Indie-a-Day (006/365): Breath of Death VII: The Beginning

The xIndies feature "Indie-a-Day" will highlight and recommend a single Xbox Indie Game every day during 2011. Stamped with their own "Awesome: Unoffical Symbol of Approval," Zeboyd Games released the retro parody RPG Breath of Death VII: The Beginning for the Indie Games Marketplace in February of 2010. I've had the pleasure of impulse buying this game as the eight minute demo timer ran out on me. (Am I the only one that demos dollar games?) Anyway, you get an enormous value for your Mr. Washington with Breath of Death not only because of its obvious humor, but surprisingly fun gameplay.

As you can see from the image above, Breath of Death has a nice 8-bit graphical quality. The cut scenes, though not as appealing as the core portion of the game, is reminiscent of the RPGs of the eighties as well. With the looks and gameplay, playing this was like I went back in time, playing my NES as a child. The RPG formula was as fun as ever. It even changes the formula up a bit by, for example, telling the player how many random battles they'll experience in each area. Though the game is a fantastic title, especially for the dollar it costs, there are some drawbacks.

Breath of Death provides a good five hours of gameplay, more if you play through multiple times on the hard and score attack modes, and the combat, as advertised, is fast-paced and interesting with the combo system. However, the quick combat can lead to problems. In the beginning, especially, a player may simply rush through the attack options and press "a" until the enemies are defeated. Also, grammatical errors in the dialogue, along with a barebones story, could also be called into complaint.

These small issues are just that, small. The story and gameplay are fun parodies of the Dragon Quest style games and, honestly, the multiple "a" press battle win and be a good thing when you just want to push on to the next area. I hate to say "for a dollar, this is a must buy," because it isn't just because of the price that you should pick up Breath of Death. It is a good, fun, RPG that you will spend several hours with and enjoy. This is a title I would have recommended at any Indie price level, but it is what it is and, at 80 msp, this is a steal. You can demo or purchase Breath of Death here.