Breath of Fire IV



The fourth game in the long-running JRPG series Breath of Fire, released on the Playstation in April 2000 in Japan and November 2000 for North America. It's a well-done fan favourite despite its very by-the-book nature due to the fact that the next entry in the series is a noted Base Breaker and a very non-traditional JRPG.

Nina, princess of Wyndia, departs with her childhood friend Cray to search for her lost sister Elina, who's also Cray's fiance. Along the way, they stumble upon Ryu, who doesn't remember a thing besides his name: not who he is, or why he's stranded and stark naked in the middle of the desert.

Running parallel to Ryu's story is that of Fou-lu, an ancient emperor who awakens in his burial tomb halfway across the world in the Fou Empire to reclaim the throne that he left behind 600 years ago. Unfortunately for him, those involved no longer want to give the power up to anyone, not even to an ancient god-emperor and founder of the empire.

As the story progresses and our heroes travel all over the world, it becomes clear that Ryu and Fou-lu's destinies are intricately entwined and key to Ryu's memories.

There exists a character sheet for the series. Place any character-related tropes there.

Re-released as "PSOne Classic" in August 2011.

"Scias: You will feel my blade..."
 * Adaptation Distillation: The manga adaptation, mainly because it averts the Heroic Mime trope. Arguable still, something is missing in IV when it doesn't go with the soundtracks.
 * Adaptation Dye Job: The Grand Finale in the manga, when Ryu.
 * Adaptation Expansion: The manga adaptation of IV, again. Arguably a case of Adaptation Expansion resulting from a double-dose of Adaptation Distillation, in fact (from both the original Breath of Fire IV and Expanded Universe material from its official art book).
 * Alas, Poor Villain: Assuming Fou-lu in IV is considered a villain (as opposed to Complete Monster Yuna), he'd qualify in the "good ending". Of course, the manga
 * All in a Row
 * All There in the Manual: This is pretty extensive; huge amounts of backgrounder info only appear in the artbook.
 * Ancient Tomb: The Emperor's Tomb.
 * Bag of Sharing: At one point the player gets to control Ershin alone, and she gets the whole inventory even though the rest of the part is out adventuring (and has access to it the moment the player retakes control of it).
 * Averted with Fou-Lu's segments, where he has his own inventory. Which makes things a bit harder, since he can't buy anything and healing items are incredibly rare in his areas.
 * Battle Theme Music: Two, actually (for the Eastern and Western continents respectively).
 * Beautiful Dreamer
 * BFS: Myrmidon is big already, but his sword dwarfs him. And it grows even bigger when he attacks!
 * Big Bad: Fou-Lu, to the party.
 * Big Damn Fire Exit: Fou-Lu's escape from the burning forest.
 * Big No:
 * Bilingual Bonus: Names rendered in kanji were renamed to their Korean hanja readings for international versions. The puns still stay intact. Also, both the original Japanese name and the Dub Name Change to Ershin count (in fact, the reason for the Dub Name Change was to preserve the Bilingual Bonus—in another language; the original Bilingual Bonus was in English).
 * Blood From the Mouth: In one of the few notably controversial scenes not censored, Fou-lu has Blood From the Mouth in an overt bloody Vomit Indiscretion Shot after his It's implied this may be actually a bit of Fantastic Radiation Poisoning.
 * Body Horror: reaches nightmarish levels.
 * Bonus Boss: Angler, a mutated fish monster in North Chamba. It is far from the most difficult opponent (and reveals a new fishing spot upon its defeat).
 * Boss in Mook Clothing: Rider.
 * Bowdlerized: One of the most infamous cases (if not the most infamous) in the series. The largely unnecessary changes include:
 * Several scenes were completely removed from the North American version: one where Ursula drops her pants to prove she's a woman, a scene in which, a filler scene where Ryu spies on the girls while they bathe, and and another where he accidentally grabs Ursula's breast.
 * Scias is a literal Drunken Master in the original Japanese game, changed to a severe stuttering problem in the English localization.
