There’s a saying that goes  “Everything old is new again.”  In the gaming world, this could not be more evident. From remakes of Bionic Commando and Street Fighter 2 to sequels like Mega Man 9 and the upcoming Sonic 4, people’s taste for nostalgia in games is at an all-time high.  It makes a lot of sense, though, when you think about it.  According to the ESA, the average age of gamers is 35  and many of them grew up on gaming.  It makes sense that they would want to re-visit their childhood.

Now I’m 23, so there were a lot of games that I missed out on.  While I played the original Legend of Zelda, my mind was far too under-developed to actually grasp much of what was going on.  To be fair, though, even now the original Legend of Zelda confuses me.  I love the series, but unless you’ve got a map and a clue about what you are doing, you’re likely to be lost for a long time.

So when I found out that the same minds behind Demon’s Souls were making what was nearly a remake of Legend of Zelda, I knew that this was one challenge I’d have to take on if I ever wanted to defend my nerd-cred.  To be fair, I was terrified of the idea of trying to beat a game by the same company that made Demon’s Souls, but I knew I at least had to try.  So how does 3D Dot Game Heroes measure up to the competition?

Use a hook-sho… I mean, Anchor Rod to cross the jump.

The story of 3D Dot Game Heroes feels… familiar, to say the least.  A dark monster is about to be unleashed upon the land of Dotonia by the evil bishop Fuelle.  The beast was locked away after your ancestor vanquished it into a dark orb.  You need to traverse the land to obtain six orbs of power in order to defeat him and bring peace back to the land of Dotonia.  Be prepared to hear me say this a lot over the course of this review, but at its core, it’s basically The Legend of Zelda.

That said, From Software has made some clever changes.  The world in which your ancestor vanquished the dark beast, known as Onyx, was two-dimensional.  After tourism begins to drop in Dotonia, however, the King orders that the land become 3D.  In addition, at several points, you can flat out reject your civic duty and say that you don’t want to keep following the quest set before you.  To be fair, though, most of the time the game won’t advance, at one point going so far as to flat out saying that “the story can’t advance” if you reject your duty.

The gameplay can best be described as the original Legend of Zelda, only in three dimensions.  The camera is set overhead, similar to Zelda, but the land is set in 3D.  You travel from screen to screen, seeking out dungeons.  When you enter them, you find a weapon and you will use that, most of the time, to defeat the boss of the dungeon and travel to the next locale.  Weapons are essentially pulled from The Legend of Zelda and include things like an Anchor Rod, which allows you to grapple to posts to cross gaps, boomerangs to hit switches and fire wands to burn down dead trees that block your path.  Instead of having hearts to replenish your health, you have apples.  The same is used to replenish your magic.

The main difference between 3D Dot Game Heroes of The Legend of Zelda is the sword play.  When you have full health, your sword increases in size and strength.   You can go to a blacksmith and upgrade its length, width and effectiveness.  Normally, you’d think that this would break the game and, in reality, it does but not in the way you’d think.  While you’d think it would make the game much easier, you basically need to keep your health full so that you have any chance to beat later enemies.  If you’re not at full health, at some points, you’ll need to go and hunt down health just to have a chance against enemies.

You’ll also find magic spells after you return the orbs to the Sages of the dungeons.  They add a bit of strategy to the game, but become a necessity near the end.  There are spells that will reflect back spells from Dark Mages, which is the only way to beat them.  There’s a freeze spell which, you guessed it, freezes everything on screen and a spell that will reveal hints in specific areas of the game.  The problem with these spells is that it’s really easy to run out of magic and the game is brutal in not giving you health or magic back easily.

In one room, you will have 8 black mages surrounding you.  Without magic you have no way to actually beat them since you need to reflect your spells at them.  You’ll need to backtrack through the entire dungeon just to find one apple so that you can activate reflect on them.  It becomes worse when there are enemies who are nearly impossible to beat until you have multiple magic apples for specific spells.

In fact, the main problem that the game has is that the difficulty fluctuates far too much.  Near the end of the game, it becomes nearly impossible to beat certain areas without a lot of trial and error.   The strange thing, though, is that I was able to beat the final boss in about a minute without taking any damage.  The game goes from extremely easy, to back-breakingly hard, back to extremely easy.

That’s far from the only problem, though.  A lot of issues have to do with the fact that it’s a 3D game with a set camera.  Plenty of times, when playing through the game, the landscape would actually get in the way.  You’ll be walking along, then a building or hill will be in front of the character, and it’s impossible to see where you’re going.  Then, at one point, when I was in a dungeon there was a small pit located near the front edge of the room.  The problem is that when you’re in dungeons, you can’t adjust the camera at all.  This pit was nearly impossible to see because of the layout of the dungeon.  The strip of space that I fell through, on my 32” screen, was about half a centimeter wide.

Another issue might seem small, but it becomes infuriating near later parts of the game.  When you’re in a dungeon and you enter into a room, it’s impossible to swing your sword until you are out of the doorway.  Since enemies spawn at random points, it’s possible, and likely, that they will spawn right in front of you.  If you leave the doorway you’ll be hit, but if you don’t you can’t strike at them.  It’s such an easily fixable problem, but for some reason From Software felt that they needed to keep it in the game.

The game also relies heavily on the idea of you finding out everything without help.  In the case of one item, it’s nearly impossible to find but it’s completely necessary to find it.  You, literally, will just be walking around, and get randomly teleported to an area where the item is.  If you’re unwilling to look in a guide, there’s no chance that you’ll be able to find a majority of the game’s items.

Finally, the fact that you only have a large over-world map and an area map feels really cheap.  Yes it’s sticking to the source material, but the fact that many areas have only one way to enter means that, once again, you have to go through a lot of trial and error before you can find the correct path to an area.  It would have been nice to be able to zoom in and see the path you need to take to advance.

Visually, the game is stunning.  Creatures explode into these pixel-like blocks and it’s a really neat effect every time it happens.  The lighting really stands out, especially in one of the later boss battles where you need to use light to attack the correct boss.  I know I’m sounding like a broken record, but the soundtrack is basically The Legend of Zelda’s with a few notes changed.

The game is filled with numerous side quests, as well, to keep things lively.  In the 24 hours I spent playing the game, I barely did any of them.  If I tried to find them all, I’m sure it would pad out the game substantially.  Considering the relatively low price of $40, in many ways it’s a steal.

While I’ve leveled a lot of criticism at 3D Dot Game Heroes, it’s still a lot of fun.  Near the end of the game, the dungeons are flat-out sadistic, but they have a really unique design to them.  The world looks beautiful and there’s a quirky sense of humor to the game that is hard to find anywhere else.

I do need to say, though, that it plays a bit too much on the nostalgia factor.  I find it hard to believe that people who’ve never played a Zelda game will actually enjoy this one.  In fact, if you don’t like The Legend of Zelda, then you should just flat out ignore this game.  In many ways, this is a love letter by From Software.  If you’re a fan of The Legend of Zelda, then you’ll likely find something to love about the game despite its numerous flaws.