Overview

In Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter, a calamity caused the destruction of the world, forcing the remnants of civilization to move underground. For 1,000 years, life continues underground in a society known as “Shelter”. The air quality worsens and people no longer know what the sky looks like. A person’s worth in this dystopian society is measured by their D-Ratio (Dragon Ratio), with low-Ds being relegated to the lower levels of the underground and being put to work in more dangerous circumstances. The elite who possess a higher D-Ratio reside much closer to the surface, thereby having access to cleaner air.

Ryu, a young man with an abysmally low D-Ratio of 1/8192, works as a ranger alongside his partner, Bosch, who has a significantly higher D-Ratio of 1/64. Rangers work for Shelter’s governing body and maintain order and peace in the underground, often tasked with eliminating rogue genetically engineered organisms, called “genics”. Ryu and Bosch receive orders from Ranger Captain Zeno to secure and protect a secret cargo being transported by BioCorp, a laboratory that manufactures genics. This sets off a whirlwind of events, leading to Ryu saving and protecting a young, frail, and mute girl named Nina and partnering with a mysterious revolutionary named Lin. Together, they will uncover the deep and dark secrets of their world, come to terms with Ryu’s mysterious new powers, and work together to save the ailing Nina by escaping Shelter and going up in an attempt to see the sky.

Highlights in Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter include:

Development History

The fifth Breath of Fire game was announced by Capcom on May 20, 2002 during a pre-E3 press event, with a release window of Winter 2002 being given.¹ Capcom touted the upcoming Breath of Fire game as redefining the series with “a whole new 3D-world look, an engrossing storyline, brand new stylized visuals and innovative gameplay features”, and also called to mind the game’s survival style of gameplay.² At the time of its announcement, it still had the working title of Breath of Fire Series.

Development on Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter started in April 2000, the release month of Breath of Fire IV: Utsurowazaru Mono.³ At the time, the PlayStation 2 was announced but the console was not yet revealed. A team of around 40 people worked on the game within Capcom, with about half handling graphic design. Subcontractors were also brought in to assist with development.

Makoto Ikehara, who directed Breath of Fire III and Breath of Fire IV, and was involved with the series since the first game, returned as director for Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter. His duties included the broad direction of the game, in addition to the scenario, cutscene direction, plot, dialogue, and storyboarding. Hironobu Takeshita, who produced Breath of Fire IV, returned as producer.

Ikehara devised the initial story but then gave his concepts to another planner, and then provided additional embellishments. The game’s text dialogue design and animation were inspired by handwritten lines typical of manga, with Ikehara citing Harold Sakuishi’s BECK, Taiyo Matsumoto, and Masamune Shirow as influences.

Series artist and character designer Tatsuya Yoshikawa also returned for Dragon Quarter‘s development. In addition to character design and artwork, Yoshikawa handled monster designs, world/behind-the-scenes setting designs, and oversaw character animation. He would draw the main lines of his designs in pencil, scan it onto a computer, and then apply colors.

With Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter, Ikehara and the team wanted to make dramatic changes to the Breath of Fire formula. The change in platform and the introduction of full 3D visuals aided this change.

With the jump from 2D to 3D, Yoshikawa and his team went through a lot of trial-and-error. There were challenges in capturing the warmth of hand-drawn illustrations and translating the charm of pixel art into a 3D world. The team initially planned on using cel-shading for the game’s characters (also known as “tune shading”), however decided against it due to its commonality in games of the time, as well as technical hurdles which caused visual differences between character models used on the field and in cutscenes. Instead, the team used regular shading on the character models, with a processing effect on their outlines, which gave them a more illustrated, pseudo cel-shaded look.

Modeling the main 3D characters took a very long time due to their inclusion in cutscenes and the unique facial and bodily animations required. The decision to go with a deformed look for the characters ended up helping emphasize their facial expressions. Each main character was crafted by one modeler and one animator, and it took anywhere from 6 months to a 1 year to create them. As the team’s skills improved, NPCs crafted later into development showed more detail than the main characters, thus the main character models got scrapped and recreated. When designing the game’s monsters, Yoshikawa incorporated elements from insects, cave animals, and deep-sea creatures.

Once Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter’s underground setting was decided, the background designers gathered real-life urban planning materials to determine whether living in such conditions was sustainable. Minutiae like the placement of pipes and how temperature and air conditioning were controlled was all carefully considered in the game’s environments.

Initially, the game’s turn-based combat was more typical, but Ikehara had the battle planner and programmer work together to reinvent it, resulting in a system that allowed for free movement.

The D-Counter, which increases as you walk around and battle and results in a Game Over when it reaches 100%, was intended to add a psychological element and impetus for the player to keep moving. Nevertheless, the D-Counter’s increase is not substantial enough to be impacted by the player roaming about.

