Breath of Fire IV

Breath of Fire IV
Also known as: Breath of Fire IV: Utsurowazaru Mono (JP) Developer: Capcom Publisher: Capcom Platform: PlayStation Released in JP: April 27, 2000 Released in US: November 28, 2000 Released in EU: August 3, 2001 This game has unused areas. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused items. This game has unused abilities. This game has unused text. This game has regional differences.

Breath of Fire IV is the fourth and final entry to the standard Breath of Fire series. It features many of the same gameplay elements from the third game, but improves them all drastically. The tone of the game changed significantly as well, going from the bright, colorful, optimistic tone of its predecessor to a much darker, more "muted" setting.

Unused Items

• Stout Mail - There are strangely two items by this name. The first is a normally-accessible piece of armor for Ershin with no special properties, while the other is much weaker (only 17 defense), can be used by Ryu/Cray/Scias/Ursula, and apparently has the same effect as the Midas Armor (turns damage received into Zenny). It's listed right after the aforementioned Midas Armor in the game's data, which may explain the description/effect, but it's unknown quite what this armor is.
• Pole - A generically-named two-hit weapon for Cray with 66 attack power, making it a fair bit stronger than the Flail. This would have been only his second two-hit weapon, and would have been quite useful. Shame it was left out.
• Draught + - Raises all stats until your next rest, presumably by a greater amount than Draught.
• Lottery Stub - A mysterious item that can't be used or sold. Its description states "Get the numbers in sequence to win!", this got unused in the US and European Versions of the Game. In the Japanese release it was possible to play Lottery in a special Shop called "Dengeki Store", if you use a prepatched savefile (See the Regional Differences Section for more Infos).

Unused Abilities

Identify

The enemy-scan spell from Breath of Fire III was slated to make a return appearance, but was cut. It's functional, and has unique animation, but the display looks slightly glitchy, as it appears to attempt to display all the attribute names in a too-small space, causing ugly text overlap.

Apparently, this spell could be learned by Scias in the Japanese version, but was cut from the North American release, presumably because the translation team couldn't think of a way to fix the text-bleeding. (Most likely, these attributes were represented by a single kanji in Japanese, in which they would line up perfectly.)

Mjollnir

This spell isn't strictly "unused", as the Dragonne boss in the final dungeon is capable of using it. However, it was supposed to be player-usable, as well... but due to some questionable design, it simply can't be done.

By casting spells of differing elements in a sequence, it's possible to create "combo" magic, and including the powerful "dragon magic" usable by Ryu and Fou-Lu's various dragon forms in these combos ultimately leads to some of the game's strongest magic. The problem is, Mjollnir's combo is Wind Magic + Water Magic + dragon magic Pa Bing'ah...and the only one who can use Pa Bing'ah is Fou-Lu, who never joins the main team and never gets any allies. As a result, it's impossible to call upon the game's strongest Wind/Water spell without hacking.

Unused Areas

Noritake's Town

Noritake's Town is an unused area in the game. It is not clear what the purpose of this area is. The AREA file for this area is AREAM019.EMI.

The text in this area was left untranslated from Japanese. Most NPCs say 「かいわ」 (Japanese for "conversation") when interacting with them. Two NPCs say 「のりたけさんのまち」 (Japanese for "Noritake's Town"), which is presumably the name of the area. An NPC has the same line as Gyosil, but interacting with the options he prompts you doesn't do anything.

Two Rhoppes can be found next to a house. One sells items, including the King's Sword. Another doesn't do anything. Manillo trading can be done with one of the Manillo NPCs.

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  「かいわ」

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  「のりたけさんのまち」

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  Gyosil's dialogue

Unused Text

Cliffs

Nina: Are you afraid of heights? I'm a Wyndian--we love high places.

Kyoin

The message from the E3 demo remains in the final game.

This demo has been prepared
especially for E3.      
The object of the game is
explore the Imperial    
Causeway and defeat the
officer on the top floor.  
We hope you enjoy this
glimpse into the world of
BREATH OF FIRE .

Unused Graphics

A lot of development-related graphics were left behind in the textures of the final game.

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  These tiles can be found in /BIN/SYSTEM/RTEST.EMI.

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  Hiragana "あ" found in the forest hunting ground's floor texture.

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  Tiles for kanji "水", "地", and "森", which never appear anywhere in Koshka.

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  Numbered tiles found in Highway.

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  Numbered tiles found in the forest battle area.

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  Color test strips and an angry face in found Cho Ryong's dragon texture.

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  Color test strips and "=|" faces found in the Nameless One's texture.

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  A "=|" face and a worried face found in the Kaiser dragon's texture.

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  Color test strips and notes in A-tur's texture.

Regional Differences

There are a total of four cut scenes that were cut from the North American/European release due to violence or questionable content.

• Fou-Lu decapitating Emperor Soniel, despite being censored to begin with by displaying the scene in silhouette, is cut from the end of the first royal palace sequence, with the English version having him instead killed offscreen.
• Nina and Ursula bathing in a pond (even though most of the scene shows Ryu standing guard instead).
• Ryu comically groping Ursula's breast by accident during a conversation.
• Ursula dropping her pants to prove her womanhood to skeptical sailors.

There's also a unique ?-Location in the Japanese release you can visit under specific conditions, found west from Mt. Glom via the southern path. This was a cooperation with the Japanese Dengeki PlayStation magazine. To unlock this place you need to patch a save file on your Memory Card, using the disc that was distributed by volume 147 of the magazine. It's a Special Store with a Lottery, a free to take "Rusted Sword" and a small Shop inside it. The files still seem to be present in the US version of the game, but they got unused.

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  This Location is west from Mt. Glom

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  The Dengeki-ya from the Outside

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  Inside the Dengeki-ya