 * Fou-lu's Serpent dragon form from "Hellblizzard" (Japanese) to "Waterspout" (international). Explicitly bowdlerized because of the use of the word "hell". In fact, practically every spell, weapon or ability with the words "Death" or "Hell" or making reference to demon names was changed in the international localization.
 * The massive incidents of bowdlerization in the international version of IV are particularly puzzling (regarding Scias and the Aborted Arc Via Censorship), considering the game was released for a platform specifically known for being friendly to controversial games. Worse yet, no other games have similarly been censored (save for Cupid's sex change); most infamously, II got away with practically everything that was censored in IV. In other words, there really is no logical reason why it went through a Nintendo-esque hack job (not even fear of an "M" rating from ratings boards).
 * Broken Bridge
 * Bubblegloop Swamp
 * The Cameo: Momo, Bunyan(which show up as masters), Rei and Teepo.
 * Can't Drop the Hero: Subverted. While Ryu does have to remain in your party while moving around outside of battle, you're not required to use him in battle once you've got more than 3 characters in your party.
 * Cast from Hit Points: The "Blitz" skill consumes 25% of the user's current HP to inflict damage. The "Disembowel" and "Deathbringer" skills cost 10% of the user's maximum HP, even when they fail to work. (Maximum HP can be restored, but only at a genuine Trauma Inn; resting at camp won't do.)
 * Chain of Deals: Various characters will exchange "Ball" items (Lead Ball, Copper Ball, etc.) throughout the game. This becomes useful when apprenticing under Marlok, who rewards the player with new skills depending on which ball the player has acquired.
 * Comic Book Adaptation: Of note, the sole Breath of Fire-related Comic Book Adaptation ever licensed outside of Japan (in Cantonese and French, though not yet in English).
 * Combination Attack
 * Completely Different Title: the manga adaptation is officially called Utsurowazarumono - Breath of Fire IV in Japan, while the source material is present as a subtitle in the proper official name, many references and print information that the publisher makes to referece the manga only uses Utsurowazarumono, so is not unheard of some people not knowing that the manga known as Utsurowazarumono is the fourth Breath of Fire game's official adaptation.
 * Con Lang: The PabPab language in IV (which is also used as a Cypher Language in a sub-plot).
 * Per Word Of Capcom the PabPab language is largely comprised of combinations of English prefixes and Japanese suffixes—thus counting as a potential Bilingual Bonus for speakers of both English and Japanese.
 * Convection, Schmonvection
 * Conspicuous CG: Most enemies are sprite-based, but some of the bosses use 3D models.
 * Cooldown Hug: Nina to
 * A straight (if mild) example earlier with Fou-lu and Mami in the same game, a bit more explicitly in the manga.
 * Crapsack World: No thanks to the Empire.
 * Cthulhumanoid: Bollor and its Palette Swap Rollob (or is it the other way around?) in Fane of the Sea God.
 * Curb Stomp Battle: One mid-game boss, "Ight", feels like a Hopeless Boss Fight, unleasing powerful attacks that can wipe the floor with you in a single turn. But the moment Ryu is knocked out, he instead transforms into the Kaiser dragon, and kills the boss in two turns flat. In other words, both sides took a curb-stomping in the same fight.
 * Any monster that comes up against Fou-Lu in a random battle will most likely experience this. Even giant dinosaurs are a very minor inconvenience.
 * Dead Hat Shot:  And yes, the manga turns it up to a major Tear Jerker that involves Ryu as well.
 * Death Mountain: Mt. Giga.
 * Derelict Graveyard: Sandflier Valley.
 * Despair Event Horizon:
 * In the manga adaptation
 * Down the Drain: The party infiltrates an Imperial base via aqueduct, which the Empire normally uses to keep the Carronade from overheating when fired.
 * Dragons Up the Yin-Yang: Dragons are the YinYang. Literally.
 * This is not counting the "Static Heaven" bagua in the final stage, nor is this counting designs in Fou-lu's clothing. Suffice it to say that IV is about as subtle as a brick with this trope.
