated by hundreds or even thousands of years at a time, though only for the first three games. There's still some arguments about the fourth, mostly over whether it comes first or last in the series, and the game's official artbook states that the fifth is not connected, story-wise, to the others.

The games are as follows:


 * The original game Breath of Fire I focuses on Ryu's quest to save his sister and the world from the Big Bad, Zog and the goddess of chaos behind the man, Tyr. It was localized by Square Soft rather than Capcom, the game's makers, resulting in a translation that really wasn't as bad as it could have been. However, Square's translators changed a lot of names seemingly at random, making some of the connections between games vague.
 * The second game Breath of Fire II features Ryu as an orphan (actually the result of a gigantic memory wipe) who, with childhood friend Bow, escapes his hometown of "Gate." While the translation was rather shoddy, a high-quality fan translation exists.
 * The third game is the series' first foray onto the PlayStation and into 3D. Ryu is the savior of his people, the Brood. Once again, the Big Bad was a religious figure.
 * The fourth game focuses on Ryu's journey to find his lost memories, culminating in a showdown with his Evil Counterpart who believes that the only way to solve the world's problems is to Kill All Humans and start again.
 * The fifth game, known as Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, is the only one for the PlayStation 2, and a radical departure for the series, both in gameplay and setting. Ryu attemps to escape a grimy, Dieselpunk-inspired underground civilization with Nina. Interestingly, the story is a little bit different every time you start over.

As of early 2012, there are no official plans for a sixth entry into the series (although there are persistent rumours). A manga adaptation of the fourth game of the series was recently produced by Comic Blade Avarus (the final chapter was published in January 2010, with the final volume compilation printed 10 May 2010) and has been licensed in French and Chinese.

Also notable about the series is Capcom's apparent "hate" of the series, being one of the few (and most prominent) to not appear in the Capcom vs. Whatever line.

The character sheet is up and running; please put any character-related tropes there.

Not to be confused with Adron e'Kieron's Breath of Fire Battallion (light cavalry, all of whom are powerful sorcerers) in Five Hundred Years After.


 * Alas, Poor Villain:.
 * All in a Row
 * All There in the Manual: In the case of Breath of Fire IV and (to a slightly lesser extent) Dragon Quarter, a fair amount of the world's background info only exists in the Official Works artbooks.
 * The first game has also a timeline detailing most of its backstory, from the origin of the universe to the current in-game war.
 * Alternate Universe: Two, possibly three, universes exist as follows:
 * Breath of Fire I-Breath of Fire III are canonically in the same universe, separated by hundreds if not thousands of years per game.
 * Dragon Quarter is (per Word Of Capcom) in an Alternate Universe unrelated to other games.
 * The position of Breath of Fire IV is best described as controversial. No Word Of Capcom exists as to which is the correct interpretation either.
 * American Kirby Is Hardcore: The box cover art in Breath of Fire I and Breath of Fire II. Mind you, the Ryu in Breath of Fire I could give Conan a run for his money.
 * An Economy Is You
 * Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Breath of Fire II and Breath of Fire III are the prime offenders; the rest of the series averts this trope.
 * Art Shift: All art in the series is don by Tatsuya Yoshikawa (who also did character designs for Devil May Cry 4), but starting with Breath of Fire III, the art makes a break from large-eyed, colorful characters draped with jewel-encrusted clothes, to characters with smaller, more natural faces, muted colors and a greater emphasis on a Used Future look.
 * Back from the Dead: Tyr/Myria in Breath of Fire I and Breath of Fire III; thought Killed Off for Real in Breath of Fire I, came Back from the Dead in Breath of Fire III.
 * Arguably Fou-lu in Breath of Fire IV, but more of an explicit subversion of King in the Mountain.
 * Belligerent Sexual Tension:
 * Rei and Momo in Breath of Fire III.
 * The manga adaptation of Breath of Fire I turns Ryu and Nina into something like this.
 * Big Bad:
 * Breath of Fire I: Zog appears to be this at first, but it turns out that was the one pulling the strings.
 * Breath of Fire II:.
 * Breath of Fire III:.
 * Breath of Fire IV: God-Emperor Fou-lu, the Evil Counterpart of protagonist Ryu..
 * Dragon Quarter:.
 * Big Creepy-Crawlies: All over. Giant cockroaches, giant ants, giant humanoid bees, giant humanoid flies, giant fire-breathing leeches, etc.
 * Bilingual Bonus: In Breath of Fire III, the names of the ghosts in McNeil Manor in Japanese are references to business concepts.
 * Also in Breath of Fire III, most characters related to the port city of Raphala are references to fishing terms, fishing lures or actual fish.
 * In Breath of Fire IV, names rendered in kanji were renamed to their Korean hanja readings for international versions. The puns still stay intact.
 * Also shows up in Dragon Quarter in a manner combining names and Russian counting.
 * Most of the Creative Closing Credits in Breath of Fire II are so chock-full of western culture references that it probably went over most Japanese's heads.
 * Biological Mashup: In Breath of Fire I and Breath of Fire II, fusion is a very powerful technique to temporarily create strong characters. In Breath of Fire III, the Fusion Gene creates a similar effect, and there's also Balio and Sunder, who use this to transform into the only form you're supposed to beat.
 * Blind Idiot Translation: Somewhat in Breath of Fire I, and much much worse in Breath of Fire II. In the former, this was largely a result of farming out the English translation to Square (who engaged in mass Woolseyism); in the latter, this was the result of Capcom doing it in-house during a period where their non-Japanese localisation in general had much to be desired...
 * Bizarrely, unlike many other ports of RPGs to the system, the GBA ports of these two games did not re-translate anything at all.
 * Boss in Mook Clothing: The series' recurrent example is the GooKing, ever since Breath of Fire II. Other well-known examples are the Archmage and Berserker from Breath of Fire III and the Rider from Breath of Fire IV. Technically, they're not Bosses, but they should be; they're some of the most powerful enemies in the series!
 * Bowdlerized: A Race Lift and a few minor edits in Breath of Fire I, mostly subverted in Breath of Fire II, a gender-swap with Dragon Quarter, and more than made up with in Breath of Fire IV (to the point fans wonder if the group handling Breath of Fire IV's internationalization was slipped the old Nintendo Guidelines by mistake). Check their respective pages for more detail.
