http://www.originalsoundversion.com/?p=9131

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Looks like that prayer dance we did payed off.

Kick! BALLS!...in retrospect, that's actually kind of appropriate giving that, in Opoona, you attack by...nevermind.

Hey, I liked the game...ALOT, but I probably wouldn't have even bothered with it if I hadn't heard Sakimoto made the music. So fine!

The gamerip someone slipped me on these boards some time ago was lasted me, but I'm still going for a hard copy of this!

Any report on WHEN it'll exactly be hitting in 2010? How many discs?

Wow. Some three years after the game's release, for such an obscure game...

Was the game itself any good? I saw it for $15 in the bargain bin at Zellers today.

I enjoyed the game more than all get-out, especially for the setting and atmosphere of the world.

It's a sci-fi RPG, in which you have to work part-time jobs, besides just your usual infiltration of dungeons and hunting monsters (READ: Mission-based). It has a very cheerful upbeat quality to it. It's very kiddy-tastic though, and the characters you play are extraterrestrials who look like Duplo people, never mind that most everyone else is human, so that might be a turn-off.

The battle system is pretty traditional, Dragon Quest-esque faire; the only thing that changes it up, as that you use the control stick to launch attacks: Your weapon is an energy ball, and you can launch overthrows, underthrows, and right and left curves; each enemy has a weakness to one or more of these throws, which you have to find out for yourself by experimenting.

You also have attachments that can alter the aspects of your energy ball: Not just increasing attack or defense, but for example, an attachment that makes your energy ball travel in a wave pattern, zig-zagging through enemy formations to hit multiple targets at a time.

Me, I got it for $40 when it first came out, played it immediately, and don't regret having purchased it early, even after the price tag took a serious plunge; for $15, HELLY YEAH pick it up!

The translation definitely wasn't the best in the world; the dialogue can become overly wordy, and there're no voice-overs, and in many cases, the grammar's pretty poor, and a lot of it will leave you saying, "People don't talk like that!" At the absolute worst, the game will remind you of how many old NES games' scripts sounded. STILL, the translation's accurate enough for you to understand what's going on, and what objectives you need to fulfill. It's not that hard to get through the game without a walk-through.

It's a relatively easy, short game; indeed, not until later in the game do the dungeon designs really become all that complicated; but somehow, I estimate I spent a good 45 hours on the game!

I'm glad I played through it.  It's unique - there's definitely a different feel to it than ANY rpg I've played in recent memory, which kept me going despite the game's various shortcomings.  The biggest problem I had was that the old-school feel really didn't need to extend into the realm of not giving the player much of a clue what to do next.  There were numerous times when I had no clue how to advance the plot, and the lack of any decent FAQ online lead to my just searching through message board posts trying to figure out how to continue.

The character designs are pretty hideous, yet I found the characters pretty endearing.  I really, really liked some of the settings through which you travel, though (the final dungeon had especially cool art design).  I rather enjoyed exploring.

The soundtrack is, of course, pretty great.  I still find myself humming the main theme of the game (probably a sign that Sakimoto was not responsible for that particular melody ), and I'll definitely be all over this CD release.

Bernhardt is being nicer about the translation than I'm willing to be - I'm shocked when something as stilted and unnatural as this translation is actually professionally published for mass consumption.  It's not as bad as, say, ANY of Bandai's hack jobs on the Legend of Heroes franchise, but it's about as far from quality localization as one sees in this day and age.  I seem to recall at least one place in the game where you actually have to say "no" when the answer to the question should be "yes."  Proofreading, anybody...?

In the end, it's almost definitely worth $15 if you have the patience for an old-school RPG with a lot of really unique flavor to it.  Just don't expect it not to have any shortcomings!

As long as it isn't as bad as BoF2's translation was, I think I'll be fine.

I was thinking of that when reading the above. Still, bad translation aside, I love Breath of Fire II.

I do too. It's a fine game, just the localization just got a bit too vague later on, not to mention it really bothers me when they need to abbreviate the names of items for them to fit.

To that end, I've been enjoying the fan translation that overhauls everything in the script. It makes it a lot more enjoyable, but I can't seem to find the site to link you.