Latest build (main)

The current build of main - commit 300ce67, built 2026-10-23 20:15 UTC.

Replaced on every push to main: not a release, not checked by hand. For a release, take a
v* one. The zip holds no game data: unzip it into a folder with a short path, run
bof3x-launcher.exe and add your own copy of the game on the Sources page
(docs/releases/README.md; the latest release's notes say more).

Breath of Fire III - bof3x v0.1.0-alpha.5

Breath of Fire III - bof3x v0.1.0-alpha.5 - a player release, an alpha.

bof3x is a renovation of the 2001 Chinese PC port of Breath of Fire III:
every function of the game's own code is our C++, our bof3x.exe runs it
with no code of Capcom's mapped, and the game can be installed from the PC
port, from a PlayStation disc alone, or from a PSP disc alone. This
download holds no game data. You add your own copy, and everything the game
reads is built on your machine from it.

Getting started

1. Unzip into a folder with a short path, e.g. C:\Games\bof3x. Windows
   cannot play the opening movie from a path of about 160 characters or more.

2. Run bof3x-launcher.exe. The first time, it opens on the Sources
   page; later, it is under Configure, the Data tab.

3. On the Sources page, add what you own:

   • the PC port's game folder (the one holding BOF3.exe and DAT), the
     2001-04-18 Chinese release, unmodified;
   • a PlayStation disc as .cue/.bin - US, Japanese, European (English),
     French or German;
   • a PSP disc as .iso - Japanese or European;
   • or a .zip holding any of these;
   • or a whole folder of them: Folder... checks every image in it (and
     the folders below it) and adds each one that matches a known release.

   Each one is checked against the known releases by its files' hashes, and
   told apart in one line if it is not one. The first source makes the
   install; each later one adds what it carries (its language, the PSP's
   extras), and the install is rebuilt. Expect a few minutes per setup.

4. Play.

Everything is written inside the folder you unzipped: sources.toml,
mods.toml, cache\, mods\ and game\. Your own files are only read.

Upgrading from an earlier alpha: unzip over the old folder and start the
launcher. It checks your install against the release and, when a piece of it
would be built differently, names the pieces and offers to rebuild them
(No starts nothing and leaves the install as it is). Your saves are kept:
from this release every setup carries the saves of the previous game\
folder into the new one, and saves that an older install kept in the folder
itself, beside the launcher, are moved into game\ by the next setup
(nothing is overwritten; setup.log lists each one). The second language
above the text (below) is built by the setup: if Row above the text offers
nothing, run the setup again (Configure, Data, Sources...,
Build).