 * Breath Weapon: Well, obviously...
 * Broken Bridge: Breath of Fire I and Breath of Fire III have a few literal examples (Breath of Fire I in special is littered with them). There are also other examples in the other games, like the Imperial Causeway in Breath of Fire IV.
 * Cain and Abel:.
 * The Cameo: Every game after the first has cameo appearances from previous game's party members: Breath of Fire II has Karn and Bo, Breath of Fire III has Mogu, Gary (Gill in Japanese, short for Gilliam/Bo), Worker (japanese name Builder/Ox), Bow and Jean, and Breath of Fire IV has Rei, Teepo and Momo (which doubles as a master). Dragon Quarter has its cameo in a bit more obscure form: the puppet-girl instructors from Breath of Fire IV show up as the game's merchants.
 * And yes, all of these count as Mythology Gags if not blatant Continuity Nods.
 * Can't Drop the Hero:
 * Averted in Breath of Fire I; once you have at least five party members, it is possible to switch Ryu out of the main fighting party.
 * Also averted in Breath of Fire IV, with the threshold dropped to four.
 * Capcom vs. Whatever: An extremely rare subversion of this trope. Power Stone shares the same neglect.
 * The closest the Breath of Fire series has EVER come to any Capcom crossover game whatsoever is with a background screen showing characters from Breath of Fire III in a hidden bonus level of Pocket Fighter, Ryu and Nina cards (from Breath of Fire IV) in the extremely obscure game SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash (a Yu-Gi-Oh!-esque game which was the final console release for the equally obscure NeoGeo Pocket), Ryu and Nina cards (from Dragon Quarter) in the Nintendo DS SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters DS, and multiple "license card" cameos in the upcoming Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (the "license card" operates in "Heroes and Heralds" mode, and is a Card Fighter-esque method to unlock abilities). There has been no appearance or mention of Breath of Fire in any other Capcom vs. Whatever game, not even games like Namco X Capcom and Cross Edge where a cameo would actually have made sense.
 * Mind you, it's probably because these games usually have another Ryu...
 * According to a tweet by Ryota Niitsuma (a member of the Marvel vs. Capcom staff) there were initial plans to include characters from Breath of Fire in Marvel vs. Capcom 3, but these were dropped due to "the game being geared towards Western audiences." The developers were apparently very interested in specifically placing Fou-lu from Breath of Fire IV in Marvel vs. Capcom 3 and apparently would like to include this in a future Capcom vs. Whatever.
 * The closest they were able to get to the above was sticking a Fou-lu card in the aforementioned "Heroes and Heralds" mode of Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3; the other cameos include the first Ryu, the second Nina, Myria from Breath of Fire III, and Lin from Dragon Quarter.
 * Chain of Deals: Present in the first four games, but especially and painfully so in Breath of Fire I.
 * Character Level
 * Combos: There's a "Super Combo" Skill in Breath of Fire III; in Breath of Fire IV onwards, its part of the gameplay.
 * Comic Book Adaptation: Quite a number of them, actually: two separate manga adaptations and an official sidestory for Breath of Fire I and a manga adaptation for Breath of Fire IV that are actually directed by Capcom, and a mess of others:
 * The original Breath of Fire I had no less than two manga adaptations, Breath of Fire: The Dragon Warrior and Breath of Fire: Princess Of The Wings. The first is a Shonen manga which is a fairly straight (if heavily compressed) adaptation, while the second is a Shoujo sequel set after the end of the game.
 * In addition, an officially directed Spin-Off sidestory of Breath of Fire I exists (Breath of Fire Part II: Little Adventurers).
 * The Breath of Fire IV manga Utsurowazarumono: Breath Of Fire IV ("Utsurowazaru Mono" is a term meaning roughly "The Unchanging Ones" and is usually translated in English-language adaptations as "Endless") is a straight Comic Book Adaptation with additional material from the artbook. It's also an example of the Fleeting Demographic Rule, and the final volume was released in time for the 10th anniversary of Breath of Fire IV's release in Japan.
 * Note here that these are only listings of Capcom-directed adaptations (a.k.a. stuff Capcom had an active hand in providing material for). There are also multiple Capcom-licensed but not Capcom-directed manga including:
 * An anthology-comic for Breath of Fire IV (which has both serious and parody stories).
 * Multiple Yonkoma collections for Breath of Fire III (one) and Breath of Fire IV (two). Yes, Capcom loves its Breath of Fire-related Yonkoma treatments (considering they also okayed the "Behind The Cover Comic" yonkoma in the Comic Blade Avarus manga).
 * At least one Capcom-directed comedy manga (Capcomic) also has occasionally had Breath of Fire-related comics.
 * And yes, for the record, all of these are Japan-only. Fortunately, there is scanlation for some of this material available, mostly of the earlier mangas, the Comic Blade Avarus manga adaptation of Breath of Fire IV, and some material from the Breath of Fire IV anthology comic.
 * Contemptible Cover: The infamous, Conan the Barbarian-esque box art for the international releases of Breath of Fire I and Breath of Fire II respectively.
 * Continuing Is Painful: of two different flavors:
 * In Breath of Fire III and Breath of Fire IV, characters who remain KO at the end of the battle are revived at 1 HP but suffer a 10% cut in their maximum HP that can only be restored by staying at a bonafide Trauma Inn. Unfortunately, if it happens repeatedly the effect accumulates....
 * Choosing the "SOL:Restore" option in Dragon Quarter lets you try again from the most recent Save Point... only without whatever items you were carrying when you actually saved your game there.
 * Convenient Questing
 * Counter Attack: In Breath of Fire I, it was mostly an ability used by a few characters like Ryu and Karn's Puka form. From 'Breath of Fire II'' onwards, Counter attacking becomes universal for both allies and enemies.
 * Critical Hit: Under various names ("Crit", "Toasted") before setting on "Critical".
 * Crystal Dragon Jesus: Breath of Fire II has this in spades, and Breath of Fire IV has an arguable case with Eastern religions (particularly Taoism, Buddhism and pre-Taoist shamanic practices) rather than Christianity..
