Replaying Zelda games on an annual basis is my thing. I’m not a Nintendo fanboy, but I’m a massive fan of the Legend of Zelda series, from the NES original through to the sublime SNES Link To The Past, the spirited Gameboy adventure, the wonderful Ocarina of Time, the still gorgeous Wind Waker, the expansive Wii Zelda and the brilliant DS games. A fan, yes, but one that accepts that the series didn’t invent everything.
Compared to From Software’s 3D Dot Game Heroes, though, Nintendo’s Zelda canon is a lifetime member of Inventors Anonymous and lives on Inventor Row (in Inventortown). Seriously – there’s spoofing in videogames, there’s even cribbing, but 3D Dot Game Heroes is Zelda – and its unashamed approach is so vivid, so obvious, that it’s actually rather appealing. And to me, having an old-school 2D adventure boosted out to HD 3D is absolute heaven.
But first – the guilty: yes, there’s a big overworld, and whilst there’s no spoilers in this hands on it’s safe to say there’s towns, castles, deserty bits and lots of walking inbetween it all – and the music that accompanies the various areas of the map is so Zelda it’s possible to shut your eyes and pretend you’re in Kakariko Village.  And the temples? Yes, they’re there too – the first is structured precisely the same way the Nintendo ones are.
I’m loathe to list everything else that’s similar, because I’ll never get onto the game itself, but apologetically, here’s a montage anyway: jumping spiders, health bars, magic potions, boomerangs, arrows, teleporters just before the boss, boss keys, small keys, talking animals, extra hearts, swords that are more deadly when you’re full of health, and that’s all before the end of the first temple. Lazy writing? Probably, but there’s a parallel somewhere there.
Of course, if you’ve ever played a Zelda game I don’t need to tell you how the game plays, but essentially it’s a top-down (at an angle) action RPG but built entirely from adorable blocks of colour like you’re playing some brain-melting version of Lego. There’s a bundle of post-processing effects glossing everything up to the nines, but it’s still intentionally blocky, retro, and utterly fabulous because of it.
Riffs and comments on other games are omnipresent but less obvious (apart from the ones from From, of course, with even Demon’s Souls getting a cute little in-joke) but it’s all ok – the gameplay itself is brilliant. Really, it’s old-school roleplaying at its finest and although there’s little here that’s new, it’s refined to perfection and addictive as hell. In fact, Zelda be damned, I’ve played up until the third temple so far, and I’m absolutely loving it.
Sadly, I can’t mention anything past the first…Â but you’ll love it too.
