Breath of Fire 3 Part 24: The Shisu Episode

Channel:

BigSquirrell

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Published on June 12, 2023 3:00:47 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqOACvy0K74

Game:

Breath of Fire III (1997)

Duration: 39:57

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That's right, it's time for one of the more convoluted Breath of Fire 3 things, making shisu! And I'm not exaggerating when I say that: a very important aspect is kept hidden, and part of the calculation may have been programmed wrong. And on top of that, one of the minigames is just hatefully opaque :') This whole thing takes a bit of explaining and I don't think I did it as well as I could in the video, so I'm gonna do a breakdown here.

First and foremost, for those that just want the basic numbers to make perfect shisu, here it is:
-Mackerel: 68cm or higher (can only be found at fishing spot just south of Maekyss Gorge; use worm or frog bait)
-Shaly seeds: 15 (two batches from the tree behind the hut in Maekyss Gorge)
-Vinegar: 4 (one success pulling up the bucket at the coffee shop)
-Horseradish: 7 (three harvesting trips in Ogre Road)
-After combining the other ingredients, knead twice

The shaly seeds and horseradish are pretty straightforward to find and collect, you just need Peko to headbutt the tree for the shaly seeds and Ryu to cut the horseradish. The mackerel isn't that bad, either, it's just a matter of time and needing to do well with the fishing minigame (highly recommend getting the Deluxe Rod from the locked room in the Checkpoint by Syn City if you haven't, it makes the fishing minigame easier and all it takes is a bit of traveling and having Rei lead the party). From what I could see, the game uses your record catch when making shisu, so as long as you've caught a mackerel that's at least 68cm at some point in the game, you don't need to catch another.

The vinegar is... rough :') The minigame of pulling water from the well involves hidden timers and a hidden rule that if you don't push any buttons for an amount of time, you lose. That means that if you go too slow, you lose, but also if you go too fast, the timer won't run out fast enough and your lack of pressing buttons will trigger the hidden rule and make you lose as well. Best parts of all of this is that not only are the timers randomized, lowering and raising the bucket don't use the same time limit, so you can (and probably will) lose to randomness. And yes, that feels frustrating. Luckily, if you're following the shisu recipe I used, you'll only have to succeed once. I did seven button presses to lower and raise the bucket, and about eight total left-right pairs to fill it. As you can see in the video, it takes awhile to get it right, even if you're being consistent.

The kneading is pretty straightforward but also not explained properly in-game: You knead it twice (the first time causes an animation, by the way, but the second doesn't). Going for more or fewer kneads will make your results worse, regardless of the size of the fish and how the ratios would otherwise work out.

And there you go, that's the best I can do on explaining Breath of Fire 3 shisu quest recipe stuff. I hope this has helped, and here's a link to where I got the information along with all the formulae translated from the game's code that helped this person come up with a recipe that gets you the best possible result (but do note, the numbers in the TL;DR section are wrong for some reason, there's not enough vinegar or horseradish, and I don't know why they did that; the correct amount is from the Google doc at the end of their post):
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/196817-breath-of-fire-iii/80465738

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