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. There is lots to love in this well polished title from the unique art style, overworld design with 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.

Scott the Woz outro. Also this has to be 75 characters long so aaaaaaaaaaa.

I'm not a big fan of Zelda games, but the uniqueness of the art style drew me in. Once you get over the art style and crazy long swords, it's just a by-the-books Zelda game with From Software and Dragon Quest references. The story is a parody of classic Zelda games and generic JRPGs. The bad part about it is that it's not that funny. It's just occasionally slightly silly. It's like it was written by a teenager with the sole goal of imitating Japanese games, and that teenager doesn't have the greatest sense of humor. Don't expect any laugh-out-loud moments, but you'll get a few chuckles here and there. The gameplay is typical NES/SNES Zelda, although with a few quirks/bugs. So that's good for Zelda fans, but the common bugs I experienced was my sword not working after moving to a new screen or the sword occasionally going directly into the ground, and not hitting the enemy when it was right in front of me. Exploration of the world is just like classic Zelda games. You'll find a lot to like here if you like exploring the map and finding secrets. There's plenty of them to find. And refreshingly, there's no quest log or marker. You actually have to talk to people and remember what they say to progress in the many side quests. As for your main objective, the closest thing you get is a blinking icon over the temple/dungeon you're supposed to be going through at the moment. I like when games do things like this because an automated objective arrows and quest markers in other games just make them seem like slightly-more-complex rat mazes rather than immersive worlds. The dungeons are typical for Zelda, but are slightly more complex and annoying than "A Link to the Past." They get progressively more annoying as you complete them So this is a game for people who love NES/SNES Zelda games, aren't big on story, and who like the art style. I'm glad to have it in my collection, but it's likely something I'll never play again.