Garple

Oh God! Can't wait!

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Whether you call it plagiarism, homage or just being inspired by a classic, almost every scene on the Japanese trailer reminds me of Zelda (A Link to the Past to be exact). Yet, the game somehow manages to not appeal to me in any level. I don't find the graphical direction very interesting and for some reason I have a feeling that there might not be much else going for it. I mean, underneath the blocky graphics the experience probably won't be anything like that of the Zelda games I love so much (which is an unfair comparison to begin with, I guess). And even if the story was good interesting and the gameplay solid, I feel that the strong graphical direction would still distract me enough to not enjoy those parts of the game to their fullest.

This is all based on nothing at all, of course.

(God, I suck at expressing how I feel about something sometimes.)

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I don't see the problem with a hilarious goofy callback to the classic Zelda games. It's not like Nintendo will ever make one of those again anyway.

Think of it like Lego A Link to the Past.

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I really liked this as an artistic thing on seeing the Japanese trailer a while back, but on seeing action sequences in the video at the top of the thread and thinking about playing them, it looks horrid.

Also, story: yawn :finger:

"The best antagonist and macguffin pairing of 2009" - IGN.com

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Why would they ever make sequels to zelda for the last 20 years? Same reason I'd like to make a Zelda game.

Really, when a game approrpriates a style of game or a theme from a nother game we throw down a hammer, but if a game does it to a movie we don't bat an eye, we just smile and go "oh I see what your doing, nice one"

So, what's the big deal? Dragon Age is great, but its lotr heavy and aside from a person choice of that being a fault, no one cares.

Halo, GoW, and every other Space marine game is basically Aliens 2.

Braid is essentially a Mario game without the Mario license as well.

And yeah I agree, their intentions are pretty unclear. I call it somewhat of a parody because of the novelty on the art direction, but everything else presented doesn't say that. My point above though is what does it matter? Zelda is a great game, if more people want to make me a zelda game, whether they divert from the source more or less, why would I complain?

I'll wait, try it and if it's awesome and still awesome even when not original(coughDRAGONAGEcough) then that's a good thing for us all.

You made two errors here:

1. You are trying to justify derivations in art or media with the lame excuse that, "More of the same can never be bad no matter how it's delivered, right?" If you applied the same logic to some form of art that was considered higher than a video game (or a comic), many would disagree with that sentiment. Not to say that all forms of art also don't suffer from the same.

But since it's a video game, as said, I also don't really care to argue back and forth much about the merits and joys of plainly derivative work.

2. That I give a fuck about Dragon Age.

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Well to be clear, I did see the Japanese trailer first which seemed to go much less in the parody direction compared to what's at the top of the thread:

hoFYEtj2tDw&

The enemies are ridiculously similar to what was in the first three Zelda games. Why is the jumping spider pretty much exactly a Tektite? Do I see the character using a boomerang to hit a switch in a dungeon? Is someone running much like they are equipped with the Pegasus boots? Why is the main character being attacked by a bunch of chickens?

I see caves in hillsides, I'm wondering if you have to acquire bombs to open them. There's trees blocking paths that I suspect you may have to burn with a candle or lantern.

I know all of these things are in no way only allowed in the Zelda universe, but when they are all put together in one similar game in a way that doesn't seem to be adding a twist to create parody or expanding on the original Zelda action RPG type ideas outside of making the pixels cubes in 3D world, again, I just get confused.

It seems to me to be an homage more than a parody, which in itself is neither a good nor a bad thing, an illegitimate reason to make a game, but we will see.

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Yeah, if this were 2D, it would look like a crappy Zelda clone, but the point of this game clearly isn't the story or the character design. I remember someone mentioned Who Framed Roger Rabbit on the Epic Mickey thread, and I see this as the same thing: A company using characters that border of copyright infringement as a template to show us something completely original and bizarre. Whether or not you like the art direction is another issue altogether, but this game won't be Zelda, no matter how much appears to be ripped right from that game.

