Earlier this year Capcom announced the eagerly awaited sixth instalment of its popular role-playing game series would be an online game for mobile and PC. Fans were angry. Will fresh information and screens of Breath of Fire 6: Guardians of the White Dragon make them happy? Oh come on, it’s got Nina in it.
I can understand why fans of a series that’s been console-centric for ages would be riled by the transition to online, likely free-to-play (though no pay structure has been announced yet) mobile game. Years of structure are being tossed out.
But there is hope! According to fresh information on the official Japanese website for the game obtained via the fine folks at Pixelitis, there’ll be some familiar faces and place in the game to help ease the pain.
For instance, the blonde on the left here is Nina, descendant of the Wing Clan. She’s not quite as birdlike as she’s been in the past, but she’s still our little Nina, mostly.
Next to Nina is Peridot, a mysterious new character who rescues the main character from Not-Ryu’s hometown of Dragnier, after its been ransacked by the Schwarz Empire. See? Familiar!
Yes, there’s no main character named Ryu — just a customised sprite hero that’s unique to the player. But these customised heroes do start off in Ryu’s hometown, and they do possess magical dragon-like abilities.
Additional party members, once fully fleshed-out beings are being replaced with AI followers who fight by the created hero’s side via time-based action combat. I could see Capcom turning this into a collectible card game variant, with players collecting followers based on rarity, spending money on chances to win more powerful allies.
Oh wait, I am supposed to be reassuring fans. Look, town building!
Looks a little bit too free-to-play mobile for me, but at least the feature is making it in.
OK, the situation still looks bleak, but all is not lost. We don’t know if this will be free-to-play. We don’t know if Capcom is going to pound away at players with microtransactions. Maybe Breath of Fire 6: Guardians of the White Dragon will be a game worthy of the Breath of Fire name, finally proving that a mobile transition doesn’t have to be a bad thing.
Maybe not. We’ll find out this spring.
Comments
7 responses to “Maybe You Won’t Hate Breath Of Fire 6 So Much”
I dont know why capcom felt the need to call it breath of fire 6. The breath of fire series would resonate with old school JRPG fans not the regular smart phone gamer who plays candy crush, temple run or tapped out. Im fine with them making some game like this but if you are going to make a new breath of fire game do it on 3DS or vita. Make it a true sequel instead of trying to use the name to get people on board for a game that will be nothing like the originals.
*cough*
Capcom says hi!
*cough*
Fun fact, Breath of Fire 4 is my favorite RPG of all time.
From this point onward, if anybody tries to make an argument that developers trying to target a mobile/casual audience ISN’T a blight to the gaming industry, I have a perfect example at how wrong they are.
i hate it already :S
Honestly the only BoF Ive ever really enjoyed was Dragon Quarter. I played the shit out of that but the rest never appealed for some reason. Still hurts to see a franchise have this happen though. Star Ocean appears dead, FF is dead to me and with dragon quest never being huge here the rpg genre aint looking to good for me.
Breath of Fire 2 was the shiz
I’m a huge BOF fan (though I’ve only played 3 onwards and a little of 2), and even liked the somewhat divisive BOF V: Dragon Quarter but this seems like a blatant attempt to dress up an average game in the trappings of fan nostalgia. Especially without a blue haired hero and a non-winged Nina. It’s like if a new Suikoden (another favourite series) was announced that didn’t have the 108 stars of destiny, building up an army and the True Runes.