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 items. This game has unused abilities. 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.
• Spirit Seed - Raises resistance to "mind attacks" until the next time you rest at an inn/camp. There are many seeds like this, which raise stats or resistances to certain things, but this one doesn't appear to be accessible.
• Dodge Seed - Raises dodge rate until the next time you rest at an inn/camp. Same deal as above: this seed doesn't seem to be obtainable.
• Wassail - Raises resistance to mind-based status effects until your next rest.
• Wassail + - Raises resistance to mind-based status effects until your next rest. The description is the same, so one can only assume this would be stronger.
• Draught - Raises all stats until your next rest. Not to be confused with the normally accessible "Dark Draught".
• Draught + - Raises all stats until your next rest, presumably by a greater amount. It seems there were going to be more items along the lines of the "Elixer" (sic) and "Elixer +", but they got cut for whatever reason.
• 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.

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.

While he is kind of a "drunken master swordsman" in the Japanese version, references to Scias' alcoholism are also absent in the international version, with some of his slurred speech patterns being replaced with a stutter.

There's also a unique ?-Location in the Japanese release you can visit under specific conditions, found south from Mt. Glom. This was a cooperation with the Japanese "Dengeki PlayStation magazine". To unlock this place you need to patch a savefile on your Memory Card, using the disc that was distributed by the magazine issue D33. It's a Special Store with a Lottery, a free to take "Rusted Sword" and a small Shop inside it. Some of the files still seem to be present in the US version of the game, but they got unused.