 * Death of the Old Gods: 'Breath of Fire II' has the old animist dragon gods being forgotten in favor of a new I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Catholicism! monotheistic religion.
 * Defend Command
 * Demoted to Extra: Bleu/Deis was demoted game by game: An important party member in Breath of Fire I, an Optional Party Member in Breath of Fire II, a Master in Breath of Fire III, a NPC in Breath of Fire IV, and completely absent in Dragon Quarter. Of course, she was always ridiculously powerful whenever she was available... There were plans to originally put Deis in Dragon Quarter per Word Of Capcom..
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Most notable in Breath of Fire I-Breath of Fire III. In Breath of Fire IV, technically, ; in Dragon Quarter,.
 * Disc One Nuke: Surprisingly in Breath of Fire IV, the Burn spell. Have Ryu learn it, and you can have easy-spamming access to the game's famed Combo magic. It will save your noggin a couple of times.
 * In Breath of Fire I, there are a couple: an item obtained after the second boss allows any character equipped with it to deal 30 damage to the entire enemy party; most characters can't do anywhere near that much damage to one enemy, let alone the entire enemy party. Likewise, the flame rapier, but instead of giving a good attack boost, it can be used as an item in battle, to do 90 Damage which is far more than Nina would ever do by stabbing someone with it. Only two other things around that stage of the game even come close: one's a spell that costs a lot of MP for that point, the other is the Hero's Dragon form.
 * In Breath of Fire II, the level 2 Dragon spells can be obtained as soon as you first recruit Jean (and right before his story plot, where he becomes unavailable).
 * An expert use of Sol:Restart in Dragon Quarter would allow your party to have a hefty amount of Experience Points at their disposal.
 * The Dragon: The first four games have a notable one: Jade in Breath of Fire I, Ray in Breath of Fire II, in Breath of Fire III and Yohm in Breath of Fire IV (explicitly noted as such in the manga adaptation).
 * Dub Name Change: Every game in the series has had this happen to a greater or lesser extent with Breath of Fire I and Breath of Fire IV having the most extensive. (of note, this seems to be a common curse among all games produced by Capcom and released internationally).
 * In Breath of Fire I, a partial list includes renaming of Deis to Bleu, Gilliam to Bo, Builder to Ox, Danc to Karn, Manillo to Gobi, and that's just for starters (most name changes are largely due to both space restrictions and outsourcing of the translation to Square and can be considered legitimate examples of Woolseyism).
 * In Breath of Fire II, Boche to Bow, Rinpoo to Katt , Tapeta to Jean, Aspara to Spar, plus several other name changes. Unfortunately, Square can't be blamed for this one...
 * In Breath of Fire III, Pecoros to Peco, Garland to Garr, Babaderu to Bunyan, plus several other characters, enemies, items and dragon forms. The majority of changes were to preserve puns or jokes or to localise them.
 * In Breath of Fire IV, a partial list includes Master to Ershin, Babaderu to Bunyan, all NPC dragons to the Korean hanja readings for the kanji noting what kind of dragons they were, multiple town names from Japanese kanji readings to Korean hanja readings, other things being changed to Korean readings or even random Korean words, multiple dragon forms having names changed ...the list is so extensive, it's better if you just take a look at it here. The extensive Dub Name Change treatment of Breath of Fire IV has also led to issues regarding translation of its Comic Book Adaptation. The English Fan Translation has generally gone with the Dub Name Changes; the licensed French version of the manga may also be going with the Dub Name Change names.
 * In Dragon Quarter, there aren't a whole lot (especially compared to the rest of the series!)... but notable ones include renaming Members to Regents and DB's to Genics (the renamings, for once, seem to be restricted to classes rather than characters).
 * Duel Boss: A lot! Usually either for an Establishing Character Moment or because Ryu needs his Eleventh-Hour Superpower.
 * Dummied Out: Plenty of stuff has been found burried within the code: Breath of Fire I has unused items, spells and locations; Breath of Fire II has unused spells; Breath of Fire III has unused spells, voice clips, a few items and a chunk of unused dialogue; Breath of Fire IV has unused spells and some items, one of which was a bonus from a Japanese magazine.
 * Elite Tweak: Started with Shamans in Breath of Fire II, then progressed to the Master/Skill System from Breath of Fire III onward.
 * Everything's Deader with Zombies
 * Experience Points
 * Facial Markings: Every game in the series has this going on to an extent, as would be expected with the proliferation of Petting Zoo People in this series.
 * Ryu in the original Breath of Fire has a red tattoo-like image of a dragon on his forehead.
 * All of the Woren/Furen in the series, with the exception of Lin (who is a Catgirl rather than a tiger) in Dragon Quarter have tiger-like stripes on their face.
 * All of the Half-Human Hybrid "warrior" or "trance" forms of Ryu and his respective draconic antagonists have facial markings.
 * Dragon Quarter in particular is chock full of examples not directly related to Petting Zoo People proper:
 * Nina has a tattoo on her forehead. Word Of Capcom is that this is a brand indicating she has such a low D-ratio that she's legally considered a lab-rat.
 * Bosch develops a particularly frightning version.
 * Elyon also has extensive, "Dragon Hybrid"-esque Facial Markings and horns..
 * Failure Is the Only Option: Ultimately subverted as a game mechanic for Dragon Quarter. You can only win by.
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Breath of Fire II and Breath of Fire IV in particular has a ton of these.
 * The Fou Empire in Breath of Fire IV is explicitly a fantastic version of imperial-era China (most likely the Qin Dynasty) or imperial-era Korea.
 * Arguably, Ludia in Breath of Fire IV is a Fantasy Counterpart Culture to a northern European country (possibly Victorian England).
 * The traditional Woren culture (and Worent in particular) is a fantastic mish-mash of several Native American cultures, particularly of Southwestern peoples like the Hopi and Dine/Navajo.
 * Wyndia in Breath of Fire IV may be meant as a Netherlands Expy.
 * The PabPab are a fantastic equivalent of isolated indigenous peoples, particularly the Aka "Pygmy" people.
 * SimaFort in Breath of Fire II takes itself as a counterpart to France, specifically noted by the clan's natural skills (cooking and art) and their Gratuitous French.
