Characters of Breath of Fire III

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The main characters of Breath of Fire III

The characters of the role-playing video game Breath of Fire III.

[edit] Development

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[edit] Main characters

[edit] Ryu

The main character of this and all previous Breath of Fire installments, Ryu is a blue-haired swordsman of the Dragon Clan, known in this game as the Brood. He is the spiritual descendant of the Ryus from the previous games, acting as the savior of the Clan in their most desperate times. In BoF III he is the Dragon Prince, as proclaimed by the citizens of Dragnier. This Ryu is unique among all of his incarnations as the player uses two versions of him in separate halves of the game. For the game's first half, the player uses Young Ryu, a shy, orphaned crybaby who discovers a power in himself he does not understand. In the game's second half, the player employs a Mature Ryu, the same boy roughly eighteen years old, more serious and determined than his youthful self. Functionally speaking, the two versions are essentially the same, with the only difference being their sprites' appearances and actions.

In battle Ryu is an interesting mix of classic character class archetypes; while his sword and tendency toward high attack power may mark him out as a warrior type, he also employs the most powerful healing magics in the game, as well as some useful defensive spells. In addition to these distinctive abilities, Ryu also possesses the ability to transform into very powerful dragon forms using assorted 'Dragon Genes' found across the world. These forms usually allow for the most powerful abilities in the game, making Ryu central to the player's battle plan(though since he is the primary character, the player cannot remove him from the party).

[edit] Teepo

A purple-haired orphan found by Rei an undisclosed period of time before the thief found Ryu. Teepo is a classic punk, he despises authority and loves to lash against it, though he craves attention as well. Despite his gruff attitude, he cares deeply for his adopted brothers Rei and Ryu, and losing them would severely scar him emotionally. As disclosed near the end-game, Teepo was also a member of the Brood, and a fellow Clansman to Ryu; but unlike Ryu, he agreed with Mariya's assessment that the Brood were far too powerful to be left to their own devices and allowed himself to be imprisoned in Eden for eternity. He attempted to turn Ryu to his side, but in the end failed. Slain by his comrades, his last words were that he only wanted the life he Rei and Ryu had all those years ago back.

As Teepo is only available in the very first few hours of gameplay, the player only gets a sampling of what Teepo would be like as a full character. In battle Teepo is a moderately powerful swordsman, but an even better magician. Though Nina will most likely outstrip him due to her assortment of powerful spells, he is still indispensably useful for the time you can use him.

[edit] Rei

A thief of the Yrall Region, Rei is one of the last remaining members of the powerful Woren Tribe, a race of powerful humanoid tigers with exceptional agility and physical capabilities. Rei himself is possessed with the ability to transform into the deadly Weretiger, a vicious, powerful, though berserk version of himself; were it not for the power of the Brood, his race may have been extremely dominant. Very little is known about Rei's past, though it is likely he was an orphan like Teepo and Ryu. He acts as an elder brother to the two Brood children, and as such is extremely protective of them, becoming vengeful and bitter when he believes them to have been killed by a powerful crime syndicate. After the three are attacked by the Horse Brothers Balio and Sunder, Rei vows revenge upon the syndicate that disrupted their quiet little life, and goes on a hunt for his attackers and those who hired them. After a killing spree in Syn City and killing the syndicate's leader Mikba, he joins Ryu's group again to see if God can answer why people like him are born with the powers they have.

Rei is an extremely agile character, fulfilling with gusto the role of thief/assassin for this game. But though he excels in speed, he is lacking in defense, and magical prowess. He has some powerful spells, but a rather low amount of Ability Points prevents him from using them to any lasting benefit in battle. His Weretiger ability, if carefully balanced with the Influence skill, however, can be employed to great effect in combat.

[edit] Nina

As there is a Ryu in every BoF game, so is there a Nina every time. Nina, like her previous selves is the Princess of Wyndia and an accomplished sorceress. She is, while in her youth, a spunky blond-haired maiden with a penchant for seeking justice in all things. After being rescued by Ryu from Balio and Sunder in the dungeon of Wyndia castle, she stays close to his side, seeing him as her protector. In the game's latter half, she chooses once again to follow Ryu and his friends, much to the chagrin of her parents, this time to help uncover the mysteries surrounding the genocide of the Brood.