 * Dramatic Wind: Various characters' battle sprites, including their victory animations.
 * Dream Land: Fairy Village resides here. Also the Deis' dream levels.
 * Dronejam
 * Dub Name Change: From Master to Ershin (to preserve a Bilingual Bonus).
 * Literally all of the NPC dragons also suffer this (in an unusual variation in which the Dub Name Change consisted of changing their names to Koreanisations of what type of dragon they were).
 * Duel Boss: Nina vs. Joh early in the game.
 * Every boss fight which Fou-lu fights.
 * And the short battle between Ryu and Fou-Lu during the game's climax.
 * The Empire
 * Everything's Better with Chickens: There's a minigame where you have to chase chicken to their coop.
 * Everything's Better with Platypi: The Cap enemies which appear frequently in the early parts of the game.
 * Evil Eye: Though not technically evil in this case, the Dragon Eyes are depicted as actual non-human, draconic eyes and the people who possess them are fated for either great good or great evil. Ryu is depicted as having Psychic Powers as a result.
 * Depicted much more blatantly in the Comic Book Adaptation of IV
 * Evil Weapon: The Hex Cannon/Carronade. Even as it annihilates the souls of the unfortunate persons used as ammo (who are, of note, literally tortured to insanity first) and corrupts the targeted land and persons, it empowers and simultaneously corrupts those who use it. It's also a literal Fantastic Nuke.
 * Exposition Cut: Pretty much constant in the first section. Nina explains the situation established in the opening cutscene to Ryu when they seek shelter in a cave for the night using this trope, then they explain things in the same way to Cray when they return to the crash site, then they explain things to the Woren elders when
 * Fantastic Nuke: The Empire's Hex Cannon, or Carronade. It is explicitly powered by a "sacrifice", using  as ammunition.
 * The city of Synesta is said to be (mostly) purified of the magical radiation by the time the game begins, being seen as a rebuilt town with only a few monsters still lurking underground.
 * The town of Chamba was not so lucky; a team of Purifiers (who must wear full suits of magical armor to protect them from its effects) estimate that the majority of the town will remain utterly uninhabitable for "at least a year". In other words, the player never gets to see Chamba in its proper glory.
 * And then there's General Yohm's order to use the Carronade against Fou-Lu himself: The revelation that they used  to power it was the final straw that pushed Fou-Lu over the edge.
 * Fight Woosh: Normally a blue circular swirl, but also color-coded to indicate when one side gets a free turn at the start of battle.
 * Five-Man Band:
 * The Hero - Ryu
 * The Lancer - Cray (interestingly, he has the looks and abilities of The Big Guy, but his personality fits this trope better)
 * The Smart Guy/Robot Buddy - Ershin
 * The Big Guy - Scias (he has very few lines and no plot significance after he formally joins, serving only as an extra fighter)
 * The Chick - Nina
 * Sixth Ranger - Ursula
 * Flying Seafood Special: Skulfish, the first boss in the game. Flying...Flyfish are also seen above the clouds when the party visits the Wind Dragon.
 * Foreshadowing: In Wychwood, some faeries attempt to play tricks on the party, resulting in one faerie receiving a headbutt from Ershin. This surprises the fairies, who claim mortals shouldn't be able to see them..
 * Forever War: The conflict between the Fou Empire and the Alliance in IV. The two continents have been in a Cold War that has lasted 600 years, punctuated by four world wars and the incipient threat of a fifth.
 * Full Boar Action: Bilbao and its ilk.
 * Gaiden Game: Two separate sidestory games in IV's universe exist (Breath of Fire IV - The Sword of Flame & the Magic of Wind and Breath of Fire IV: Faeries Light Key) along with two other GaidenGames: a spinoff of the fishing game from IV (Breath of Fire: Dragon Fisherman) and a "Great Dalmuti"/"Millionaire"/"President"/"Asshole" game featuring characters from IV (Breath of Daifugo).
