Not long ago I was watching a playthrough of the 2002 Game Boy Advance adaptation of Capcom’s Breath of Fire II. I opted for a Let’s Play (well, specifically, a longplay) because while I have a great deal of nostalgia for Breath of Fire II and a lot of affection for the Breath of Fire series in general, Lord knows I do not have the patience to slog through the last dungeon (the aptly-named “Infinity”) ever again.

The Game Boy Advance adaptation of Breath of Fire II doesn’t touch the original release’s skidmark of a translation, which is both a bad and good thing. It’s bad because I genuinely believe Breath of Fire II has an interesting story that’s worth telling properly. When your protagonist is the offspring of a randy night between a dragon woman and a human priest, you want all the deets, you know?

But it’s also good that Breath of Fire II’s translation was never cleaned up because now we have a preserved snapshot of  the pop culture that was hot at the time of Breath of Fire II’s original SNES release (1994).

See, Breath of Fire II has a resistance group headed by a Woren named Tiga. But Tiga is called “Tigger” in Japan – and his fellow rebels likewise bear Disney-related monikers. Looks like Disney and JRPGs  crossed over long before the advent of Kingdom Hearts.

Note that three of the resistance members are named after Goof Troop characters (Goofy, Max, and, er, “Peat”). This reference is so ’90s, it stings.

And, hey, wasn’t an SNES Goof Troop game released by a certain company around the same time as Breath of Fire II? Hmm.