YMMV / Breath of Fire IV

• Accidental Innuendo: In the Japanese version, there is a scene where Ryu holds his hand in front of Ursula only to realize that he grabbed her chest instead, and backs away because of her Death Glare. The PAL version somehow keeps the chest grab but not Ursula's and Ryu's reactions.
• Awesome Art: Is famous for its excellent visual presentation, boasting some of the best sprites on the PlayStation, likely due to being released very late into the console's lifecycle.
• Awesome Music: There's a lot of really good music. Arguably, it's even better than Breath of Fire III, and tends to be received a little better due to the polarizing nature of III's jazz-styled soundtrack. A few examples:
  • "The Bastard Sword", the eastern boss theme, is guaranteed to fill you with energy. The theme is so good that it plays instead of the western boss theme during the last boss fight before the final boss.
  • "Even Towards Death, Valiantly." You won't hear this theme often, and for good reason: This theme conveys a true sense of dread, and plays exclusively during a Hopeless Boss Fight and their subversions. The first time you will hear it is right after Rasso slaughters an entire village and almost kills Ryu and his companions. Then Ryu snaps and turns into the berserk Kaiser dragon, turning the tables on Rasso and utterly annihilating him.
  • "A Raging Emperor's Banquet", the final boss theme (Part 1), is a very eerie song with an actual Buddhist chant.
  • "Prayer", a simple but deeply sorrowful music which plays during some of the saddest scenes of the game, namely Ershin's death, the boar's sacrifice and, most of all, after Elina's death.
  • "Pavane For a Dead Princess" is a heartbreaking minimalist and melancholic music box theme that plays when Elina is found and then put out of her mysery by Cray. It's contemplative, intimate and quiet simplicty fits the scene perfectly. Many tears have been shed to this song.
• Complete Monster:
  • Yuna of the Fou Empire appears as merely self-righteous and smarmy, until one sees the atrocities he committed. Taking Nina's sister Elina as a test subject due to her popularity, Yuna turned her into a mutated Endless, bragging all about what he has done. He also built a massive canon to launch Hex, a toxic warhead that's actually the embodiment of anguish of tortured victims at the hands of Yuna driven to the brink of insanity, used to turn places into uninhabitable wastelands. One of these victims was Mami, Fou-lu's Love Interest whose torture and sacrifice drove Fou-lu into believing Humans Are the Real Monsters and becomes intent on destroying them, of which Yuna he takes advantage by directing him into his Empire manipulating its downfall to slip away and continue his crimes in the future.
  • Captain Rasso first appeared like a petty villain not to take seriously, but after becoming enraged with hero Ryu he truly became monstrous. A military noble, Rasso was a massive bully who used force and intimidation to get what he wants. After Nina and Ryu hurt his pride, leaving a scar, Rasso hunted them throughout the adventure with reckless abandon, not caring about the damage it caused. When given orders to capture Ryu down in Chek, the Lost Village, Rasso snapped and unleash his full wrath, decimating Chek and fatally damaging Ershin, before locating the citizens who went into hiding so he could personally kill and torture every single one of them to hurt and taunt Ryu by presenting mangled corpse to him, before using his most powerful weapon to beat the heroes to the brink of death. A villain so petty that he'd commit genocide out of spite, Rasso was so bad it nearly drove Ryu into believing humans were only cruel individuals.
• Demonic Spiders: The Shades in The Imperial Castle. Fast and they deal 300 damage on average normally and 400+ damage per hit with a Lucky Strike (Which they get a lot) and come in groups of three-six. They also have high HP, so you won't usually be able to kill them in one hit unless you use combos.
• Fan Nickname: "FUCKING YUNA!" for Yuna and "Rasshole" for Rasso.
• Faux Symbolism: There are scads of references to Taoism, Buddhism, and even the occasional shamanic reference including the Prophetic Title "Arukai no Ryuu"/"Yorae Dragon". In at least one case in the artbook, it includes references from all three religious traditions combined for a symbol on Fou-Lu's clothing (complete with showing its work).
• Fridge Logic: Why does Ryu's party have to go through the entire castle the long way at the end of the game when Fou-Lu is so desperate for them to meet and reunite? Surely he could have just let them go to him directly to save time?
• Game-Breaker: Has its own page.
• Genius Bonus: Hesperia (lit. "The Western Land") was the name the Greeks gave to the Italian Peninsula, which to the Romans is the Iberian Peninsula. No points for guessing which direction Hesperia is on the map in this game.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Scias' shit-eating grin◊. Can you say, Smile Dog?
  • It was only a year later that JRPG fans would be introduced to another Yuna...which is literally the exact opposite of the one here.
• Love to Hate: Yuna. Despite quite possibly being one of the most disgustingly evil villains in the franchise whose actions cannot possibly be defended, he's quite popular with the fanbase. Admittedly, the majority of that group wants to see him die in a fire for all he's done, but he's still widely regarded as one of the better antagonists.