 * Unfortunately, due to the platform and carrier these were released for (Japanese smartphones using Qualcomm's BREW OS, and most of these being an exclusive to NTT's DoCoMo mobile phone network) these are, to a one, No Export for You and likely to remain so permanently.
 * Of note, Breath of Daifugo and Breath Of Fire: Dragon Fisherman were co-releases with a Street Fighter Gaiden Game (a Solitaire port) and the BREW-phone version of Mega Man 2 respectively, whilst the sidestory games were released at the same time as the Comic Book Adaptation; adverts within Comic Blade Avarus and the volumes published by Mag Garden included adverts for the Gaiden Games.
 * Giant Enemy Crab
 * Gory Discretion Shot/Shadow Discretion Shot:
 * And this ended up Bowdlerised in the international version. This may well be only one of two known incidents with international adaptations where a violent scene Bowdlerised in the original via Shadow Discretion Shot was itself Bowdlerised out of existence in international adaptations. (The other incident involves dub adaptations of Yu-Gi-Oh for American children's television, and at least makes sense in that context.)
 * Subverted in Bloodier and Gorier fashion in the manga adaptation, apparently as a very deliberate Take That to aforementioned censorship. (In comparison, was actually depicted less graphically in the manga.)
 * Green Hill Zone: The areas around Ludia and Wyndia.
 * Gusty Glade: The caves beneath Wyndia.
 * Headless Horseman: There are two of them in this game. One's called "Horseman", the other's called "Rider."
 * Healing Factor
 * An enemy called Trunked regenerates 15,000 HP per turn, but is (quite fortunately) harmless, existing solely to practice combo attacks on. (Its higher-level counterpart, Trean, regenerates 30,000 HP per turn)
 * The Rider 20,000 HP per turn. It is the most powerful enemy in the game.
 * The Dragonne boss cannot be killed until it stops regenerating its HP.
 * Heroes Prefer Swords
 * Heroic Mime
 * Heavily averted in the manga and novelisation for purposes of character development.
 * Hidden Elf Village: Fairy Village.
 * Hot-Blooded: The Woren tribe. Cray tries to suppress his urges, as his position as leader requires a cool head.
 * Humans Are the Real Monsters: Fou-lu's main motivation.
 * Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence
 * Interface Spoiler: Talking to your party in the camp can help give you some idea of what to do next. Doing so at one particular point, however, can spoil a major plot point:  Oops.
 * Interspecies Romance
 * Iron Butt Monkey: Kahn is a good example. He is defeated multiple times by the party, shot off of the mast of a ship by Ursula, and his lack of fighting skill is pointed out by Una and Zig's crew. He recovers quickly from each defeat, though, and can even become a master to the party later in the game. Appropriately, his special ability gives his apprentices a chance to survive fatal blows in battle.
 * I Ate What??: The frog prince's sidequest has you collecting bugs for him to cook, and then eating the resultant dishes. Then Ryu starts to think about what was in them....
 * It's All Upstairs From Here: Pung' tap.
 * Item Crafting: The Blacksmith on Mt. Glom can make special armors if you bring him the materials needed to make it.
 * It's Quiet... Too Quiet
 * Jungle Japes: The jungle around the Pabpab village.
 * Karma Houdini: One of the game's most infamous aspects is that who was to blame for nearly everything bad that happened, apparently was never punished. There is a bit of background behind this, which can be read in the main entry.
 * Keep It Foreign: The Dub Name Change of Master to Ershin.
 * Kill the Cutie:
 * The manga adaptation turns this Up to Eleven in a major borderline Stuffed Into the Fridge moment.
 * King in the Mountain: Subverted to the point of deconstruction. In essence, Fou-lu would have been the Fou Empire's prototypical King in the Mountain if The Empire had kept up its end of the bargain. Instead, Fou-lu's entire storyline in the game can be best described as "What Happens When A Country's Government Sees The Return Of Its King in the Mountain As An Unwanted Revival". It goes poorly for all involved.
 * Lazy Backup: You'll get Game Over when your main fighters die, even if you're extra three party members are behind you doing nothing.
