GOG has announced a re-release of the classic PS1-era JRPG Breath of Fire IV, which is now available via PC a quarter-century after its initial release on the PlayStation.
As revealed in a post on X, over 22,000 people voted for Breath of Fire IV‘s inclusion as part of GOG’s Preservation Program, which aims to support games long after their publishers or developers cease doing so.
According to GOG, the new PC release of Breath of Fire IV, which appears to be based on the original 2003 PC version rather than the PS1 version, is “fully optimized” for modern machines, sporting Windows 10 and 11 support, English and Japanese localizations, and various new options.
Other than those improvements, though, this remains very much the same Breath of Fire IV you may already know and love from 2000, and if you don’t (and you’re a JRPG fan), then I’d recommend checking it out tout de suite.
It’s not just Breath of Fire IV, either. Other games joining the GOG Preservation Program today include the likes of Worms Armageddon, Realms of the Haunting, and three Ultima games, thus “completing the Ultima series in the Program”, according to GOG.
If you’re not familiar with Breath of Fire IV, it is, as the name suggests, the fourth game in Capcom’s Breath of Fire series. Like previous games, this one also has you playing as Ryu, although it’s not the same Ryu in each game.
This time around, your perspective is split between Ryu, who’s found naked in a sand ditch by allies Nina and Cray, and Fou-Lu, a recently-reawoken emperor looking to regain the throne he lost hundreds of years ago.
Gameplay-wise, the game is a fairly straightforward turn-based JRPG, although it’s got some tricks up its sleeve that make it stand out in what was a pretty crowded market at the time.
Breath of Fire IV is available right now on PC via GOG. Here’s hoping for a Breath of Fire III release sometime soon, as unlikely as that might be.