As the game's resident mage, Nina employs a host of powerful magic spells, all of them weather-based to further the avian-Wyndian connection. Her high Intellect and large store of Ability Points allow her to spend the battles dispensing wave after wave of powerful magical attacks. However, her lack of good support and healing techniques make her a somewhat unpopular character to use, as many players tend to change her out in favor of Rei and Momo.

[edit] Momo

A reclusive scientist who holed herself up in a great tower after her father's death in order to try to finish his incomplete research on the magical ore known as chrysm. A red-haired, long-eared young woman, she is possessed of a natural genius probably inherited from her father. This intelligence comes with an unintentional arrogance that she exhibits by making claims that her father's research(and therefore some of her own) is great and probably infalliable. Despite this however, she is a kind-hearted individual who's curiosity and intelligence drive her to finding knew ways for science to benefit the world. In the game's second-half, Momo follows Ryu and his friends to discover the origin of the machines that wash up on the shores of the Southern World.

Momo is an interesting character in battle: as she wields a chrysm-powered bazooka, her attack power is very easily astronomical, but the chaotic nature of her weapon makes her accuracy immediately shoddy. Even with the accuracy increasing Artemis Cap, she struggles to hit her enemies. Her magical capabilities are far more balanced however; her intelligence and AP make her a capable magician in her own right. She is possessed of some moderately powerful healing spells, and a scant number of earth-elemental offensive spells, but her forte is support magic. She is the only character able to use the most useful spell Might, an attack enhancer, and has the AP to spare for copius uses of Protect and Speed. Her defense and speed are below average. She is very often a part of a player's final line up due to her potent status enhancing spells.

[edit] Peco

A curious little talking onion created from the charred remains of a genetic mutation, Peco serves as the comic relief of the Breath of Fire crew. Though his importance to the story is primarily innocuous at first, he serves a far greater purpose as the game moves on. He is one of the last of the Grassmen Tribe, and a voice of the ancient Tree of Wisdom, Yggdrasil. Through him, Yggdrasil exerts his influence to counter some of the damage Myria has done, and is seen returning life to the barren Desert of Death.

Peco is a peculiar character to employ in battle. As his entrance into the party is his 'birth', he begins the game at level 1, whereas his party members are usually level 15 or higher at his joining. This can be a good thing however, as his low level can make is easier for players to gain some hard-to-earn spells from masters like Deis and Ladon, who yield their best abilities only after gaining ten or fifteen levels while under their respective wings. In actual combat, Peco can be quite useful. While he is somewhat lacking in magical clout, his physical abilities can make up for that detriment. From his first appearance his HP values are egregiously high, and continue to skyrocket from there, easily breaking 100 HP in a few levels. This, along with a Defense that is primarily unparalleled and a constant HP regeneration while in battle makes him very tough for enemies to kill. Add his naturally high offensive status to the mix and you find yourself with a classic tank (even if he is an onion).

[edit] Garr

The longstanding Champion of the Tournament of Champions, Garr is one of the Four Guardians created by Myria, the Goddess of Destruction to eliminate the Brood from the face of the Earth. He, along with his brethren Guardians Gatz, Gaw and Gaist, slaughter the Brood who put up no real resistance. He frees Ryu from the clutches of Balio and Sunder, in order to take him to Angel Tower, and execute him, the last of the Brood. But Ryu defeats him handily, which Garr anticipated, bringing to light the guilt and doubt that he had bottled up within him for centuries since the war's end. He knew the Brood could have eradicated him and the other Guardians had they wished, yet they allowed themselves to be destroyed. In the game's second half, Garr finds Ryu in hiding to beg his forgiveness, and take him to see Myria, to ask why the Brood needed to be killed.

Garr's use in battle is extremely straightforward, his only marketable traits are an incredibly high rate of attack power and a good amount of defense. His other abilities are below average at best. His magical skills are negligible; his spells are moderately useful, but an abysmally low amount of AP makes it nearly impossible to use his spells to any real effect. Couple this with a very low speed makes Garr a character with a highly specialized purpose. He can be difficult to use, but with appropriate training under certain masters, he can either be a lumbering titan or a trotting behemoth.

