Allow me to take you on a voyage through space and time to a period of wonderment and imagination; a place strange and mysterious, yet simple and inviting; a realm where adventure awaits around every corner, and dreams become whimsical reality. Join me as I travel back...
...to the mid 80s.
What's that you say? You don't remember the 80s as being particularly full of 'wonderment?' Time travel is impossible? Well, regarding the former...it's up for debate. But I can assure you that the latter is absolutely feasible; and the only tools you'll need for this fantastical voyage is a Playstation 3 and a copy of Atlus' 3D Dot Game Heroes.
You can think of Game Heroes as The Legend of Zelda without all the baggage -- no need to re-open tired and ultimately meaningless discussions on whether this is the single greatest game of all time or merely Game of the Year. Game Heroes is built on one simple premise: lift the formula that made Link a household name in the 80s and drop it -- with very few changes -- in 2010. And why not? If you distill everything that Nintendo's franchise has come to represent through the years down to its roots, you'll find a framework of gameplay design that still has the ability to enthrall the same today as it did twenty three years ago. And that's really all Game Heroes is, a note-for-note Zelda clone with just enough variance to avoid litigation.
But if all this sounds a bit like stealing on Atlus' part, that's certainly not what I'm trying to convey. Game Heroes may seem like an attempted cash-in, but all it takes is one screenshot to reveal that it's truly anything but. When I mentioned that Game Heroes is lifted from the 80s and dropped into our time, I meant that literally. The game employs a 3D-pixelated art style that appears almost a window into a parallel dimension of what our games would look like today if 3D rendering technology had taken a terrible wrong turn sometime in the 90s. And yet, the style carries with it an innate and irrefutable charm, and one that perfectly compliments the game's raison d'être: homage through referential humor.
Game Heroes is a love letter to the video games of the mid 80s and early 90s -- mainly Zelda to be sure, but many, many more. Load screens, for example, depict images of various classic video game box-art retrofitted with the 3D pixel style of the game, transforming an otherwise mundane necessity into a 'guess the game' minigame of its own. Furthermore, many of the denizens of Dotnia (the game's oh-so-cleverly titled country) refer to adventures in far away lands that bear striking similarity to games you may have played in your youth. And even the game's music -- perpetually on loop as per the revered era -- harken to a time long passed. As you progress through your quest to restore peace to Dotnia, it's in making these types of connections, some of which elicit laughter, others nostalgia, and others awed realization, that make Game Heroes such a worthwhile experience.
And yet there's nothing inherently notable about tribute -- nobody wants to pay to watch a cover-band. But if all I've described thus far represented the sum total of what Game Heroes offered, I'd be writing a much different review right now. Atlus can be proud that under all of the presentation and fan service, they proved that an ostensibly outdated formula, rooted in minimalist storytelling so antithetical to the norm of today, can still be just as fun and challenging as it ever was. This game is good. Zelda good. It's challenge, built around locating dungeons, solving puzzles, destroying the monster, and discovering the secrets the Dotnia has to offer, maintains the perfect balance that will see you easily to the end. In other words, the pitfalls that come with such an 'open' format devoid of the conventions of modern game design, are thankfully avoided. Like the Zelda of old, this game is fun from beginning to end.
3D Dot Game Heroes is so similar to its inspiration that homage shades into plagiarism. And yet, by the game's end, when all was once again right in Dotnia, I knew that I'd just experienced something decidedly unique. Nostalgia can be a precise instrument, but it can also be a bludgeon. Atlus understands the difference. And in 3D Dot Game Heroes, they built a game wholly their own, they just flavored it with spices from the past.
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