Breath of Fire II: Breath of Fresh Fire 2

Breath of Fire 2 is another one of the author's favorite RPGs from the 1990s. The early Breath of Fire games weren't anything particularly new (character-development-wise), but they were well executed and fun to play, and definite creativity was demonstrated in different character's abilities. Every character can do something nifty to help out your team, and the party lineup can be organized differently in battle via different attack formations, which have varying affects on the attack/defense/speed of each combatant. The Breath of Fire series catapulted non-humans into central, heroic roles (Breath of Fire was the first game that the author remembers that memorably did this). And lastly, building a new town was an incredible feature, and gave the player a sense that they were really are making their own destiny and affecting the game world.

This modification serves to fine-tune the Player Characters, to provide the player with strong reasons to use any of them. Ryu is also able to use his Dragon powers more liberally (like his ancestor did in Breath of Fire 1), as they do not zero out his AP anymore. Dragon abilities do damage based on Ryu's level and his Wisdom. There are a few more Shaman combinations, as well.

To peruse a more exhaustive changelog, go to . There's also information on the http://jeffludwig.com/bof2/characters.php, http://jeffludwig.com/bof2/shaman.php, http://jeffludwig.com/bof2/weaponlist.php, and http://jeffludwig.com/bof2/armorlist.php.

*************************************************************************
*** The Breath of Fresh Fire modification ***
*** for ***
*** Breath of Fire 2 for Game Boy Advance ***
*************************************************************************

Version: v1.0, rev.1 ? Released December 29th, 2011.
Initially released on March 24th, 2011.
Author: ludmeister (aka Jeff Ludwig)
Website: http://jeffludwig.com


Notice, effective March 1st, 2012
******************************************************************************

For this release and all new releases, I am discontinuing the use of
IPS2EXE to create patches that can be applied without an IPS patching
program. These executable patches set off certain virus and malware
scanners.


Aim
******************************************************************************

The aim of this mod is simply to create a fresh Breath of Fire 2 experience,
and to allow for more liberal use of Dragon powers.


Version 1.0 Revision 1 Changelog
******************************************************************************

* Sten has been given the use of the Warp spell, so players may avoid some
needless backtracking early in the campaign.


Version 1.0 Changelog
******************************************************************************

* Spells are modified, especially their AP costs, names, and damage done.

* Every character casts different spells, and some have different starting
spells as well.

* Starting stats, and level up progressions for all characters, including
Bleu have been meticulously reworked. Some of the characters will play
much differently than stock Breath of Fire 2, making your strategies
different.

* Items have been renamed (no 2 character demarcation at the end of each
item). This allowed for 8 characters for each item name (6 for stackable
items). There are numerous items with different properties, and almost all
non-equipable items are stackable.

* Dragon Magic has been significantly changed. No more zero-ing out of the
Dragonbrood's AP when using Dragon abilities! They have been given an AP
cost, and do damage based off of hero level (not AP remaining).

* Fixed a bug in the original code that prevented the Dragon abilities
(Fire, Ice and Thunder Dragon) from inflicting damage according to their
elemental classification.

* I have meticulously realigned the Shaman combo system. The Holy and Devil
shamans are more powerful on their own. In face, a bug in the original code
(namely, Luck was not affected as it should have been) meant that the Holy
shaman by itself was worthless. I bypassed this by allowing the Holy Shaman
to increase other attributes. I have also added new Shaman combos. I may
post the new Shaman Combo list as time permits. For now, I'll leave you with
this teaser... Nina + Fire + Water... is very powerful!

* The "Special" message when character's critically hit monsters always
annoyed me. It has been changed to "Smoked!"

* Of course, to compensate for the various nifty new powers your characters
have, your enemies' power had to be increased proportionally. To keep things
interesting.



Installation instructions
******************************************************************************

The following applies this and all future releases of the Breath of Fresh Fire mod.

* First of all, you will need to obtain a clean GBA ROM of Breath of Fire 2.
The ROM title that you are looking for is "0510 - Breath of Fire II (E).gba".
You are on your own for this step, as it is illegal to provide ROMs of
copyrighted material. There are sites that do provide this ROM though,
and you should be able to obtain it.

* Note: This patch does not work with the "0403 - Breath of Fire II (U).gba" ROM!

* When you get it, make a backup of it if you would want to play the vanilla
version (or, in case I post an updated version of the mod here... I am not
going to make version 1.0 to "version whatever" patches for my mods, for
instance).

* Download the Breath of Fresh Fire mod.

* Use the IPS patching program of your choice to apply the .ips patch to the
correct ROM. As I use IPS XP (http://home.arcor.de/minako.aino/ipsXP/) to
create my patches, I recommend using this program to patch your ROM.

* I hope you enjoy it!


0510 - Breath of Fire II (E).gba
CRC32: FF5E8E39
MD5: 433CE4C6D525C74E3E60CDC197F6ABFB
SHA-1: 307798CA71BDA7F6B313FF1C18880F22C5A81711
SHA-256: 462F755A139FC9425AD4281AEF7395B065487331FB3A90421D29DD77E99508C0