Once upon a time I played a game on the Commodore 64 called The Great Giana Sisters. It was Super Mario Bros with another name really and it was withdrawn from sale due to some legal pressure courtesy of Nintendo. It seems that times change though as here we are with 3D Dot Game Heroes, the most blatant homage to the original Legend of Zelda games that I’ve ever seen. Fortunately there’s no sign of another lawsuit on the way, which is good news, as 3D Dot Game Heroes is as much fun as the original Zeldas were back in the day. It’s also at times as infuriating and dated too.
It’s a simple tale to open 3D Dot Game Heroes. You play a nameless warrior in the land of Dotnia and the King has changed the 2D world to 3D using Dark Orbs. Surprise, surprise, the Dark King has stolen them and hidden them in a number of different dungeons and it’s down to you to collect them all. So far, so predictable it is then.
The game is incredibly like one of the NES based Zeldas and A Link to the Past on the SNES. Even the layout of Dotnia is extremely familiar. Various areas of Dotnia can only be explored once you’ve collected relevant items such as the ever handy bombs. The seven dungeons available are also a great homage to the series with standard puzzles on offer as well as bosses at the end of each of them. Even the music evokes wonderful memories of those 8-bit days.
The dungeons start out as quite easy to traverse with none of the puzzles being difficult to figure out, especially if you’ve played such games before. Having said that the difficulty quickly increases and later dungeons are bordering on infuriating, all because of one annoying feature. You see, there’s a sword upgrade system available which is brilliant. There are numerous side quests to complete which makes your sword increasingly more powerful. Your health bar affects the strength of your sword though meaning that, once fully upgraded, your sword can stretch across the entire screen and be fantastically effective in later dungeons. That’s if your health is full. If you lose just a tiny bit of health (half an apple, as the game’s health bar is represented by apples) then your sword becomes a bit rubbish. This can make all the difference, particularly in the last few dungeons, making the game either incredibly easy or incredibly difficult. It’s broken, simply put, and frustratingly poor for such a sweet game.
3D Dot Game Heroes almost feels like a piece of gaming history. It demonstrates The Legend of Zelda so perfectly but that’s also its downfall. Time has moved on since those wondrous days and while 3D Dot Game Heroes is still very enjoyable, it also feels rather shallow compared to other RPGs and even the newer Zelda games. That’s not to say it’s a short game, if you do everything that’s available there’s a good 15-20 hours of gaming to be had here. There are even a few mini games strewn about with a nice Arkanoid clone and an entertaining tower defense game. The story however is distinctly shallow with no real surprises other than some witty dialogue offered by various NPCs throughout the game. The dungeons themselves are also nowhere near as ingenious as any other Zelda game; they’re just a bit simplistic instead. 3D Dot Game Heroes demonstrates exactly how far gaming, particularly RPGs, have come in the past 20 years.
That’s not to say that 3D Dot Game Heroes isn’t fun. It’s charmingly entertaining for those with memories of the RPGs it references. Even the little things like oh so many jokes referring to Final Fantasy as well as Zelda, are great to see. It’s a game that will make you smile for much of its length but it’s also one that makes you realise how the past is precisely that, the past. Fortunately 3D Dot Game Heroes is being released at a relatively budget price of £30 which makes it a much easier purchase to make. Having said that if you’ve never played a Zelda game and are relatively new to gaming, you’ll probably just be rather bored instead. Nostalgia is brilliant; just don’t expect this to stick in your memory for as long as you hoped.
VideogameUK verdict: 7/10