New since v0.1.0-alpha.4

• A second script above the dialogue text (issue #97). The dialogue box
  can draw a small row over each line of text: another language you
  hold (English over Japanese, Japanese over English, French over German,
  ...), or furigana over the Japanese text. Turn it on under
  Configure, Mods, Extras ("Show Row above the text on
  Settings"), then choose it on Settings in Row above the text, under
  Language. F4 hides and shows the row while you play (the layout stays;
  ruby_key= in bof3x.ini moves it to another F key, or none frees the
  key). Under a row, a page that no longer fits is split in two (one more
  confirm press), and the boxes that close by themselves on a timer - the new
  game's opening among them - wait for a press instead, so there is time to
  read both. With no row chosen, nothing changes.
  • A second language needs nothing extra: it is built by the setup for
    every pair of languages your install holds (two or more of English,
    French, German and Japanese from your discs).
  • Furigana is a mod, and it does not build yet from this release. The
    readings are attached to the release as furigana-0.1.0.zip, added on
    the new Mods tab (Configure, Mods, Data, Add zip...);
    it needs a Japanese disc among your sources. But building its row on your
    machine needs SudachiPy, a Japanese dictionary tool that this release
    does not bundle, so with the zip added the setup stops with a
    message naming what is missing, and your install stays as it was.
    Remove the mod on the same tab to set up again. A later alpha will
    ship a word list so the build needs nothing extra.
  • The furigana readings are not proofread. They come from a
    dictionary, and some words are split or read the way the dictionary
    splits or reads them rather than as the line means them.
• The Mods tab (Configure, Mods): a mod is a .zip of data files -
  never code, never game data - checked, unpacked and built into your
  install. The tab's sub-row has Data (the list, Add zip..., Remove) and
  Extras (the toggle above). The furigana readings are the first one.
• Quicksaves. F6 saves the whole game at the exact frame, F7
  loads the newest, and F5 opens a menu, drawn as the game's own load
  screen, to load any of the sixteen newest. A quicksave made under another
  release, under another music source, or under the original Chinese text
  when you now play a translation (or the reverse) is refused with its
  reason instead of loading. Ordinary saves are unchanged.
• Buttons follow the Config everywhere. Menus confirm and cancel on the
  buttons the Config gives Speak and Action, and every button the game names
  or draws - in dialogue, the world map's legend, the fishing banner, the
  dock's legend, the item lists' L1 / R1 corner - shows the button the Config
  holds. A new install starts with the button layout of the release it was
  built from, so on a Western disc cross confirms; a PC install with its
  Config untouched is as before. A PSP-EU install's Config screen has its
  words.
• Music:
  • The miners' fight at the start and the other event battles with no song
    of their own keep the scene's song playing, and on a disc-built install
    every boss and event battle plays its own track again (it played track 0;
    issue #83).
  • Ryu's dream in Teepo's bed is silent, as on the PlayStation; the
    bedroom's song played through it (issue #88).
  • The Music tab chooses a source - PlayStation Encoded, PSP
    Encoded or PC MP3s - and every song and recorded piece comes from
    it first, then from the others you hold.
  • The Jukebox plays the eleven recorded pieces too, the staff roll's
    Pure Again among them.
• Amalgam melts when it dies again: the port drew the melt on the screen
  instead of into the picture it was meant for (issue #84).
• A Western disc-only install draws its own disc's title mark, and the
  staff roll is the release's own (US, European, Japanese) and follows
  the language you play.
• Widescreen (16:9 and 21:9):
  • The field draws a wider ring of the map in the wide modes (the PSP's
    view), so the picture's sides are filled; what the game logic sees is
    unchanged.
  • Two screen sweeps (a scene's slide and one area's shade) cover the wide
    picture.
  • Three areas whose maps are too narrow for the wide picture (31, 90 and
    198) are framed with side bars.
• Drawing order: the faerie village's table faerie is drawn over its
  table, not through it, and Garr and the camp fire are layered correctly in
  two more camps.
• Hold Start + Select for a second to return to the title, as on the
  Western PlayStation discs.
• Two small rule fixes: the Holy Mantle no longer makes encounters
  more frequent in the one zone where its doubling wrapped around; and in
  battle, the extra round for the faster side no longer keeps admitting the
  third party member or the eighth enemy after they stop qualifying.
• Disc-built installs read more of the game's tables from your own disc,
  and on Japanese installs:
  • the fishing banner no longer crashes a Japanese disc-only install (on
    PSP-JP about one run in five, on PSX-JP every run as measured on the
    round's build);
  • a PSP-JP-only install no longer stops at the first item list.
  • French and German: the fishing equip screen's headings are drawn, and
    each faerie shows its own name (each showed its neighbour's).
• Under the hood: our code's reads of the game's data are now named and
  typed; the machine code is identical, so nothing plays differently.

ffmpeg (optional, recommended)

The opening logo movie from a disc, the PSP's sound effects and voices, the
PlayStation disc's recorded pieces (the rest jingles, the staff roll's
song), and the repair of the PC port's logo movie (Indeo 5, which current
Windows cannot play) are converted by your ffmpeg. Get a Windows build
from https://ffmpeg.org/download.html#build-windows, then put it on your
PATH or locate ffmpeg.exe in the launcher, and run the setup again.
Without it those pieces are skipped and the setup says which; the inn still
works, in silence.

What works

• Installs from the PC port, from any one catalogued PlayStation disc alone,
  from a PSP disc alone, or a mix; English, French, German and Japanese from
  the matching disc, and any two of them together as a row above the text.
• The PlayStation's sequenced music from your disc, the PSP's, or the PC's
  MP3s; the Jukebox in the launcher.
• Quicksaves (F6 / F7 / F5) alongside the game's own saves.
• Direct3D 11, windowed or borderless fullscreen, integer scaling, widescreen
  (16:9 and 21:9), the point filter and CRT looks, modern pads through SDL3.
• Signed executables (Authenticode, timestamped).
• The fixes and options listed in the project's README, each recorded in
  docs/DIVERGENCE.md.

Watched, not yet played through

This is an alpha. Much has been run by scripts and watched rather than played
by hand:

• The row above the text, the Mods tab and the Extras toggle have been
  checked by the build's tests and by captures (the ...

Breath of Fire III - bof3x v0.1.0-alpha.3

What's Changed

• Code signing readiness: version blocks, past timestamp, signed-file verify, jsign in the release workflow by @kerokline in #72
• PSX-only fixes of 2026-10-16: inn and camp hang, fishing pages, save slots, freezes, old caches by @kerokline in #73

Full Changelog: latest...v0.1.0-alpha.3

Breath of Fire III - bof3x v0.1.0-alpha.2

Breath of Fire III - bof3x v0.1.0-alpha.2 - a player release, an alpha.

bof3x is a renovation of the 2001 Chinese PC port of Breath of Fire III:
every function of the game's own code is our C++, our bof3x.exe runs it
with no code of Capcom's mapped, and the game can be installed from the PC
port, from a PlayStation disc alone, or from a PSP disc alone. This
download holds no game data. You add your own copy, and everything the game
reads is built on your machine from it.

