At first glance you might be puzzled as to what the theme of 3D Dot Game Heroes is. The graphics are blocky, the game audio sounds dated and there is no voice over dialogue. In fact there are spelling errors in some cases and even poor use of English. What gives?! What we have here is a wonderful throwback to gaming of "ye' olde day" in the theme of Legend of Zelda. It breaks the current mold set by today's standards bravely just breaking them in the wrong direction! (A good thing I feel!) Charge that flux capacitor and floor it to 88 miles per hour , we're taking a trip back in time folks!
GAMEPLAY
3D Dot Game Heroes aims for what many games of the past strived for in the Atari, NES and early SNES days. Gameplay! It was all most games could lean on due to sound, graphics and memory limitations of the time. From the slightly pixel-ed menu screen to the scrolling dialogue bubbles this game explodes with nostalgia for an old gamer like myself. The gameplay is fairly solid for this game. Throughout my adventure there was no freezing or loading problems. The game did not hand feed you instructions on what to do, yet did not make it too hard that you would get frustrated either. It maintains a nice balance between the two like a good Zelda game can do. If you ever played Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past then you know what to expect here gameplay wise. You will be sent on a quest to secure 6 crystals located in 6 different temples. Along the way you will fight your way through mobs, solve dungeons and fight bosses while gathering a variety of items along the way to aid your journey.
The gameplay is fun and enjoyable; However this game knows it is turning the dial back about 15-20 years and isn't afraid to not take itself serious. Plenty of townsfolk have some funny dialogue mixed in with some nostalgic throw backs. Hidden caves with the game developers attempting to figure out how to code the game. Broken English like "Life Get Up!" and they even threw in a NAVI clone called Lee. You know you are in for a crazy ride when you can select your character, and as of patch v1.01 you can select characters such as Santa, a Tank, a dragon, a shark fin, Funky Santa, even Sackboy!
GRAPHICS
This is where the game takes a small hick-up. Graphically the game obviously is no Uncharted 2, Crysis, Killzone 3 etc. It isn't meant to be. Instead it has this really nice throw back look like a Pixelated version of Lego games but in nice High Def. There are some nice particle effects when enemies or objects explode, splattering the screen with little dots. The game also has a nice camera effect when judging distances, a kind of blur effect. While the graphics are actually really nice, in a throwback way, there also was plenty of times the game would lag when enemies would burst. Kill too many enemies too fast and the game might FPS chug for a moment. It isn't bad but at the same time, you aren't rendering massive 720p map textures with explosions and gun fire everywhere so the dip in FPS is a bit surprising; but it is not all that common and really doesn't effect the gameplay at all here.
SOUND/STORY
The sound track for this game is really good! It has this great NES / SNES tone to it, just mastered at a modern bit-rate. It is like taking your old 8-Bit NES favorites and remastering them today on studio equipment. All the songs have this really nostalgic theme to them which will make it feel like you are a kid all over again! Sound Effects are handled fairly well, having that old school kind of sound to them without being to "old" sounding. Just a nice overall balance between old and new. As for the storyline there isn't much to it. It pretty much is a near clone of Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, given a slightly different spin but not much.
REPLAY/LENGTH
The game itself will probably take you anywhere from 10-14 hours to complete on your first playthough since there will be some time figuring out where to go, backtracking to get some upgrades in towns etc. This game contains Game+ modes where the difficulty can be increased up to a difficulty where you die in one hit period! Brutal! On a Game+ you get to keep all your previous items so a Game+ run might take you only 5-7 hrs to complete since you could just breeze through dungeons with upgraded stuff. With varying difficulty levels, and lots of hidden stuff to find the game could easily last you 2 or 3 playthroughs.
OVERALL B/B+ ... 85%
3D Dot Game Heroes is a game which attempts to recreate that nostalgic feel older gamers had when they first sat down to play the classic that is Legend of Zelda. It does an exceptional job and recreating that old NES/SNES feeling in a game without sacrificing enough that makes this game feel as if it just doesn't belong as a modern title. It walks the line perfectly. If you have always been a Zelda fan, or have a craving for some nostalgia this is a great game to pick up. While it is not perfect by any means the game captures what made old games so good and gives that old dusty game a nice modern polish.