 * HighFort in Breath of Fire II seems a pseudo-counterpart to Germany, and helps drive the point home with the german-sounding names their habitants have.
 * Fantasy World Map: All games but Breath of Fire III and Dragon Quarter have an in-game world map which fills up as the party travels through it.
 * Fast Forward Mechanic: The main character has a spell to do this.
 * Fishing Minigame: A series staple starting with Breath of Fire II, although fishing also existed as an automated process in Breath of Fire I.
 * Breath of Fire III in particular has been heavily enamoured of this trope, even using it for Theme Naming and extras. The fishing minigame in Breath of Fire III's re-release for PSP actually unlocks concept art that has never been published (even in artbooks). Characters were named for fishing lures and one town was even named after a lure manufacturer.
 * Breath of Fire IV actually had its fishing minigame released as a Gaiden Game for Japanese cell phones.
 * Dragon Quarter is exceptional in being the sole game in the series that doesn't have a fishing game of any sort. This was not for want of planning though.
 * This trope eventually was treated to an Affectionate Parody in an official Capcom "comedy manga" featuring all four Ryus (Dragon Quarter was not yet released) engaging in an ice-fishing contest.
 * Fission Mailed:
 * Breath of Fire II has one in its prologue.
 * Breath of Fire III has the Hopeless Boss Fights against Balio and Sunder and Garr respectively.
 * Breath of Fire IV has Fou-lu's Hopeless Boss Fights against Yohm, and technically, the Bad End of the game qualifies as an unusual variation..
 * Dragon Quarter actually elevates this to an overt game mechanic. You've tried to keep the D-Counter from going to 100% (lest Ryu's Deadly Upgrade devour him from within)... and in the final battle with Chetyre,.
 * Five Races: Breath of Fire I-Breath of Fire IV actually have long-running examples of this that tend to be common across the series. IV in particular documented some of this in its artbook (in one of the very few bits never formally incorporated into the Comic Book adaptation).
 * Mundane: humans, Shell Clan (armadillo people), quite possibly Manillo (explicitly so in Breath of Fire IV), arguably the Creeper Clan (frog people).
 * Fairy: Wyndians (the actual fairies are more an example of Fairy/Cute); some would argue Endless in Breath of Fire IV fit here (or in "High Men" or a combination of the above).
 * Cute: the fairies, the PabPab in Breath of Fire IV, quite possibly the entire population of Chek (in a combination of Cute/High Men), Highlanders.
 * Stouts: the Woren/Furen, Grassrunners (particularly in Breath of Fire IV in a combo of Stout/Mundane), the Earth-Eater Clan (mole people in what is probably the closest analogue the series has to dwarves proper), the Metal Ogres (ox people).
 * High Men: dragons in Breath of Fire I-Breath of Fire III, Chek's entire population, the Guardians.
 * Five-Token Band: In Breath of Fire III, you have Ryu, a dragon who looks like a human - or not because in Breath of Fire III, the Brood are humans that turn into dragons, not dragons that turn into humans - Momo, a kitsune-type creature, Nina, a Wyndian, Garr, a Guardian, and Rei, a Woren.
 * Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Quite a few: notably, everyone in Breath of Fire I and Breath of Fire I, Rei and to a lesser extent Momo and Nina in Breath of Fire III, everyone in Breath of Fire IV.
 * Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Garr in Breath of Fire III.
 * Furry Fandom: Look at Bo, Ox, and Mogu in Breath of Fire I, Tiga in Breath of Fire II, and your entire party in Breath of Fire II and Breath of Fire III, and not come to this conclusion.
 * While Breath of Fire IV wasn't quite as hard on this, it did have Scias. Dragon Quarter, however, was pretty well de-furred. This is mostly because they take place on different worlds than the first three games. The rare furries that are in Dragon Quarter tend to be NPCs.
 * Fusion Dance: Danc/Karn, in Breath of Fire I, the Shamans in Breath of Fire II, Balio and Sunder in Breath of Fire III.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: A lot of it in Breath of Fire II. Aside from the fact that pantsless Katt parades around baring her naked ass at all times, Nintendo's standard rules of Never Say "Die", no religious references (practically the theme of the whole game), no mention of blood, no mention of sex (the fire shaman is practically propositioning Ryu in their first meeting), and other censorship methods typical of Nintendo games released at the time were all thrown completely out the window here. A pity the translation was horrid.
 * Of note, Breath of Fire II is actually considered a highly historic game despite its Blind Idiot Translation for precisely this reason: it was the first video game ever released that broke multiple taboos Nintendo USA had on releases (in particular, its rules regarding religious depiction and "adult situations"). Possibly the first game that went into detail regarding religion to the level Breath of Fire II did (outside of Japan) would be Xenogears for the Playstation... and even then, religious references in games were still considered a third rail, at least in the US.
 * Arguably, the very name of the New Game+ system in Dragon Quarter may be an example of this. It's officially known as the Scenario OverLay System, but its initials of S.O.L. are also very symbolic of the exact sort of "scenario" the S.O.L. system would be most likely to be used...
 * Global Airship/Get on the Boat: Breath of Fire I and Breath of Fire II have been rather original in these regards: Breath of Fire I has and, whereas Breath of Fire II makes use of a whale,  and a flying city. Dropped off since Breath of Fire III.
 * The Goomba: The "Goo"-type enemies have been the series' starting Random Encounters since the beginning; though their appearance and name debuted in Breath of Fire II, with the first game having eyeless versions named "Slimes".
 * Gotta Catch Them All: In Breath of Fire IV, less catching, more like recruiting . Obtaining them all, in addition to the dragon genes, allows Ryu to actually control the Kaiser dragon properly.
 * The genes in Breath of Fire III may also count, although they aren't required storyline-wise.
 * Guide Dang It: Present in most of the games: the requirements to obtain the dragons in Breath of Fire I, the requirements for the best ending and certain shamans in Breath of Fire II, gene combinations in Breath of Fire III, etc.
 * Health Damage Asymmetry
 * Hello, Insert Name Here
 * Heroes Prefer Swords: Every Ryu is a sword-user. The one exception is in Breath of Fire I where Ryu also has the option to wield boomerangs, complete with a different attack animation.
