What's under the sheets?

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Mirimar said:

If Atlus picks this up for US distrib, I will fucking pay $79.99 for the deluxe with sound track based on these 4 tracks alone...gawd...

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DMPrince said:

i like the over the top view but man the water is terrible really.

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Mirimar said:

Speculate!

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Mirimar said:

Speculate!

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OnPoint said:

Is this due for release in America?

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inner-G said:

you can make out a yellow shield with a red cross on it in the bottom left.

I hope there's a quadforce or something too.

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SecretBonusPoint said:

Man, can anyone youtube that 10 minute footage, its buffering and loading at a snails pace and I want to seeeeeeeeeeee.

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SecretBonusPoint said:

Man, can anyone youtube that 10 minute footage, its buffering and loading at a snails pace and I want to seeeeeeeeeeee.

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SolidSnakex said:

Here it is

http://www.zshare.net/video/6676314683bb1ed2/

You can stream it or just download the full file (105MB).

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Mirimar said:

Speculate!

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LiquidMetal14 said:

The music on the site is so good. Track 2 does have a Castlevania vibe. Fuck it sounds awesome, I'm listening to it now for the first time. LOVE the 8-bit sampling.

Track 3 sounds more like Contra/Action game kinda music.

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After you make a short trip back to the northern forest where the ancient hero placed his sword, the king asks you to go about collecting six orbs by heading out to a series of shrines in succession. The world opens up here, allowing you to freely explore, to a certain extent. Some parts of the world are closed off early on in the game. There was a large tree blocking me from exploring to the East of the castle. While I was able to freely trek to the first shrine, the second shrine lay beyond a forest which, when entered would spit me back out saying that I'd gotten hopelessly lost. These barriers will presumably be cleared once you've progressed further in the game and gotten the requisite items or magic.

A run through of the 3D Dot Game Heroes world cleared up a misconception I'd had about the game. I previously thought the game would be a clone of the original Zelda. A more accurate comparison, at least for the overworld, is to Super Nintendo's Zelda: A Link to the Past. The overworld has a similar scrolling system -- properly scrolling in some areas while pulling a Zelda 1-style stop and scroll in other areas (I'm not sure if there's a technical term for that). The overworld also has towns and townfolk scattered here and there. And, of course, chickens.

Upon entering the first dungeon, I was reminded mostly of the original Zelda. The dungeons scroll room to room and have you solve puzzles that involve pushing rocks and blocks around to open new paths, using your boomerang to flip inaccessible switches, and killing all enemies to unlock doors. I didn't have to use bombs to tear holes in walls, but I have no doubt that this will pop up in a future dungeon.

The big difference from the original Zelda is that the dungeons have multiple floors. When you open up the dungeon map, a section of the map is reserved for selecting between floors. The first dungeon -- the only one that I tried -- is single floored, so it remains to be seen if the game puts its multiple floors to good use.

Progression through the first dungeon felt like it was pulled straight from the action RPG book that Nintendo wrote. The door leading to the boss is actually near the dungeon entrance. However, to get to the room with the door, you have to first flip a switch, which you can only do so with a boomerang, which can only be obtained by venturing deep into the dungeon.

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This preview of a fully decked out hero gave me a much more positive opinion about 3D Dot Game Heroes' gameplay. There's clearly a lot of depth to the action, much of which you'll only see by advancing in the game.

Despite all the similarities to Zelda, 3D Dot Game Heroes doesn't actually doesn't really "feel" like the classic Zelda in its action and combat mechanics. The way you swing your sword is different. After pressing the attack button, you can rotate the d-pad or analogue stick (depending on which one you're using to control your character) to swing the sword attack around. This allows you to take out surrounding enemies. It took me a bit to get used to this system, but it eventually started to feel natural.

My overall impression of 3D Dot Game Heroes' combat is that it's more skill-based than your typical action RPG. In addition to the sword swinging maneuver, you can also lock your character into facing one direction, allowing you to strafe around and block incoming attacks with your shield. The game also lets you cycle through subweapons and magic quickly, without going into the main menu, allowing you to easily switch off between boomerangs to stun enemies, bombs to blast holes in walls, and arrows to strike at distant foes.