• Low-Tier Letdown: Cray's supposed to be one of the party's tanks, but he's quickly overshadowed by Scias and Ryu who can dish out far more damage. He's also supposed to be the Earth magic specialist in the game to contribute to the magic combo system, but his poor wisdom and AP as well as Ershin getting Earthquake after a certain point in the story makes them pointless. He's also the slowest in your party which makes it difficult for him to combo attacks with due to the game's speed system. His only saving grace is the buff spells he gets, but after that he tends to sit in the back row.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Fou-Lu, the first emperor of the Fou Empire, is Ryu's other half whose encounter with the worst of humanity led him to a desire to destroy them all believing them iredeemable. Creating the Fou Empire one thousand years before the events of the game, Fou-Lu went to sleep to regain his strength, waking up after the arrival of his missing half Ryu. Hunted down by his own kingdom out of a bid to stay in power, Fou-Lu was constantly pushed to near breaking points, until they sacrificed Mami to use the forbidden Hex against him. Believing humans are all monsters, Fou-Lu awakens to his true power, dismantling the Empire in revenge before unleashing his forces on the masses to call out his missing half in a bid to be whole again to regain his full strength. In the end after being defeated by Ryu in a final battle, Fou-Lu is able to have an epiphany and uses the last of his strength to restore the world before merging with Ryu.
  • General Yohm is a Fou Empire loyalist who would even be willing to fight a god for the sake of his nation. Using his years of experience in war, Yohm made multiple strategies to defeat the newly awakened godlike Fou-Lu, taking advantage of his weakness to fire and driving him to near death multiple times. In his battle, Yohm used any opportunity possible to shift favor in his odds, taking Fou-Lu's companion Mami to Yuna as a sacrifice in an attempt to kill with the Hex. When Fou-Lu retaliates by attacking the capital, Yohm, using the last of his abilities, gives a valiant last stand against Fou-Lu, expressing no regret after his defeat before combusting himself in defiance.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Yuna crossed this before and during the storyline on several occasions. Elina's state when she's found was his doing and he gleefully described what he did. In the ending, he implies that he's going to continue his work.
  • Yohm crosses this when he sends Mami to be used for the Carronade.
• Nausea Fuel: Fairy Drops. You start out thinking it's a stone or a precious metal. Turns out it's actually Solid Gold Poop, complete with a scene where the fairy is obviously dropping a deuce behind a bush. Made even worse with Nina commenting on how "pretty" it is, and Scias being the sole member of the party even remotely disturbed that they're admiring fairy turds.
• Nightmare Fuel: Take your pick: Nuclear-weapon-like cannons that require human sacrifice; Nina's sister being turn into an immobile, immortal creature; or the fact that Cray was the one who had to mercy-kill her.
• Player Punch:
  • The tragedy of Princess Elina.
  • The Bad Ending. Fou-Lu takes full control after merging with Ryu and kills your entire party. What makes it particularly nasty? It's not a cutscene. You have to do it in one last battle.
• The Scrappy:
  • Mami's landlord, who does nothing but tell Fou-Lu to leave and badmouths him. He ends up responsible for Yohm showing up and Mami being used for the Carronade to attempt to kill Fou-Lu.
  • Chino, the orphan you have to chase and catch in and then play hide and go seek with in Synesta to find out about Elina because he forces you into the minigames.
  • Zig and his crew are well-loathed for being sexist pricks to Nina and Ursula and force them to prove themselves competent just for being women through several trials that just waste time but accept the men and Ershin as competent when they present the Salt Stone. Even worse in the Japanese version is that Zig tries to get Nina and Ursula to let him spank them.
• That One Level:
  • Kyria and all of the time wasting traps, especially in the woods where you need to find the mayor and track the monster.
  • Synesta, where the party must take on the exceedingly difficult task of chasing down an incredibly fast orphan and then play hide and seek with them and they're really hard to find due to camera angles not being so good.
  • The Golden Plains, nothing but vast plains where you have little to no idea where to go to find Cray's mother. The game gives you a few hints, but even then it's really easy to miss her.
• Slow-Paced Beginning: The early plot with attempts to rescue Elina goes very slowly. Thankfully it gets more interesting when Surprisingly Realistic Outcome occurs and the party is on the run for breaking the peace treaty with the Fou Empire and learning about Ryu's true nature.
• That One Boss:
  • You desire to beat I and II at the Emperor's Tomb? No dice. However, there's actually a way of fighting them that forces them to use the attacks you want. Good luck figuring it out on your own though. The whole thing isn't helped by the annoyingly long dungeon (with puzzles) and another boss that will have occurred between your last save point and I and II.
  • Both Won-Qu and A-tur are difficult. Won-Qu is difficult due to his ability to deal more damage then you can heal, and unless you have armour from the last town you visited that made water deal less damage (Since Ryu takes extra damage from water.), you're going to be in even more of a world of hurt.
  • A-tur's real difficulty lies in the fact that he's a stronger version of Won-Qu and he has Sanctuary, which nullifies any buffs your party may have.
• That One Sidequest: Good luck finding the Sea Dragon. The difficulty of this sidequest is even foreshadowed by Nina: "It's going to be hard finding him in all this ocean..."

---