Cognition Dissemination: Let’s Get That Breath of Fire Collection

Last year marked the 30th anniversary for Capcom’s Breath of Fire franchise, and… I forgot. But it’s still January of 2024, so I don’t think this is too late. It’s a bit delayed, is all.

To be specific: The series was a prime candidate for the “Naughty” column for the Anniversaries entry in our annual Naughty and Nice series, where it would have gone had it been on my mind. (In fairness to me, no other staffers remembered it either.) The Breath of Fire series has not received a brand-new installment since the PlayStation 2 era, though it’s nice that the anniversary was acknowledged by Capcom’s Japanese arm, the Capcom Artworks account (with a piece of rare Keiji Inafune art included in their Twitter collage to boot), and by character designer Tatsuya Yoshikawa. It’s a pity there isn’t much room for a new installment in Capcom’s stuffed internal development channels, and the company’s dedication to big-budget AAA games isn’t helping. It’s a shame the series is in the grave despite its potential, and there hasn’t been any kind of worthy spiritual successor from Capcom or anyone else.

There should be some form of compromise here for the time being. If Capcom can’t make a new installment anytime soon, if ever, they should at least make the previous games easy to play on modern platforms. This isn’t the first time I’ve asked for this, but it’s time to do it again. I made sure not to reread that post about this matter to make sure I’m not fully repeating myself here. But before you start blaming me for rehashing content, you must blame Capcom for not taking action yet.

The only titles in the franchise that Capcom has cared about preserving are the first two games, both originally released on Super Nintendo/Super Famicom, though only on Nintendo platforms. Since their original release, they’ve been rereleased on Game Boy Advance, the Wii and Wii U Virtual Consoles, and are currently available through the Nintendo Switch Online program on the titular console. Having these in a more solid format would be nice, as part of a collection released physically and digitally for modern platforms and PC. Part of me feels that asking for the first two games to be retranslated with improved localizations is too much, despite Breath of Fire II being in dire need of it.

The state of the subsequent three games is considerably worse. Breath of Fire III was only ported to PSP, with Japan and Europe receiving physical releases while North America only got it digitally through PlayStation Network several years later. Considering the state of that store, where Sony’s made it ridiculously hard to continue buying and downloading games despite being forced to pull back on their plans to kill the store (alongside the PS3 and Vita ones), it barely counts as available.

Breath of Fire IV is in only a slightly better position, being released through PSOne Classics on PlayStation 3, PSP, and Vita. Those platforms are long dead now, so it’s another title that once again barely counts as “available.” It’s a bit easier to purchase and play than BoF3, but still more difficult than it should be.

Breath of Fire V: Dragon Quarter is the worst of them all. The game was released through the PS2 Archives program in Japan, their equivalent to the wildly underutilized PS2 Classics program, for PS3 in February 2016. It was delisted in early 2019. The game was never rereleased for that aforementioned western equivalent, and remains stuck in PS2 Jail.

There are tales of a game called Breath of Fire 6. This never happened. I don’t know what anyone’s referring to whenever they bring it up, a symptom of a fever dream extending into reality. You have to be very careful whenever that happens.

Anyway, it’s long past time for Capcom to release some form of collection. The company tends to work with great companies for emulating their retro collections if they don’t do them internally, ensuring that the games run as efficiently as possible on modern systems with pixel-perfect visuals (and multiple visual options) and little-to-no lag and input delay. It would be a pleasure if the company could do this with Breath of Fire for all modern platforms, even if it’s mainly a digital-only collection with a limited physical release. The best opportunity to announce this would have been during the anniversary year last year, but it’s not too late. It’s never too late.

It’s extremely unlikely that the Breath of Fire franchise will be revived in any significant fashion, even in the form of a mobile game like the one that totally never happened. The Ace Attorney games might join this franchise in not having much of a future (though I sincerely hope that’s not the case), but at least those games are getting collections. This is the least Capcom can provide in lieu of a new project. Perhaps we’ll get a worthy spiritual successor in the future, at the very least.

Related posts:

Cognition Dissemination: What Happened to the Onimusha Remasters? Cognition Dissemination: Let’s Discuss the Capcom Leaks Cognition Dissemination: So, What IS Pragmata? Cognition Dissemination: When You’re Paying for Content Potential