Breath of Frenzy

Ryu returns as the protagonist of Breath of Fire 2. He lived with his father and sister as a kid, but one day, the villagers suddenly don't know who he is, and his family has disappeared. A few years pass, and Ryu becomes a ranger, alongside his best friend Bosch. Like the first game, Ryu doesn't have much of a personality in Breath of Fire 2, so he ends up as more of a generic valiant hero who must defeat evil.

Throughout the game, he meets several new allies, and unlocks his dragon powers, that allow him to transform into powerful forms. Different from the first game, here they work as one time attacks, instead of a transformation for the entire battle.

Once Ryu reaches the final dungeon, he finds the last remaining people of his clan, who inform him of his role as the Fated Child and about his mother's past, telling him she's the dragon who protected his hometown all this time, having abandoned her conscience as a human. After he acquires the most powerful spell, Infinity, he along with his friends defeats Daethevan, and depending on the player choices, either transforms into a dragon to stop Daethevan from invading the surface, or lives the rest of his life as a warrior protecting the planet, since his father manages to block the cave himself with the Flying Township.

Nina in this game is a much more timid and polite incarnation, making her easier to reason with. She's one of two love interests for Ryu, the other being Lin.

Nina is seen for the first time near the beginning of the game, when Ryu and Lin visit the magic school. Their meeting is cut short by members of the Joker Gang revealing that they have her sister, Mina, held hostage, and Nina has to accompany them if she doesn't want her to get hurt. Ryu and Lin follow soon, and save both of them from the gang's leader, which follows with Nina joining the party.

When they get to Wyndia, Nina's hometown, Mina returns to their parents, but Nina herself is given the cold shoulder by her own mother, and escorted out, not even acknowledging that she is her daughter. Much later on in the game, the party needs to fly over the Cathedral and confront the church of St. Eva, so they go back to Wyndia, where Nina finds her father sick in bed, it's revealed the reason for this: there's a prophecy that says Wyndia would be ruined by a baby born with dark wings, and since Nina fits that description perfectly, the king had to exile her, because he thought the only other option at the time was her execution. He regrets this now, saying that he should have followed her mother's advice and kept taking care of her despite the prophecy. Nina then says that she forgives her father, and goes to the underground so she can sacrifice herself to become the Great Bird and fly the party to the Cathedral. Her sister gets there first, however, and dies in her place.

Bosch is a dog-like humanoid, member of the Grassrunner clan, and Ryu's best friend ever since they were kids. He's an outgoing and energetic person, and likes to boast himself and go after girls. After Bosch and Ryu complete their official first missions as rangers for their guild, Bosch is caught up in an incidente and accused of stealing from a rich man from their town. Ryu helps Bosch escape, and he ends up having to go into hiding while Ryu travels the world in order to find the real thief and clear Bosch's name.

After a good portion of the game, Ryu manages to find the real thief, a girl with bat wings who calls herself Patty. He brings her to Bosch, and the two of them go back to the town where he was accused, and Patty is arrested by that same rich man. Ryu and Bosch end up going into his mansion again, and find out he was holding several people hostage in his basement, where he finds the two of them and reveals himself to be a demon. After Ryu and Bosch defeat him, they free the others, including the thief Patty, and Bosch joins Ryu in his journey to find out more about these demons and where they came from.

In game, Bosch wields a crossbow that deals a considerable amount of damage, especially when he equips different types later on, like one that allows him to attack twice in a turn. He also has a surprisingly huge amount of healing and support spells, and his defense and HP stats aren't low either, making him a great member to have in the party.

Ryu meets Rand when he arrives at, and Rand helps him save Lin from the poisonous darts arranged by the colosseum organizator, Augus, who reveals himself to be a demon and fights the party. After this event, Rand joins Ryu, but only for a short amount of time, as Ryu leaves him in the township to help Bosch with reconstructing it.

After Rand rejoins the group, they go to his hometown, Farma, and meet his mother, who greets him with insults and complaints, as he doesn't seem to give her much attention with visits and the like. Despite that, she loves her son, and Rand loves her too, showing this in anger when she's kidnapped by the St. Eva cult. When the party finds his mother in the cathedral, she once again calls him insults, saying he's incompetent, but when his life is endangered on the next floor, she doesn't hesitate to save him and sacrifice her own life for the good of her son. In her final words, she says he's a nice boy, and she's really proud of him.