Having all this power could come in handy, as I got the feeling that 3D Dot Game Heroes is going to be a tough game. The enemies can be a bit aggressive, and the couple of bosses that I tried were not easy kills. The game supposedly has difficulty settings, so those wanting a challenge will presumably find it here.

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n the main menu, there are slots for multiple fairies, outside of just the first one. This presumably means that the fairies do more than just serve as a tutorial for the game.

Outside of the main menu, there's a system menu. This lets you save (at any time), load, view your photo album, take a picture of the current scene, and change the camera angle. See this article for some leaked images of the angles. I prefer the three-fourths view personally.

Regarding the photo mode, one option you have is to switch the game into a first person viewing mode. Here, you can move the camera freely around the world. It's like an FPS, except your character doesn't move. This is presumably designed to allow you to put your character in your shots.

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Now for the one area that has had people talking since 3D Dot Game Heroes was first announced: the graphics. The studio behind 3D Dot Game Heroes is known for their past visual work through games like Double STEAL on the original Xbox. Once of the main focuses during the day's talk event was on the kinds of complex effects the game uses.

The lighting, water and shadow effects are certainly impressive. But I didn't like one particular area of the game: its perspective blurring effects. Regardless of their accuracy, too much of the game screen feels out of focus. Thankfully, this problem is only really noticeable when you play the game from one of the two close-up camera angles. When played in my personally preferred 3/4 view, you don't see far enough into the screen for the blurring to be noticeable.

Aside from that, 3D Dot Game Heroes has the clean, solid look you'd expect of a game whose models are made up of tiny blocks. The effect of your enemies collapsing into a bunch of blocks adds a strange satisfaction to the combat, made even more enjoyable by the fact that you can run through the blocks afterwards, and they apparently react realistically. The game also has a smooth framerate, which is probably important here to keep the impression going that you're playing and old school game.

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SolidSnakex said:

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2009/10/13/3d_dot_game_heroes_playtest/

While I was able to freely trek to the first shrine, the second shrine lay beyond a forest which, when entered would spit me back out saying that I'd gotten hopelessly lost. These barriers will presumably be cleared once you've progressed further in the game and gotten the requisite items or magic.

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Kagari said:

I really hope Atlus gets it. Their work on Demon's Souls is fantastic.

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First up is an extreme difficulty mode. Titled "From" mode, this becomes selectable once you've cleared certain unspecified conditions in the game's standard difficulty mode.

There's more to the extreme difficult mode than just increased difficulty. A screenshot show the king saying "Your goal is the same as in your last adventure. Here's a simple recap." Yes, the characters in the game appear to be conscious about the tougher mode of play, and some will praise you for your bravery.

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You can choose to toggle an option for "grid." When set to on, the blocks that make up the game world and its characters are marked with clear borders. When off, the world appears to flow together.

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During a Q&A a while back, From mentioned that 3D Dot Game Heroes would have some mini-games. Today, it gave a look at a couple of these:

Dash Race
Use your character's dash move to race through a course. Get the fastest time, and you'll earn rewards.

Block Defense
A 3D Dot Game Heroes twist on tower defense. You position blocks of such form as "Arrow Block," "Air Block," "Missile Block," and "Fire Block." These blocks attack incoming enemies formations. It seems like you can also lend a helping hand and directly attack the enemy.

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Now for the one area that has had people talking since 3D Dot Game Heroes was first announced: the graphics. The studio behind 3D Dot Game Heroes is known for their past visual work through games like Double STEAL on the original Xbox. Once of the main focuses during the day's talk event was on the kinds of complex effects the game uses.

The lighting, water and shadow effects are certainly impressive. But I didn't like one particular area of the game: its perspective blurring effects. Regardless of their accuracy, too much of the game screen feels out of focus. Thankfully, this problem is only really noticeable when you play the game from one of the two close-up camera angles. When played in my personally preferred 3/4 view, you don't see far enough into the screen for the blurring to be noticeable.

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Aru said:

Can anybody tell me about the references each loading screen is making ?

So far, I recognized Castlevania and Torneko (?).

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Ranger X said:

Character creation?? wow!

Each time there's news on this game I get more sold!

.

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