 * Leaked Experience: It is actually split evenly between the characters after the battle.
 * Lethal Lava Land: Mt. Glom.
 * Literal Split Personality: Ryu and Fou-lu
 * Low Level Advantage: You'll get better stat bonuses from later Masters if you keep your levels down early in the game.
 * Love Hurts: This is pretty much what the Hex Cannon relies on in order to inflict damage - the closer the sacrifice that was loaded into the cannon is to the intended victim, the greater the damage it causes.
 * Cray
 * Memento MacGuffin:
 * In the manga adaptation,
 * Mercy Kill
 * Metal Detector Puzzle: An early mini-game where you had to find buried parts to repair your sand-ship with. The mini-game could later be revisited to dig up various materials with which you could craft special pieces of armor for Ershin, and abusing this can lead to a Disc One Nuke for her.
 * Mix-and-Match Critters: The Wind Dragon which is combination of a dragon, an elephant and a whale.
 * Pretty much all the NPC dragons/Endless fall into this category; justified in that each dragon is the Physical God of a specific element or force.
 * My Greatest Failure:
 * Cray: This would also apply to Nina as well.
 * Ryu:
 * Fou-lu three times over: the first in realising the purpose for which he was summoned was impossible due to the intrinsic nature of humanity, the second being the fact that the empire he founded has become irredemably corrupt and overtly evil, and the third being  The combination is enough to make him Go Mad from the Revelation.
 * Never Grew Up:
 * Nice Hat: Yuna, Soniel and Fou-lu, in a Projected Man when he first appears to Ryu. Depicted in the official artbook, and especially in the manga.
 * The cover for Volume V of the manga has fun with this in giving both Fou-lu and Ryu matching Nice Hats.
 * All this is a remarkable example of Shown Their Work.
 * No Koreans in Japan: One of the most blatant subversions for this trope in the English localisation; practically every name that appeared in kanji in the Japanese version were changed to Korean hanja readings or renamed to something in Korean (in some cases resulting in frank Dub Name Change of NPCs). Some of the internal mythology in the game is also a subversion of this.
 * No Romantic Resolution: The manga, for all its worth in giving Ryu an actual character and eventual development, it sevrely tones down the one thing that it was clear in him as a Heroic Mime: his interest on Nina as the game progressed..
 * Nominal Importance: Important characters to the plot are recognizable from their in-game portraits when you talk to them.
 * Novelization
 * Now Where Was I Going Again?: Your party members will remind you where to go when you talk to them in a camp.
 * One Steve Limit: Deis specifically asks to call her by her real name, instead of calling her.
 * Owl Be Damned: Khafu and Kamyu, two of Yohm's summonable monsters.
 * Palmtree Panic: Tidal Flats.
 * Physical God: Fou-Lu,.
 * Port Town: Shikk.
 * Power Copying
 * Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: Scias if his health gets dropped to critical and he actives his Glass Cannon mode.


 * Red Eyes, Take Warning
 * Red Dragon Blue Dragon: Played very straight with Ryu and Fou-lu.
 * Royal We: Used by the Emperor Soniel of Hesperia, as appropiate. Also by Fou-Lu, though for him it's partially justified in that
 * Sand Bridge At Low Tide
 * Save the Princess: Deconstructed, rather harshly.
 * Scary Scorpions
 * Sealed Good in a Can:
 * Shifting Sand Land: Your starting point.
 * Ship Tease: The manga adaptation has this in spades (not surprisingly, seeing as it was in a manga magazine geared towards young adult women), particularly regarding.
 * Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism: Plenty of the game's population.
 * Wyndians (like Nina) are Winged Humanoids.
 * Manillo are Fish People.
 * Scias, as well as several canine NPCs (like Rwolf), are Petting Zoo People.
 * Ursula, Lord Yuna, and the Woren are a Little Bit Beastly.
 * Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Ice Peak and its surroundings.
 * Split Personality Merge: Happens no matter which end-game you pick; it's just a matter of whether you decide that Humans Are the Real Monsters.
