Remember back in 87’ when you where looking at your little brother or sister’s crazy looking Cabbage Patch Kids doll and George Michael’s song “Faith” was near the top of the charts because he was all about the ladies. Michael Jackson was the king of pop with “Bad”, then you got the game that changed your world, The Legend of Zelda. It made you feel like a real hero and you played as Link to save the princess. 3D Dot Game Heroes makes you feel how you did when you played that game, this is a homage to that great game. With good looking graphics and game play with a very good sound track and great sound that makes you feel like a lone hero that will save the world from evil.

3D dot game heroes will look like a game that might be fun or maybe as a rental, but I say no. This game is a fun, must-buy game. Atlus did a really good job of making a fun game with a great sound and feel with the controls which work really well on the PS3. This is how all the other Zelda open world games play, you can do any quest you want and run around looking for items or just grinding to get more “G” to upgrade your sword, or purchase that better shield, to get a bigger bomb bag or arrow quill, in this game grinding really does not take that long once you can get to a couple of real good money spots. So playing this game on the PS3 controls works really well compared to the old days of a “D” pad and two buttons. One thing that they did well with the controls is the swing attack that you can perform on enemies, which I will talk to about more in detail in a few.

The Story of 3D Dot Game Heroes is the evil Dark King ONYX brought on an age of darkness on the small world of Dotnia and the kingdom needed a hero to fight King Onyx. So a hero took the legendary sword and fought Onyx to seal him in an orb and bring peace to the world. Because he brought peace every one came to visit. The town flush with wealth until one day it started to get boring and the hero went into the forest and hid the sword for if one day someone in the future will need it, if evil should escape. And instead of just reading all of this you get to play it a bit too which is fun and gives you a feel on how to play the game and is pretty much a little tutorial on how to fight with your hero. Then one day the king noticed that not that many people have not been visiting the town or the world and he makes everything 3D, which is a nice looking change, and then calls you to see him because you are a scribe that has traveled the world and everyone else couldn’t find the sword. Then you will go right to where the last hero dropped off the sword and find a friend that will help you with your quest to fight the Dark king Onyx and find the princess that went out to try and fight the Dark King.

The writing of the story is funny and will make fun of itself, and is an easy story to follow nothing really that hard to understand. This is something great for all ages to play with, so you Dads/Moms and Uncles/Aunts can show your younger kids how we used to play games and even though there are some jokes that they might not understand, it’s something we had to deal with growing up. There are a lot of jokes about development of games and RPG’s which in just reading it will put a smile to your face. So the story will not be the best story written but its funny and easy to understand.

On the graphics you will see in the game that sets itself apart from any game that is out there right now. The colors of the game look good and you can easily tell apart what items are and how it they look different. Creatures have their own look that will separate themselves from the area you are in and who is friend or foe. Plus finding caves are not hard to tell where are the cracks are in the wall, the water in this game looks good when you are walking by the ocean and will give off a nice looking shine or move really well, which works great with this engine. Old 2D 8 bit and 16bit game sprites had their own look back in the day and they look the same in this game but the 3D effect and how they design them are really cool. Where they would be a different color pixel they are now in this game a 3D little cube which stack together make the creature or hero. Another thing I like about this game is that you can create your own hero, and they have a lot of different templates you can already use but creating your own hero will take some time. The design process of making your own hero will take a couple of steps, the easiest way is to try and design it as a 2D and then add on to the 3D effect. You will have to make up not only the way he looks but you will have to design him/her or whatever again but with your walk animation and two more times for how they will attack. Don’t think this is super hard or anything, it just takes a bit of time because you are laying the building blocks. Try drawing it on a piece of paper then put it on screen, Atlus is now running a contest where you can win Amazon game credits for who designs the best looking character. Also when you play the game and each time you stop or exit the game when you load it back up you can pick your character again or go with a different one. After you design your character you can copy them to a flash drive and share with your friends and something I was wanting from Atlus you can upload it to a server on Atlus web site and share your work with others who are playing the game. Which I think is going to be cool to see what people are making or to just show off what that you can do.

Again game play is really fun I did not find any bugs in this game just playing it but I was not trying too hard to break it. You will have the attack button and your second attack such as a bow and arrow, or your magic that you earn from completing a dungeon. Even though you have a shield you character will not use it unless you hold down a button but that will slow down your movement but the nice thing I like about it is that it will block attacks that come from all sides even if you are not facing the enemy. At first playing this game I really enjoyed it but was thinking that it is a very easy game and was going to dock it a bit for how easy it was to play but about after I beat my third dungeon I saw how they game is getting hard to play and stronger creatures are on the screen. So to talk about the fighting when you attack with your sword you can have the chance to do a half swing left or right which if you have a screen of creatures coming at you, you can take out a lot of them in one swing. When you upgrade your sword, on some swords will give you the ability to do a full 360 degree swing which helps a lot. Your sword will do a normal attack when you are not full health but you don’t have hearts you have apples so when you are full apples you can do your special attack which is the sword will cover about 2/3’s of the screen. Also you will get a better chance of doing a critical attack, which doing this power attack will look funny running around swings this giant sword and even though this may sound like it makes the game super easy it doesn’t they can still come in to hurt you.

So I really like this game a lot and I think that if you like the classic adventure game that is fun and funny to play. 3D dot game heroes is well worth it its only 40 bucks that will keep you busy for more than most games that are only nine hours. So pick this game up have some fun with the hero creator and think back to when we didn’t have jobs or bills and just enjoy yourself.