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 Play Station 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 Play Station 2, and a radical departure for the series, both in gameplay and setting. Ryu attemps to escape a grimy, Diesel Punk-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.

This series provides examples of:

 * All in A Row
 * All There in the Manual: In the case of IV and (to a slightly lesser extent) DQ, 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:
 * I-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 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 I and II. Mind you, the Ryu in I could give Conan a run for his money.
 * A Protagonist Is Ryu: A textbook example, and quite likely a co-Trope Namer with a certain other Ryu in another Capcom franchise.
 * Arbitrary Headcount Limit: II and 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 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 I and III; thought Killed Off for Real in I, came Back From the Dead in III.
 * Arguably Fou-lu in IV, but more of an explicit subversion of King in The Mountain.
 * Belligerent Sexual Tension:
 * Rei and Momo in III.
 * The manga adaptation of I turns Ryu and Nina into something like this.
 * Big Bad:
 * I: Zog appears to be this at first, but it turns out that was the one pulling the strings.
 * II:
 * III:
 * 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 III, the names of the ghosts in McNeil Manor in Japanese are references to business concepts.
 * Also in III, most characters related to the port city of Raphala are references to fishing terms, fishing lures or actual fish.
 * In IV, names rendered in kanji were renamed to their Korean hanja readings for international versions. The puns still stay intact.
 * Also shows up in DQ in a manner combining names and Russian counting.
 * Most of the Creative Closing Credits in II are so chock-full of western culture references that it probably went over most japanese's heads.
 * Biological Mashup: In I and II, fusion is a very powerful technique to temporarily create strong characters. In 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 I, and much much worse in 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 II. Other well-known examples are the Archmage and Berserker from III and the Rider from 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 I, mostly subverted in II, a gender-swap with DQ, and more than made up with in IV (to the point fans wonder if the group handling IV's internationalization was slipped the old Nintendo Guidelines by mistake). Check their respective pages for more detail.
 * Breath Weapon: Well, obviously...
 * Broken Bridge: I and III have a few literal examples (I in special is littered with them). There are also other examples in the other games, like the Imperial Causeway in IV.
 * Cain and Abel:
 * The Cameo: Every game after the first has cameo appearances from previous game's party members: II has Karn and Bo, III has Mogu, Gary (Gill in japanese, short for Gilliam/Bo), Worker (japanese name Builder/Ox), Bow and Jean; and IV has Rei, Teepo and Momo (which doubles as a master). DQ has its cameo in a bit more obscure form--the puppet-girl instructors from 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 I; once you have at least five party members, it is possible to switch Ryu out of the main fighting party.
 * 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 III in a hidden bonus level of Pocket Fighter, Ryu and Nina cards (from IV) in the extremely obscure game SN Kvs 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 SN Kvs 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 III, and Lin from Dragon Quarter.
 * Chain of Deals: Present in the first four games, but especially and painfully so in I.
 * Combos: There's a "Super Combo" Skill in III; in IV onwards, its part of the gameplay.
 * Character Level
 * Comic Book Adaptation: Quite a number of them, actually--two separate manga adaptations and an official sidestory for I and a manga adaptation for 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 I exists (Breath of Fire Part 2: Little Adventurer)
 * The IV manga Utsurowazarumono: Breath Of Fire IV; "Utsurowazarumono" 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 IV's release in Japan.
 * Note here that these are only listings of Capcom-directed adaptations (aka 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 IV (which has both serious and parody stories).
 * Multiple Yonkoma collections for III (one) and 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 BoF-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 IV, and some material from the IV anthology comic.
 * Contemptible Cover: The infamous, Conan the Barbarian-esque box art for the international releases of I and II respectively.
 * Continuing Is Painful: of two different flavors:
 * In III and 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 I, it was mostly an ability used by a few characters like Ryu and Karn's Puka form. From '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: II has this in spades and IV has an arguable case with Eastern religions (particularly Taoism, Buddhism and pre-Taoist shamanic practices) rather than Christianity.
 * Death of the Old Gods: '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 I, an Optional Party Member in II, a Master in III, a NPC in 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.
 * Development Hell: Arguably, the entire series has essentially been in Development Hell since 2003 or so, and particularly any plans for a Breath of Fire VI.
 * Camelot Games in particular (who has done game development for Capcom and is best known for the Golden Sun series) has in particular expressed interest in writing a new Breath of Fire, but Capcom isn't biting at their offer.
 * In a different flavour of Development Hell, the PSP port of III ended up as a No Export for You (though region free and easily imported) for North American audiences thanks to Sony Entertainment US's port requirements . Of note, no other division of Sony Entertainment has this strict of a rule on console ports...