 * Many players tend to forget about swords once the first Boomerang is available, and continue using it until the next, and use that one until the last one. Sure, hitting 1 enemy for 150 will do more than the boomerang's 100-120, but if you have 5 enemies, 5x100 is a lot more than 150 on one enemy.
 * Heroic Mime: Nina in Dragon Quarter, and Ryu in all of the other games, though avoided in other adaptations like manga and audio CDs. Subverted in Breath of Fire I, where Ryu will occasionally put in a line or two of dialog, and in Breath of Fire IV when Ryu speaks.
 * Ryu "speaks" several times in Breath of Fire III, but only in his own mind, most often while "talking" to Peco, who is an actual silent character.
 * There are also a couple points in the first two games where Ryu speaks, both of which happen in segments where you don't control in him. The first game is a point where you control Nina and hear Ryu mutter stuff in his sleep, and in the second is in a flashback where you control his mother, and Ryu speaks normally like everyone else.
 * Hit Points
 * Hopeless Boss Fight: Another well known staple from the series starting in Breath of Fire II. Barubary's first fight and most famously Tiga in Breath of Fire II; Balio/Sunder's first fight and Garr in Breath of Fire III; Ight and Fou-Lu's first time as a Boss Fight in Breath of Fire IV.
 * Hyperactive Metabolism
 * In-Universe Game Clock: Day/Night cycles are implemented in Breath of Fire I and Breath of Fire II, and are used in a few story-related events like entering Nanai in Breath of Fire I. It was dropped since the third game.
 * Inescapable Ambush: A few rooms in Dragon Quarter will lock, fill the room with Demonic Spiders, and change the music to a sinister theme. This Is Gonna Suck.
 * Inevitable Tournament: Breath of Fire IIs Colloseum contest and Breath of Fire IIIs Arena/Genmel tournament.
 * Inexplicable Treasure Chests
 * Infinity+1 Sword: Every game has one... and it's usually not the weapon the game hints at.
 * In Breath of Fire I, there are two: the first, and the most-known, is the Tri-Rang, and has to be the easiest Infinity+1 Sword to obtain in any RPG: wait until you can fly, and just land in a certain spot and hit the "A" Button. It really is that simple. The other, a hammer, is found in the last dungeon, by checking some random pillar. It isn't the stats that's the greatest thing about this weapon; it is the fact that it casts Comet when used as an item in battle (you can also get Ryu's strongest sword weapon, the Emperor Sword, by checking a pillar in the room before the final boss; not nearly as powerful as the Tri-Rang, but still stupidly easy to get).
 * In Breath of Fire II, The game's Infinity+1 Sword is fished out of a certain fishing spot. The catch, is that you most likely need the best fishing pole, and you need flight to reach it.
 * In Breath of Fire III, there are two: one is a Randomly Drops from a very hard enemy that almost always runs away unless you know what to do; the other is dropped by an extremely powerful monster. The good news is that the monster always drops said weapon. The bad news is that the monster can easily kill you in a couple hits.
 * In Breath of Fire IV, the Infinity+1 Sword is gained through a complex fishing side-quest.
 * Informed Equipment
 * Journey to the Center of the Mind: Frequently and often a major plot point in Breath of Fire I-Breath of Fire IV.
 * Portrayed especially tragically in Breath of Fire III.
 * Ends up as frank Battle in the Center of the Mind in Breath of Fire IV . In the manga version of Breath of Fire IV (and in a story in the Breath of Fire IV anthology comic),.
 * The Kingdom: Wyndia/Winlan in its various incarnations in Breath of Fire I-Breath of Fire IV.
 * Kleptomaniac Hero
 * Knight Templar: Vexacion in Dragon Quarter qualifies in that he believes he is upholding the order of the Crapsack World in destroying Chosen of the D-constructs..
 * Last Chance Hit Point: Ryu in Breath of Fire II, everyone (with unique quotes) in Breath of Fire III.
 * Last of His Kind: Not even attempted in Breath of Fire I, where there are plenty of living dragons left. Played with in Breath of Fire II and Breath of Fire III, where Ryu appears to be the last living dragon, only to find the rest of his race hidden within a secret village. The dragons in Breath of Fire IV and Dragon Quarter are more individual Physical Gods than a "race" per se, so their low number isn't as significant.
 * Laughing Mad: Fou-lu in Breath of Fire IV.
 * Arguably a second instance in the Japanese version of Breath of Fire IV, again involving Fou-lu.
 * In Dragon Quarter, Bosch descends into this as time goes by . Bosch was also considerably broken beforehand though.
 * Rei, of all people,.
 * Legendary in the Sequel: Many of the games will reference previous titles. Breath of Fire III has a picture of the heroes from Breath of Fire I, complete with halos and characters you don't remember.
 * Living MacGuffin: Nina in Dragon Quarter. . And this started . And poor Nina.
 * Both Elina and Ryu would count in Breath of Fire IV. The game starts out with Nina and Cray trying to find the Wyndian crown princess Elina (who went missing when trying to broker a peace treaty with The Empire). The party stumbles upon Ryu, who eventually becomes a Living MacGuffin once it's revealed he is a Physical God and the Literal Split Personality of Fou-lu.
 * In the manga adaptation of Breath of Fire IV,.
 * Luck Stat: Only used in Breath of Fire I and Breath of Fire II.
 * Luke, I Am Your Father: Exemplified in Breath of Fire II. Ryu,.
 * And also in the revelation that.
 * In Breath of Fire IV,.
 * Mad Scientist: Cort from Breath of Fire I, Dr. Palet from Breath of Fire III and Lord Yuna from Breath of Fire IV.
 * Elyon is implied to have a touch of this in Dragon Quarter as well..
 * Market-Based Title: In Mandarin and Cantonese territories, Breath of Fire is known as 龙战士 (Dragon Warrior). And yes, they went with this with the Comic Book Adaptation treatments as well, both in officially licensed and Fan Translation versions, likely because a transliteration of Breath of Fire using hanzi would have been nigh unintelligible.
