Breath of Fire II is a role-playing video game developed and published by Capcom. First released in 1994, the game was licensed to Laguna for European release in 1996. It is the second entry in the Breath of Fire series. It was later ported to Game Boy Advance and re-released worldwide. The game was released on Wii's Virtual Console in North America on August 27, 2007. Nintendo of Europe's website mistakenly announced it for release on July 27, 2007, but it was in fact released two weeks later, on August 10, 2007. In 2013, it was released for the Wii U Virtual Console. In 2016, it was released for the New Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console. In 2019, it was released for the Nintendo Switch SNES games library. Unlike later installments in the series, Breath of Fire II is a direct sequel to Breath of Fire. Set 500 years after the original game, the story centers on an orphan named Ryu Bateson, whose family vanished mysteriously long ago. After his friend is falsely accused of a crime, Ryu embarks on a journey to clear his name. Gameplay Breath of Fire II is a traditional role-playing video game featuring two-dimensional character sprites and environments. Players view the game from a top-down perspective and move their characters in four directions across various environments including towns and dungeons while interacting with non-player characters and battling enemies to advance the story. The game features a redesigned, text-based game menu as opposed to the icon-based design of the original Breath of Fire, as well as a new "Monster Meter" that indicates the probability of encountering enemy monsters in a given area. Players are required to venture into dangerous areas throughout the game world as dictated by the story, and randomly encounter enemies every few steps which must be defeated to advance. As the game progresses, new characters, each with their own specific abilities, join the player's party. Like the previous game, only four characters may be in a party at a given time, but now may not be freely switched outside of certain areas. Each character has a unique Personal Action that may be performed outside of combat that allows the player to access certain areas, destroy objects, avoid traps, or move about the game more easily. Breath of Fire II includes a new town-building feature that allows the player to populate their own village with