Breath of Fire 1,2,3 Summary (MAJOR spoilers)

[St. Ajora]

I'm writing this here for Kalidor and for anyone else who wants to read the events and details surrounding the first three breath of fire storylines. I'm sure there are more BoF fans here, and if not, surely there may be people interested in the older games. If you don't want to spoil yourself and read everything, just let me state that Breath of Fire is a very good rpg series out there that is usually pushed aside due to major names like big bad Final Fantasy and the like. Breath of Fire came out more than 10 years ago, and to this day, the 5 games remain very generic, very old school (well not the fifth maybe) and very...engrish. But despite that, Breath of Fire is not a series to be overlooked, and is usually included as a series that many fans look back on in fondness. It has little to present in terms of new material (although, I'm sure that can be argued) but its plot has fascinated me to this day, so much that I bugged a friend to write up everything that happened in BoF 1, 2 and 3 (which all take place in the same world). Breath of Fire 4 remains unplayed by me, to this day, as is Dragon Quater. As far as I know, those games are seperate from the previous three.

Anyway, away I go! Keep in mind that I am going to be talking about dragons dragons dragons and will spoil all three games. Read at your own discretion. I hope you liked my quick little review, too :P

Okay. Here is the nice summary.

Correct=False Names
Deis=Bleu
Myria=Tyr
Wyndia=Windia, Winlan.
Woren=Fullen

“Whenever the world is threatened, a brave dragon of light will emerge from the flames and vanquish evil wherever it may lay. That is the legend of the Brave Man of The Dragon, The Destined Child”


In ancient times, the Dragon Clan “Brood” governed the land and forged a mighty empire all over the world, using both their magical skills granted by their God Ladon as well as their incredibly advanced technological discoveries. Amongst their greatest achievements was the construction of the floating fortress “Obelisk”. This is what Momo calls the Techno-Age in BoF3.

However, fratricidal wars surged amongst the different factions of the Brood, resulting in an all-open war which wiped out most of the clan and completely destroyed their empire, leaving only scarce shrines and ruins scattered around the world. The only two factions that survived the battle were the highly powerful Black Dragons and the pacifist Light Dragons.

Thanks to the peace granted by the disappearance of the dragon empire, most of the other clans were allowed to flourish.

The Dog Clan “Grassrunners” (Crafted for hunting and spell casting.)

The Cat Clan “Woren” (Specialized in melee fighting)

The Fish Clan “Manillo” (Masters of commerce)

The Bird Clan “Fae” (Have the power to transform into giant birds when grown up)

The Monkey Clan “High Landers” (Highly militaristic)

The Frog Clan (They… uhm… cook?)

The Bull clan (Forgers)

The Armadillo Clan (Farmers)

The Human Clan (Which is always quite irrelevant).

This is how things are at the beginning of BoF1

The rest of the events can be summarized:
Ryu meets a very young Nina Wyndia of the Fae, princess of the homonymous country.
Ryu meets Bo of the Grassrunner clan.
Seems the Grassrunners and the Woren are living together, although they don’t get along all that well. Cats and Dogs, go figure.
Ryu receives several powers from the Dragon God Ladon. Oh, and he’s also the Destined Child from the legend, surprise.
Ryu meets the thief Karn (The only Human party member in the entire saga up to 4)
Ryu meets Deis the Demigoddess (Who is really irrelevant)
Ryu meets Gobi (A Manillo), some guy from the Bull clan whose name I forgot and Mogu The Mole (Who is also irrelevant but horribly cute).
Nina falls into a time hole pulling a very complicated time-pharadox thingie that ends up with her being grown-up, which ultimately means she can use the power of the Great Bird and that Ryu isn’t a pedophile for shacking up with a minor.
Zog revives Obelisk
Ryu fights Zog. Ryu kicks ass.
Zog’s hechman, Jade, betrayed his lord. Lots of fighting and irrelevant stuff happen ending with Jade and Sara dead and with Myria free and happy.
Obelisk crashes around the Drogen area and buries itself.
Ryu fights Myria and uses the ultimate Brood power “Infinity” (Agni) to kick her ass.
They all go back home and the legend of the “8 Brave Warriors” is born. They are all alive and happy.
Ryu (Guessing from what you see in BoF2) marries Nina. This is good for them, but it screws the Fae heavily.
This is all up to BoF1.


