When Capcom put that five-word phrase onto the front of the American BoF3 box, they sure as heck weren't kidding.

Ah, Breath of Fire III. What can be said about it that hasn't been said already? Beginning development in late 1996/early 1997, this game marked a time in which Capcom's ingenuity in the RPG genre would pay off for once. BoFs I and II were severely underrated, but at least this one got its due as time went by.

Released in 1997 for Japan and 1998 for America, this RPG was notable for quite a few reasons, including:

-Lush graphics in which the characters were 2D and the backgrounds were 3D. Capcom made sure they could pack nearly every detail needed into every inch of the graphics.

-The Master System gave players a new way to train up their characters. Do you wanna sacrifice magic power for brute force, or will you take a more balanced approach? Want certain characters to learn certain moves? Apprentice them under different masters for tons of different options.

-The Dragon Gene system, which allows players to make all sorts of dragons each with their own stats and special attacks. This truly added kind of a curiosity element to the game.

But all this was bundled together with a deep story, great soundtrack, and awesome characters. Seriously, this time the saga of Ryu and his pals was truly a cut above the rest, especially for its time. Eschewing the standard "burning town, chosen one" story you can find in just about any other Japanese RPG, BoFIII told the story of Ryu and how he got through his hardships, figuring out more about himself and his clan (the Brood) over a number of years (all of the young characters become grown up about halfway through the game, after the fight between Ryu and Garr).

And what hardships! The game starts off with two guys talking in a mine, riding a mine cart. They find a baby dragon encased in a crystal (this turns out to be Ryu). The two guys, Gary and Mogu (you may recognize the name Mogu from the first BoF game, but this isn't the same one), use some dynamite to blow up the crystal. Ryu awakens, gets mad, and pretty much burns them to death while being controlled by the player. Ryu's only mission at this point is to escape the mine. As a cute, green baby dragon, no less.

After passing all sorts of scared miners (one even wets his pants as he mentions himself in the game), he ends up near the end of the mine, but ends up fighting a builder (at the player's control). Before he can use Whelp Breath to finish the builder off, somebody in the mine distracts him by yelling, and he's hit with a crane, caged, and put on the back of a train.

Outside, Ryu wiggles free of the train and he and the cage fall an indeterminate amount of feet to the ground. Rei, a Woren tribe warrior, finds Ryu naked in the forest. He carries Ryu back to his house, where his cohort, Teepo, lets him become a thief along with them. Ryu finds out his own name (and has a rather weird, elaborate prophetic dream), and the three go to start committing crimes.

One rather memorable crime they commit is when they try to mug someone on Yraall Road. Specifically, they have Ryu do it. Of course, he's reluctant to do it; however, Teepo pushes him out into the road from the bushes. Ryu stumbles and runs into Bunyan, a big, menacing lumberjack (who oddly enough looks like Hagrid from Harry Potter, or rather Hagrid looks like him). After a rather unsettling threat towards Ryu and his thieving buddies, Rei decides they'll pay Bunyan back for the threat, so they break into his house to get food. Once they get their spoils (a pack of beef jerky), all three hear the door opening. Rei, being somewhat scared, decides to check out what's going on.

A very funny yelp later ("BUHIIIIII!") Teepo and Ryu go up to check on Rei. Instant blackout. Total flipping darkness for two seconds. When Teepo and Ryu come to, they notice that they're tied up and that Rei's gone. Bunyan explains that he sent Rei to Mt. Glaus, and tells Ryu and Teepo to chop wood to pay off their debt and to "do some honest work for a change." After this, Teepo decides they'll go to Mt. Glaus to find Rei. This is one of my favorite parts of the game 'cause it definitely shows how long Capcom had to think about writing a great story, and how far they were going to go to write one.

Of course, just because I stopped listing hardships doesn't mean that there aren't way more of them. After going to Mt. Glaus they kill a Nue, a chimera-like creature and find out it was just trying to feed its babies. Ouch. There's also the part after this where they break into Mayor McNeil's mansion at the request of a cloaked fellow named Loki, which turns out really bad as they earn the distrust of all the villagers, and get stalked by these two crazy horsemen for a good chunk of the game.

Outside of the one part that I said was one of my favorites, I have a slew of others. Training a lanky bookkeeper named Beyd to fight a sailor named Zig to earn his childhood friend Shadis' hand was very memorable for me. Also, the Contest of Champions was well-done, and the fight between Ryu and Garr much later on before the time skip is another point of interest for me. If I rattled off every event I liked, this post would be far too long. :P

Aside from the story being on point, the characters are awesome too. You have Ryu, of course, who's of the Brood clan and basically a silent hero outside of having a few yells in battle (though he speaks in the game, it's not seen or heard by the player, yet the other characters react to what he's saying), and has a ton of dragon transformations. Rei, the thief from the Woren tribe who can turn into a Weretiger and has a will of steel, Teepo, the mysterious warrior whom actually is the basis of one of the best plot twists in the game, Nina, a cute little princess who's hankering for some adventure, and you meet other cool characters like Garr, Momo, and Peco throughout your adventure.

My favorite characters besides Ryu would have to be Nina, Garr, and Rei. Garr is my standout favorite because of what he was sent to do: kill Ryu. As one of the Four Guardians, it was his job to kill Ryu as Ryu is a member of the Brood (the Four Guardians specialized in killing the Brood). In a twist of delicious irony, Garr beats Ryu to near-death in the tournament, joins up with him to fight Balio and Sunder, and stays pretty much an MVP in your party for most of the game, then it gets to a certain point and he decides he wants to test Ryu's power (basically his own roundabout way of saying he's gonna kill him). Some circle of life, huh? Where's that song from The Lion King when ya need it?! :P

And yet another great point to the game is the gameplay. The new additions make the battles great. The new Dragon Gene system allows players to pick and match up to three genes to make any of a wide assortment of dragons. This keeps battle fresh and is actually quite useful at certain points of the game. And I just love the designs of the dragons, specifically Tiamat, which IMO is the coolest-looking one out of all of them. In addition to this, there's also the Master system, where one can apprentice any character under any of them and their stats raise or lower depending on the masters themselves. Characters can also gain new moves this way. This makes the game nearly infinitely replayable. The boss fights are just awesome. I remember the first time I fought the Dragon Zombie in the Dauna Mine. Good times.

The soundtrack is one of the best I've heard. There's a dichotomy of opinion as to whether the soundtrack is genius or it sucks, but I'm personally in the former camp. I love this game's music. The boss battle theme is one of the very best I've ever heard, and In The Morning, Nina's theme, is one of my favorite character theme songs ever. The whole soundtrack just sets the mood for the entire game.

All these things culminate to make Breath of Fire III my favorite RPG ever, and one of my top 5 favorite games of all time. I know when I'm bored or depressed, I pop this game in for a good time. It truly is the classic role-playing game.

-capcommunist