I would like to thank Shadow Layer Games LLC for the review key to this title.

Parody games that also want to be good on their own merits have a delicate balance to strike. They must be a good roast of what they parody, but must also offer something that makes them good on their own. Breath of Death VII: The Beginning: Reanimated strikes this fine balance, as I was both amused and enjoying it.

A bit of background. Breath of Death VII was released in 2010 on Xbox Live Arcade and later for Windows. Sporting a NES style RPG parody aesthetic, a tongue firmly in cheek sense of humor, and being a good RPG in its own right without being overly annoying in the way old school RPGs could be, it proved to be a hilariously sardonic (though affectionate) roast of RPG cliches. Breath of Death VII: The Beginning: Reanimated is the same game, but now in an SNES remake fashion with much better visuals and presentation.

The backstory is that humanity doomed itself in what is presumed to be a nuclear war. This somehow caused the undead to rise in the post-apocalyptic world which decided to rebuild society. Unfortunately, rogue machines and monsters have arisen to throw a wrench in this. To this the world needed heroes. Dem, an undead skeleton warrior with a firm sense of justice (and a snarky sense of humor) answers the call. Joined by various undead who also have their own quirky reasons for joining the team, they must save the world, even if everyone in it is technically dead.

The story is practically a loving homage to the cliches of the RPG genre, with the added funny element of how weird it is to have the undead trying to save a world where there are no actual people (in the usual sense) to save. Toss in tons of references to games both recent and old (with clever in-jokes from series ranging from Zork to Mass Effect) and both the world and characters are very self-aware of the fact it's an RPG, and you have a fun little RPG to play.

It's not overly long, I beat it in a few hours, but it does have replay value with various difficulty modes and some unlockable replay modes with unique modifiers that change the experience. The core gameplay is going to follow the usual conventions of the classic turn-based RPG genre. You explore dungeons, fight monsters in turn-based battles, do quests, and find treasure.

That all said, there are a few unique things to the combat system. First off, the longer fights go on, the enemies get stronger in consequence. You can build up a combo meter (of successful hits that do not have a combo break property attached) to build up attacks that do more damage in turn. The better and quicker you end battles, you get a set amount of your MP back, and all battles end with full HP and fallen allies restored to life. The leveling system also allows for each character to choose set bonuses to build their stats as optimally as the player sees fit.

Graphically, this has a 16-bit style like an SNES title. The original version of Breath of Death was 8-bit style. Overall, it definitely has that retro feel of an SNES-era RPG game and it's just as charming a look as the 8-bit feel was for the first incarnation. The colors are a bit on the dark side, mostly to capture that post-apocalyptic feeling, which is well conveyed through appropriate set pieces. The monsters and NPCs also have a kid-friendly aesthetic that fits the parody concept too.

The music and sounds are all in the style of 16-bit soundfonts like SNES-era RPGs. I found all the music to be generally pleasant on the ears, though not a lot stands out. In a weird but thoughtful tip of the hat, there is no final boss theme, which is a fun reference to really old RPGs before that was a thing.

This title supports both keyboards and mice and Steam-supported controllers. Both have simple-to-learn controls and the game is perfectly enjoyable with either. The game does recommend using a controller at the start, mostly for that classic console RPG feel.

Stability is no issue. It runs natively on Windows and macOS. It's not rated for Steam Deck, but it runs fine out of the box with Steam Proton and will work on regular Linux with little trouble either. Requirements are incredibly modest, so if you can do word processing, you can play this game.

Morally, there isn't much to bring up.

Violence is turn-based RPG "give orders and watch it happen" style. It's devoid of blood and gore or bodies left behind. Language is also pretty clean, being directly modeled after the family-friendly era of RPGs on the SNES.

There is one character who is a bit of a paramour for the ladies, but he's portrayed in a silly Pepe Le Pew Looney Tunes fashion, right down to the hilariously thick French accent. The game does have a prominent presence of the undead, given the premise, but it's shown in a very silly Saturday morning cartoon family-friendly fashion. It also is done for reasons of parody, as the whole save the world concept is deliberately weird when it's already been destroyed before the plot began and the only heroes aren't even alive and neither is anyone else in the world.

Morally, your heroes are going to be lawful good to a fault, with your main character Dem even refraining from opening chests in people's homes because that would be theft (though this is usually not the case in most other RPGs, again, this is done for parody). The canon game ending even has a surprisingly serious turn where the heroes make a great sacrifice despite the cost to themselves, reasoning they will do an even greater act of heroism by their sacrifice. Such sacrifice is ultimately rewarded by the circumstances of the ending, with the obvious theme that doing the right thing no matter the cost is a worthy thing indeed.

Overall, I really enjoyed this game. It was a funny affectionate roast of the classic turn-based RPG genre while having some fun mechanics of its own and some decent replay value. Morally, it's pretty safe for any older child on up due to the kid-friendly presentation. If you want to have a good laugh and love classic RPGs, I highly recommend this remaster of an already good game.