3D Dot Game Heroes Review

24 May 2010 at 12:15:37 by Tim McDonald
Systems used to review this title: (PS3)

If you're the sort of person who's going to like 3D Dot Game Heroes, you're going to know what you're expecting before you even open the case. You should not expect galaxy-spanning epic adventures. You should not expect thickly-layered romance quests, or dialogue trees of such gargantuan proportions they begin to resemble the Schwarzwald. What you should expect, simply put, is a top-down love letter to the top-down RPGs of old, and more specifically the first Legend of Zelda.

The setting, such as it is, revolves around the kingdom of Dotnia – a 2D land that went 3D in an attempt to draw in the tourists. Sadly for Dotnia, though, the Dark Bishop Fuelle has stolen the Dark Orb which sealed away the Dark King Onyx (and yes, that's a lot of uses of one adjective.) As the descendant of the hero who sealed away the Dark King in the first place, it's up to you to live up to your family name and save the world.

You control a little dude made up of blocks who runs around a world map and a series of dungeons, gradually getting better equipment and new abilities – except you don't control a little dude. One of 3D Dot Game Heroes' main selling points is that, in fact, you can control whatever you like. The selectable characters give you a choice of traditional knights, wizards, priests and the like, in addition to ninjas (including a few Tenchu cameos), some dragons, a dog, and two variants of Santa Claus. Not enough? Then create your own, using a simplistic editor to generate a few frames of animation. If you want to recreate your favourite Final Fantasy character, go for it. Want to put yourself in the game? Knock yourself out. Feeling a bit abstract, and want to control a single pink block which turns into five blue blocks when it attacks? I've not tried it, but I'd be surprised if it was impossible.

When you've finished creating your ambulatory penis – because we both know that's exactly what you're going to do – you head out to save the world. Your primary method of dispatching the myriad foes you encounter is your sword, which, in true JRPG fashion, is about thirty times your size. That's not an exaggeration, either: when you're on full health, your sword's size and power upgrades, and even the initial swords are very nearly screen-filling. While you'd think this unbalances things unfairly in your favour, it really doesn't, as a single hit from one of the many devious enemy types knocks you out of your super-powered state. This creates the flipside that, when you actually take a hit, you suddenly have to play extremely conservatively. If you're careful, you'll probably come across a health-restoring apple fairly fast. If you're not, then you'll lose more health, and getting back to full will be considerably more difficult.

Whether you like that idea speaks a lot as to how much you're going to enjoy 3D Dot Game Heroes, as it's an omnipresent mechanic. Essentially, it's balancing by degrees: when you've lost some health you need to be careful about what you're doing, but when you're on full you're a walking god. A walking god with a serious Achilles heel.

So yes, your sword is your primary method of dispatching the enemies, but it's not your only one. Over the course of the adventure you'll pick up the abilities and items you'd expect from this sort of game – a boomerang, a bow, bombs, a hookshot, magic spells – but disappointingly, most of these tend to be reserved for puzzles. There's little incentive to use your limited stock of items on the majority of enemies, and even boss battles tend to focus a lot more on swordplay than on items. Considering the wordless joy that more inventive boss battles in this genre can evoke, this is crushing, and so too is the fact that every single item and ability is entirely predictable.

All ...

Comment