Breath of Fire IV

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One, two, three, four, five, s- hey! Where's our hero?

The fourth game in the long-running JRPG series Breath of Fire, released on the Playstation in April 2000 in Japan and November 2000 for North America. It's a well-done fan favourite despite its very by-the-book nature due to the fact that the next entry in the series is a noted Base Breaker and a very non-traditional JRPG.

Nina, princess of Wyndia, departs with her childhood friend Cray to search for her lost sister Elina, who's also Cray's fiance. Along the way, they stumble upon Ryu, who doesn't remember a thing besides his name: not who he is, or why he's stranded and stark naked in the middle of the desert.

Running parallel to Ryu's story is that of Fou-lu, an ancient emperor who awakens in his burial tomb halfway across the world in the Fou Empire to reclaim the throne that he left behind 600 years ago. Unfortunately for him, those involved no longer want to give the power up to anyone, not even to an ancient god-emperor and founder of the empire.

As the story progresses, and our heroes travel all over the world, it becomes clear that Ryu and Fou-lu's destinies are intricately entwined and key to Ryu's memories.

There exists a character sheet for the series. Place any character-related tropes there.

Re-released as "PSOne Classic" in August 2011.

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Tropes used in Breath of Fire IV include:

• Adaptation Distillation: The manga adaptation, mainly because it averts the Heroic Mime trope. Arguable still, something is missing in IV when it doesn't go with the soundtracks.
• Adaptation Dye Job: The Grand Finale in the manga, when Ryu fuses with Fou-Lu, but like in the game's Good Ending, he is the dominant persona; Nina remarks that his hair is now the same (color) as Fou-Lu's, he became a White-Haired Pretty Boy, while in the game, he became blond.
• Adaptation Expansion: The manga adaptation of Breath of Fire IV, again. Arguably a case of Adaptation Expansion resulting from a double-dose of Adaptation Distillation, in fact (from both the original Breath of Fire IV and Expanded Universe material from its official art book).
• Alas, Poor Villain: Assuming Fou-lu in Breath of Fire IV is considered a villain (as opposed to Complete Monster Yuna), he'd qualify in the "good ending". He recognizes he was blind to the importance of humanity, and Ryu realizes all Fou-lu wanted was to separate mortals from the gods, and always felt guilt for Mami's death. Of course, the manga subverts this in its Third Option Adaptation.
• All in a Row
• All There in the Manual: This is pretty extensive: huge amounts of backgrounder info only appear in the artbook.
• Ancient Tomb: The Emperor's Tomb.
• Bag of Sharing: At one point, the player gets to control Ershin alone, and she gets the whole inventory, even though the rest of the part is out adventuring (and has access to it the moment the player retakes control of it).
  • Averted with Fou-Lu's segments, where he has his own inventory. Which makes things a bit harder, since he can't buy anything, and healing items are incredibly rare in his areas.
• Battle Theme Music: Two, actually (for the Eastern and Western continents respectively).
• Beautiful Dreamer
• BFS: Myrmidon is big already, but his sword dwarfs him. And it grows even bigger when he attacks!
• Big Bad: Fou-Lu, to the party. The man responsible for almost everything behind the scenes, including Elina's abduction, is actually Lord Yuna.
• Big Damn Fire Exit: Fou-Lu's escape from the burning forest.
• Big No: Cray, after seeing just what Yuna did to Elina.
• Bilingual Bonus: Names rendered in kanji were renamed to their Korean hanja readings for international versions. The puns still stay intact. Also, both the original Japanese name Master and the Dub Name Change to Ershin count (in fact, the reason for the Dub Name Change was to preserve the Bilingual Bonus... in another language; the original Bilingual Bonus was in English).
• Blood From the Mouth: In one of the few notably controversial scenes not censored, Fou-lu has Blood From the Mouth in an overt bloody Vomit Indiscretion Shot after his Hex Cannoning. It's implied this may be actually a bit of Fantastic Radiation Poisoning.
• Body Horror: Elina reaches nightmarish levels. She is kidnapped, turned into an artificial endless by Yuna, and used as the engine for the Hex Cannon.
