Genre: Third-Person Action
Developer: Silicon Studio
Publisher: Atlus

3d Dot Game Heroes' imagery evokes 1993 memories of Guardian War on the 3DO; vibrantly colorful, with extraordinarily sharp, clean lines, surrealistic character and stage designs that all come together to create a title with truly head-turning visuals. What makes it stand out even more is that its engine renders scenes that are truly the materialization of what a sprite-based title would look like in 3D, all in real-time, and married to some fabulous real-time lighting and shadow effects.

Shoichiro Sakamoto of "SuperSweep" was more than up to the task of mixing together chiptune and orchestral song elements, and puts forth generally memorable songs all around, although he occasionally mimics the overly repetitive nature of 8-bit generational sound too closely. And unlike most video games, the sound effects in this title are distinct and presumably created just for this game, as they also fit the title's "retro" theming absolutely.

This title's gameplay is most closely akin to the original Legend of Zelda, or perhaps Brave Fencer Musashi, in that it allows and rewards the exploration of a large field map, which is used mainly as a sandbox-like bridge between the game's seven dungeons. The dungeons consist of series' of interjoined, puzzle-like rooms, which straddle a nice line between being action-oriented and obnoxiously tricky to progress through. The control scheme's block-and-run sword play is just deep enough to lend itself to some entertaining combat and boss encounters.

3d Dot Game Heroes is a rock solidly designed Legend of Zelda clone with an excellent soundtrack, and set in a dazzlingly bright and colorful 3d pixel art world. Its awesome use of fourth-wall breaking ludonarrative means that the game, like most titles from the era to which it aspires, can focus on gameplay first, with just enough explicit story telling to glue the experience together and to make it seem plausible.