Thousands of years after the events in BoF1, the world has changed quite a lot. Here are the major facts:

Humans are the predominant race. Most the other clans are almost extinct.
Grassrunners and Woren are brutally rare.
Armadillo and Bulls live in small villages.
The Manillo live underwater, so they don’t give a fuck.
The three major non-human clans are the Frogs to the northwest, the Fae to the north and the Highlanders to the southeast.
The Fae have long lost the power of the Great Bird (More on this later)
The Brood are no more than just a myth. Almost no one remembers the legend of the 8 Warriors.
The Human God, Saint Evans becomes the most popular religion. All the other divinities (Especially Ladon) are almost forgotten by humans.


The game starts in Gate, with the young Ryu Bateson, his sister Yua, his father, a St.Eva priest/sorcerer called Ganer and his mother, a woman with strange bat-like golden wings.

A few years back, the town of Gate was attacked by a large demon called Barubary. Ganer fought bravely against him, but to no use. When they were almost defeated, a giant Light dragon appeared and drove off the monster.

The Dragon set himself to sleep on the mountain. Ryu’s mother Valerie disappeared leaving only the Dragon Tear, a jewel that shows peoples emotions.

I could start summarizing the events, but they are not as shallow as before, so I’ll do this more precisely:
Ryu falls asleep near the Dragon one day. When he returns to the village, his sister and father are gone and no one remembers him. Very confused, he sleeps in his own house as an orphan and meets the wandering thief Boche Doggy (Bow) of the Grassrunner.
Ryu and Bow escape Gate and get into a cavern. There they see the Horror Demon Barubary.
Barubary soon disposes of Bow and confronts Ryu. The demon leaves him nearly killed and frightened, but tells him some cryptic words about a “Gate” and “God”.
Around eight years go by. Ryu and Bow are now fourth-rate rangers in the town of Hometown (Couldn’t come up with a decent name?). In a mission, they both find an abandoned village in the south. If you compare maps, that’s about the same location Drogen was in (Duhn-duhn-duhn).
Bow is framed by a mysterious thief: A girl with Bat-like wings and dark blue hair. Ryu sets off on a journey to capture her and clean up Bow’s name.
Ryu meets Rinpoo Chuan (Katt) of Woren and Rand Banks from the Armadillo. They fight a demon disguised as a human.
Ryu and Katt rescue a black-winged Fae (Nina) and her sister Princess Mina.They fight ANOTHER demon disguised as a human.
They find out that Nina has the mark of the “Black Wing” which is said to be the doom of the Fae. That’s why she was cast out of the castle as a child. The legend of the Black Wing is completely bogus by the way.
They meet the street magician Sten Legacy and around here find out about the existence of a prominent priest of St.Eva: Father Ray.
In a failed attempt to score with the Fire Shaman Sanamo, Ryu awakens the sleeping Power of The Dragon (Not as good as the lay, but it’s something)
Oh yeah, they start building a town too.
The whole mess with Nimufu, Jean and the frog clan happens. Ryu gets new powers. They fight a demon disguised as a Frog.
They (finally) catch the Phantom Thief Patty and clear up Bow’s name.
They guy who accused Bow of stealing, Trout, turns out to be a demon. Slash, shot, bang.
The gang finally realizes that there seem to be way too many demons around. At the same time, a giant demon is sighted near Gate. Bow and Ryu pee their pants.
They meet Deis, who is still quite irrelevant and follows Ryu because she thinks he’s cute and doesn’t have anything better to do.
The team goes off to find a grassman (Do not mistake for Grassrunner) that can tell them what the heck’s going on. Said grassman is the androgynous, get this shit, Aspara-Gus (Spar). C’mon guys, Asparagus?
Several quests occur. The most relevant being the High Fort one, in which they find out Sten is actually an old army general who’s in love with his princess.
A demon disguised as a Highlander tried to emulate Obelisk’s power in Highfort. He fails.
During the quest they also find the demon that caused everyone to forget about Ryu in Gate and they hear of the legend of the 8 Warriors.
The mess in Farmtown with Rand’s mother occurs. Something stinks in the church.
The most relevant quest in the game occurs: The Great Bird Quest. Nina is apparently the great-great-daughter of Nina and Ryu from BoF1. Nina1’s marriage was what caused the downfall of the Great Bird. Also, some BoF2 Ryu/Nina fluff.
Ryu2 doesn’t seem to be a blood relative from Ryu1.
They go to the Great church of Evrai. They escape from the Great Church of Evrai.
The “Resistance" plot happens. The Tiga fight made me use most of my best healing items before I realized you can’t win. Fucking cat.
Patty The Phantom Thief seems to be really crappy at her job.
More resistance stuff, St.Eva is clearly EvOl. Ryu/Katt fluff.
The small army attacks Evrai. They fail miserably.
Ray is a Black Dragon OMG! Rumor is that he’s Zog’s descendant (Since they are both blonde from the same clan).
Ryu’s Ultimate Innate “Kaiser” (G.Dragon) power awakens.
Ryu rescues his father (You didn’t kill him, did you?).
Ryu fires up the dormant Obelisk under his town. It’s almost completely useless now though.
Gate segment happens. The big dragon was Ryu’s mother, Valerie, and Patty is actually Yua. Also, High Priest/Demon Habakuru dies.
Ryu and Co. enter Infinity and arrive at Dologany. The Dragons were not extinct!
St.Evans is actually Deathevans, a demon left behind by Myria in order to destroy the Brood. It got out of control and decided to destroy all life-forms.
Ryu gains the Ultimate power of the Brood: Infinity (Anfini) AGAIN, FIFTH POST.
Ryu faces his childhood terror: Barubary (Unless you were a pussy and made them all fight together). Ryu wins and is muy macho.
The party faces Deathevans. Ryu is the only one who survives.
Half-dead Ryu summons Infinity and revives his companions. They destroy Deathevans.
Two possible endings, both equally irrelevant to the continuity as you never hear another word from any BoF2 character. Ever.


