2024 has been my year of playing remakes, remasters, and re-releases of games I never played or never finished for various reasons. The latest entry on that list is Breath of Death VII: The Beginning: Reanimated, ShadowLayer Games’ full remake of Zeboyd Games’ indie darling that I never played the first time around. This brief yet fulfilling game is precisely what I needed to get a necessary RPG fix during recent weeks when life gave me little time to sit down and play games.
Breath of Death VII takes place in a distant, post-apocalyptic fantasy version of our world, akin to that in the Shannara book series. After a weapon of mass destruction completely decimates the world and wipes out humanity, undead beings like vampires, zombies, and ghosts eventually rise up and create new civilizations. These undead live in peace and harmony for generations until evil rears its ugly head. At this point, players meet Dem, a skeleton knight who acts as a silent protagonist.
Dem might be one of my favorite silent protagonists because we are privy to his inner thoughts via Breath of Death VII’s patented Thoughts-Subtitle-o-Matic. I want a Thoughts-Subtitle-o-Matic in all my RPGs with silent protagonists because reading Dem’s thoughts makes him feel like a fleshed-out character and not just some meat puppet led around by other characters’ whims. Using “flesh” and “meat” metaphors might offend our skeleton hero who is reluctantly led around by other characters’ whims, but it also nods to Breath of Death VII’s brand of wink-wink-nudge-nudge humor.
Dem and his party are amusing characters who spout playful banter. The chat option in the menu, which shows the party having side conversations, is especially fun. The clever writing clearly took significant effort, but some kind of indicator (like in the Tales games) alerting players when there’s a new Chat to check out would be nice so I don’t miss one.
Battles evoke the sentiment that animals are most dangerous when cornered. As enemies’ HP drops, they become more vicious. Ergo, strategy is important to win battles as quickly as possible before enemies become cornered and are at their most deadly. Turn-based battles feel like those in classic JRPGs with a tried-and-true battle system that gets the job done. One twist is that landing successful hits builds up the party’s Combo meter to strengthen special attacks, but watch out for enemies’ combo-breaking skills.
Three difficulty levels (easy, normal, hard) are options from the outset, with a fourth hard+ difficulty available after completing the game once. You can change the difficulty level on the fly, but it’s still important to strategize for each battle regardless of your choice. Even in easy mode, it’s possible to Game Over if you’re careless or try to simply bulldoze through everything. Characters level up at a good pace, so even with some necessary level grinding (e.g. when new recruits join the party), it’s hardly intrusive. Each area has a set number of random encounters displayed in the main menu; once you hit that number, there are no more (unless you select the Fight option in the main menu). This makes backtracking relatively painless and offers a gauge for optimal character levels to take on bosses.
Controls are a little slippery, especially when navigating menus. I often found myself selecting commands I did not want and clicking through post-battle level-up options too quickly. The latter unwittingly gave my characters upgrades before I could read through what they were and select one. Perhaps this is a cue that I should slow down and not rush, but Breath of Death VII would benefit from tighter controls. Players can manually save anywhere and anytime they want, and dungeons have save points that restore the party’s HP and MP. Still, an autosave feature would be of benefit too, especially for those times I got a Game Over and lost a large amount of progress because I forgot to save. Autosave features are standard in gaming today and the absence of one here had a negative impact.
The meaty dungeons encourage plenty of exploration without being too unwieldy to navigate. The overworld also encourages treading off the beaten path to find optional dungeons containing sweet loot. Some of that secret loot includes several Dragonduck dolls hidden throughout the world. Finding seven of them opens up Dragonduck mode, which is an ARPG-style mini-game in the 8-bit visual style of the original Breath of Death VII.
Breath of Death VII is not a lengthy game (I finished it in about 5 hours), but I never wanted to rush through it. I wanted to take my time and enjoy all the sights because these remastered graphics look great. They have an enhanced 2D look that can best be described as classic 16-bit style with modern resolutions and accoutrements. Town and dungeon environments have all kinds of sundry little details, including subtle animations that bring environments to life. For example, one town center’s koi pond has some skeleton fish swimming around in it.
Arguably, the most amazing upgrade in Breath of Death VII: The Beginning: Reanimated is the all-new soundtrack by Hyperduck Soundworks. I’m a fan of Hyperduck Soundworks (as evidenced by my review of Dust: An Elysian Tail’s soundtrack) and they deliver the goods yet again. I watched some videos of the original Breath of Death VII, and though its chiptune music was solid, it pales compared to their characteristically epic-sounding compositions here. That being said, an option to play the game with the original music would be worthwhile.
Breath of Death VII: The Beginning: Reanimated is a delightful remake of a good game. The original Breath of Death VII is a favorite among indie game fans for a reason, and this version is even better. With lovely graphics, solid gameplay, fantastic music, amusing writing, a manageable length to fit into any busy schedule, and a satisfying RPG experience for half the price of a movie ticket, Breath of Death VII: The Beginning: Reanimated is worth your time.