 * Meaningful Name: Plenty, and usually in both original and English. Just for starters, we have: Ryu = "dragon" in Japanese, Bo uses Bows, Ox is Exactly What It Says on the Tin while Builder is his his dayjob, Mogu is Mogura = "Mole" in Japanese, Sten comes from the Japanese rendering of Extend (Ekusutendo), Rand Marks and Aspara Gus are self-explanatory, etc...
 * Fou-Lu's pseudonym in Breath of Fire IV, Ryong, seems to be the Japanese pronunciation of "dragon" in Korean.
 * Ershin in Breath of Fire IV is one of the Prophetic Names. In the Japanese version, there's a pun that attaches the name Master to her, which is localized as the translation of Ershin in the Fou Empire's language.
 * Deis ALSO is one of the Prophetic Names... and one which was only revealed as prophetic in Breath of Fire III and Breath of Fire IV.
 * In the Japanese version of Breath of Fire I, the Big Bad's right-hand is named Judas. He should have reconsidered hiring him.
 * Elyon in Dragon Quarter counts in this, especially if you consider some of the Kaballah imagery.
 * Vexacion in Dragon Quarter as well.
 * Won-qu and A-tur (Fou-lu's foo-dogs or guardian lions) in Breath of Fire IV arguably are symbolically named.
 * Meditation Powerup
 * Money Spider
 * Multiple Endings: All installments tend to have a "good" ending and a "bad" ending. Breath of Fire II also has a "meh" ending.
 * Mushroom Man: One of the fusions in Breath of Fire II turns Spar (an androgynous plant man) into a cute mushroom girl.
 * Mythology Gag: Nearly every game in the franchise after the first has this to greater or lesser extent (though to be technically correct, only those occurences in Dragon Quarter and possibly Breath of Fire IV count as Mythology Gags). Of note, with a single exception, these tend to be examples based on the Japanese names and tend to be lost in the international localisation renamings Capcom is infamous for.
 * The most notable examples include Bunyan/Babaderu in Breath of Fire III and particularly Breath of Fire IV and Bosch and Lin's names in Dragon Quarter.
 * A blatant Continuity Nod example with Bow's Dub Name Change in Breath of Fire II.
 * The Dragon Tear from Breath of Fire II is the basis of an item Mythology Gag in Breath of Fire III and Breath of Fire IV (depicted as a magatama Ryu wears in Breath of Fire IV).
 * Naked on Arrival: Done twice with Ryu from Breath of Fire III and done once with Ryu from Breath of Fire IV. Also done by Deis (a.k.a. Bleu) in Breath of Fire III, who then beats the snot out of Garr without bothering to get dressed first.
 * Never the Selves Shall Meet:.
 * No Hero Discount:
 * Small aversion in the first game: one of the first things you do in the game is rid Camlon of the monster that has taken over their castle after the Dark Dragon attack. If you return later in the game, the inn only costs 1 G. Of course, by then, there are places you can go like Arad and rest for free; the real reason to head back to Camlon is to see the statue they have erected of you in the middle of town out of gratitude.
 * Non-Human Sidekick: Bow in Breath of Fire II, but there are almost no really "human" characters in the entire series, including Ryu himself, until Dragon Quarter.
 * If you think about it, they're almost all human, as there seems to be a stable social mix of them in almost every society in the series. Bow is essentially human too.
 * Nonstandard Game Over
 * No Stat Atrophy
 * Novelization: Breath of Fire III and Breath of Fire IV have novelisations. Unfortunately, as with practically all merchandising material for Breath of Fire, these are Japan-only; even worse, there is no known Fan Translation.
 * The Breath of Fire III novel (Breath of Fire III - Childhood Chapter) focuses largely on events from the early part of the game.
 * The Breath of Fire IV novel (Breath of Fire IV: The Unfading Ones - The Arukai Dragon) is a fairly straight Novelization in roughly the same way the manga of Breath of Fire IV is.
 * One-Time Dungeon: Nanai and the dungeon beneath it are destroyed after you leave. Neither Mogu nor Mote's dream dungeons can be re-entered once you complete them. The Goddess' Tower is also destroyed.
 * One-Winged Angel: With about four exceptions, every single boss from at least Breath of Fire I-Breath of Fire III. Since quite a few of them were known to throw vicious Player Punches before you finally got to fight them, taking down yet another generic giant monster that happens to have their name on it this time instead of the evil tormenting form you're used to can be somewhat unsatisfying.
 * Our Dragons Are Different: Each dragon form you can take has a different appearance, as well as move set and strength. The Myrmidon form is essentially a Half-Human Hybrid, while the Kaiser form is a (golden) Western dragon.
 * The Dark Dragons in Breath of Fire I generally play very fast and loose with the definition of "dragon"..
 * This extends to the NPC dragons in Breath of Fire IV, based largely on Eastern dragons..
 * Also played with in a different fashion in Dragon Quarter..
 * Peninsula of Power Leveling: The Pagoda Island in Breath of Fire I, Monster Island in Breath of Fire II and, with proper preparation, Mt. Zublo in Breath of Fire III.
 * Also, in Breath of Fire I, at one point, the hero winds up in an area all alone, allowing him to get an entire party's worth of EXP by himself, fighting enemies that aren't all that hard to defeat. This also happens again later on, except Ryu and Nina are together.
 * Going on a similar point as the above, going to a certain floor of the desert dungeon before going into the sea, you have 4 people in the group. Finding 3 gold slimes on that floor gives more EXP than the best EXP fight in the game (except for the monster gold slime which is far too rare), so you could level Ryu, Nina, Bo and Karn to Level 99 faster than you could level the entire party in the last dungeon.
 * In Breath of Fire IV, you can use the same XP splitting exploit, by having Ryu learn Burn and having him go to the dungeon in the plains before he is supposed to. Since entering the plains causes Ryu to be solo, you can split him up from the rest of the party any time at your leisure. Burn costs almost nothing to cast, and the enemies there are weak against it, to boot.
 * Petting Zoo People: Interesting in that in Breath of Fire I-Breath of Fire IV, the people lose their animal characteristics and become more human-like.
 * All the same though in the first four games, it is actually easier to list what kinds of Petting Zoo People do not appear in the games. If anything, it's more of a transition from flat-out furries to kemonomimi.