 * Sprite Polygon Mix
 * Sword of Plot Advancement: The Dragonslayer. A certain part required the group to find and use it.
 * Third Option Adaptation: The manga's rendition of the good and bad endings.
 * Third Person Person: Ershin. This becomes justified once it is revealed who "Ershin" really is.
 * Title Drop: The manga's long Utsurowazarumono - Breath of Fire IV title, Utsurowazarumono can be translated as The Endless or The Unfading Ones, so anytime Ryu, Fou-Lu and the other Endless are mentioned in story it also doubles as this.
 * Too Good for This Sinful Earth:
 * Tragic Keepsake: in both the game and the Comic Book Adaptation.
 * The Comic Book Adaptation actually manages to elevate to a frank Cradle of Loneliness.
 * Trapped in Another World: Occurs in spades and is arguably a major theme of the game with the Endless, who were
 * Trauma Conga Line: Poor Fou-Lu... First, the Empire doesn't want him to reclaim his throne, so they send General Yohm to pursue and kill him. Repeatedly. A cute boar he befriends makes a sacrifice of itself to open an escape path for him, while the only person in the world he may have had any love for is taken prisoner by Imperial forces,, before Fou takes a direct hit from the Empire's magical superweapon. No wonder he wants to Kill'Em All.
 * Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Ryu gains the ability to transform into a dragon early on in the game, but it takes him seeing Captain Rasso massacre a village full of innocents (and forcing him to duel with a monster shortly afterwards) for him to unlock the more powerful transformation.
 * Tree-Top Town: The Pabpab village.
 * Twin Telepathy: Ryu and Fou-lu are implied to have this to a limited extent in IV (though for the most part this is only explicitly noted at the game's end).
 * Very explicitly depicted in the Comic Book Adaptation of IV; in fact, it's actually a major plot-driving force in the manga.
 * Underground Level
 * Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Both played straight and subverted:
 * Fou-lu in Sonne, who is portrayed by Mami as her brain-injured cousin Ryong. No matter her cousin has horns in one of the few towns in the game not comprised of Petting Zoo People. The landlord is in fact the only one who mentions something amiss.
 * Played straight and subverting the prior occurence at the same time when Ryu returns to Sonne later in the game, where Ryu is greeted as if he were the missing "Ryong", despite the fact Ryu has blue hair and no horns and a definite lack of Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe. The only plausible explanation for this is that Sonne is secretly a village of psychic farmers.
 * Unwanted Revival: Fou-lu. Though technically he never died (he's immortal), General Yohm explicitly states upon first meeting him that the Empire finds his resurrection "inconvenient" and that they'd rather him "rest a little longer" in his tomb.
 * Useless Useful Spell: Quite a few of them, not counting the ones that are literally useless to begin with (like "Distract" or "Feign Swing").
 * What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic: There are scads of references to Taoism, Buddhism, and even the occasional shamanic reference including . In at least one case in the artbook, it includes references from all three religious traditions combined for a symbol on Fou-lu's clothing (complete with showing its work).
 * When Trees Attack
 * White-Haired Pretty Boy: Fou-Lu certainly qualifies.
 * Why Did It Have To Be SEA LICE AIEEEEEE: Ursula in a particularly hilarious scene wherein she and Nina are discussing phobias. It turns out Ursula is extremely phobic of bugs...even sea lice, which are completely harmless bugs (merely seeing one is enough to cause Ursula, normally quite the Type A Tsundere, to scream like a cheerleader).
 * Womb Level
 * Wutai: The whole of Hesperia.
 * Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Fou-lu constantly speaks in this manner in conjuction with the Royal We.
 * In a backhanded salute to this, the manga adaptation of IV apparently has Fou-lu speaking in what amounts to Ye Olde Butcherede Japanese, as opposed to the original Keigo.
 * In a backhanded salute to this, the manga adaptation of IV apparently has Fou-lu speaking in what amounts to Ye Olde Butcherede Japanese, as opposed to the original Keigo.