• Bonus Boss: Angler, a mutated fish monster in North Chamba. It is far from the most difficult opponent (and reveals a new fishing spot upon its defeat).
• Boss in Mook Clothing: Rider.
• Bowdlerized: One of the most infamous cases (if not the most infamous) in the series. The largely unnecessary changes include:
  • Several scenes were completely removed from the North American version: one where Ursula drops her pants to prove she's a woman, a scene in which Fou-lu decapitates Soniel... which itself was only shown in Japan via a Gory Discretion Shot/black-on-red Shadow Discretion Shot, a filler scene where Ryu spies on the girls while they bathe, and and another where he accidentally grabs Ursula's breast.
  • Scias is a literal Drunken Master in the original Japanese game, changed to a severe stuttering problem in the English localization.
  • Fou-lu's Serpent dragon form from "Hellblizzard" (Japanese) to "Waterspout" (international). Explicitly bowdlerized because of the use of the word "hell". In fact, practically every spell, weapon or ability with the words "Death" or "Hell" or making reference to demon names was changed in the international localization.
  • The massive incidents of bowdlerization in the international version of Breath of Fire IV are particularly puzzling (regarding Scias and the Aborted Arc Via Censorship), considering the game was released for a platform specifically known for being friendly to controversial games. Worse yet, no other games have similarly been censored (save for Cupid's sex change); most infamously, Breath of Fire II got away with practically everything that was censored in Breath of Fire IV. In other words, there really is no logical reason why it went through a Nintendo-esque hack job (not even fear of an "M" rating from ratings boards).
• Broken Bridge
• Bubblegloop Swamp
• The Cameo: Momo, Bunyan(which show up as masters), Rei and Teepo.
• Can't Drop the Hero: Subverted. While Ryu does have to remain in your party while moving around outside of battle, you're not required to use him in battle once you've got more than three characters in your party.
• Cast from Hit Points: The "Blitz" skill consumes 25% of the user's current HP to inflict damage. The "Disembowel" and "Deathbringer" skills cost 10% of the user's maximum HP, even when they fail to work (maximum HP can be restored, but only at a genuine Trauma Inn; resting at camp won't do).
• Chain of Deals: Various characters will exchange "Ball" items (Lead Ball, Copper Ball, etc) throughout the game. This becomes useful when apprenticing under Marlok, who rewards the player with new skills depending on which ball the player has acquired.
• Combination Attack
• Comic Book Adaptation: Of note, the sole Breath of Fire-related Comic Book Adaptation ever licensed outside of Japan (in Cantonese and French, though not yet in English).
• Con Lang: The PabPab language in Breath of Fire IV (which is also used as a Cypher Language in a sub-plot).
  • Per Word Of Capcom the PabPab language is largely comprised of combinations of English prefixes and Japanese suffixes... thus counting as a potential Bilingual Bonus for speakers of both English and Japanese.
• Conspicuous CG: Most enemies are sprite-based, but some of the bosses use 3D models.
• Convection, Schmonvection
• Cooldown Hug:
  • Nina to Ryu during his Unstoppable Rage.
  • A straight (if mild) example earlier with Fou-lu and Mami in the same game, a bit more explicitly in the manga. Fou-lu tells of his past and starts to go into a rant on how meeting the wishes of mortals is impossible... and Mami tells him she's clueless about this, but can't stand to see him sad. Cue Cooldown Hug and Fade to Black in the game, Cooldown Hug and scene change in the manga.
• Crapsack World: No thanks to the Empire.
• Cthulhumanoid: Bollor and its Palette Swap Rollob (or is it the other way around?) in Fane of the Sea God.
• Curb Stomp Battle: One mid-game boss, "Ight", feels like a Hopeless Boss Fight, unleasing powerful attacks that can wipe the floor with you in a single turn. But the moment Ryu is knocked out, he instead transforms into the Kaiser dragon, and kills the boss in two turns flat. In other words, both sides took a curb-stomping in the same fight.
  • Any monster that comes up against Fou-Lu in a random battle will most likely experience this. Even giant dinosaurs are a very minor inconvenience.
