Playthrough 004: Breath of Death VII

Breath of Death VII: The Beginning is an indie JRPG developed by Zeboyd Games and released on July 13th, 2011.

The overworld appears to be modeled after the original Final Fantasy for the NES and the battle system looks like the old NES D&D games. The “retro” graphics are a selling point, apparently, since this came out in the year of retro indie games along with Doom & Destiny, Jamestown, Terraria, Wizorb, etc. The character art looks to be inspired by Akira Toriyama’s designs on Dragon Quest or Chrono Trigger, though much less refined.

It’s currently got a 85% positive rating on Steam so there’s a good chance there’s some heart in the game, either as a loving send-up of the early FFs and other pre-SNES JRPGS, or a really solid story.

I purchased Breath of Death VII on June 30th, 2012 as part of the Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 Launch Bundle which also came with Cthulu Saves the World. Technically I got the two JRPGs for free since the launch bundle cost the same as OtRSPoD 3 does normally. Breath of Death and Cthulu were part of the bundle because all three games were developed by Zeboyd along with the eventual Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 4 which I also own.

I would say I'm approaching this game with cautious optimism. It doesn’t look like it’s trying to subvert JRPG story and gameplay tropes like Doom & Destiny does, but rather was developed to be a familiar call-back to the games Zeboyd played when they were kids. I didn’t get into JRPGs until I was in high school and after Final Fantasy VII came out so we’ll see how relaxed and thoughtful the combat system is compared to what I’m used to.