 * There are also licensing issues surrounding I (for which Square did the translation) which may complicate any further remakes and ports.
 * Even cameos related to Breath of Fire seem to be stuck in Development Hell, as noted in the Capcom vs. Whatever listing.
 * Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu: Most notable in I-III. (In IV, technically ; in Dragon Quarter,
 * Disc One Nuke: Surprisingly in 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 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 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 I, Ray in II, in III and Yohm in 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 I and IV having the most extensive. (Of note, this seems to be a common curse among all games produced by Capcom and released internationally.)
 * In 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 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 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 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 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: I has unused items, spells and locations; II has unused spells; III has unused spells, voice clips, a few items and a chunk of unused dialogue; IV has unused spells and some items, one of which was a bonus from a japanese magazine.
 * An Economy Is You
 * Elite Tweak: Started with Shamans in II, then progressed to the Master/Skill System from III onward.
 * Everythings 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: II and IV in particular has a ton of these.
 * The Fou Empire in IV is explicitly a fantastic version of imperial-era China (most likely the Qin Dynasty) or imperial-era Korea.
 * Arguably, Ludia in 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 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 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 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 III and DQ have an in-game world map which fills up as the party travels through it.
 * Fan Translation: II's translation was rather poorly done, with bland dialogue and many references removed. So a retranslation patch was made, rewriting the script from the ground up and adding some features the original lacked, such as a dash button. It also restored features the german translation (which served as its base) removed, such as the ability to buy items in bulk.
 * Scanlation has also been done with much of the material in official artbooks and manga adaptations, particularly the manga adaptation of IV (largely because, of course, the artbooks were Japan-only and the manga has not yet been licensed in English).
 * Fast Forward Mechanic: The main character has a spell to do this.
 * Fishing Minigame: A series staple starting with II, although fishing also existed as an automated process in I.
 * III in particular has been heavily enamoured of this trope, even using it for Theme Naming and extras. The fishing minigame in 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.
 * IV actually had its fishing minigame released as a Gaiden Game for Japanese cell phones.
 * DQ 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:
 * II has one in its prologue.
 * III has the Hopeless Boss Fights against Balio and Sunder and Garr respectively.
 * 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: I-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 IV), arguably the Creeper Clan (frog people).
 * Fairy: Wyndians (the actual fairies are more an example of Fairy/Cute); some would argue Endless in IV fit here (or in "High Men" or a combination of the above).
 * Cute: The fairies, the PabPab in IV, quite possibly the entire population of Chek (in a combination of Cute/High Men), Highlanders.
 * Stouts: The Woren/Furen, Grassrunners (particularly in 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 I-III, Chek's entire population, the Guardians.
 * Five Token Band: In III, you have Ryu, a dragon who looks like a human - or not, because in 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 II and I, Rei and to a lesser extent Momo and Nina in III, everyone in IV.
 * Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Garr in III.
 * Furry Fandom: Look at Bo, Ox, and Mogu in I, Tiga in II, and your entire party in II and III, and not come to this conclusion.
 * While 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 DQ tend to be NPCs.
 * Fusion Dance: Danc/Karn, in I, the Shamans in II, Balio and Sunder in III.
 * Game Breaker: Needless to say. Check individual work entries for details.
 * The Kaiser transformations are gamebreakers in nearly every entry, particularly in III and IV. Once you get these dragons under your control, WHOAH.
 * Getting Crap Past the Radar: A lot of it in 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, 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 re: religion to the level 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 Plus 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: I and II have been rather original in these regards: I has and, whereas II makes use of a whale,   and a flying city. Dropped off since III.
 * The Goomba: The "Goo"-type enemies have been the series' starting Random Encounters since the beginning; though their appearance and name debuted in II, with the first game having eyeless versions named "Slimes".
 * Gotta Catch Them All: in 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 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 I, the requirements for the best ending and certain shamans in II, gene combinations in III, etc.
 * Health Damage Asymmetry
 * Hello Insert Name Here
 * Heroes Prefer Swords: Every Ryu is a sword-user. The one exception is in 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 I, where Ryu will occasionally put in a line or two of dialog, and in IV when Ryu speaks
 * Ryu "speaks" several times in 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 II. Barubary's first fight and most famously Tiga in II; Balio/Sunder's first fight and Garr in III; Ight and Fou-Lu's first time as a Boss Fight in IV.
 * Hyperactive Metabolism
 * 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: II's Colloseum contest and III's Arena/Genmel tournament.
