Initially released in Japan in April 1993, the game was later made available in North America in August 1994 by Square Soft, who handled the title's English localization and promotion.

Breath of Fire is a traditional role-playing video game, featuring two-dimensional character sprites and environments presented from a top-down perspective.

[4] Players move their characters in four directions while navigating through a number of environments ranging from towns to dungeons filled with traps and monsters.

In order to advance the story, the player must take part in story-based scenarios that require them to enter dangerous areas and defeat enemies while also interacting with non-player characters to become involved in the plot.

[6] These include differing magic spells as well as unique Personal Actions that can be performed in certain situations that allow the player to interact with the game world, solve puzzles, or navigate environments more easily.

Combat in Breath of Fire takes place in hostile areas such as dungeons, with encounters occurring randomly every few steps.

[8] The game uses a turn-based system while in combat, where the player inputs commands for each character at the start of each round, which are then carried out by order of their "agility" rating.

When a player defeats all enemies present, they are awarded with experience points that go towards leveling up characters, making them stronger and giving them access to new spells.

The back-story of the game is summarized during its prologue: Thousands of years ago, a goddess named Myria (also known as "Tyr" and "Maria" in some English translations and "Miria" in Breath of Fire II) sowed discord amongst the Dragon Clan by offering to grant any wish.

Just as the world was on the brink of destruction, the "Goddess War" ended when a heroic Light Dragon imprisoned Myria and sealed her away using six keys.

He briefly meets Nina, the princess of Windia, and then has to rescue her from the tower of Karma after her mission to obtain the remedy for her father goes awry due to the use of a toxic weapon called Xeon Gas, which was seemingly developed by the Dark Dragons.

Back at Auria, the party discovers that the Dark Dragons have blackmailed the town's richest resident into surrendering the Light Key.

When they arrive, they discover that one of the warriors there, a young mole person named Mogu, has been imprisoned in the Dream World by Mote, another of the Four Devas.

After restoring the weather to normal, the party continue towards the Dark Dragon capital of Scande, but are delayed once more when they enter the town of Carmen where time is standing still.

He learns from his comrades and the surviving Light Dragon members that Jade has unearthed the Obelisk from beneath Scande and that he, Goda and Myria have taken up residence within.

Breath of Fire was developed by Capcom for the Super NES by designer Yoshinori Kawano (credited as Botunori) and producer Tokuro Fujiwara, previously known as the creator of the Ghosts 'n Goblins series.

[14] Capcom added easter eggs into the game in the form of cameo appearances by characters from other company franchises, including Chun-Li from Street Fighter.

[18] Because of space limitations in game's text fields, many items, as well as character and spell names had to be truncated in order to fit, resulting in numerous abbreviations.

[19] The new version includes re-drawn character portraits, as well as a re-designed menu system that resembles Breath of Fire II, along with updated cutscene graphics at certain points during gameplay.

[20] Two months before the 2001 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles, Capcom USA announced that they would be publishing an English version of the game initially for release the following September.

[16] While the title was initially only "modestly successful" in North America,[31] Nintendo Power noted a spike in sales following the release of the game's sequel in December 1995, calling it "a rare second wind".

[25] GameFan's three reviewers gave it scores of 94, 90 and 90 out of 100, concluding that it has "beautiful art work, a great story, very good fight scenes, and some of the most amazing music".

[26] Nintendo Power praised its level of exploration and found it to be "not as linear as other RPGs such as Final Fantasy II", but said that its plot was relatively standard and contained "more fighting than adventure fans might like".

[29] GamePro similarly felt that the game's story was "nondescript and average" and that Capcom "should have tried for more interesting enemies, different battle screens, or butt-kicking graphics", finding the overall experience to be "bland".

[28] Electronic Games gave it a full A+ rating, stating that it is "considerably longer" than Final Fantasy II and "superior in every way" to Wizardry V and Eye of the Beholder, and concluded that "Capcom's masterpiece" has "all of the necessary elements of a top-notch RPG".

[44] Play Magazine called the game's port job from the Super NES "flawed in execution", commenting on handheld version's high color saturation and lower sound quality.

"[4] IGN would also comment on the game's presentation, declaring that it was "not much more than your typical Japanese-style RPG" and that its graphics were outdone by titles developed specifically for the system, additionally lambasting its high random encounter rate and simplistic puzzles, and ultimately calling Breath of Fire "a decent diversion".

[40] GamePro found the title to be "an enjoyable RPG that easily kills spare time" but that it was overall less involving than later games in the series, calling its narrative "lifeless".

The first, Breath of Fire: Ryū no Senshi by Hiroshi Yakumo, is a re-telling of the events of the video game which was first published in Family Computer Magazine before being released as a two-volume collection by Tokuma Shoten.

Hayato followed up the manga with a side-story called Breath of Fire Part II: Chiisana Boukensha (ブレスオブファイア PART2 ~小さな冒険者~, lit.