3D Dot Game Heroes
Mar. 3rd, 2011 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroCenturies ago, the legendary hero fought back the darkness and returned light to Dotnia. Now a new evil has come, and as the descendent of the hero, it's up to you to stop it.
So, imagine is a dude who liked to make Zelda romhacks teamed up with a guy who was really into retro games, particularly the original NES Dragon Warrior. This game is what you'd end up with. The gameplay is very similar to the original Zelda (with splashes from A Link to the Past), though there are two big changes. One is that you can "spin" your sword to slash diagonally, and the other is that your sword can get very, very large. Many areas are significantly easier when you have a sword that reaches across the screen and ignores barriers. (Yes, the gigantic sword is probably a penis metaphor. Duh.) It basically takes the place of the sword-beam from 3/4 Zelda games, because the really big sword is only available when you have full health.
The king gives you a sword and shield at the beginning, informing you "It's dangerous to go alone. Take this!" When you pick up aheart apple container after a boss, it announces "Life Up Get!" There are many, many Dragon Quest cameos/references, many of them sidequests that give you pieces of heart life shards. (Also a bunch of Final Fantasy and SaGa references, and an entire game mode that's a homage to Spelunker.) Even the loading screen music is very reminiscent of the DQ loading screen music—it’s obviously calculated to be as similar as possible without leaving them open to a lawsuit.
There are two dozen different swords, most of them rewards for sidequests or minigames, and most of them heartily useless. 90% of the game will be played with the Ancient Sword, the Holy Sword and the Hero Sword, which are always the strongest and largest swords you can get at that point. As amusing as it might be to kill things with a giant fish or a baseball bat, it isn't actually an advantage, gameplay-wise. They can all be upgraded by the blacksmith to increase their length, width, strength or special abilities; but many of these bonuses only function, again, when you’re at full health.
The magic system is somewhere between Zelda II and A Link to the Past, with six spells represented by medallions. Their level of usefulness varies wildly. The first spell "Parallax" reveals clues, which means it's critical if you aren't using a FAQ and pointless if you are. The second spell Reflect is the most useful spell in the game, as it's the only way to kill wizards and your best chance of survival in some rooms. Quake and Slowdown are effectively useless, not being worth the casting cost given their effects, but Freeze lets you kill the insanely-annoying Black Knights in a single hit (and costs less than Slowdown!). Thunder can only be used against the final boss, but is necessary to beat him.
Speaking of the enemies, pretty much all of them are straight out of the original Zelda. Moblins, Octorocks (which were merged with Zolas), Wizzrobes, Darknuts, Gibdos; they’re all there. Most of them are at least as annoying as they always were. The game also adds the insanely-unpleasant Blue Ropers, which drop you to ½ of a life container and zero magic in a single hit, even if you were at 100% before. Definitely the most annoying of the new enemies. There’s a Bestiary, which appears in-game as a big green book and functions as a sword—to get monsters to appear in it, you need to hit them a certain number of times to “book” them. A number of the trophies revolve around booking the bosses.
The adherence to retro-style can be annoying at times, as there's a "flicker" effect that's reminiscent of the original NES but kind of irritating. The game does allow you to change the camera angle, brightness, and text size/style, which makes for a much more pleasant playing experience. Even so, there are points in some dungeons where the camera angle makes it impossible to see important things like arrow-target switches or floor buttons, and you can't change the camera angle in dungeons.
Like most Zelda games, it's possible to get many of the special items early, if you know where to look (or have a FAQ). You can't really do the temples out of order, though, since all of them require either the item you get in the previous temple or the spell you learn after completing the previous temple to access. Like most early RPGs, they included a number of missable sidequests and a general need to grind for money. (Which does alleviate a bit in the late-game, when it’s easier to kill monsters that often leave 100-gol coins.)
There’s a New Game Plus mode, that allows you to keep a few of your weapons, and if you’re particularly insane, play in FROM mode. This is the game’s hard mode, where every monster is twice as strong and the nastier monsters spawn everywhere. If that wasn’t hard enough, there’s Spelunker mode, where a single hit from any enemy kills you. Which is way too hardcore for me.