Lots of years after BoF2, the Brood seem to have gotten out of their cave-city and tried to destroy the world. However, God vanquished them and they are no more than fossils now.

New facts:
The world seems smaller.
Almost all the population is human.
The Fae are the only large clan remaining, and they have lost their powers completely (Not even wings now).
Dragon fossils are used as an energy source.

Here we go:
During a mining expedition, a pair of poor sods crack open what they thought to be a fossil. It was actually a quite alive dragon egg. Dragon gets out and starts to set people on fire for the heck of it. He is stopped by a mysterious voice and is captured by the miners.
While he was being sent to… somewhere, the baby dragon escapes and transforms into a human-looking kid. Said kid (Ryu) is found by the Woren Thief Rei. Doesn’t that just beat all?
Teepo is introduced. Rei seems to be hiding some special skill.
Mc Neil quest happens.
Rei’s house is attacked by the Mr. Ed wannabes Balio And Sunder. Rei and Teepo supposedly die. Ryu escapes.
The horses catch up to him and try to kill him. Ryu turns into a dragon but is too weak to fight. The horses decide to sell him in Wyndia as a “dangerous creature”
Pretty funny scene in Wyndia castle which reminds me of that singing frog from Warner. You know, the one that went Hello-my-baby-Hello-my-Darling… okay I’ll go on….
Little princess Nina tries to free Ryu. Dumb princess Nina is captured by Balio and Sunder.
Ryu turns into a dragon and a fight ensues. I don’t remember the outcome but you end up on the run either way.
You try to escape and meet the Grassrunner scientist Momo. Ryu gains more Dragon Powers. Nina does her damsel-in-distress routine like a thousand times.
”Enhanced crops” part 1. Peco the onion joins the party.
You get captured again.
The Tournament plot ensues. Ryu beats everyone (Including the scammer Emitai) until you fight the strange gladiator Garr. Garr pwns Ryu.
Garr decides to free Ryu and Co in exchange for letting him join the party. They agree (Duh, he’s HUGE!).
Balio And Sunder turn out to have demonic powers. You kill them.
Ryu and Co agree to go with Garr to Angel tower.
Pit Stop at Wyndia to get a passport. Nina’s parents are too big for their britches.
Looooooots of stuff happen including the faeries, training a bookworm and plenty of child porn romance. They finally drag their asses to Angel Tower.
Garr and other three guardians were the ones who eliminated the Brood under the order of their Goddess. However, since the Brood never attempted to fight back, Garr has his doubts on who’s the real evil. He tries to fight Ryu to somewhat reach some kind of epiphany.
Ryu loses, but sort-of awakens the Kaiser Dragon and escapes. He goes to sleep for several years inside the mine where he was born.
Garr finds him and decides to travel to where his Goddess lives to find the truth. Ryu gets dressed (He’s a big boy now).
First Ryu without a ponytail. Is that haircut physically possible?
Ryu fights an angered Brood spirit. He is also blessed by the soul of a kind Brood Woman (His mommy I guess).
Ryu hears about a rampant Weretiger. Ryu fights said Weretiger.
Ryu meets grown-up Nina. She has veeeery small and useless wings.
Ryu and Co finally discover the truth about the Weretiger: it’s Rei in his berserker form. They all defeat another demon and wonder why there are people with powers like that. Ah, Rei rejoins and kicks much butt.
Momo and Peco rejoin. “Enhanced Crops” Part 2. Some foreshadowing involving the God Tree Yggdrassil (How the heck do you pronounce that anyway?).
Nina’s parents are still morons. The party discovers the wondrous teleporters.
More traveling crap. You are in charge of the faerie village now, by the way.
Back at Angel Tower, it seems like Garr can’t reach his Goddess so we are going to try to free Deis, who was sealed for opposing the Goddess.
To free Deis, we need a second Guardian called Geist.
Geist, like Garr, doubted the Goddess. However, he deserted completely from the Guardians and was damned. He forces Ryu to fight him in order to free Deis.
Ryu wins, Geist dies (Happily).