 * Breath of Fire IILampshades this in that you actually recruit Spar in a petting zoo.
 * Plant Person: Spar/Aspara in Breath of Fire II, Peco in Breath of Fire III.
 * Taken to extremes with Su Ryong/Kenki and Cho Ryong/Taapu in Breath of Fire IV who are literal plant dragons (of trees and grass, and by extension, forests and grasslands, respectively).
 * Power Copying: Learning skills from enemies is a staple since Breath of Fire III. Dragon Quarter presents a variation, where some (if not most) of the characters' skills are stolen (as actual items) from enemies.
 * Powered by a Forsaken Child: The Hex Cannon/Carronade in Breath of Fire IV uses people who are kidnapped and tortured to the point of insanity as the literal warheads.
 * Portrayed in especially tragic means (both literally and figuratively).
 * A Protagonist Is Ryu: A textbook example, and quite likely a co-Trope Namer with a certain other Ryu in another Capcom franchise.
 * Random Encounters
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Every game in the series has at least one.
 * Breath of Fire I-Breath of Fire III has Deis. Definitely in the "thousands of years old" range by Breath of Fire III, per at least some timelines potentially far older. There's also Tyr/Myria.
 * Breath of Fire IV has Fou-lu (canonically 600 years old and also a case of Immortality Begins At Twenty) and everyone who lives in Chek besides the Abbess (everyone living there is implied to at least be an adult, if not truly ancient individuals, but all look around seven years of age).
 * Dragon Quarter has Elyon (canonically 1000 years old despite looking in his mid-twenties, mildly averted ) and Cupid (who looks in hir early teens but is nearly as old as Elyon per Word Of Capcom).
 * It is also implied heavily that all of the Regents fall under this trope. Confirmed "far older than they look" Regents or former Regents include Mebeth, Vexacion , and Deamoned.
 * Recurring Element: Quite a few; see the description.
 * Redemption Equals Death: in Breath of Fire I,  in The Dragon Warrior manga,  in Breath of Fire II,  in Breath of Fire III.
 * Revive Kills Zombie: A typical technique on the series: Breath of Fire I started out with three spells known as Zom1/2/X, and from Breath of Fire II onwards they were replaced by the Kyrie (Angel in Breath of Fire II) spell.
 * Starting in Breath of Fire III, healing spells will also deal damage to undead enemies.
 * Case most damningly proven when, in Breath of Fire III or Breath of Fire IV, you encounter a group of zombies lead by a ZombieDr. Beat up his comrades enough, and he'll cast the game's most powerful group-healing spell to get them back on their feet. Needless to say... doesn't quite work as intended.
 * Rival: in Dragon Quarter; also a borderline Arch Enemy.
 * Rodents of Unusual Size: Giant cockroaches have been in every game on the series sans Dragon Quarter. In Breath of Fire III, there were Giant cockroaches that can jump several hundred feet in the air and crush you flat upon landing.
 * Subverted in Breath of Fire I, as they were normal sized, you were the small one, and Breath of Fire IV, when Nina is shrunk by some faeries and battles a normal-sized swallow.
 * For NPC examples, Dragon Quarter allows you to recruit ants as grunts in the fairy colony.
 * Royals Who Actually Do Something: Except in Breath of Fire II (where Nina is exiled) and Dragon Quarter (where she's not a princess), all other Ninas are quite pro-active when it comes to do something.
 * Breath of Fire I: Nina takes the initative to obtain the cure for her father's poison.
 * Breath of Fire III: Nina is sent to handle the investigation and arrest of McNeil and takes the initiative to deal with the situation at the Chrysm Crop plant.
 * Breath of Fire IV: Nina takes the initiative to find her missing sister Elina, who went to broker a peace treaty with the Fou Empire and put an end to their 600-year-plus cycle of running Hot and Cold Wars.
 * Sand Is Water: Dragons can swim through it, in fact.
 * Sealed Evil in a Can: in Breath of Fire I, and  in Breath of Fire II.
 * Shout-Out: The ending credits of Breath of Fire II gave full names or at least first name and surname initials to every character in the game ever, NPCs included. The great majority of these were references to people and characters from just about anything: other Capcom games, real people, TV characters, music bands, etc. Bizarrely, many of them were references to western people that were not added by translation. In fact, the game is filled with reverse cases of Bilingual Bonus moments that its original Japanese audience probably never figured it out. To name a few:
 * The name "Tiga" is a bad romanization of "Tiger", but the credits show that there's an extra "g" in his name. Yes, that one. In fact, the entire resistance is named after Disney characters.
 * There is a woman in the first town that has a peculiarly slightly-darker skin tone than the rest of the area's NPCs, her name is Whoopi. According to the credits, her last name starts with a G.
 * The monster Algernon, as well as its two allies who fight with it, are shout-outs to the book Flowers for Algernon and its writer Daniel Keyes respectively (the latter cases being respectively scrambled and a Sdrawkcab Name in Japanese in the game).
 * One of the weirdest shout outs in Breath of Fire III: Balio and Sunder's Fusion Dance Stallion. He not only resembles a certain Kaiju hero, he attacks and moves like one too.
 * In probably one of the more obscure examples, the manga adaptation of Breath of Fire IV has shout-outs: to an earlier, Capcom-licensed Breath of Fire IV anthology comic published in 2000.
 * Another manga-related shoutout, this time from the GBA re-release of Breath of Fire I: Jiiku/Sieg and Rai's names are shout-outs to the characters Sieg and Raifel from the Princess of the Wings Comic Book Adaptation of the (original) Breath of Fire.
 * In Breath of Fire IV, the names of the monsters Rasso summons can be lined up to spell "Joy Mecha Fight", an obscure Famicom game released by Nintendo.
 * It's been suggested the name of the Kaiser Dragon is itself a Shout-Out to the Kaiser Dragon classic car.
 * Sidekick Ex Machina:
 * Subjected to overt Affectionate Parody in the "[[Omake Behind-The-Cover Comic" (yonkomas contained UNDER the dust covers) of volume 3 of the manga adaptation. Ryu actually calls Rasso out as OKAMA. Ryu tends to be prone to this in the "Behind The Cover" yonkomas. In one of the "Behind The Cover" comics in volume 5, Ryu also ultimately calls Fou-lu out as "Ikemen" (translated as "Cool Guy") in a remarkably similar manner.
