Was Never a Fan: BREATH OF FIRE IS FUCKING TERRIBLE, PART III: what

So, as you may last remember, I needed a boat for some ill-defined reason, but the DARK DRAGONS have blown it up, so I need to find their secret base with their own boat. Meaning I have to backtrack yet fucking again to find the secret boat of the DARK DRAGONS.

one of the very few interesting aspects of caves is that the little rat sprites actually move around

annoying enemy, but as you bring down their hp, they get smaller LIKE MY LIFESPAN PLAYING THIS GAME

behold the creativity of capcom

fuck these guys. they always get to attack first, and it's always either a paralyzing spell, a poisoning spell, or an instant death spell with a 50% success rate.

what I spent usually fighting. thankfully, HERO can equip either a sword or an attack-all boomerang. The boomerang is a little weaker, but jesus it is so much better.

oh hey it's the DARK DRAGON SHIP

felt pretty bad murdering this guy.

/starfawx

Okay a new boss and jesus christ what is wrong with this game. Thankfully, dispatched incredibly quickly thanks to my hero being able to turn into a thunder dragon, which removed like 1/5 of the boss's HP per turn.

So, we return to GOLD TOWN, and everyone follows us to the DARK DRAGON boat. Everything seems good, but then-

Guy to the right is a fish-headed merchant, Gobi. Welcome to the awfuldome.

Oh well, this shouldn't really be a problem.

LITERALLY THE NEXT SCREEN LATER

To make matters worse, the attacking DARK DRAGON general is the brother of the general we just killed. wups. But don't worry, fish merchant will show his worth!

god, what an asshole.

DARK DRAGON general and awful pirate too, apparently

The aforementioned gunpowder room, which the general blows up in his self-destruction, simultaneously taking down this ship and the THREE SHIPS HE WAS COMMANDING

also, /ahndross

Not much of real interest happens for awhile. You eventually wash up on an island, which is conveniently near Gobi's underwater home town. We can breathe underwater, so in typical RPG fashion, Gobi offers you some water-breathing Gills for a billion gold. When we can't pay, he offers them to us on interest, and head underwater to get them. The only thing I can really say is that I'm glad I bought some of that random encounter repellant, because this is what happens when you try to fight anything as Gobi:

Eventually reaching FISH CITY, you find that Gobi is a terrible merchant that lost something really important, is universally distrusted, AND lost his merchant license, yet is immediately given the mission to get some GOODS (literally what they are called) from a nearby town of giant ox people. You find out that, surprise, DARK DRAGONS are hatching some evil scheme by kidnapping ox people and using them on a secret weapon. You come back, and so begins probably the stupidest plotline yet:

TO SUM UP: In the breath of fire universe, if you're a strong enough dude, you can beat up the spirit of Death. Which is what you do. You also get a strong ox dude in your party, who lets you knock down weak walls on the game map.

In the meantime, if you're been following an FAQ, the game suddenly gets a million times easier. Simulation essentially lets you merge three party members (here, my useless thief, beastman, and fish merchant) into one ultra party member, who has literally the combined strength, speed, and HP of the three combined members.

So, we break into the jail, kill another laughable boss, and free some people, but not all of them, because others are being held in a castle that can't be breached! Oh No! The game appears to throw you a bone when it tells you that there's a retired DARK DRAGON soldier living in a town, but here's the rub:
1) The retired guy is actually living a far distance away from that town in a tiny one-sprite block on the map;
2) He won't talk to you until (he doesn't actually say this) you get a boomerang from a random dungeon you visited hours ago, and take the boomerang to the chief of some town so he can repair it.

Once you listen to the guy tell you how awesome boomerangs are, he tells you that to get to the castle, you can steal a giant bird's egg which will summon the flock to attack the dungeon OH OKAY.