Overview

Following the dramatic opening lines spouted from a blue-eyed dragon appearing out of the darkness, the player begins Breath of Fire.

In Breath of Fire, players assume the role of Ryu, a member of the Light Dragon Clan residing in Drogen (also known as Dragnier). He awakens to find his hometown in flames following an ambush carried by the emperor Zog’s Dark Dragon Clan.

Ryu’s older sister, Sara, protects the surviving villagers from the clutches of the Dark Dragon imperial army. She is brought before Jade, Zog’s right-hand commander. In the ensuing one-on-one battle, Sara discovers the Dark Dragon Clan’s true goal: to gain control of the six goddess keys to reawaken an ancient, powerful goddess named Tyr (also known as Myria), who grants wishes and can fulfill the Dark Dragons’ sinister desires.

In the ancient past, the goddess’s powers led to a rift between the dragon clans, which resulted in a destructive war. At the brink of the world’s destruction, a hero from the Light Dragon Clan took action, and with the help of his 7 companions, sealed the goddess away with six keys and hid them throughout the world.

With Sara’s capture and the fiery siege extinguished, Ryu sets out on a journey to rescue his sister and acquire the goddess keys before the Dark Dragons do, echoing the ancient tale of his ancestors.

What follows is a classic fantasy adventure, and Capcom’s first true foray into the RPG genre. From a top-down perspective, players will roam green fields, forests, castles, towers, caves, deserts, and even the seafloor, recruiting 7 additional companions along the way. Enemy encounters occur randomly on the field and the screen transitions into an isometric perspective at the start of combat. As Ryu and friends, the player will fight swaths of enemies and bosses, discover unique cities and cultures, and be rewarded with a solid, traditional Japanese role-playing experience.

A few highlights of Breath of Fire include:

Development History

Breath of Fire: Ryuu no Senshi (which translates to Breath of Fire: The Dragon Warrior) was known to be in development for Nintendo’s Super Famicom (SFC) as early as June 14, 1991, where it was revealed in a weekly issue of Japanese game magazine Famitsu.¹ Concept artwork featuring a diagonal-view battle with Ryu, Ox, Bleu, and Bo was shown, with the magazine noting the game would feature a main character that could transform into a dragon, and a system for fusing characters together.

The game was conceived and directed by Yoshinori Kawano, who came up with game’s title, and drafted the scenario for the first part of the game in a week.² Tokuro Fujiwara, who oversaw all Capcom console titles during the FC/NES and SFC/SNES era, took on a producer-like role, although no formal producer title existed at the time. Fujiwara would later explain Breath of Fire was created because he wanted Capcom to branch out from action games to other genres, including RPGs. Although he had previously made Sweet Home, a Famicom survival horror/RPG hybrid, he considered Breath of Fire to be the first true RPG Capcom developed.³

Kawano was initially given six months to complete development of Breath of Fire: Ryuu no Senshi. This deadline was based on the development time for Mega Man (known as Rockman / in Japan), which was made by six people in six months. Creating an RPG in six months proved impossible, thus the project was continuously delayed on a monthly basis until Capcom’s upper management held a discussion with Square, Inc. (of Final Fantasy fame) and realized an RPG needed a much longer development time.

After an application and a company competition entry was submitted by Makoto Ikehara, Kawano urged one of his seniors to hire him to work on Breath of Fire as a planner. Kawano credits Ikehara’s hiring as making it possible for the game to be completed.⁴

Mega Man co-creator Keiji Inafune created the original character designs and illustrations for Breath of Fire. While Inafune was confident in the designs and illustrations he made, his boss at the time did not like them and subsequently took him off the project.⁵

After artist Tatsuya Yoshikawa was onboarded at Capcom, there was a competition in-house to change the art of Breath of Fire. Yoshikawa won the competition and was appointed as the new character artist for Breath of Fire.⁶ When redrawing the game’s characters, Yoshikawa was very respectful of Inafune’s original character designs and left those in his newly redesigned characters for the game.

