Breath of Fire (GBA)

“One of my first RPGs and one I regard highly. + Transformations. Playing trough the game... get thief... meet old geezers... fuse minor characters into big ones. Pretty simple concept but this is the only game I know that implements it and I love...”

“One of my first RPGs and one I regard highly.
+ Transformations. Playing trough the game... get thief... meet old geezers... fuse minor characters into big ones. Pretty simple concept but this is the only game I know that implements it and I love it.
+ Story. Yes, it's subpar when compared to others like Golden Sun... so what? This storyline is enthralling enough to give you an incentive to keep playing, discover locations and land in wacky situations (dream worlds... mole people... Most games feature at least one of these classics but few games seem to feature a world composed of nothing but these). Not only that, it fits with how the game's played. Classical good vs bad, straigth-forward.
+ Difficulty. It's a rather easy RPG in it's core 'till you meet the Boss of the dungeon. Generally speaking you're fine if you deal with every monster you encounter (high encounter rate) but if you flee too often you're in a pickle and you'll have to spend some time grinding).
- Random encounters. When playing normally the rate is rather high but nothing frustrating... 'till you start running. The encounter ratio skyrockets and you'll be frustrated like there's no tomorrow...
- Late-Game. The last dungeon is more about getting to the boss than killing them. Why? easy: Your party forms into a single giga-powerfull Monster... that fully recovers his 9999 hp by eating a single melon...which you'll have plenty of by that time...
A serious letdown :(
- Music. Lot's of people complain about this and I agree it isn't really top-notch. Then again, those were the days I played without headphones with screamin siblings so yeah... we'll take this point as "voiced by the people" :D blame them, not me if you do like this music :3”