Deis is free, still irresponsible and shamelessly naked. Ryu gets a good sight.
Deis is finally slightly relevant. She tells Ryu to cross the ocean and becomes a pretty kickass master (Although she doesn’t join. Bummer).
Failed ocean-crossing quests. Rei and Momo start bitching at each other.
The party hijacks a ghost and highly-computerized submarine.
They finally get to the other side and find a town of lifeless drone-like humans. Ryu fishes and gets the Royal Sword and Armor. They proceed to the ruins.
They fix the teleporter… and are sent back home. Oh, crap.
They finally managed to make it work and arrive in Dragnier, the forgotten Brood village (No, they are not extinct here either).
Okay, they might be extinct after all because they all gave away their powers and are now as common humans. They are also very bitter.
The party faces the Wise Man of The Dragon and the game’s most unfair fight.
Ryu gets the Kaiser power.
Desert of Death. Hot. Dork gave me the wrong directions. Rei and Momo bitch a little more.
Nina has a heat stroke. Ryu certainly has guts (And a Gamfaqs guide since I went trough the desert TWELVE TIMES).
Oasis stuff, Ryu gets the Ultimate Brood Power: Infinity (Ultimate Kaiser).
Caer Xhan. Myria station. I was expecting to see FATE and Lynx pop up around here.
Teepo is alive. Teepo is a Brood. Teepo is brainwashed and your enemy. Teepo is no longer alive.
Garr’s goddess is actually Myria. It seems like she finally got her wish of seeing the Brood dead and then used the old Dragon Technology to manipulate the world with her as the constant babysitter. All this to protect life from what she considered a menace and the slow degeneration of the world. So she’s not ALL evil, just rash.
Ryu and Co decide that the world should be left alone to take it’s course. And after crossing that damn desert, I’ll be damned if some blonde angel chick tells me otherwise.
Peco is actually the God Tree Yggdrassil (Okay, that’s one I didn’t see coming).
Myria transforms. Damn she’s ugly.
Ryu fights and uses his shiny Ultimate Kaiser/Infinity form. Myria is defeated.
Deis is actually Myria’s sister and tells her that it’s time for her to stop meddling with the world.
Ryu and Co awake in the middle of the desert getting ready to reconstruct the world. Peco plants himself in the sand as to signal the beginning of the planet resurrection. Kewl.



Whew! There. All pretty interesting, huh? As anyone can see, not the most original concepts and ideas here, but everything seems to fit nicely in together. I think it's cool to note that when you play Breath of Fire 1 and 2, you have NO idea what's going on. Hardly anything is explained to you, you just go off on a nice adventure and meet a bunch of people and get involved in things that are important. Breath of Fire 3 really brought up the rear and attempt to rectify all of this (and succeeded, I think). Either way, you have to play the games in order to appreciate the storyline, methinks. So much happens and I loooove it. (Next challenge- attempt to dissect Silent Hill!)

edit: oh and disregard the yeehaws >> I didn't realize that he swore so much

[apathy]

thank you for this thread. since i only have bof3 i didn't know much about the rest of the series. this really helped.
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[St. Ajora]

No prob. As I said before, it helps to have a summary if you do intend to someday play BoF1 and 2, because you don't know what's going on. The explanations are few and far between (and very weak).

[Raze]

Yeah, I'm a big BoF fan (4 rawked, btw), and I didn't know that Nina2 is actually Ryu/Nina1's ancestor, but it kinda makes sense now...thinning of the bloodline and all that jazz. I never actually beat either BoF1 or 2, because I couldn't use the last powers when I was supposed to... (and in 2, i got totally frozen and couldn't break free T.T)

I own the whole series, but 3 and 4 are the only ones that I've actually 'beaten', as in Dragon Quarter (biggest. misleading. title. ever.) it's wierd, and you have to 'lose' and 'reuse' your character multiple times in order to beat it...story's kinda wierd too, but it still looks amazing...if you enjoy semi-cell shading, that is.

