You are, yet again, Ryu. Half man, half dragon, and destined for greatness. But this time something's different: you only have so much time before you lose control of yourself. Can you make it to the surface -- several hundred meters above your intricate world of corridors and dungeons -- before time runs out?
The fifth game in the Breath of Fire series, Dragon Quarter plays like a dungeon crawl with some RPG and strategy elements. There are three playable characters, each with their own skill set and combat role. The difficulty level of the game is very high due to the rarity of healing items, lack of inventory space, limited progress-saving features, and general difficulty of standard enemies and bosses. There are two types of experience: that which goes to party members and that which goes to the party. With the addition of the SOL (scenario overlay) system, the player may choose to restart the game entirely or from the last "hard" save at any time. The player will keep certain aspects (party XP, weapons, armor, skills) of their previous party in the new game in hopes of easing the difficulty. As an added bonus, the more restarts the players has taken, the more plot elements are revealed as the game progresses.