Breath of Fire II is one of those SNES RPGs that starts simple—just a kid named Ryu waking up in his village—and then spirals into this massive, weird journey. You think you're just hunting monsters at first, but then bam, dragon transformations, secret towns, and some surprisingly dark story twists.

The combat’s classic turn-based stuff, but the dragon forms add this fun layer of strategy—do you burn your MP early or save it for the boss? And the world feels alive in that old-school way where you’ll stumble onto hidden caves or weird side characters who actually matter later. The pixel art’s gorgeous too, especially the dragon designs.

It’s got that 90s RPG quirkiness—like, at one point you build your own town by recruiting NPCs. Not everything aged perfectly (the encounter rate can be brutal), but if you’re into retro RPGs with meaty stories, this one’s a trip worth taking. Just keep a walkthrough handy for the infamous "lost in the desert" section.