Ikehara admitted that the team, while aiming to create a challenging but fun game, was divisive about whether dying/restarting the game was necessary in order to progress and unlock new SOL cutscenes. Yoshikawa acknowledged the general easy difficulty of Breath of Fire IV, and stated Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter was a little reactionary to its predecessor. Ikehara also held nostalgia for older games that posed a higher challenge than contemporary games of that time, and wanted to hearken back to the careful planning and heart-pounding thrill that older, harder games elicited from players.

To add to the challenge, the team deliberately made it so PS2 memory card save data for Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter could only be moved and not copied, so players could not save scum or “cheat” in case they got an undesirable outcome. Ikehara acknowledged the harshness of this approach, but was adamant about giving weight to players’ actions and adding intensity to the challenge.

Hitoshi Sakimoto, who was already well-known for his scores for Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Vagrant Story, was brought on to compose the music of Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter. He was supported by Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross) who served as music director under his own studio, Procyon Studios. Sakimoto was given detailed descriptions for each situation he was writing music for, and the keywords provided proved helpful in developing a sense of what was needed.⁴

On August 14, 2002, an online development diary blog was established on Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter’s Japanese web page, with several staff members making small blog posts discussing development of the game as well as other topics.⁵

On September 9, 2002, Capcom revealed J-pop artist Chihiro Onitsuka would perform and record the theme song for Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter, with the song also planned to be included in her upcoming album, Sugar High.⁶

On October 20, 2002, Capcom held a Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter Experience event at Spiral Hall in Aoyama, Tokyo featuring promotional merchandise, game demo stations, an illustration gallery, and a stage event with special guests including producer Hironobu Takeshita, opening and ending animator Junpei Mizusaki (of animation studio Kamikaze Douga), composer Hitoshi Sakimoto, and music director Yasunori Mitsuda (of Procyon Studio).⁷ During the stage event, the developers shared various behind-the-scenes anecdotes and showed off the game’s opening animation for the first time.⁸ A pre-recorded video featuring a message from J-pop artist Chihiro Onitsuka was shown, in which she premiered the ending theme she wrote for the game: “Castle Imitation”.⁹ Sakimoto also shared a December 21, 2002 release date for the game’s soundtrack CD.

To promote the game, Sony Computer Entertainment Japan announced a campaign on November 1, 2002 where purchasers of Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter could apply for a lottery to win a free trip to Naples, Italy.¹⁰ The location was chosen based on Naples’s historical Roman underground city, akin to Dragon Quarter’s subterranean setting. The campaign was canceled on February 13, 2003 due to concerns surrounding the surmounting tensions between the United States and Iraq and fears over terrorist attacks.¹¹

Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter finally hit Japanese retail shelves on November 14, 2002.¹² The game was dedicated to the memory of Capcom employee Yasuhito Okada, who previously worked on the scenario programming of Breath of Fire IV.

During Jump Festa 2003, held in the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba, Japan from December 21 – 22, 2002, Capcom’s booth gave away rare weapon data for Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter to attendees who brought along a blank PlayStation 2 memory card.¹³

On July 3, 2003, the game was re-issued on PlayStation 2 at a budget price in Japan under PlayStation’s “The Best” label, which was reserved for top selling popular titles.¹⁴

A North American release window of February 2003 was shared by Capcom USA shortly before the game’s launch in Japan.¹⁵ During the Capcom Gamers’ Day (CGD) media event held on January 15, 2003, Capcom USA presented the English language version of Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, revealing the localized version would remove the roman numeral “V” from the title.¹⁶ The game’s localization was managed by Bowne Global Solutions, which previously worked on Breath of Fire III.

Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter launched in North America on February 18, 2003.¹⁷ A European PAL release of Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter followed on November 28, 2003.¹⁸ The European version included language options for English, French, German, and for the first time in series’ history, Italian and Spanish. The European release had the temporary save mechanic removed, which meant only consumable save tokens could be used to save progress. To alleviate this change, players begin the game with 9 save tokens as opposed to the Japanese/North American version’s single save token.

A localized Korean version of Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter on PlayStation 2 was announced by Koko Capcom, the Korean subsidiary of Capcom, on March 5, 2004.¹⁹ Pre-orders for the Korean version began on March 8, 2004, and the game was subsequently released in South Korea on March 18, 2004.²⁰²¹

On February 4, 2016, the Japanese Breath of Fire 6 Twitter account revealed Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter would be digitally re-released in Japan under the PS2 Game Archives program on PlayStation 3’s PlayStation Store on February 17, 2016.²²²³ The game was delisted from PlayStation Store in early 2019, presumably due to an expired license for Chihiro Onitsuka’s “Castle Imitation” ending theme.²⁴ The game did not see a digital re-release in North America nor Europe.

Sources