Overview

Breath of Fire II was composed by Yuko Takehara, who was then known by her maiden name, Kadota.

Takehara worked on the entirety of Breath of Fire II’s music. While a majority of the music was newly created, one theme from the original game and a short jingle from the first game were newly arranged for the second game. The musical style of Breath of Fire II retains the orchestral and classical nature of the first game, while also introducing rock and heavy metal-inspired battle themes. Due to the game’s overarching plot involving a Western, Christian-style religion, church organ instrumentation is used in some tracks.

Takehara was in her second year of employment at Capcom when she was tasked with composing Breath of Fire II’s score.¹ While initially excited to work on an RPG, Takehara admitted to struggling with composing the game’s music, describing her days working on it as “hellish”. Nevertheless, she acknowledged the tracks “The Whale (La-la-la)” and “White Wings” as being the easiest to write.

Takehara’s biggest challenge was with Breath of Fire II’s battle themes, admitting she struggled to get them to sound right. Even her senior on the Capcom Sound Team, while playing a mid-development ROM, told her, “now I understand how horribly hard it is to make battle themes.”

Despite enduring these struggles and being stricken with an immense sadness, Takehara rose up as development reached its final stage and rounded out the game’s score with a grand finale, the celebratory “Thank You, Everyone” for the game’s ending staff roll.

The original Japanese track names for Breath of Fire II’s soundtrack were devised by Makoto Ikehara, who also penned the game’s story. 35 of the tracks can be listened to within the game through an in-game music player; this becomes available if the player recruits Sumner, the musician from Tunlan, as their sixth and final tenant in Town Ship.

To promote the Super Famicom release of Breath of Fire II: Shimei no Ko, Capcom collaborated with J-pop singer Mio Watanabe on a song entitled “Owaranai Ai” (“終わらない愛”, translation: “Unending Love”). The single was released on an 8cm CD in Japan on December 21, 1994 and featured in the game’s Japanese TV commercial.

Following the release of Breath of Fire II: Shimei no Ko on Super Famicom on December 2, 1994, a selection of music from the game was released on CD in Japan through Sony Records on January 21, 1995.²

In 2002, Breath of Fire II was re-released on Game Boy Advance. The music was down-sampled for the GBA’s sound chip, resulting in some of the instrumentation being reminiscent of 8-bit chip music. This version of the music has never been released officially, and it is unknown who oversaw the GBA version’s music arrangements.

On March 31, 2006, Capcom officially released a majority of Breath of Fire II’s music on the 3rd and 4th discs of Breath of Fire Original Soundtrack Special Box.³

Over a decade later, on July 27, 2016, the third and fourth discs of the Breath of Fire Original Soundtrack Special Box were digitally re-released on Amazon and iTunes for the first time as Breath of Fire II Sound Collection.⁴ This digital release would later be included in MP3 format in the Breath of Fire I ~ III Original Soundtrack Collection released by Capcom USA on the Capcom Store on October 21, 2016.⁵ This would mark the first time the series‘ music was released outside of Japan with official English track titles.

On April 16, 2019, Capcom revealed a limited-time Extra Battle Mode challenge in Street Fighter V called “Quick & Immovable Extra Battle”, where players could participate between May 10 – June 7, 2019 and unlock Falke’s Katt costume and 2 Breath of Fire II BGM stage tunes: “The Destined Child”, and “Cross Counter”.⁶ The content was later included in the ExtraBattle CAPCOM LEGEND Bundle2 DLC pack, and again in Street Fighter V: Champion Edition.

Sometime in 2019, Breath of Fire II Sound Collection was released via music streaming on Spotify in both Japanese and English. It was later re-released on Steam with MP3, FLAC, and AAC file formats and an updated English tracklist on June 25, 2020.⁷

Releases

Title (English)	Format	Release Date	Notes / Links
Owaranai Ai / Mio Watanabe	CD (8cm)	December 21, 1994	Out of Print
Breath of Fire II: Shimei no Ko	CD	January 21, 1995	Out of Print
Breath of Fire Original Soundtrack Special Box	CD	March 31, 2006	Out of Print
Capcom Special Selection: Breath of Fire	CD	September 25, 2014	e-Capcom; Out of Print
Breath of Fire II Sound Collection	Digital / Streaming	July 27, 2016 (Amazon/Apple) 2019 (Spotify) June 25, 2020 (Steam)	Amazon Amazon Japan Apple Music (Japan) Spotify Spotify (Japan) Steam
Breath of Fire I ~ III Original Soundtracks	Digital	October 21, 2016	Capcom USA Store; Discontinued
Breath of Fire II (Original Video Game Soundtrack)	Vinyl	October 2022	Materia Store (Color Vinyl) Materia Store (Clear Vinyl) Black Screen Records

Tracklist

Music tracks are shown in order of in-game appearance. Click on a track to be taken to a track breakdown.

Track Breakdown

A track-by-track breakdown of every tune in Breath of Fire II, including the official track title, the Japanese translation, background information, and where the track plays in the game. Many thanks to Naro and Fungi_Man on the Breath of Fire Discord for their assistance with some of the places certain tracks play in the game.

Sources