I remember back when I was but a lad of seven or eight, and my mom had taken me to Blockbuster Video to rent movies and a game for me. I looked up and down the aisles, but couldn't decide on what one to pick. My mom, seeing my indecisiveness, picked up a gold box and asked "What about this one?". I took it home and became a life long fan of The Legend of Zelda.
So it was with great interest to me when I saw that a new imagining of Zelda was coming to the PS3. I went out and picked it up for a very modest cost of $40, took it home, and played. It brought me back to a time where games were simpler. Where you would adventure out into an unknown world and try to find what was out there, and 3D Dot Game Heroes has quite a bit out there for those willing to look for it.
The graphics are presented in a "what if 8 bit graphics were done in 3D" manner, and makes no attempts to hide this fact. 3D Dot Game Heroes actually is very self referential in terms of graphics, story, other games that the company has put out, and even the designers themselves have a cave that they work out of. It's all done in a very campy manner that throws back to the way old games played.
I suppose my greatest complaint though would be how it may have gone back too much to how video games used to play. It doesn't do a very good job of guiding you around the many many side quests that you can undertake. Maybe this is a reference to the olden days where you needed a copy of Nintendo Power next to you to figure out concepts, but I'm a firm believer that games need to stand on their own and not need somebody else to write up an FAQ about it. If you don't find certain secrets, you get to the end, kill a succubus clone of the princess, and finish the last boss off. Maybe I missed some old lady tell me what I needed to do, but it should shine out there a little bit brighter if it's that important.
I felt that the overworld design was kinda crappy in that it only allowed you to explore certain parts without special equipment. I know that this is pretty much par for the course, especially when villages get involved, but in this game, if you don't hit certain elements in time, you can't go back and do them. In this case I wish they would have thrown back to the original Zelda where you could go find Death Mountain before completing level 1.
The dungeon design on the other hand felt familiar, but had enough tricks to keep me going. The same monsters appearing over and over was a bit batty though, and I wished they would have put more diversity in them. If I need to cast reflect one more time to finish off all the spell casters in a room, I think I'll go nuts. The bosses at the end of the dungeons felt easy for the most part, and except for a couple, were completely forgettable.
In the end, if you enjoyed the top down view Zelda games, especially The Legend of Zelda and A Link to the Past, you're going to have a good time with this. Though I might recommend having that FAQ next to you while you're playing so you get the most out of it. It's not a hard game, but there's just too much out there that you can look over, and the game makes no attempt to steer you where you need to go.