 * In Universe Game Clock: Day/Night cycles are implemented in I and II, and are used in a few story-related events like entering Nanai in I. It was dropped since the third game.
 * Infinity Plus One Sword: Every game has one...and it's usually not the weapon the game hints at.
 * In I, there are two: The first, and the most-known, is the Tri-Rang, and has to be the easiest Infinity Plus One 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 II, The game's Infinity Plus One 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 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, the monster can easily kill you in a couple hits.
 * In IV, the Infinity Plus One Sword is gained through a complex fishing side-quest.
 * Inexplicable Treasure Chests
 * Informed Equipment
 * Journey to The Center of The Mind: Frequently and often a major plot point in I-IV.
 * Portrayed especially tragically in III
 * Ends up as frank Battle in The Center of The Mind in IV In the manga version of IV (and in a story in the IV anthology comic)
 * Keep Circulating the Tapes: Presently the case for Dragon Quarter (the only game in the franchise that so far has never been re-released), Fan Translation I with the non-Woolseyism names, Fan Translation of II, III in North American markets.
 * Arguably the entire franchise was in this state in North America for the better part of 8 years, save for I and II's GBA ports and II's Wii Virtual Console re-release (the last game in the franchise was released in 2003 and, thanks to SEUS, the remake of III ended up being No Export for You). IV saw re-release on Playstation Network as a "PS One Classic" in September 2011, but has never had a non-PSN re-release in North America; Breath of Fire III" has still not seen a North America re-release, not even as a PS One Classic. Fortunately, the PSP Euro version of III'' is playable on North American PS Ps due to the lack of region encoding.
 * The Comic Blade Avarus Comic Book Adaptation of IV is technically in this state in non-Francophone, non-Cantonese territories and is only available in English and Portugese via Fan Translation.
 * The Kingdom: Wyndia/Winlan in its various incarnations in I-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 2, Everyone (with unique quotes) in 3.
 * Last of His Kind: Not even attempted in I, where there are plenty of living dragons left. Played with in II and 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 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 IV
 * Arguably a second instance in the Japanese version of 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. III has a picture of the heroes from 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 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 IV
 * Luke I Am Your Father: Exemplified in II. Ryu,
 * And also in the revelation that
 * In IV,
 * Luck Stat: Only used in I and II.
 * Mad Scientist: Cort from I, Dr. Palet from III and Lord Yuna from 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 IV, Ryong, seems to be the Japanese pronunciation of "dragon" in Korean.
 * Ershin in 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 III and IV.
 * In the Japanese version of 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 DQ as well
 * Won-qu and A-tur (Fou-lu's foo-dogs or guardian lions) in IV arguably are symbolically named.
 * Meditation Powerup
 * Money Spider
 * Mushroom Man: One of the fusions in II turns Spar (an androgynous plant man) into a cute mushroom girl.
 * Multiple Endings: All installments tend to have a "good" ending and a "bad" ending. II also has a "meh" ending.
 * 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 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 III and particularly IV and Bosch and Lin's names in Dragon Quarter.
 * A blatant Continuity Nod example with Bow's Dub Name Change in II
 * The Dragon Tear from II is the basis of an item Mythology Gag in III and IV (depicted as a magatama Ryu wears in IV).


 * Naked On Arrival: Done twice with Ryu from III and done once with Ryu from IV. Also done by Deis (AKA Bleu) in III, who then beats the snot out of Garr without bothering to get dressed first.
 * Names the Same/One Mario Limit: Aside from the in-series examples...there's both another Ryu that is a ninja, and a Ryu that is a martial artist. The latter also came from Capcom
 * Never the Selves Shall Meet:.
 * No Export for You: The PSP-port of III. Maddeningly, even though it was translated into complete English for an European release, Sony's US division requires a content increase of 20% for a rerelease; so even though it was originally intended to be released Stateside, Sony gave them the shaft...
 * Two Gaiden Game sidestories to IV plus two other IV-related spinoffs (a port of the Fishing Minigame and a Great Dalmuti/Millionaire game with BoF IV chars) never have been released outside Japan for the same reason (Japanese smartphone only).
 * The Windows port of IV was, similar to the PSP-port of III, only released in Europe and Asia. This, unlike the situation with the PSP-port of III, was apparently Capcom's decision.
 * Breath of Fire, as a series, does have a decent amount of written spinoff material (in the case of manga adaptions of I and II, this even goes into Expanded Universe territory, and definitely so with the artbooks in later games). And pretty much with the exception of game playthrough guides, every bit of it is Japan-only.