BoF III is definately my favorite because of the Dragon Gene system. It gives you so much versitility, and the skill system went well with it. My main party was Ryu (Berserk Kaiser, cause he's a BEAST! O.O), Rei, and Nina (with the Influence command, naturally :3) I'd just transform Ryu and Rei, and let Nina sit back and throw out an influence every once in a while to keep Ryu and Rei from stomping each other into oblivion. >:3
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Rend. Slaughter. Devour your enemies. There is no other way to survive. You cannot escape your hunger, warriors of Purgatory.

[Ranadiel]

Ah BoF, it was the first RPG I remember ever playing. It is what got me hooked on RPGs. I love them.

I think that you forgot to include the backstory of Myria towards the begining of the timeline thing. I think that was revealed in the first BoF at least some what. However I can't really remember what it was since it has been a while since I played it. I think she had something to do with the Dragon Clans fighting among themselves or something like that.

[St. Ajora]

[Ranadiel]

[Tendou Souji]

[St. Ajora]

Rei and Teepo must have been recycled characters (as you indicated in a "secret" shop) only there for nostalgia. Karn and Bo were in BoF2, but not officially, since it's impossible for them to live hundreds or thousands of years. They were in the little shack on the island with the huge slimes and gongheads (or whatever they were)

Also there's no way it would have been the same world, since I'm assuming, the geography and history is completely different...

[Ranadiel]

[Arenegeth]

Well I have all five games haven't finish II yet and I haven't started V, but the best of the lot I have to say its III, as for story connections I really don't care when it comes to Breath Of Fire, but they are a bit overlooked, when IV got a European release I was happy, but I was surprised when the end credits were still in Japanese, I mean the translated the whole game they didn't have the time to do the credits, how cheap, they figured that nobody reads the credits anyway why should we bother.

But the whole Nina and Ryu is getting old, come one five games and still those 2 I want change, and the Dragon system of III, but I'm still looking in any probable sequels I'm not exactly a fan but III was more than an interesting RPG, and how about Momo appearing as an instructor (the right word evades me) in IV how is that explained story wise?
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"I am ye who walks his own path and thus I walk alone"

[Filipe]

Yeah that sums up the entire three games pretty well as I have also played and beaten all three games at least twice each. Sadly I dont have any of them anymore because my brother had the bright idea to sell them off and not give me any of the money. This, after I bought them in the first place, so you can imagine I wasnt very happy with that.

To be frank I do currently own both Breath of Fire 4 and 5. Number four is actually in my opinion better then Breath of Fire 3 because it tried something a bit different. Im not going into the story right now because that would take too long and I dont remember it off hand anyway. I can say it was a good game and anyone who likes the series and can find the game (ha good luck)should pick it up.

There are few games that I own or other wise that I can truly say I despise but Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter is the bane of my existence. There are few games that have annoyed me to the point where I refuse to play them. The only reason I even still have this game is for collection purposes. The gameplay mechanics are shoddy, the dragon concept is stupid, and the story at best would rate a 4/10. this on top of the fact that the characters to the point of where I am dont have much personality does not endear me to continue. I would not recommend this to anyone who isnt out of their minds. Then again some people might like that so strike that last comment.
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[St. Ajora]

[Ranadiel]

Grrr I wish I could remember one event from 4 better. It occurs in the ending and it could make or break my theory about 4 being the same world. The scene is about this one doctor guy saying something along the lines that he can still summon the endless. Depending on the method for summoning endless/dragons my theory is either made or broken. To basically sum up my theory, after the events of 4 that guy summons a lot more dragons(like Ryu/Fou-Lu not the large endless). They either serve him or kill(doesn't matter in the long run). These dragons eventually form the dragon clans. Then the age where the brood rule comes about. Sometime during this time period Dies gets a new body and Myria is brought over also.Then we all know what happens after that. It seems to be a bit more of a stretch then it used to be to me. I am probably forgetting several details that relate to my theory unfortunatly. I need to replay all of them sometime.

Oh and I just remembered something. Wasn't it revealed in three that Dies and Myria were sisters or something? I might just be remembering things wrong, but I am pretty sure there was something like that.

[St. Ajora]