*NOTE: You can also create your own character from scratch
*NOTE: While you can eventually create a sword that pretty much will equal an "I WIN" Button, I feel this was almost intentional as on Spelunker difficulty you die in one hit. So in a way a GAME+ mode w/ that sword and 1 hit deaths kind of balances out.
*NOTE: I found the game to actually be easier to play with the D pad instead of the Analog stick
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Hidden gem with cool 3D style, humor and charm!
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There's pretty much not a lot I can say about 3D dot heroes that other reviewers haven't already. The game is basically a homage to older 8 and 16-bit games of the late generation. Namely Zelda and Dragon Quest. It's light heart in story and game play. It plays mostly like Zelda and makes references to Dragon Quest and rarely Final Fantasy. It's meant to be played with everyone, whether its nostalgic adults or young kids new to the genre.The graphics are nice and clean and I for one find it very humorous. This is how video games used to look like when I was growing up but actually more horrible.Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much reviews for one of 3D dot heroes best aspect, its character editor. This is one of the best, though limited, character editor I have played in a video game. Its simplistic, intuitive, and completely addicting. I actually spent more of my time fiddling with the character editor than the game itself. The character editor in 3D dot heroes allows players to create anything they wish and import that character into the game. If players do not wish to create their own creations then they can always download other player creations through the web and import it into the game. This accessibility is great for user created content.Characters are defined within a 16x16 grid and as long as you adhere to the limitation, players can create all sorts of things. The character editor is broken up into 6 poses. A stand pose, walk 1, walk 2, celebration pose, attack 1, and attack 2. The first three pose are used to create the walk cycle, and the last two poses, attack 1 is used to attack with a sword and attack 2 is used for secondary weapons. If creating characters seem too daunting, the game allows for the use of pre-existing templates. Just use the available templates then customize accordingly if players do not wish to create from scratch. Available templates are pretty diverse and I find that there are always a template close enough for any creation I wanted to make.Animating your character is also every simple. Based on the poses players created the game will generate a walk cycle using the pose, walk1, and walk 2 frames. It's actually a four frame walk cycle though, the game uses pose > walk 1 > pose > walk 2, and cycles the four frames. Attacks and celebration are only 1 frame animation though, but it serves its purpose. The editor options outside of the the character editor has copy, paste, and flip. Copy and paste is self explanatory but flip is actually extremely useful. For example, when creating a walk cycle, and the character has left leg forward and right leg back for walk 1, well just copy and paste walk 1 image to walk 2, then flip the image and now walk 2 has left leg back and right leg forward. It's extremely easy to use and extremely fun to fiddle with. Note: the game has a default swaying motion for the walk cycle, as in your character will sway left and right when walking. If this is annoying, players can toggle this option off by pressing pause, then L1, R1, L1, R1, L1, L1, R1, R1, and square. This will toggle off the sway and characters will walk normally. Players can also toggle off the shield. The shield will still be available to use it will just be invisible, very handy if your character is a monster or vehicle. Just press pause, then up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, square, and triangle. There is also an option to take screen shots of the game. Images are save straight into the PS3's hard drive under photos.As much in depth as the character editor is, it also has its fair share of limitations. I really wish players were not confine to a 16x16 grid for creations. There were times I was being too ambitious with the editor and couldn't get around the size limitations. I also wish there was more frames to the animations. The four frame walk cycle is great and simple, but only 1 frame for attack, and celebration is not enough. But of course considering the theme of the game, theses complaints do not warrant a lower score. After all, this game is meant to play like the 8 and 16-bit era and it completely does. Now if only a developer created a RPG marker this intuitive and simplistic to use.
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Robert Fulton
Brilliant bit of retro gaming
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 18, 2013