Basically, if you wanted a new 3/4-view Zelda game strongly in the spirit of the original NES game, here it is.
So, imagine is a dude who liked to make Zelda romhacks teamed up with a guy who was really into retro games, particularly the original NES Dragon Warrior. This game is what you'd end up with. The gameplay is very similar to the original Zelda (with splashes from A Link to the Past), though there are two big changes. One is that you can "spin" your sword to slash diagonally, and the other is that your sword can get very, very large. Many areas are significantly easier when you have a sword that reaches across the screen and ignores barriers. (Yes, the gigantic sword is probably a penis metaphor. Duh.) It basically takes the place of the sword-beam from 3/4 Zelda games, because the really big sword is only available when you have full health.
The king gives you a sword and shield at the beginning, informing you "It's dangerous to go alone. Take this!" When you pick up a
There are two dozen different swords, most of them rewards for sidequests or minigames, and most of them heartily useless. 90% of the game will be played with the Ancient Sword, the Holy Sword and the Hero Sword, which are always the strongest and largest swords you can get at that point. As amusing as it might be to kill things with a giant fish or a baseball bat, it isn't actually an advantage, gameplay-wise. They can all be upgraded by the blacksmith to increase their length, width, strength or special abilities; but many of these bonuses only function, again, when you’re at full health.
The magic system is somewhere between Zelda II and A Link to the Past, with six spells represented by medallions. Their level of usefulness varies wildly. The first spell "Parallax" reveals clues, which means it's critical if you aren't using a FAQ and pointless if you are. The second spell Reflect is the most useful spell in the game, as it's the only way to kill wizards and your best chance of survival in some rooms. Quake and Slowdown are effectively useless, not being worth the casting cost given their effects, but Freeze lets you kill the insanely-annoying Black Knights in a single hit (and costs less than Slowdown!). Thunder can only be used against the final boss, but is necessary to beat him.
Speaking of the enemies, pretty much all of them are straight out of the original Zelda. Moblins, Octorocks (which were merged with Zolas), Wizzrobes, Darknuts, Gibdos; they’re all there. Most of them are at least as annoying as they always were. The game also adds the insanely-unpleasant Blue Ropers, which drop you to ½ of a life container and zero magic in a single hit, even if you were at 100% before. Definitely the most annoying of the new enemies. There’s a Bestiary, which appears in-game as a big green book and functions as a sword—to get monsters to appear in it, you need to hit them a certain number of times to “book” them. A number of the trophies revolve around booking the bosses.
The adherence to retro-style can be annoying at times, as there's a "flicker" effect that's reminiscent of the original NES but kind of irritating. The game does allow you to change the camera angle, brightness, and text size/style, which makes for a much more pleasant playing experience. Even so, there are points in some dungeons where the camera angle makes it impossible to see important things like arrow-target switches or floor buttons, and you can't change the camera angle in dungeons.
Like most Zelda games, it's possible to get many of the special items early, if you know where to look (or have a FAQ). You can't really do the temples out of order, though, since all of them require either the item you get in the previous temple or the spell you learn after completing the previous temple to access. Like most early RPGs, they included a number of missable sidequests and a general need to grind for money. (Which does alleviate a bit in the late-game, when it’s easier to kill monsters that often leave 100-gol coins.)
There’s a New Game Plus mode, that allows you to keep a few of your weapons, and if you’re particularly insane, play in FROM mode. This is the game’s hard mode, where every monster is twice as strong and the nastier monsters spawn everywhere. If that wasn’t hard enough, there’s Spelunker mode, where a single hit from any enemy kills you. Which is way too hardcore for me.
Basically, if you wanted a new 3/4-view Zelda game strongly in the spirit of the original NES game, here it is.
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Date: 2011-03-05 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-05 03:07 pm (UTC)If you do get a PS3, you're welcome to borrow my copy.