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Yarg! Nobody likes this game, apparently. I know Atlus has only a little to do with it, but anytime I see the word "Atlus" I cream my pants. I don't care about the Zelda connection, it just looks like it has a funky-ass style and from software is suddenly fuckin' dope (Demon's Souls). I just have a good feeling about it. Anytime a game takes a chance on being "outside the box" I fall in love (Mirror's Edge, for example).

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Funny, I seemed to remember more positive responses to this game. Maybe I'm bringing up the wrong thread? Regardless, I just got my copy in the mail today and have spent about an hour with it. Initial thoughts:

Yeah, it's totally derivative, but it's also quite fun. It also helps that it obviously knows and plays up where it comes from. When the king hands you a wooden sword at the beginning and actually says "It's dangerous to go alone. Take this." you're definitely under no illusion about what the game is going to be like. I now have the boomerang and the bow and had just started the Forest Temple (second temple in the game after Grass) when I saved and quit for the night.

The only thing that's really stood out as a negative so far is the occasional sketchiness of the controls. It just feels a little bit off, but it's really hard to say why. Like when I turn and press the sword button the attack is just a bit delayed and feels weird. Still, it's just a part of the game. Not necessarily broken, but something which I noticed and will need to adjust to. Oh well. I intend to put in more quality time with it, so we'll see what happens. I really like that you can create your own character. Haven't spent any time with that feature yet, but I am very interested in doing so. I'll post back with any other thoughts as I play.

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I got the game this weekend and I love it, it's a parody of RPGs in general, even though the gameplay is almost a carbon copy of Zelda...

It's also bursting with references... Some of which make me wonder why it's only rated 7+

-A girl has white sticky stuff in her hair

-The Poof Poof thing

-I'm fairly positive I just had sex with the Princess... I even got a trophy for it!

The worst part? The minigames... I LOATHE them!:frusty:

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It's strange how this games does almost every RPG cliche, but instead of annoying me, it makes me laugh!

Wanna guess what you have to do when you beat the game after beating the final boss? And what happens during the ending credits sequence? :mock:

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You get a fly by of all of the characters you met so far doing silly things or hanging out while the end credits show sepia tone still shots of parts of the game?

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More or less, except you talk to people instead of flying by them... For some reason I found this hilarious... :blink:

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Has anyone realised that this is classic From Software?

They like taking the piss no matter what. Ninja Blade, Metal Wolf Chaos, Enchanted Arms, even Demon's Souls. From Software have been going out of their way to try and make you laugh at conventions while doing a really good job of aping the styles that came before. I love it.

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Really? I remember playing Enchanted Arms and I didn't think it was laughing at any game conventions?:erm:

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You made two errors here:

1. You are trying to justify derivations in art or media with the lame excuse that, "More of the same can never be bad no matter how it's delivered, right?" If you applied the same logic to some form of art that was considered higher than a video game (or a comic), many would disagree with that sentiment. Not to say that all forms of art also don't suffer from the same.

1. Yeah, I'm re-reading my posts and I'm not making much sense in them or being very specific. I'm not trying to argue you or get hostile, just offering a counter point with another opinion.

I don't think I'll do a better job at getting my opinion across, but I'll try to separate it into two categories; game-play and narrative.

Game-play: The design and mechanics. Quite frankly there seems to be a lot of give and take on this subject of using a certain feature or mechanic from another game. I mean on one hand, it's kind of lame, on another if it was a real innovation for the genre; why not? Every game does this to a certain extent. Now literally taking ones games entire feature set and making your own. Fine line? but it happens; it's how genres were made... and probably still are, we just aren't making up new genres as often so maybe it's not as noticeable.

3D dot heroes is a Zelda game in terms of design and mechanics. This is what I was specifically saying what's wrong with doing that? Yes, we have a Zelda series that is great, but there's no Zelda genre, which is kind of disappointing. Because as much as I like Zelda, I would love to see other peoples innovations and takes on the zelda style game mechanic.