• Dead Hat Shot: How Fou-lu discovered that Mami was the human ammo in the Carronade: specifically by seeing her hair-bells fall out of the sky shortly after he himself had been Hex Nuked. Quite possibly one of the most tragic Dead Hat Shot moments depicted, in fact, because it's also the point Fou-lu goes Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds and decides Humans Are the Real Monsters. And yes, the manga turns it up to a major Tear Jerker that involves Ryu as well.
• Death Mountain: Mt. Giga.
• Derelict Graveyard: Sandflier Valley.
• Despair Event Horizon: Mami's death is the Despair Event Horizon that throws Fou-lu to being a full-blown Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds; the death of the Chek summoners is the Despair Event Horizon that throws Ryu into a Heroic BSOD that unleashes the Kaiser Dragon.
  • In the manga adaptation, this is especially brought home: Mami's death ends up a Despair Event Horizon twice for Fou-lu, and after Ryu's Kaiser Dragon RAGE, he literally breaks down sobbing in Nina's arms asking why Humans Are Bastards to each other. Elina's Mercy Killing is especially portrayed as a Despair Event Horizon for Cray and Nina as well (the latter being shellshocked, the former nearly suffering a Heroic BSOD himself).
• Down the Drain: The party infiltrates an Imperial base via aqueduct, which the Empire normally uses to keep the Carronade from overheating when fired.
• Dragons Up the Yin-Yang: Dragons are the YinYang. Literally. ^{[dead link]}
  • This is not counting the "Static Heaven" bagua in the final stage, nor is this counting designs in Fou-lu's clothing. Suffice it to say that Breath of Fire IV is about as subtle as a brick with this trope.
• Dramatic Wind: Various characters' battle sprites, including their victory animations.
• Dream Land: Fairy Village resides here. Also the Deis' dream levels.
• Dronejam
• Dub Name Change: From Master to Ershin (to preserve a Bilingual Bonus).
  • Literally all of the NPC dragons with the exception of Deis also suffer this (in an unusual variation in which the Dub Name Change consisted of changing their names to Koreanisations of what type of dragon they were).
• Duel Boss:
  • Nina vs. Joh early in the game.
  • Every boss fight which Fou-lu fights.
  • And the short battle between Ryu and Fou-Lu during the game's climax.
• The Empire
• Everything's Better with Chickens: There's a minigame where you have to chase chicken to their coop.
• Everything's Better with Platypi: The Cap enemies which appear frequently in the early parts of the game.
• Evil Eye: Though not technically evil in this case, the Dragon Eyes are depicted as actual non-human, draconic eyes and the people who possess them are fated for either great good or great evil. Ryu is depicted as having Psychic Powers as a result.
  • Depicted much more blatantly in the Comic Book Adaptation of Breath of Fire IV where the Dragon Eyes are explicitly depicted as Hellish Pupils; Fou-lu and Deis have them constantly, and Ryu gets them when his Dragon Eye activate. This even goes to the extent of Rhem having Hellish Pupils when she is "ridden"/possessed by Deis, as well as an Affectionate Parody in the "behind the cover" 4-koma comics included in the manga.
• Evil Weapon: The Hex Cannon/Carronade. Even as it annihilates the souls of the unfortunate persons used as ammo (who are, of note, literally tortured to insanity first) and corrupts the targeted land and persons, it empowers and simultaneously corrupts those who use it. It's also a literal Fantastic Nuke.
• Exposition Cut: Pretty much constant in the first section. Nina explains the situation established in the opening cutscene to Ryu when they seek shelter in a cave for the night using this trope, then they explain things in the same way to Cray when they return to the crash site, then they explain things to the Woren elders when Cray is arrested.
• Fantastic Nuke: The Empire's Hex Cannon, or Carronade. It is explicitly powered by a "sacrifice", using all the nightmares, terrors and fears of a person tortured to insanity as ammunition.
  • The city of Synesta is said to be (mostly) purified of the magical radiation by the time the game begins, being seen as a rebuilt town with only a few monsters still lurking underground.