 * The sole exception is with the Comic Blade Avarus manga adaptation of IV, which has a licensed Chinese translation via Tong Li Publishing (as of September 2009) and a licensed French version published by Ki-oon (as of February 2010). Needless to say, hope is springing eternal there will eventually be a licensed English version as well, and there is an active effort by the English-language BoF fandom to get potential licensees interested.
 * 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 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: III and 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 III novel (Breath of Fire III - Childhood Chapter) focuses largely on events from the early part of the game.
 * The 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 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 I-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 I generally play very fast and loose with the definition of "dragon".
 * This extends to the NPC dragons in IV, based largely on Eastern dragons.
 * Also played with in a different fashion in Dragon Quarter.
 * Peninsula of Power Leveling: The Pagoda Island in I, Monster Island in II and, with proper preparation, Mt. Zublo in III.
 * Also, in 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 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 I-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.
 * BoFIILampshades this in that you actually recruit Spar in a petting zoo.
 * Plant Person: Spar/Aspara in II, Peco in III.
 * Taken to extremes with Su Ryong/Kenki and Cho Ryong/Taapu in IV who are literal plant dragons (of trees and grass, and by extension, forests and grasslands, respectively).
 * Powered By a Forsaken Child: The Hex Cannon/Carronade in 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) [[spoiler:in Mami's torture and death.
 * Power Copying: Learning skills from enemies is a staple since III. Dragon Quarter presents a variation, where some (if not most) of the characters' skills are stolen (as actual items) from enemies.
 * Random Encounters
 * Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Every game in the series has at least one.
 * I-III has Deis. Definitely in the "thousands of years old" range by III, per at least some timelines potentially far older. There's also Tyr/Myria.
 * 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).
 * DQ 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 I,  in The Dragon Warrior manga,  in II,   in III.
 * Revive Kills Zombie: A typical technique on the series: I started out with three spells known as Zom1/2/X, and from II onwards they were replaced by the Kyrie (Angel in II) spell.
 * Starting in III, healing spells will also deal damage to undead enemies.
 * Case most damningly proven when, in III or 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 DQ. In III, there were Giant cockroaches that can jump several hundred feet in the air and crush you flat upon landing.
 * Subverted in I, as they were normal sized, you were the small one; and IV, when Nina is shrunk by some faeries and battles a normal-sized swallow.
 * For NPC examples, DQ allows you to recruit ants as grunts in the fairy colony.
 * Royals Who Actually Do Something: Except in II (where Nina is exiled) and DQ (where she's not a princess), all other Ninas are quite pro-active when it comes to do something.
 * I: Nina takes the initative to obtain the cure for her father's poison.
 * 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.
 * 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 I, and  in II.
 * Shout Out: The ending credits of 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 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 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 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 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 III 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: III notably had this. 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" (I, II and IV), Silent (all but I) and "Euphoria" (IV).
 * Sweat Drop: Used to comedic effect in II. Hitting certain NPCs and objects in III and IV will cause them to react in this way.
 * Summon Magic: The dragon system in II and IV; faeries in IV.
 * 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").
 * 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".
 * III had many of its faeries named for various types of fly-fishing lures.
 * 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).
 * 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 DQ. Check that entry for details.
 * Time Skip: Following the prologue in II and halfway through III.
 * Toilet Humour: In II and IV. Made even more impressive in that in both cases, these are essential parts of the plot.
 * Including a dungeon in II entered by jumping in a toilet.
 * In III, there's a scene where Sunder is surprised while he's taking a leak.
 * And in 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 V, the rare furries were NPCs. In I and II, they were mostly nonhumans, but there was Karn/Danc in I. 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 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 III gets the ability to On top of that, he also
 * Also happens to Ershin in 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 I, as well as a few in II. The final boss of I has almost three times as many HP after she Turns Red.
 * Underground Monkey
 * Unstoppable Rage: Ryu in II ; Rei in III ; Ryu's first transformation into the Kaiser Dragon in 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 III and DQ (IV has it as a map skill rather than spell, though). III makes due with teleporters spread all over the world for easy transportation.
 * We Buy Anything
 * Wrap Around: The world from I and II. III and onwards limited themselves with a flat map with unrecheable borders.
 * The World Tree: Gandaroof from II and Yggdrasil from III. There are also several "lesser" Yggdrasil spread over the world in both games.
 * 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 I-IV, Ryu has blue hair. Justified and quite plausible, in that . Bleu/Deis also qualifies for identical reasons.
 * Ryu in DQ has dark blue-black hair instead.
 * There are also other characters with odd-colored hair, including Teepo's purple and Mikba's green from 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.