 * Sole Entertainment Option: At first, there appears to be only the Contest of Champions to take people's minds off of things (and after the Time Skip it ceases to run). But after the Time Skip, Ryu's journey takes him to Syn City, the "illegal" town, which seems to have an active red-light district. The implication is that the citizens of the world have the world's oldest pastime to entertain themselves. (Let us ignore the Squick factor of there being only one hooker and instead extrapolate the existence of others!)
 * Spell My Name with an "S": The goddess Tyr/Myria, depending on which of the first 3 games you're playing.
 * Sprite Polygon Mix: Breath of Fire III notably had this. Breath of Fire IV too, but the art styles were better matched.
 * Standard RPG Items
 * Standard Status Effects: Common in all games are the classics like "Poison", "Sleep", "Confuse" and "Paralyzed". Then there's others like "Curse" (Breath of Fire I, Breath of Fire II and Breath of Fire IV), Silent (all but Breath of Fire I) and "Euphoria" (Breath of Fire IV).
 * Summon Magic: The dragon system in Breath of Fire II and Breath of Fire IV; faeries in Breath of Fire IV.
 * Sweat Drop: Used to comedic effect in Breath of Fire II. Hitting certain NPCs and objects in Breath of Fire III and Breath of Fire IV will cause them to react in this way.
 * Theme Naming:
 * Literally, the only ones not fitting into this is Vexacion (who is Exactly What It Says on the Tin) and Mebeth (a Japanification of Macbeth).
 * Breath of Fire IV had a lot of fun with this in general for setting up Stealth Punchlines.
 * The first syllable of the names of the children in the Synesta orphanage spell out (in Japanese) a phrase reading roughly "I'm just lining up all these kid's names...".
 * As noted in the Shout-Out entry, Rasso's summons (giant hulking animated suits of armor) spell out (in Japanese) "Joy Mecha Fight".
 * Breath of Fire III had many of its faeries named for various types of fly-fishing lures.
 * Breath of Fire III also had a not-terribly-obscure-in-its-own-country Shout-Out with the original names of Kukuys (Kukurusu) and Doan. This is a reference to the Mobile Suit Gundam episode "Cucuruz Doan's Island", and was likely renamed in the English version because this episode at is still in Keep Circulating the Tapes mode (reportedly the episode has never been translated to English on Tomino's direct order as he feels "Cucuruz Doan's Island" was substandard and essentially filler).
 * Breath of Fire I has one with Bo's japanese name Gilliam and the son of his tribe's chief Terry. Put them together, and you get Terry Gilliam.
 * Extensively in Dragon Quarter. Check that entry for details.
 * Time Skip: Following the prologue in Breath of Fire II and halfway through Breath of Fire III.
 * Toilet Humour: In Breath of Fire II and Breath of Fire IV. Made even more impressive in that in both cases, these are essential parts of the plot.
 * Including a dungeon in Breath of Fire II entered by jumping in a toilet.
 * In Breath of Fire III, there's a scene where Sunder is surprised while he's taking a leak.
 * And in Breath of Fire IV... well... let's just say to reforge the King's Sword, there's a fetch quest. Involving meeting up with fairies and obtaining fairy turds as a material component to alloy with the steel in the sword. Scias is horrified.
 * Token Human: Ryu isn't completely human, but he's close enough to pass as one and believe he's completely human until his dragon clan powers are awakened.
 * He's often a Half-Human Hybrid, so is technically this trope. In Breath of Fire V, the rare furries were NPCs. In Breath of Fire I and Breath of Fire II, they were mostly nonhumans, but there was Karn/Danc in Breath of Fire I. Breath of Fire III had a tiger, a Winged Humanoid, a Kitsune-type creature, and an angel who seemed to be equine with avain elements, with an onion as the Team Pet. In Breath of Fire IV, it was kitsune, dog, tiger, Winged Humanoid and Robot Buddy.
 * Took a Level in Badass: Happens to Ryu when he gets to transform into a dragon. Peco in Breath of Fire III gets the ability to On top of that, he also !
 * Also happens to Ershin in Breath of Fire IV. She gets a whole new set of powerful spells mid-way through the game.
 * Arguably in Dragon Quarter, though in his case it's the result of a Deadly Upgrade.
 * Transformation Sequence
 * Turns Red: Every damn boss in Breath of Fire I, as well as a few in Breath of Fire II. The final boss of Breath of Fire I has almost three times as many HP after she Turns Red.
 * Underground Monkey
 * Unstoppable Rage: Ryu in Breath of Fire II ; Rei in Breath of Fire III ; Ryu's first transformation into the Kaiser Dragon in Breath of Fire IV.
 * Voluntary Shapeshifting: Plenty of characters and clans have the ability to shapeshift into other forms. The various dragon forms of Ryu are the best example.
 * Warp Whistle: The Warp/Shift spell (Hyuuru in Japanese) in all games but Breath of Fire III and Dragon Quarter (Breath of Fire IV has it as a map skill rather than spell though). Breath of Fire III makes due with teleporters spread all over the world for easy transportation.
 * We Buy Anything
 * The World Tree: Gandaroof from Breath of Fire II and Yggdrasil from Breath of Fire III. There are also several "lesser" Yggdrasil spread over the world in both games.
 * Wrap Around: The world from Breath of Fire I and Breath of Fire II. Breath of Fire III and onwards limited themselves with a flat map with unrecheable borders.
 * The X of Y
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Examples of both the "Plausible" and "Impossible" subtropes, and something of a tradition in the series.
 * In Breath of Fire I-Breath of Fire IV, Ryu has blue hair. Justified and quite plausible, in that . Bleu/Deis also qualifies for identical reasons.
 * Ryu in Dragon Quarter has dark blue-black hair instead.
 * There are also other characters with odd-colored hair, including Teepo's purple and Mikba's green from Breath of Fire III.
 * Of course, given the nature of the various races in the series, odd hair color is a fairly minor thing. Blue hair's a fair bit less strange than, say, fish-people.