The last game I'll be doing for the 2010 Retro theme, it's yet another game I owned at one point, didn't really gel with, and then put down. Unlike the previous couple games I've done that with, however, I ended up really being thankful I went back to this one. I finished the Japanese version of the game after doing like 80% of the stuff (I'd guess) after like 20+ hours (I couldn't find an in-game clock to tell me how long I'd played it XP).

3D Dot Game Heroes, awkward title aside, is a really loving homage to the original Dragon Quest and Zelda games made by Silicon Software, FROM Software, and IREM. The conceit of the story is that long ago, an evil demon king tried to take over the world, but he was foiled and sealed away by a legendary hero. But that was when things were 2D. Here in Dotonia, the king gets bored of living in 2D, and he brings the world into 3D for the heck of it. This has the unintended side effect of allowing an evil wizard to get the evil dark orb the demon king was sealed in and try to resurrect him, and the king calls upon you to collect the six colored orbs throughout the land to try and stop the darkness from returning. Aesthetically, it's a really pretty mix of 8-bit Dragon Quest and 8-bit Zelda 1 from the visual to the music (which is good, but some of which is like, there is no way this isn't breaking copyright infringement it sounds SO much like what it's paying homage to XD).

Mechanically, however, it's much more Link to the Past or Link's Awakening than Zelda 1. You collect magic meter upgrades, pieces of "life" (not pieces of heart, oh no, these are apples, not hearts UwU), you go into dungeons where you get a new tool that helps immensely with traveling the world, your main weapon is a sword. Heck it even has bottles you can fill with health potions just like LTTP. The dungeon layouts are conceptually and aesthetically, but the way they're designed with multiple floors makes them feel more like the Gameboy Zelda games than anything. There are also a lot of NPCs to talk to (often with their own irreverent, at least somewhat game-referencing sidequests to do), and a lot of sidequests to do for them (some of which give you items that do literally nothing, but you need all of to get the hidden final sword).

The things the game does most uniquely to anything else are how it handles the swords. You start with a cruddy wooden sword, but quickly move up to more powerful swords. The thing is, you can upgrade them with money, and at full health it gets screen-fillingly MASSIVE and actually has the upgrades you pay for money for (which is a neat incentive to not get hit). Your sword also doesn't slash like Zelda. Hero just sticks it out directly in front of them. Many swords can up given a turning upgrade, but that means you need to manually turn when you slash if you want to slash in another direction. The manual turning takes a bit to get used to, but it really comes into its own after a while and makes the overall experience feel more than just a good Zelda clone.

The other great thing I loved about the mechanics was the monster encyclopedia. Like many RPGs out of Japan, this game has a bestiary. The thing about this one is that it's an item. Not just an item, a WEAPON. You need to physically hit every monster you want to register in this thing, and that goes the same for bosses up to and including the final boss himself! Finding ways to register the bosses in the monster book was one of my favorite parts of the game, and it makes for a neat sort of self-imposed hard mode that you can do to unlock the ability view their 3D models in the book and also silly blurbs about the enemy/boss in question.

Finally, the game also has a character creator where you can make your own hero. The game comes with 6 presets, but you can use colored blocks to make your own character however you want. You can make a Ryu from Street Fighter or you can make just a solid cube of blocks. Whatever fancies you~. Interestingly, male characters have a +1 to power, while female characters use 1 less magic (not below a minimum of 1 though) to cast spells. It's a neat addition made extra neat (if likely unintentionally progressive) that gender is just a label put on your character. It's just a setting you pick when you make your character, and how they look is entirely down to how you design them.

I don't really have much in the way of complaints other than things it perhaps does a little too much in favor of being a retro-style game rather than a 2010 (technically 2009 in Japan, but who's counting) game. The minor complaint I have is that the world map is a lot like Link to the Past's, where it's a giant view of the overworld. The only issue is that, because it's 3D, it's like looking down at a diorama and not a 2D projection, and this makes actually seeing detail on the map very difficult (and often totally pointless). The game also has a bit of a performance issue in areas with lots of NPCs and/or water effects, and has a bit of a problem with soft-crashes. Especially in the throne room in the main castle, like 50% of the times I went in there, it locked on a loading screen and I had to reset the console to start playing again. It's basically only a problem in that one room of the game, but it's still really annoying.

More importantly, for the TONS of side quests in the game, there are no quest markers of any kind. Your key item list also only gains items. It doesn't lose them when you give something to someone to complete a quest. This means quite often if you come back after, say, a day of not playing, you can have totally forgotten if you even did a certain quest (or what the details were, who the people involved in it were). It's sweet that they were really going for quirks that made old games what they were, but especially in this game that has some fun, interesting side content (that locks some neat weapons and upgrades behind them), it is far more frustrating than fun to need to either rely totally on my memory or a guide to have a chance of seeing that stuff.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. I haven't played a ton of Zelda clones, but this is far and away the best I've played. It succeeds in standing tall among Nintendo's own greats, and feels like a lost Legend of Zelda games from the SNES days in many ways. If you have any kind of nostalgia or appreciation for this style of game, this game is very well put together and whimsically references that nostalgia itself a lot over the course of your 3D Dot adventure. An absolute must-play for any fan of 2D Zelda games.

fun lil time. you don't see a lot of top-down zelda clones from this generation. Its extremely easy to compare this to zelda since it's basically the same formula of finding and clearing dungeons with items from a top down perspective, but this game differentiates itself by being extremely beautiful with its pretty art style and unique shaders, as well as having a pretty bumpin OST. I don't think this game will rock your world or anything, but I'd definitely say its still worth checking out, especially if you like 2D zelda games.

A really fun tribute to Zelda that released at a time when classic 2D Zelda was essentially ignored by Nintendo. There are references to all kinds of classic games littered throughout it, there’s a really good custom character creator, and the outrageous swords that unlock throughout the game bump up the fun factor. But even if you take away all those things, at its core this is fundamentally just a really good Zelda game, with well designed dungeons, bosses, and areas to access/explore. Play it as intended or just as a meme game and you’re likely to enjoy yourself either way.

3D Dot Game Heroes takes it inspiration on it sleeve from classic top-down Zelda games. The main difference between Zelda has to be the swords that you will need to acquire and upgrade. This gives a light RPG element with also gaining health.
This well polished title benefits from the unique art style, its overworld including its secrets as well as the characters you meet along the way.
The story is a little weak but does not lessen the experience in the game (like noone loves Mario games for their story). Although a great title to play and easy to mistake it for a first party Nintendo game, there are a few small items combined that make fall short:
- The bosses seem to have a little too much health for my liking
- The over world is well designed but seems much larger than the classic Zelda titles. A fast travel point in front of the dudgeons would be nice as trekking can be annoying when you run out of supplies and need to restock to continue in a dudgeon.
- The dudgeons are well made but limited to a room of one screen and can feel repetitive and not as creative as a more modern Zelda games.
The game has 7 dudgeons and took around 18 hours to finish with exploration which is a perfect length.

[Japanese version reviewed]
The setting and theme of Dragon Quest combined with the game mechanics of OG Zelda, in a blocky but high-def 3D engine. There are cute little throwbacks to games like DQIII, DQV, Ys, and probably others I don't recognize.

It's really a terrific combination, although they lean too heavily on Zelda. The enemies, the apple-shaped pieces of heart, the boomerang, the bow, the dungeons with a map, normal keys, and a boss key... it's all exactly like Zelda.

The most original and hilarious aspect of the game is the sword upgrading, which allows you to forge a sword that, instead of shooting out a beam while at max health like the Zelda series, just fills up the entire room.