Breath of Death VII: The Beginning originally came out on Xbox Live Arcade during the golden era of the service in April 2010, as the second game from Zeboyd Games, who have gone on to develop a variety of 16-bit style RPGs over the last 15 years. Breath of Death was later bundled together with its spiritual successor Cthulhu Saves the World, as both were humorous experiences with a similar style of gameplay, as well as a low price point. Now, Shadow Layer Games have remastered the original with new artwork, graphics and audio, breathing new life into the ghosts and skeletons of this cute post-apocalypse.
Despite being named Breath of Death VII this is in fact the first and only game in the series, but the title is deliberately evocative of the many, many Final Fantasy games there have been over the years. Set in the future where humanity has been wiped out by nuclear war, all that remains are various species of undead; skeletons, zombies, vampires, ghosts and other ghouls who have built a new civilization. You play as Dem, a skeleton knight who is a silent protagonist, and who also cannot speak in-game, as he is mute. However he does still think of various thoughts as narration, providing regular quips and updates. He’s joined by Sara, a ghost mind-reader, vampire Lita and zombie prince Eric to go on an epic quest.
The writing is pretty sharp and funny and makes numerous references and jokes towards other RPGs as well as various bits of pop culture. Some of this can now feel a bit dated, but it’s not filled to the brim with memes from 2010 so it’s not going to raise too many groans. Compared to the marathon runtimes of some Japanese RPGs Breath of Death is a more bitesize experience and only takes half a dozen hours to complete, but this feels like a good length for the kind of experience the game is going for.
The RPG mechanics are mostly very straightforward, tried and tested turn based combat, but the combo gauge within battles helps to give an extra layer of strategy, as increasing your combo can make special attacks more devastating. Some enemies can break the combo however. Likewise the longer a battle goes on, the stronger an enemy becomes, with each round increasing their strength by 10%. Even on easy mode, if you’re not concentrating some foes can make short work of you, but most will have a particular weakness which can be exploited. Health automatically resets after each battle meaning you only have to manage Mana, which can be restored at save points.
Visually and aurally is where the game has had a major upgrade, the graphics going from the more basic style of Final Fantasy III, to far more detailed and beautiful environments of Final Fantasy VI. This has resulted in significant changes to the art style but in a way that still feels very true to the original and the games inspired by it. The UI has also been overhauled with a new look, and the music has been completely redone with a new soundtrack from HyperDuck SoundWorks. A new addition to the game is Dragonduck Mode, which gives players a new map to venture forth in, although you can only unlock this by finding a variety of dragonducks while playing the original main game, so you may want to have a guide handy.
Breath of Death VII: The Beginning Reanimated does what it set out to do; remaster the original indie RPG with a nice new lick of paint, while preserving its accessibility and charm. To that end, it’s a success. I imagine Shadow Layer Games will likely have a go at remastering Cthulhu Saves the World next given how well the two games compliment each other. If you didn’t play the original at the time, or are a new player finding it for the first time, it’s an easy recommendation for anyone looking for a streamlined and more bitesize classic RPG.
