Breath of Death VII
Old-school JRPG Parody
Steam Link

This is a game where you are a skeleton. In fact, the story is that basically everything is undead.

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It's old-school. It's really old-school. I mean, seriously, look at this picture:

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It also likes to make fun of itself, and games in general.

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Anyways, I clear out the quick initial cave and walk out into the bright sunlight of... oh my good lord what is this anyway? Dragon Quest? FF1?

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The town comes with everything you expect. An inn (which restores your mana - HP is automatically restored after a successful fight), an item store...

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...and, well, this guy:

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Pretty soon I run into this chick who is really overly excited about this adventuring thing.

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And she forcefully joins the party. No, really.

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I'm not sure what she is, exactly. Some kind of mermaid snake thing?

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TIME FOR THE OBLIGATORY SHOT OF OUR ADVENTURERS GAZING AT THE LANDSCAPE *cues up appropriate music*

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I get to dig my way through my first major cave, which is full of undead things (like the rest of the game). Our hero has some words of wisdom about, well, RPG heroes:

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BOSS FIGHT

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One interesting thing this game does is that after every turn, the enemy gets 10% stronger. So the longer the battle takes, the more horrifyingly intense it gets. Suffice to say the boss gets to something like 170% power and it was TERRIFYING but we managed to take him down. Whoo!

Sage words from Sara:

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And we reach the next town.

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...I get that reference.

Overall this is shaping up to be a game with a lot of charm and some interesting mechanics that I haven't seen before. Don't go in expecting Straightforward Generic JRPG parody #384 because there are some neat things you can do. For example, after a character levels up, the game gives you two choices of new skills or perks that you can pick. This allows for considerable amounts of character customization after you're several levels in. Throw in an interesting combo mechanic as well as the "Enemies increase in power" thing I mentioned earlier and there's enough variety here to keep even the most seasoned veteran interested.

Also yeah, all those dumb video game references. I see what you did there, devs!

THE VERDICT:

  • You should probably get it if you like old-school JRPGs from the 80s and early 90s
  • I mean seriously, it's $2.99, you should probably get it anyway
  • It's funny
  • It has some interesting new mechanics I haven't seen before in this type of game
  • The boss music is great. A+