_|_|_| _|_|_| _|_|_| _| _|_|_| _| _| _| _| _| _|_| _|_|_|_| _| _|_|_| _|_|_| _|_| _|_| _|_| _| _| _| _| _| _| _| _| _|_| _| _| _| _| _| _|_|_|_| _| _| _| _| _| _| _| _| _| _| _| _| _| _| _| _| _|_|_| _|_|_| _|_|_| _|_| _|_| _|_|_| _|_|_| _| _| _| _|_|_| _| _| _| _| _|_| _| _|_| _|_| _|_| _|_|_| _|_|_|_| _|_|_|_| _|_| _| _| _|_|_|_| _|_| _| _| _| _| _| _| _| _|_| _| _| _|_|_| _| _|_| _|_|_| _|_|_| _____ _ |_ _| (_) | | _ __ ___ _ __ _ __ ___ ___ ___ _ ___ _ __ | | | '_ ` _ \| '_ \| '__/ _ | __/ __| |/ _ \| '_ \ _| |_| | | | | | |_) | | | __|__ \__ \ | (_) | | | | |_____|_| |_| |_| .__/|_| \___|___/___/_|\___/|_| |_| | | |_| By: Adriaan den Ouden Do sprites dream of 3D sheep? Do websites dream in ASCII? These are things we may never know, but thanks to an early copy of 3D Dot Game Heroes, From Software and Atlus's quirky throwback to gaming's yesteryears, we can at least say that this is what gamers were dreaming of back in the 1990's. 3D Dot Game Heroes is an unapologetic lampoon and tribute to the great games of the 8 and 16-bit eras, and every single brick and computer-generated tone will spark a memory in someone, somewhere, of a favorite childhood game. I've delved into the early stages of the game, and what I've seen so far is certainly impressive. As soon as 3D Dot Game Heroes loads, you'll be presented with an audio treat: an obvious melodic impersonation of Final Fantasy's classic theme music as you peruse the start menu. From here you can choose to start or continue a quest, or you can make use of 3D Dot Game Heroes' character customizer, which I immediately jumped on. To start with, players can choose to start from scratch or load one of several dozen prebuilt characters to use as a template. You can also choose from three classes, which affect the amount of magic and life you gain from each apple container you find during your adventure. Hero's have high health but low magic, scholars have high magic and low health, while royalty has a decent amount of both. You can also choose your gender, which really only affects whether characters will call you "he" or "she" throughout your quest. Once you've taken care of the beginning steps, you have six poses you can edit in order to create your character as he will appear in game. There's a basic standing pose, a two-frame run animation, a victory pose, and two attacking poses. I loaded the template for Prince Altus, a royal-looking chap with red hair and a crown. The first thing I did once the template was loaded was modify my color palette. One rather nifty feature of the character creator is that you're limited to only seven colors. While this might seem like a drawback, the color in each palette slot is locked to the bricks that are using it; in other words, when you change the color in the palette, the color of every brick on the character using it changes too. This makes it very easy to alter color schemes so that even those not willing to start altering brick by brick can make their hero their own. For my part, I changed his hair color to brown and the color of his royal robes to green, leaving his skin as it was. From there, I started making some alterations to the actual poses. Beginning with the standing pose, I made some rather extensive changes to the existing design. When you're editing a pose, you can move the cursor brick by brick using the d-pad, but which way you move depends on the orientation of the camera. It can be a little difficult to work with at first, but I quickly got used to it and was making more and more rapid alterations. By the time I was done, I had a character that looked much like my Xbox Live avatar, which in turn resembles an outfit I wear fairly regularly in the real world: a green hoody, blue jeans, red t-shirt, and a red baseball cap. With the initial pose done, I began altering the other poses to match. The first was the walk pose, and I managed to save myself a bit of time by copying the first walk pose to the second one and then flipping it horizontally, another lovely option available in the editor. The victory and attacking poses were slightly different from each other, so I had to do those by hand. However, after about an hour, I had my new, princely hero: ROBOMEGA! With my character saved, I began a new game, selecting my custom-designed character as my hero, and proceeded to learn the origins of the Kingdom of Dotnia. It seems that long ago, a great hero used the power of six magical orbs to save the kingdom, and once all was said and done, Dotnia entered an age of prosperity. But that began to change as the popularity of 2D worlds started to decline. In an effort to rekindle his country's former glory, the King declared that from this day forward, everything would be in 3D, and so it was. Now Dotnia is in danger yet again, and it's up to the destined hero to save the kingdom. After speaking with the King, he told me to go seek out the sword of legend, which happens to be in the forest just north of the castle. Because it's dangerous to go alone, he gave me a wooden sword and a wooden shield. A short while and two dead, leaping statues later, I had the legendary sword and a fairy companion, and was now tasked with retrieving the first orb from the Grass Temple. This is all starting to feel rather familiar. For Atlus's part, they've done a great job poking fun at the foibles of classic video games. Whether it's an almost direct quote from a classic video game moment or a third-wall breaking gaming joke, so far nearly everything has managed to illicit a giggle or outright laugh. The audio continues to be a highlight. The tune on the main world map is a classic Zelda parody, while other music I wasn't able to recognize still has the tinny, 8-bit charm of NES and SNES games. Likewise, when characters speak, their dialogue flows into the text boxes letter by letter, accompanied by beeps and bloops. After exploring a nearby town, buying a better shield, and discovering an empty bottle, I set out into the grasslands to find this temple, killing any rabbits, goblins, or scorpions that dared stand in my way. At least so long as my health was full. As long as you have full health, your sword is at its most powerful: a long and wide destructive force that tears through even distant enemies. However, if your health is depleted at all, your sword is a thin, feeble piece of metal that needs to get up close and personal if it has any chance of landing a blow. The temple was quite easy to find, and quite easy to navigate as well. The dungeon is laid out as a series of rooms connected by anywhere from one to four doors leading up, down, left, or right. Exploring the temple was a breeze that involved finding keys, hitting switches, and killing enemies. Eventually I found a boomerang, and then a boss key, and from there I proceeded to enter the boss's lair. And that is where we will leave this tale, for now. I'm sure many more adventures await brave ROBOMEGA, and will surely await countless other heroes when 3D Dot Game Heroes arrives in stores on May 11. Keep checking back for a complete review in the near future. Or should that be a retroview? I'm really not sure.