Breath of Fire is a role-playing video game series developed by Capcom. It originated on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1993. The series is notable for its recurring characters and ambiguous continuity; though each game is its own self-contained story, the names of the two lead characters are usually Ryu and Nina. The story commonly involves an adventurer named Ryu who can shapeshift into different types of dragons. Over the course of his journey, he befriends Nina, a girl with wings. At its inception, Breath of Fire took place in a medievalfantasy style fictional world. Following the mainstream success of Japanese role-playing games in the 1990s, the series began using the original anime-style artwork for later Western releases of the games, post-apocalyptic themes, and an increased emphasis on character development. Despite these changes, the core structure of Breath of Fire remains largely linear and plot-focused. As of 2016, six Breath of Fire titles have been released, with three games being ported to handheld game consoles as well as Nintendo's Virtual Console, and two ported to the Nintendo Switch's SNES games library. As of December 31, 2019, the series has sold 3.2 million units worldwide.
Games
Main series
Mobile games
Beginning in November 2003, Capcom began releasing Breath of Fire titles specifically for mobile phone devices in Japan. Each game was developed for use on NTT DoCoMo, au, and SoftBank brand cellphones that use the i-mode, EZWEB, or BREW services. The first title, Breath of Daifugō, is a replication of the Japanese card gamedaifugō featuring characters from Breath of Fire IV, and would be followed by a sports game called Breath of Fire: Ryū no Tsurishi in October 2005, which contained an expanded version of the fishing minigame also from the game. Two action role-playing spin-offs of Breath of Fire IV titled Breath of Fire IV: Honō no Ken to Kaze no Mahō and Breath of Fire IV: Yōsei-tachi to Hikari no Kagi' were released in November 2007 and November 2008 respectively.
Music
The music of each Breath of Fire games has traditionally been produced by rotating members of Capcom's in-house sound team. While the themes from first game were composed by five members of the company's sound team Alph Lyla, which included Yasuaki Fujita, Mari Yamaguchi, Minae Fuji, Yoko Shimomura and Tatsuya Nishimura, the second game's score was produced entirely by fellow company composer Yuko Takehara. Breath of Fire IIIs soundtrack took a jazz-inspired approach, and was written by the team of Yoshino Aoki and Akari Kaida, with the music of Breath of Fire IV provided solely by Aoki herself. For the first time in the series, the music of Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter was created by an outside employee, Hitoshi Sakimoto, with Yasunori Mitsuda serving as music producer on the project. In March 2006, Capcom released the 11-disc Breath of Fire Original Soundtrack Special Boxboxset on their in-house record labelSuleputer, which contained all music from the first five games in the series. The set includes the first-ever soundtrack release of the original Breath of Fire, as well as the first complete soundtrack releases for Breath of Fire II and Breath of Fire III, which had previously only received single-disc selections during their original printings, with a total of 307 tracks from all five titles. Capcom produced a limited run of only 2000 copies of the boxset, which was distributed on their online store e-Capcom, as well as special retailers, and included a 28-page booklet featuring art from the series.
As of the fifth game in the series, the Breath of Fire franchise has sold a total of 3.2 million units worldwide, with Capcom calling it their "best known and most successful role-playing game." Sales of each successive title continued on an upward slope which peaked at the PlayStation entries in the series, with the fifth game, Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter on the PlayStation 2, representing a significant dip. Each title received mostly positive reviews from aggregate review websites GameRankings and Metacritic, with critics such as Gamasutra finding each game to be good, but largely formulaic, calling the franchise "always solid, if not particularly ambitious". The series has routinely been compared to Square Enix's popular Final Fantasy games, with GameSpot stating that "Though the Breath of Fire games have never been as well received as bigger RPG names like Final Fantasy, the series indicates that Capcom is definitely learning something about the fine art of RPG development." In May 2009, nearly seven years after the release of the latest game, Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, readers of Japanese Famitsu magazine voted the series 6th in the publication's survey of the Top 50Most Wanted Game Sequels. IGN would later name Breath of Fire the 4th greatest Capcom franchise of all time in June 2010, stating that "Though the Breath of Fire games evolved across the SNES to the PlayStation 2, the core held steadfast to Japanese RPG formulas – something that many gamers still celebrate."
Series future
In a December 2008 interview with gaming website 1UP.com, Capcom's former Head of Production Keiji Inafune stated the Breath of Fire series would be put on hiatus due to the company's lack of staff and an increasingly competitive role-playing game market, stating "There are currently no plans on making a new Breath of Fire game. Apart from that, regarding RPG titles, they are very popular in Japan, but only certain RPG titles sell so Capcom doesn't really need to even consider making these titles as an option." Capcom USA Vice President of Strategic Planning Chris Svensson would later claim on the company's official message boards in June 2009 that the series remains a "resting IP". Other companies such as Camelot Software Planning have expressed interest in developing a title for the series if Capcom remained unwilling to do so.
Appearances in other media
Breath of Fire would later be featured in Archie Comics' Worlds Unite crossover event as one of several Capcom and Sega guest franchises appearing in the company's Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man titles.
