November 17, 2009 - The one sad thing about being a PlayStation gamer is that a few legendary franchises have never made the jump over to Sony's platforms. Despite having some incredible exclusive titles, it's always painful to watch Nintendo fans throw up their arms in happiness as plumbers and space pirates rain over the long line of Nintendo consoles.
Fortunately, From Software -- the developer of the recently released Demon's Souls -- has designed 3D Dot Game Heroes, a game that not only celebrates the 8-bit games of old but also recreates one of the most memorable adventure games of all time. Without giving too much away, let's just say the franchise in question stars with "Z" and ends in "elda." You can figure out the rest.
In 3D Dot Game Heroes, legend tells of an evil known as the Dark King Onyx, who brought tragedy and darkness to Dotnia Kingdom. Fortunately, a hero rose to face the Dark King and -- with his legendary sword -- sealed Onyx away in an orb. But as is the case with the forces of evil, darkness rose again. The Dark Bishop Fuelle has stolen the orb and has thrown Dotnia into chaos once more. It's up to a new hero to rid the kingdom of its dark plague and restore peace throughout the land.
Bring a swift, pixelated death to your enemies
This story is told through some excellent cutscenes that are driven by classic, 8-bit visuals, It all looks great, but you'll notice that there's a "3D" in the title, so how can the game be visualized entirely in sprite-form? Good question. The King of the land, thinking that sprites are a bit outdated, decides that the kingdom should make the jump to 3D. With this great decree, the entire world is made 3D, but still preserves its pixelated look. The result is one of the most visually appealing games I've seen in a long time.
Although 3D Dot Game Heroes references a number of old adventure games (including previous From Software titles), the game is a startling adaptation of the classic I hinted at above. Players move from screen to screen, battling monsters (or bunnies), exploring dungeons, collecting items and solving puzzles. An apple meter governs the player's health, and at full health the hero's sword grows to tremendous sizes when swung. Each sword in the game can be leveled up to enhance its length, girth and magical power (snicker, snicker) and a number of useful items can be collected. These items include boomerangs, lanterns, candles, a bow and more.
Sound familiar?
Controlling 3D Dot Game Heroes is as simple as pie. One button is used to swing your sword and rotating the left analog stick while doing so will cause the hero to swing it in a circular motion. Another face button is assigned to item use, and a trigger can be held to bring up the hero's shield and execute basic strafing patterns.
During my demo of 3D Dot Game Heroes, I was able to wander a few sections of the world map and explore the game's first dungeon. The dungeons will clearly be home to the game's best puzzles and most challenging fights, as is the case with the game 3D Dot Game Heroes is based on. After wandering from room to room, fighting monsters, dodging harmful traps and pushing blocks in a certain order to clear a path, I had to collect keys to reach the dungeon's end boss. The first dungeon featured a giant snake boss that looked incredible and capitalized on 3D Dot Game Heroes' unique visual style. In order to defeat the boss, I had to attack each tail section in turn as it flashed, while avoiding the snake's speedy movements.
There are a few other details that make 3D Dot Game Heroes feel special. Firstly, players can create their own character model with a 3D sprite editor. I was told that a member of the Atlus team actually created a small tank that looked quite believable, so I can only imagine the possibilities.
This game is very pretty.
Players can also collect monsters to be featured in an encyclopedia, complete with a full 3D model of the creature. While this bestiary might not seem too unusual, the fun comes from how you actually collect the monster's profile: you need to beat them over the head with the book. Hitting the monster enough with the encyclopedia will force their profile to show up in its pages. Classic!
To provide icing for this delicious cake, all the loading screens in the game are recreations of classic videogame box art, which are a blast to see. It's very obvious that the folks at From Software have a serious affinity for old-school games.
Even though 3D Dot Game Heroes is only a six- to eight-hour game, just like some of its 8-bit predecessors, the charm and raw nostalgia involved is more than enough reason to check it out. And because 3D Dot Game Heroes is launching at a lower price point than most disc-based retail games, there's even more reason to consider investing your time and money. Let's just hope that the entire experience, from start to finish, lives up to the amazing style and retro goodness.
-IGN
I'm not sure if this is posted or not, but might as well revive this thread :)