The music of Breath of Fire was primarily composed by Capcom Sound Team’s Yasuaki Fujita (alias: Bun-Bun), who initially created MIDI compositions that were transposed to work with the Sony-produced S-SMP audio chip within the Super Famicom / Super NES. Fujita was supported by Mari Yamaguchi (Mari), Minae Fujii (O-Jaring), Yoko Shimomura (Pii♪), and Tatsuya Nishimura (Any), who also contributed compositions. Because Fujita left Capcom before development was completed, composer Mari Yamaguchi finished the remaining tracks.⁷

Breath of Fire: Ryuu no Senshi finally made its debut in Japan for Super Famicom on April 3, 1993.⁸ To promote the game, Capcom licensed X-Japan vocalist Toshi’s J-rock single “Running Wild” for use in a TV commercial. The song was re-recorded in 1994 by J-rock band Night Hawks and retitled “Breath of Fire“.

Around the time of its release in Japan, Capcom U.S.A. revealed it had no plans to release an English language version of Breath of Fire in the West, with then-president Joe Morici noting RPGs were more popular in Japan than in the U.S.⁹

This eventually led to Capcom Japan approaching Squaresoft, the U.S. publishing division of Square Inc., who ended up handling both localization and publishing duties for the English language version of Breath of Fire.¹⁰ Aside from sharing ROM data and documentation with Squaresoft, there was little-to-no communication between Capcom Japan and Squaresoft concerning the game’s overseas release. The game’s “Ryuu no Senshi” subtitle was dropped, likely due to its translated name Dragon Warrior also being the Western name of Enix’s Dragon Quest RPG series at the time. Translation and localization of the Japanese text into English was handled by a team of 4: Ted Woolsey, K. Brandjord, R. Yamaji, and Y. Orimo. Woolsey had previously translated Final Fantasy Legend III for Game Boy, and Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest and Secret of Mana for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES).

Breath of Fire finally released on the SNES in North America on August 10, 1994.¹¹ The game’s Western box art, created by Dev Madan, features a more Western-style comic book version of Ryu, Gobi, Ox, Bleu, and Nina. Although the imported game was featured in UK game magazines, it did not receive an official European release in PAL territories.

In March 2001, an enhanced Game Boy Advance port of the game was revealed by Capcom Japan.¹² A North American release was confirmed on May 17, 2001, just prior to E3 2001.¹³ It released later that year, first in Japan on July 6, 2001, then North America on December 11, 2001 and finally Europe shortly thereafter.¹⁴ The GBA version featured numerous quality-of-life improvements as well as updates to the user interface and in-game / promotional artwork. The European release was published by Ubisoft, with the game being offered in both English and English/French/German language variants. This marked the first official European debut of the first Breath of Fire game.

On September 10, 2014, the Super Famicom version of Breath of Fire was made digitally available on Wii U eShop through the Virtual Console service.¹⁵ The Super NES version’s digital release shortly followed in Europe on November 27, 2014, and in North America on February 12, 2015.¹⁶¹⁷ On October 6, 2016, the SNES version was also made available on the New Nintendo 3DS eShop’s Virtual Console service in Europe, then in North America on October 20, 2016.¹⁸ The SFC version was subsequently released on the Japanese New Nintendo 3DS eShop on August 23, 2017.¹⁹ Both the Wii U and New Nintendo 3DS releases of Breath of Fire were made unavailable for purchase following the closure of those respective platforms’ eShops on March 23, 2023.²⁰

On September 5, 2019, the Nintendo Switch Online – Super Nintendo Entertainment System application was announced via Nintendo Direct, with the Super NES and Super Famicom versions of Breath of Fire being among the initial lineup of titles on the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service.²¹

On November 12, 2022, Blaze Entertainment’s Evercade EXP gaming handheld was released, and included the Super NES version of Breath of Fire. ²² References to Squaresoft were removed and the text font was updated to match more closely to the GBA version.

On September 28, 2023 (September 29, 2023 in Japan), Capcom made both the Super Famicom and Super NES versions of Breath of Fire playable for free using Ares emulation on web browser via the Capcom Town 40th Anniversary website.²³²⁴ Similarly to the Evercade EXP version, all references to Squaresoft were removed in the SNES version. The games were scheduled to be removed on May 31, 2024, however the end date was later changed to June 10, 2024. The games ultimately remained playable via web browser until September 2, 2024.

Sources