  • The town of Chamba was not so lucky; a team of Purifiers (who must wear full suits of magical armor to protect them from its effects) estimate that the majority of the town will remain utterly uninhabitable for "at least a year". In other words, the player never gets to see Chamba in its proper glory.
  • And then there's General Yohm's order to use the Carronade against Fou-Lu himself: The revelation that they used Mami to power it was the final straw that pushed Fou-Lu over the edge.
• Fight Woosh: Normally a blue circular swirl, but also color-coded to indicate when one side gets a free turn at the start of battle.
• Five-Man Band:
  • The Hero: Ryu.
  • The Lancer: Cray (interestingly, he has the looks and abilities of The Big Guy, but his personality fits this trope better).
  • The Smart Guy/Robot Buddy: Ershin.
  • The Big Guy: Scias (he has very few lines and no plot significance after he formally joins, serving only as an extra fighter).
  • The Chick: Nina.
  • Sixth Ranger: Ursula.
• Flying Seafood Special: Skulfish, the first boss in the game. Flying... Flyfish are also seen above the clouds when the party visits the Wind Dragon.
• Foreshadowing: In Wychwood, some faeries attempt to play tricks on the party, resulting in one faerie receiving a headbutt from Ershin. This surprises the fairies, who claim mortals shouldn't be able to see them. Ershin, we eventually learn, is indeed no mortal, but rather an Endless named Deis.
• Forever War: The conflict between the Fou Empire and the Alliance in Breath of Fire IV. The two continents have been in a Cold War that has lasted 600 years, punctuated by four world wars and the incipient threat of a fifth.
• Full Boar Action: Bilbao and its ilk.
• Gaiden Game: Two separate sidestory games in Breath of Fire IV's universe exist (Breath of Fire IV - The Sword of Flame & the Magic of Wind and Breath of Fire IV: Faeries Light Key) along with two other Gaiden Games: a spinoff of the fishing game from Breath of Fire IV (Breath of Fire: Dragon Fisherman) and a "Great Dalmuti"/"Millionaire"/"President"/"Asshole" game featuring characters from Breath of Fire IV (Breath of Daifugo).
  • Unfortunately, due to the platform and carrier these were released for (Japanese smartphones using Qualcomm's BREW OS, and most of these being an exclusive to NTT's DoCoMo mobile phone network), these are, to a one, No Export for You and likely to remain so permanently.
  • Of note, Breath of Daifugo and Breath Of Fire: Dragon Fisherman were co-releases with a Street Fighter Gaiden Game (a Solitaire port) and the BREW-phone version of Mega Man 2 respectively, whilst the sidestory games were released at the same time as the Comic Book Adaptation; adverts within Comic Blade Avarus and the volumes published by Mag Garden included adverts for the Gaiden Games.
• Giant Enemy Crab
• Gory Discretion Shot/Shadow Discretion Shot: The Japanese PSP's depiction of Fou-lu's decapitation of Soniel, specifically via a "washi screen" variant showing a black-on-red silhouette. And this ended up Bowdlerised in the international version. This may well be only one of two known incidents with international adaptations where a violent scene Bowdlerised in the original via Shadow Discretion Shot was itself Bowdlerised out of existence in international adaptations (the other incident involves dub adaptations of Yu-Gi-Oh for American children's television, and at least makes sense in that context).
  • Subverted in Bloodier and Gorier fashion in the manga adaptation, apparently as a very deliberate Take That to aforementioned censorship (in comparison, Elina's death scene was actually depicted less graphically in the manga).
• Green Hill Zone: The areas around Ludia and Wyndia.
• Gusty Glade: The caves beneath Wyndia.
• Headless Horseman: There are two of them in this game. One's called "Horseman", the other's called "Rider".
• Healing Factor:
  • An enemy called Trunked regenerates 15,000 HP per turn, but is (quite fortunately) harmless, existing solely to practice combo attacks on (its higher-level counterpart Trean regenerates 30,000 HP per turn).
  • The Rider 20,000 HP per turn. It is the most powerful enemy in the game.
  • The Dragonne boss cannot be killed until it stops regenerating its HP.
• Heroes Prefer Swords
• Heroic Mime: Heavily averted in the manga and novelisation for purposes of character development.