[edit] Assorted Antagonists

[edit] Mayor Mcneil

A corrupt dignitary of the Yrall Region. He exhorts excessive taxes from his people to pay the crime syndicate he works for. After Ryu, Rei and Teepo rob back the money he exhorted, he calls upon the Syndicate for help.

[edit] Balio

The elder of the Horse Brothers of the Syn City Crime Syndicate. Calmer and more cultured than his brash younger sibling, he is often the Crime Syndicate's acting hand in the dealings it has with the world. He orchestrates the Tournament of Champions stationed in Southern Wyndia. He and his brother were called upon by the corrupt Mcneil to punish Ryu and his friends for acting against the syndicate.

[edit] Sunder

The younger of the Horse Brothers, Sunder is less refined and mature than his older counterpart. He often is sent by Balio to handle grunt work, like catching a runaway Ryu and Nina.

[edit] The Corrupted Brood

Spirits of the Brood that roam the world in pain and hate, ruing the Guardians that killed them. One appears before Ryu and Garr in the Dauna Mines.

[edit] Mikba

The leader of the Syn City Crime Syndicate. He was caught by Rei as he made a run for it across the border of the Dauna Mines into the north. Before dying, he revealed his true, monstrous self, but was felled by Ryu's party.

[edit] Palet

A corrupt scientist seeking to use the power of chrysm ore and the research of the late Repsol to further his own ends, and revive his dead mother. Confronted by Ryu's team, he sought to defend himself and his soon-to-be resurrected mother by drinking undiluted Yggdrasil sap to transform into a hideous creature. Nevertheless, he proved no match for our heroes.

[edit] The Altered Beasts of the World

Whether by magic, science or pure natural selection, the world of Breath of Fire III is inhabited by a vast variety of chimeras and monsters. These include the Nue, a great, blue skinned baboon with snakes as her tail, the Angler, a giant, crawling, blowfish-angler fusion, and the Ammonites, a pair of flying jellyfish with fish-like features. These provide a plethora of bosses for the player to enjoy.

[edit] Myria

The Goddess of Destruction, once known as Tyr, she was first sealed away by one of Ryu's ancestors, and seven other heroes, now renowned in lore. She is sister kin to the Goddess Deis, and the ancient Demon Deathevan. At her waking, she was filled with a need to protect all the people of the world, whom she called her 'children', and to do so she desired the destruction of the Brood, who she viewed as a threat to the world(though in truth she also saw them as a threat to her power). She is the one who split the world in twain, separating its peoples by a vast ocean, so that the ravenous Desert of Death may not claim the Southern Lands cultivated by Yggdrasil's children.

She resides in Station Myria, an orbiting space station connected by an elevator to the decaying ruins of Caer Xhan, an ancient city filled with the remains of a once great technological civilization, from whence the machines that keep the Southern Lands running originate.

In her assumed form, she appears as a pink-robed, serene angel, a blond beauty with divine wings. In this form she is kind and merciful, even dispensing punishment in serenity. Her true form is that of a colossal woman with bird's wings and a serpent's tail, capable of unimaginable destruction.

It is possible her progenitor is the scientist Yuna, first introduced in Breath of Fire IV. He was seen experimenting with humans, to attempt to create his own God, which he succeeded in doing with the Princess Elena. Elena was bound to the building she was in by a vast assortment of bulbous organic tubes, that may have resembled a tail, quite similar to Myria's form.

This might also explain her kinship to Deis, who herself was a goddess at first without a body. Yuna may have created one for her, making her essentially blood kin to Tyr/Myria and Deathevan, whom Yuna probably also created.

[edit] The Masters

A unique aspect within the gameplay of Breath of Fire III is the Master system, which allows characters to learn powerful spells and abilities while leveling up in the tutelage of one of them. The primary attraction to the Masters, however, is their ability to alter how a character levels up in the game. Most every master, with a few exceptions, allows the character to boost their increases in certain stats, while decreasing their ability to gain in others. For instance, Garr is a character with astronomical strength, and abysmal magical capability; by apprenticing him to the Master Mygas, you allow him to gain more magical ability per level than he would otherwise, at the expense of a slightly stunted strength growth. This allows the player to choose what purposes his or her characters will serve in combat, and how they will end up as fighters in the endgame.

