 Many Super Nintendo sequels play like the original game but on steroids, meaning the strengths of the original are all accentuated with some new fun features added. Mega Man X2 did this, Donkey Kong Country 2, Final Fight 2, and a ton of others. With Breath of Fire 2, it turned out a bit differently. Both the good and bad aspects of the original Breath of Fire are magnified. What was good is even better, but unfortunately what was bad is even worse. Let's just get the bad out of the way right away. The encounter rate in Breath of Fire 2 is somehow even worse than the original. And not only that, this might be the hardest RPG on the Super Nintendo and not necessarily in a fun way either. At the beginning of the game you fall into a battle every 5 steps or so, and you have to go all out using items, cure spells, the whole deal, just to survive as you grind away. Really, if you want to get anywhere in Breath of Fire 2, you have to grind like crazy. I know excessive grinding can be a deal breaker for some people, so if it is for you, you might want to look elsewhere. But at least they kept the auto battle function, and they did add a monster meter to the menu screen that tells you when an enemy is near, which is always. Also Capcom shrugged off Squaresoft and decided to do the translation themselves this time around. That, uh, may not have been a wise decision, because the game reads very strangely at times. But at least unlike the first game, the menu is a little more cleaned up. The translation may be a bit goofy, but one thing the game does well is the non verbal stuff, like where Bo has to hide after he's accused of stealing. You have to lead him out of town while he bounces around in a trash can. That's pretty funny. The first game didn't even try to do anything like this, so it's nice to see. Anyway, flaws aside, what makes this game satisfying more than anything is that it's a true sequel. It takes place 500 years after the first game, but Ryu, Nina, and Blue are all back as well as the same clans, most of the same towns, and some of the same music is all revisited. Everything really feels familiar, and it's a welcoming feeling. The game hits a great balance in this matter. You don't have to play the first game to get into the series, but if you did, you'll really be glad that you did, and it's especially nice to visit an updated and updated version of this world. Despite the wonky translation, the story in Breath of Fire 2 is definitely better than the first game, and much deeper. We get into Ryu's backstory right away. His village was attacked by demons, which claimed his mother's life. A dragon sacrificed itself to protect the village from further attacks. One day when 6-year-old Ryu leaves the village to go see it, he comes back only to find he and his family never existed. No one's ever heard of him. Super weird. He's taken in by the church and raised as an orphan, until Bo, from the dog clan I guess, convinces him to run away and live as a thief. We fast forward 10 years, where Ryu and Bo are living as rangers doing various tasks for money, which allows them the opportunity to meet more and more people, get more party members, and eventually learn more about what actually happened that fateful day Ryu left the village. It's a great idea for a story. Yeah, it gets pretty predictable towards the end, but I think the way it's told is well done. It's one of the game's biggest strengths, and by the way it's told, I mean strictly through quests and events, that sort of stuff, not the translation, which sadly drops the ball here. The game is still perfectly playable, of course. It's just a bummer that the translation is lousy. And even worse, they never changed it for the Game Boy Advance version. The hell, man. One more quick thing I want to point out, I know music is entirely subjective, but I like through the music a heck of a lot more in the first game than the second. Some of the music in Breath of Fire 2 is downright annoying at times. Anyway, back to the strengths of the game, one of my favorite things about the first Breath of Fire was the great looking battle screen. The sequel outdoes it with excellent looking sprites. Ryu and company in particular really look awesome, with some nice looking animation as well. For the battle system, they ditch the logos in favor of text, thankfully. And there's some innovations here and there, like the shot mechanic for Bow, for example. You either do huge damage, or hardly any. Like the equivalent of clicking the I'm feeling lucky button on Google. Other than that, it's pretty much the same solid turn-based combat, although they eventually do amp up the character combination aspect as well, allowing even more combinations. They also brought a bit more to the world map, with hunting areas that appear randomly, that reminds me of Oregon Trail. There's more areas for Ryu to fish, and most of the characters have a unique action they can perform, if they're leading the party, just like the first game. I should also mention that there's a kind of emotion meter when you talk to certain characters. It's a symbol that changes color depending on what they're feeling. Kind of an interesting idea, because you can tell if someone's not being entirely truthful with you or not. In one surprising new addition, you get to build your own village eventually, where migrants from all over come to live. You get to pick and choose building designs, assign tasks to people. It's totally unexpected for this game, and it's really fun. But anyway, yeah. If you're looking for a prototypical Super Nintendo JRPG, you found it with Breath of Fire 2, with turn-based battles, tough bosses, an intriguing story, and excellent graphics. But be ready for lots of grinding. And if you liked the first Breath of Fire even a little bit, then you will love Breath of Fire 2.