During the 1990’s, Nintendo of America was known for disallowing certain things in games released for the Super NES game console. Among those was religious references. This led to graphical and text changes in Breath of Fire.
The dragon shrines received a minor graphical change, replacing the cross-like insignia with a dragon head. The spirit at the statue inside the shrine was also renamed from Dragon God (
What’s interesting is that the official English release retained the enemy as a Goddess, while choosing to rename the Dragon God.
During the game’s opening scene, Seira (Sara in the English release) opts to lure the enemy away, while the villages stay hidden in the house. To protect them from the flames, she casts a temporary stone spell on everyone.
Before leaving to confront the Black Dragon army outside, Seira references the divine protection of the Dragon God. This was left out of the English release.
Outside, a soldier spots Seira immediately. Perhaps due to her outfit, he recognizes her as a Dragon Priestess (
Once the soldiers take Seira to Commander Judas (Jade in the English release), they again refer to her as a Dragon Priestess. This time, the English release simply refers to her as being a Light Dragon.
These are the only two references to “priestess” (巫女) in the Japanese version of the game.