• Hidden Elf Village: Fairy Village.
• Hot-Blooded: The Woren tribe. Cray tries to suppress his urges, as his position as leader requires a cool head.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: Fou-lu's main motivation.
• I Ate What??: The frog prince's sidequest has you collecting bugs for him to cook, and then eating the resultant dishes. Then Ryu starts to think about what was in them....
• Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence
• Interface Spoiler: Talking to your party in the camp can help give you some idea of what to do next. Doing so at one particular point, however, can spoil a major plot point: Ershin's usual way of ending her statements ("...says Ershin.") instead comes out "...says Deis."). Oops.
• Interspecies Romance
• Iron Butt Monkey: Kahn is a good example. He is defeated multiple times by the party, shot off of the mast of a ship by Ursula, and his lack of fighting skill is pointed out by Una and Zig's crew. He recovers quickly from each defeat though, and can even become a master to the party later in the game. Appropriately, his special ability gives his apprentices a chance to survive fatal blows in battle.
• Item Crafting: The Blacksmith on Mt. Glom can make special armors if you bring him the materials needed to make it.
• It's All Upstairs From Here: Pung' tap.
• It's Quiet... Too Quiet
• Jungle Japes: The jungle around the Pabpab village.
• Karma Houdini: One of the game's most infamous aspects is that Yuna, who was to blame for nearly everything bad that happened, apparently was never punished. There is a bit of background behind this, which can be read in the main entry.
• Keep It Foreign: The Dub Name Change of Master to Ershin.
• Kill the Cutie: Mami. Even worse, she is captured, broken by Cold-Blooded Torture, and ultimately killed by being used as Human Resources in a Fantastic Nuke that is Powered by a Forsaken Child (with connections to the target).
  • The manga adaptation turns this Up to Eleven in a major borderline Stuffed Into the Fridge moment. Including Mami's literal last words being "An-chan", a term roughly equivalent to "dear" which she uses as an affectionate term for Fou-lu, and the sound of her hair bells after the Carronade fires making it very obvious what happened...
• King in the Mountain: Subverted to the point of deconstruction. In essence, Fou-lu would have been the Fou Empire's prototypical King in the Mountain if The Empire had kept up its end of the bargain. Instead, Fou-lu's entire storyline in the game can be best described as "What Happens When A Country's Government Sees The Return Of Its King in the Mountain As An Unwanted Revival". It goes poorly for all involved.
• Lazy Backup: You'll get Game Over when your main fighters die, even if you're extra three party members are behind you doing nothing.
• Leaked Experience: It is actually split evenly between the characters after the battle.
• Lethal Lava Land: Mt. Glom.
• Literal Split Personality: Ryu and Fou-lu thanks to a botched summoning by the Fou Empire's predecessor, and resulting in the god they called forth not only being split in two, but the half that became Ryu being temporally displaced six hundred years in the future.
• Love Hurts:
  • This is pretty much what the Hex Cannon relies on in order to inflict damage: the closer the sacrifice that was loaded into the cannon is to the intended victim, the greater the damage it causes.
  • Cray spends most of the game searching for Nina's sister and his love interest, only to kill her to end her misery as she's literally one with the building the Hex Cannon is in.
• Low Level Advantage: You'll get better stat bonuses from later Masters if you keep your levels down early in the game.
• Memento MacGuffin: Mami's bells she wore in her hair. In fact, the very incident that causes Fou-lu to Go Mad from the Revelation was seeing Mami's bells fall from the sky after he was at ground zero of a Hex Cannoning.
  • In the manga adaptation, Mami's bells are a Memento MacGuffin a second time during the Battle in the Center of the Mind between Fou-lu and Ryu (leading from the Bad Ending to the Good Ending). Fou-lu literally breaks down sobbing upon being confronted by Ryu... whilst Ryu holds Mami's bells in his hand.
• Mercy Kill
• Metal Detector Puzzle: An early mini-game where you had to find buried parts to repair your sand-ship with. The mini-game could later be revisited to dig up various materials with which you could craft special pieces of armor for Ershin, and abusing this can lead to a Disc One Nuke for her.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The Wind Dragon which is combination of a dragon, an elephant and a whale.