[edit] Mygas

A wandering wizard, Mygas is the first Master available to you in the game. You can enter his patch of the woods after Ryu, Rei and Teepo encounter the Nue on Mt. Glaus. To be apprenticed to him, one must first offer unto him compensation: namely, all the zenny in your possession at the moment. While learning under him, characters will increase in intelligence and Ability Points at an accelerated rate, while their growth in strength and defense will suffer slightly. The abilities that can be learned under him are very basic, providing good magic for characters with no offensive magical capabilities of their own at the beginning of the game. The abilities are primarily useless later on in the game however.

[edit] Bunyan

A Woodsman of the Yrall Region, he acts as a surrogate guardian to Ryu, Rei and Teepo, seeking to set them straight and help them as he can. He can be apprenticed under after Balio and Sunder tear Ryu's first family apart. There are no prerequisites to training under him, so some players find it expedient to have Ryu learn from him as soon as possible. While gaining his knowledge, the character in question will suffer a stunted growth in intelligence and Ability Points in exchange for improved growth in health, strength and defense. The skills that a character gains from him are all based on physical strength, but involve some sacrifice or catch in return. The skills are useful for players who enjoy moves that gamble with the character's life in exchange for devastating power.

[edit] Yggdrasil

An ancient and wise spirit, Yggdrasil is the embodiment of nature and the pure power of the Earth itself. Along with the Brood, he is one of the few powers capable of countering the cataclysmic power of the Goddess Myria, reversing spells she cast with ease through his conduit creature, Peco. Though he is the disembodied essence of life, the player can only access him by having Peco talk to his 'main tree' to the right of the Plant. One can learn from him by offering unto him a Wisdom Fruit. While his student, characters gain an intelligence, AP and Defense bonus, while they suffer in HP and strength, as well as suffer from a weaker resistance to the element of fire. The spells he bequeaths are peculiar, while there are only three, each one has a radically different focus, so he offers no real specialization for a character under his wing.

[edit] D'Lonzo

The famed female cat burglar of Eastern Wyndia. Though she plays no significant role in the game's plot, she is a favored Master to learn under by many players of the game. She offers her pupils an acceleration in speed and strength gain as well as a higher rate of accuracy, at the expense of some loss of growth in health and ability points. The skills she teaches are thief-like in nature, ranging from item stealing to experience manipulating.

[edit] Meryleep

A wayfaring fairy found in a sacred pond, she can be summoned by kicking a stone into the water found in an Eastern Wyndian forest. To obtain her teachings, the player must return to her the Flower Jewel found by knocking into a certain tree found in an area marked by a '?' in Wyndia. She offers her students an accelerated rate of growth in speed, at the detriment of health, strength and defense. As her status boosts are none too generous, she is not a popular long-term Master; however, players enjoy her tutelage due to the power skills she relinquishes, including the all-important War Shout.

[edit] Fahl

A bartender in front of the Arena of the Tournament of Champions, Fahl is a drunkard member of the Shell Clan. He offers his services as a Master after the player engages in thirty battles consecutively without resting. Fahl's primary focus lies in the physical development of his students, offering a marginally high rate of growth in strength, and a very high growth rate in defense and health. His students don't grow in agility and intelligence as quickly however. The abilities he proffers are defense centric, which offer interesting strategies to battle.

[edit] Durandal

A slacker who lives in a shack next to Wyndia Castle. He is a very peculiar Master; he offers no bonuses or penalties to a character's growth, and the skills he offers are primarily useless, and at best non-lethal to enemies. Why do people train under him? Learning his three skills is prerequisite for learning under Honduras, which prompt most players to learn from this useless Master

[edit] Giotto

A famed fisherman of the Rhapala Region, he appears to be some form of human-Manillo hybrid. To train under him, the player must fish, and fish quite a bit; until he or she earns 2000 Fishing Points. While he offers an accelerated growth rate for health and ability points, the character learning from him suffers detriments to their stat gains in strength, defense, agility, and intelligence. The abilities he bestows all speak of a level of desperation: one allows random spell usage when the character is out of AP, one sends the character into a blind rage, the last randomly selects a character or enemy to execute.

[edit] Critical response