Getting started

1. Unzip into a folder with a short path, e.g. C:\Games\bof3x. Windows
   cannot play the opening movie from a path of about 160 characters or more.

2. Run bof3x-launcher.exe. The first time, it opens on the Sources
   page; later, it is under Configure, the Data tab.

3. On the Sources page, add what you own:

   • the PC port's game folder (the one holding BOF3.exe and DAT), the
     2001-04-18 Chinese release, unmodified;
   • a PlayStation disc as .cue/.bin - US, Japanese, European (English),
     French or German;
   • a PSP disc as .iso - Japanese or European;
   • or a .zip holding any of these;
   • or a whole folder of them: Folder... checks every image in it (and
     the folders below it) and adds each one that matches a known release.

   Each one is checked against the known releases by its files' hashes, and
   told apart in one line if it is not one. The first source makes the
   install; each later one adds what it carries (its language, the PSP's
   extras), and the install is rebuilt. Expect a few minutes per setup.

4. Play.

Everything is written inside the folder you unzipped: sources.toml,
cache\ and game\. Your own files are only read.

New since v0.1.0-alpha.1

• The launcher has a title page - the party on the dune, with Play,
  Configure, Jukebox and Exit - and Configure has tabs: Settings,
  Controls, Music, Game Options (the PlayStation's or the PSP's versions,
  and the cheats), Mods, and Data (the cache folder and Sources). The
  window is 640 x 480 at 100 % Windows display scaling and grows with it.
• Back keeps what you changed: Exit after Back saves it. Exit or the
  close button without Back saves nothing.
• The Mods tab is kept for your own side-loaded files (custom pixel art,
  scenario); nothing loads them yet.
• A folder of disc images can be added in one go (above). PlayStation
  discs are added USA first, so a disc-only install's base is the USA disc
  when you have it.
• Adding a source is much faster: setup reuses what the new source does
  not change - the logo movie, the sound effects, the language layers, the
  PSP's layers. Adding a disc to an existing install took 89 s here, where
  building the same install from scratch took 372 s. setup.log now times
  every step.
• The PSP's versions are built whenever a PSP disc is a source, so Game
  Options can offer them; none plays until you choose it.
• Double-clicking bof3x.exe starts the game through the launcher, with
  your settings, instead of stopping with an error.
• No console window beside the launcher any more, and a new icon: "III"
  on black, on the files, the launcher's window and the taskbar. The game's
  own window still takes the whelp from your data once it has loaded.

ffmpeg (optional, recommended)

The opening logo movie from a disc, the PSP's sound effects and voices, and
the repair of the PC port's logo movie (Indeo 5, which current Windows cannot
play) are converted by your ffmpeg. Get a Windows build from
https://ffmpeg.org/download.html#build-windows, then put it on your PATH
or locate ffmpeg.exe in the launcher, and run the setup again. Without it
those pieces are skipped and the setup says which.

What works

• Installs from the PC port, from any one catalogued PlayStation disc alone,
  from a PSP disc alone, or a mix; English, French, German and Japanese from
  the matching disc.
• The PlayStation's sequenced music from your disc, or the PC's MP3s; the
  Jukebox in the launcher.
• Direct3D 11, windowed or borderless fullscreen, integer scaling, widescreen
  (16:9 and 21:9), the point filter and CRT looks, modern pads through SDL3.
• The fixes and options listed in the project's README, each recorded in
  docs/DIVERGENCE.md.

Watched, not yet played through

This is an alpha. Much has been run by scripts and watched rather than played
by hand:

• The disc-only and PSP-only installs (new in October 2026) have passed
  scripted runs and the attract sequence, not a playthrough.
• This release's setup (the Sources page, the bundled importer) is new:
  each kind of source has been set up on the developer's machine; the
  launcher side has not yet been used by anyone else.
• French, German and Japanese are less tested than English.
• The new launcher window has been seen at 100 % display scaling only;
  at 125 % or 150 % its picture is smoothed rather than sharp.

Known issues

• PlayStation-only install: the inn's and the camp's rest screen can stay
  black (the PC's rest jingle is not on the disc; known-defects D255, a fix
  pending). Save before resting.
• PSP-JP: a crash about one run in five at the fishing banner (D279).
• Some labels and text painted into artwork stay Chinese on a PC-based
  install.
• Not read yet: .chd and .cso images (convert them back to
  .cue/.bin or .iso), and 2048-byte .iso images of a PlayStation disc,
  which have lost the disc's audio and movie sectors - use the .bin/.cue.
• The first setup takes several minutes and about 1 GB of disk for a disc
  install (the cache and the game folder).

In this zip

bof3x-launcher.exe, bof3x.dll, bof3x.exe, music-names.tsv, and
runtime\: CPython 3.13 (python.org's embeddable package) with numpy,
Pillow and capstone, and the importer. Licences: LICENSE,
THIRD_PARTY.md, THIRD_PARTY_RUNTIME.txt.