Despite being the author of a GBA emulator, I don't really play a lot of GBA games these days. Mostly due to lack of time.

However, recently beat Breath of Fire 1 last night. Had a lot of fun, and I'm a sucker for classic JRPGs. Might start up something new tonight (maybe Yggdra Union?)

@Shonumi wow, I hated BoF1. Wonder what the difference for you was. Have you played BoF2? The translation is abhorrent but I still adore the game.
@endrift I wouldn't put too much stock in my taste in games lol. I can tolerate a fair amount of jank when it comes to JRPGs. Thought about jumping into BoF2 right away but haven't decided on what next to play via emulation.
@Shonumi honestly maybe BoF1 had been overhyped for me. So many people told me they liked it better than 2, but BoF2 had uh...a plot, and afaict BoF1 didn't really. It dangled hints of a plot around at you like three times and then the game ends. It's just "fix this one towns problems then find the next" ad nauseum, which is I guess what a lot of NES-era JRPGs were

@endrift Yeah, BoF1 has a really thin story. Generic defeat Dark Lord and kill Deity. Little to no party interaction too.

It's certainly from an era of JRPGs where things were quite rough. I've played a few like that over the years, so maybe I'm a bit used to that? Still enjoyed the overall journey. Been wanting to play BoF1 ever since I saw the GBA version in Nintendo Power, so glad I finally got around to it.

Based on this conversation, I'm actually really excited to try BoF2 soon!

@Shonumi get ready for inscrutable dialog, inconsistent translations (there's a character whose name is translated three different ways in various parts of the game), and a dialog box that swaps the yes and no options. I'm not sure I've ever played a game with a worse translation.

That said, the party members all have their own stories in the game so it's much closer to modern RPGs in that regard.