  • Pretty much all the NPC dragons/Endless fall into this category; justified in that each dragon is the Physical God of a specific element or force.
• My Greatest Failure:
  • Cray: being unable to return Elina to Wyndia, and in fact being forced to euthanise her after she is turned into an artificial Endless. This would also apply to Nina as well.
  • Ryu: being unable to stop the people of Chek from being massacred. This causes a Heroic BSOD which unleashes the Kaiser Dragon.
  • Fou-lu three times over: the first in realising the purpose for which he was summoned was impossible due to the intrinsic nature of humanity, the second being the fact that the empire he founded has become irredemably corrupt and overtly evil, and the third being the inability to save Mami and the knowledge she was tortured and used as Fantastic Nuke Ammo because she loved him. The combination is enough to make him Go Mad from the Revelation.
• Never Grew Up: The entire town of Chek, with the possible exception of the Abbess.
• Nice Hat: Yuna, Soniel and Fou-lu, in a Projected Man when he first appears to Ryu. Depicted in the official artbook, and especially in the manga ^{[dead link]}.
  • The cover for Volume V of the manga has fun with this in giving both Fou-lu and Ryu matching Nice Hats.
  • All this is a remarkable example of Shown Their Work.
• No Koreans in Japan: One of the most blatant subversions for this trope in the English localization: practically every name that appeared in kanji in the Japanese version were changed to Korean hanja readings or renamed to something in Korean (in some cases resulting in frank Dub Name Change of NPCs). Some of the internal mythology in the game is also a subversion of this.
• Nominal Importance: Important characters to the plot are recognizable from their in-game portraits when you talk to them.
• No Romantic Resolution: The manga, for all its worth in giving Ryu an actual character and eventual development, it sevrely tones down the one thing that it was clear in him as a Heroic Mime: his interest on Nina as the game progressed. The Good Ending in the game made him come back after sending The Endless back to their world solely for his love for Nina. The manga, however, doesn't touch upon this subject, and Ryu comes back for friendship; in fact, Nina wasn't directly mentioned by him during the sequence.
• Novelization
• Now Where Was I Going Again?: Your party members will remind you where to go when you talk to them in a camp.
• One Steve Limit: Deis specifically asks Ershin to call her by her real name, instead of calling her "Ershin".
• Owl Be Damned: Khafu and Kamyu, two of Yohm's summonable monsters.
• Palmtree Panic: Tidal Flats.
• Physical God: Fou-Lu, the other dragons and Ryu.
• Port Town: Shikk.
• Power Copying
• Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: Scias if his health gets dropped to critical and he actives his Glass Cannon mode.

Scias: You will feel my blade...

• Red Eyes, Take Warning
• Red Dragon Blue Dragon: Played very straight with Ryu and Fou-lu.
• Royal We: Used by the Emperor Soniel of Hesperia, as appropiate. Also by Fou-Lu, though for him, it's partially justified in that his soul is split in two, the other half being Ryu, so he's sort of two people at once.
• Sand Bridge At Low Tide
• Save the Princess: Deconstructed, rather harshly. When you finally find the princess, she's far beyond saving...
• Scary Scorpions
• Sealed Good in a Can: Deis trapped in Ershin's armor.
• Shifting Sand Land: Your starting point.
• Ship Tease: The manga adaptation has this in spades (not surprisingly, seeing as it was in a manga magazine geared towards young adult women), particularly regarding Fou-lu x Mami.
• Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism: Plenty of the game's population.
  • Wyndians (like Nina) are Winged Humanoids.
  • Manillo are Fish People.
  • Scias, as well as several canine NPCs (like Rwolf), are Petting Zoo People.
  • Ursula, Lord Yuna, and the Woren are a Little Bit Beastly.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: Ice Peak and its surroundings.
• Split Personality Merge: Happens no matter which end-game you pick: it's just a matter of whether you decide that Humans Are the Real Monsters.
• Sprite Polygon Mix
• Starfish Character: Ryu and Fou-Lu.