In game, Rand fits in the tank stereotype, with high HP and Defense, and decent strength, but low speed. However, he also has a good amount of healing and support spells, albeit worse than Bosch's arsenal. Outside of battles, his field ability allows the player to speed by the map, avoiding any random encounters as long as the player dodges obstacles in the world map as they travel.

Lin is one of the two heroines and love interests for the protagonist, alongside Nina. She is also the first Woren in the franchise, setting a standard for subsequent parties to always have one of them. She is a naturally born fighter and a very sassy and temperamental person, who doesn't accept any argument opposing her own. She often speaks whatever's on her mind, without thinking, and can be seen as arrogant sometimes. After Ryu saves her from the poisonous darts in the colosseum, Lin accepts to join his quest, and the game implies that she eventually develops romantic feelings for him.

In game, Lin has the 2nd highest attack, and can become even stronger than Ryu with her fusion. Besides that, she's also the fastest member, but to compensate, she has low HP and defense, making her barely able to tank hits. She learns a few strong spells, but due to her poor AP growth, she can only use them in the end of the game, with her fusion's AP increase, or if the player artificially increases it through the use of different items.

Sten is first seen when the party arrives at Wyndia, where he tries to pull a stunt on Ryu, Nina and Lin, but fails to do so, and agrees to join them. Early on in the game he's depicted as an immature person who tends to make fun of serious situations, which gets on the nerves of the group

Later on, the party has to visit Sten's homeland, and he is hesitating in doing so. It's shown that Sten is actually a military commander, and a war hero to his people, but in reality he pretended to die so he could flee from duty after a certain battle. Sten then finds out that an outsider is trying to take control of the military power and therefore his country, and with the help of a friend they manage to defeat her. In the end, Sten pretends to die once again, but his friend sees through his facade, and said goodbye to him in the town bridge.

The princess of Sten's hometown loves him, and the feeling is mutual, but since Sten doesn't feel worthy as a person because of his survivor's guilt and that he feels he failed his people, he doesn't do anything regarding her.

In game, Sten is fast and has decent attack, but overall ends up as one of the weakest members. His combat ability is "Rip", where he pretends to be dead so the enemies won't attack him, which is a sort of foreshadow to his backstory, given he did the same thing to escape action in his home.

Tapeta's a member of the Creeping Clan, composed of frog-like humanoids. He's the prince of the Creeping Clan, and is known to have a jovial and optimistic personality, and a fondness for painting. When the party first meets him, he has been turned into a giant frog by a witch, and they help him turn back and find his royal armlet which he gave to the witch as a present. They then go to his kingdom, which has been usurped by an imposter pretending to be Tapeta, who orders him to be arrested. His sister, Petape, already knows that he is the real prince, and to help him prove his identity, proposes a cooking contest, where both Tapeta and the fake prince will compete to see who has the best cooking abilities.

After the party gathers the necessary ingredients, it's shown that the cooks were blackmailed and threatened by the fake prince in order to pretend Tapeta's cooking isn't good. The fake prince then runs away to the underground, searching for a supposed automatic detonation switch that will destroy the castle and the party goes after him and manages to defeat him, where Tapeta tells them that there is no such thing as a detonation switch, and instead in the underground of the castle lies a special sword, which they take, with Tapeta joining the party afterwards.

As they are a Grassman, Aspara is a wise and intelligent being, but also cold, and they seemingly have no emotions, or at least don't demonstrate them, even when his life is threatened during the game's story. His objective is to protect nature as a whole from the negative impact of the demons, and it's the reason why he joins Ryu in his fight against them.

The party meets Aspara in the circus tent, as they have been imprisoned and used as a show to attract people who buy tickets solely to see the "Grassman" creature. Eventually, the group requires their assistance to communicate with the forest and know more about what happened with the demon who attacked Ryu's guild, and so they talk to the circus' leader, who has been possessed by a demon, and refuses to let go of Aspara, until the party defeats him and "frees" Aspara. The truth however is that they could have left at any time, but they had just been waiting for the right people to come along, people who noticed the wrongs in the world and want to save it, and they join the party afterwards.

In game, Aspara is an overall weak member, with low attack and few damaging spells. He works best as a supporting character, with a lot of buff and debuff spells on his hands. But since debuff spells are nearly worthless in this game(as they do not work in bosses), Aspara is mostly inutilized as a support character, losing this spot to Bosch.