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Breath of Death First Impression
Short and sweet, Breath of Death VII isn’t a long game–something that’s probably for the best. It’s combat mechanics are not deep enough to support a game in for the long haul and considering that combat is half (if not more) of what a 90’s RPG is, Zeboyd wisely cut things off before they could begin to drag. What we got was still fun and worth playing though.
–Spoiler Alert–
Last we left our heroes, they were just starting to form the party and set out on a grand adventure to the four quadrants of the world. Akin to the “ye olde orbs of light” (“I-hope-he-keeps-his-pants-on-shutup-I-already-made-that-joke”) the heroes raid several ruins to acquire four crystals of the corresponding traditional 4 elements. You know the ones. Along the way, they get captured by an odd mix of references–a king that looks rather similar to our good buddy Ganondorf, but who is sitting in the throne of a would-be Tantageel, in a location with a layout identical to the castle found in Dragon Quest of the same name. Being thrown in jail for the supposed usurping of his thrown, you discover his nephew, “Erik,” who is a French zombie (complete with the accent) who has a penchant to break off his otherwise civilized conversation by shouting the words “LE BRAINS!” randomly.
Our heroes break out of prison, explain to Erik’s uncle that Erik has no interest in the throne and he can continue to rule as he pleases (did we just enact the 7-year gap in Ocarina of Time?) and the party collects the 4 crystals. Upon nearing the end of the final tech/mech dungeon, the adventurers are beset upon by evil versions of themselves before encountering Dr. Dark (a parody of Dr. Light from Megaman), the last surviving human in the undead land.
Dr. D asks the heroes to give him the crystals so that he can power his time machine and go back in time to stop the catastrophic event that lead the world’s destruction and current undead predicament. Before they are allowed to do so, the “Ultimate Evil” appears in a very Final Fantasy Chaos-esque fashion to stop the heroes.
Upon its defeat, the party agrees to allow Dr. D to go back in time and change the future, even though it means that they will all no longer exist. Dr. D is successful, the world is saved and nothing more is left of Dem and his crew other than a monument that the doctor erects in honor of the saviors of his world.
Throughout the game, BoDVII maintains a consistent level of humor and doesn’t try to take itself too seriously. Zeboyd has their thumb on the cliches of 90’s RPGs and makes fun of them in many instances. One of my favorites was when Dr. Dark asks Dem for the crystals. Fully planning on telling him “No,” I realized my two options were “Yes,” and “Sure.” This is particularly funny, since it was a common habit for games in the 90’s (and plenty of modern day ones if I’m honest) to give the player meaningless “Yes” or “No” choices that they ultimately were forced to answer in the affirmative. Zeboyd is also not above poking fun at their own product, with an instance where even Dem is making fun of the asking price for BoDVII in relation to the game’s relatively short length.
For enthusiasts hungry for more, there is Hard Mode, Score Attack mode and of course the optional dungeon with the dreaded Duck Dragon. I did not deem myself worthy of challenging such a foe, but my imagination continues to maintain a humorous image of such a beast nontheless.
BoDVII is a solid parody that is guaranteed to get a few chuckles out of anyone who grew up in the 90’s playing RPGs. Without the parody it’s still a decent enough game to provide entertainment on its own right, although I’m not sure I’d recommend it to anyone much younger than me for fear that many of the references would fall flat. If you want a quick refresher of old-school tileset RPGs, I fully recommend BoDVII as it comes complete with all the good packaged with the time-wasting grinding graciously trimmed down. I think Cthulu Saves the World is still probably the better of the two well-known Zeboyd RPGs, but hey, at least I know now why the optional Dem boss in Cthulu was so hard.