• Sword of Plot Advancement: The Dragonslayer. A certain part near the end of Act 3 required the group to find and use it.
• Third Option Adaptation: The manga's rendition of the good and bad endings.
• Third Person Person: Ershin. This becomes justified once it is revealed who "Ershin" really is. "Ershin" is what the suit of armor calls Deis.
• Title Drop: The manga's long Utsurowazarumono - Breath of Fire IV title, Utsurowazarumono can be translated as The Endless or The Unfading Ones, so anytime Ryu, Fou-Lu and the other Endless are mentioned in story, it also doubles as this.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Princess Elina, who pretty much devoted her life to finding a way to end the war and promote peaceful coexistence between the continents, and consequently, was well loved by the people in the east. She was chosen by Yuna as a sacrifice because of this.
• Tragic Keepsake: Mami's bells in both the game and the Comic Book Adaptation.
  • The Comic Book Adaptation actually manages to elevate Mami's bells to a frank Cradle of Loneliness. In Chapter 19, Fou-lu is depicted cradling Mami's bells whilst giving a very feral smile; in Chapter 25, Ryu even points out that Mami's bells have become Fou-lu's "most treasured possession", which begins the progression from the Bad Ending to the Good Ending.
• Trapped in Another World: Occurs in spades and is arguably a major theme of the game with the Endless, who were summoned to this world against their will. The dragon gods have accepted their lot in life, the others are not that pleased.
• Trauma Conga Line: Poor Fou-Lu... First, the Empire doesn't want him to reclaim his throne, so they send General Yohm to pursue and kill him. Repeatedly. A cute boar he befriends makes a sacrifice of itself to open an escape path for him, while the only person in the world he may have had any love for is taken prisoner by Imperial forces, then tortured and used as living ammunition for the Carronade, before Fou takes a direct hit from the Empire's magical superweapon. No wonder he wants to Kill'Em All.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Ryu gains the ability to transform into a dragon early on in the game, but it takes him seeing Captain Rasso massacre a village full of innocents (and forcing him to duel with a monster shortly afterwards) for him to unlock the more powerful transformation.
• Tree-Top Town: The Pabpab village.
• Twin Telepathy: Ryu and Fou-lu are implied to have this to a limited extent in Breath of Fire IV (though for the most part this is only explicitly noted at the game's end).
  • Very explicitly depicted in the Comic Book Adaptation of Breath of Fire IV; in fact, it's actually a major plot-driving force in the manga.
• Underground Level
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Both played straight and subverted:
  • Fou-lu in Sonne, who is portrayed by Mami as her brain-injured cousin Ryong. No matter her cousin has horns in one of the few towns in the game not comprised of Petting Zoo People. The landlord is in fact the only one who mentions something amiss.
  • Played straight and subverting the prior occurence at the same time when Ryu returns to Sonne later in the game, where Ryu is greeted as if he were the missing "Ryong" despite the fact Ryu has blue hair and no horns and a definite lack of Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe. The only plausible explanation for this is that Sonne is secretly a village of psychic farmers.
• Unwanted Revival: Fou-lu. Though technically, he never died (he's immortal), General Yohm explicitly states upon first meeting him that the Empire finds his resurrection "inconvenient" and that they'd rather him "rest a little longer" in his tomb.
• Useless Useful Spell: Quite a few of them, not counting the ones that are literally useless to begin with (like "Distract" or "Feign Swing").
• When Trees Attack
• White-Haired Pretty Boy: Fou-Lu certainly qualifies.
• Why Did It Have To Be SEA LICE AIEEEEEE: Ursula in a particularly hilarious scene wherein she and Nina are discussing phobias. It turns out Ursula is extremely phobic of bugs... even sea lice, which are completely harmless bugs (merely seeing one is enough to cause Ursula, normally quite the Type A Tsundere, to scream like a cheerleader).
• Womb Level
• Wutai: The whole of Hesperia.
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Fou-lu constantly speaks in this manner in conjuction with the Royal We.
  • In a backhanded salute to this, the manga adaptation of Breath of Fire IV apparently has Fou-lu speaking in what amounts to Ye Olde Butcherede Japanese, as opposed to the original Keigo.