Now, Heros didn't do a lot in terms of innovation from what I understand, so it's not really their take or innovative stance on it, it's a shame they didn't try to just make a zelda variation using that art style. They use the word homage, or retro something, whatever.... Anyway this kind of where I agree with you, it's pretty lamey, but on the other hand I want a zelda genre so bad I'm glad someone at least did it, even if they didn't really improve and do their own thing with it.

It's very existence might at least encourage other people to try to do their own. Again, if you have a fundamental problem with appropriating mechanics, game types, etc... I can understand that, but disagree with it, because you'd essentially have a problem will 99% of the games being made today (maybe you do? I dunno) because they are all variations off concepts made by other games in terms of design and mechanics.

Narrative: This might not be the right word of it, but basically I'm talking about the concept of the story, characters, world, mood, etc...

This is what I was mentioning that A LOT of games either completely take from movies and sometimes books, take portions from other medias or do little "homages" of their own. In this aspect, I think the Thumbs discussed it on one of the podcasts at some point, video games are really pretty unoriginal and low level most of the time. There are exceptions and even stuff I think is really neat usually has some aspect from a book or movie; but that whole debate is the same for books and movies and how nothing is original anymore, which I think is bullshit. Then you run into problems about was it deliberate or unintentional; should a response be different in either of those cases?

Anyway, not going to get into all that because it goes nowhere. Let me say, yeah taking another games narrative or whatever is not only a bad idea(mostly because it's a derivative of something better from film or books) but it's fairly unoriginal. But again, homage shouldn't be used as a blanket term to protect the people that do it.

Point is, I want there to be more zelda games that use the design and mechanics, but I fully expect anyone who wanted to do their own twist or innovation to that style of game to come up with their own narrative. Though, personally, I think it would be kind of fun if some early attempts used zeldas premise and story structure as well... which again might be seen as kind of lame/almost plagiarism; but again, what's the difference between that and every other video game that does it to another medium. Or every story that uses the heros journey structure or other similar narrative devices?

One day I kind of hope they do they use the art style for 3d dot heros, make an innovative zelda game mechanic, but introduce their own narrative. I like the art style, so making a less jokey zelda game would be more interesting to me.

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Well, in fairness, the original Zelda game's story was pretty much just "Evil wizard stole a magic thing and a princess. Recover the magic thing and save princess." 3D Dot Game Heroes has "A bad wizardy-priest man is attempting to resurrect some ancient evil and the princess has gone off on her own to bring him down. We haven't heard from her for a while, so could you look into this shit for us? Also, you decended from the guy who brought down this ancient evil in the first place, so it'd be kinda neat if you could step in now." Not that different, granted, but in that respect Okami (which was praised all to hell as a different franchise taking on 3D Zelda) was just "Moron awakened ancient evil. Go through all these temples and learn new spells to seal it up again." 3D Dot Game Heroes' story is actually closer to Okami's than to the old Zelda games. Not innovative maybe, but also not just the same story. It's at least as much of a derivation as most games are from others in their genre.

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I want this game. I want to play this game. I am interested in conversations about this game. I do not want to buy a PS3 for this game.

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1. Yeah, I'm re-reading my posts and I'm not making much sense in them or being very specific. I'm not trying to argue you or get hostile, just offering a counter point with another opinion.

Yeah, I actually don't know what I was on about anymore. While this game doesn't appeal to me, I'm sure many will find it fun to see all the story, character, and game design conventions played out as such and no one's really going to get this mixed up for Zelda anyway even if some of the bad guys and characters are basically clones, so I guess disregard any objection I have from here on out.

It's obvious to me now that the only people who are going to play 3D Dot Heroes are JRPG and Zelda fans, as part of the fun is the source material.

Also I do agree with you Murdoc that more games should certainly use Zelda style design. I don't know if you separate the design methods of the 2D and 3D Zeldas like some, but I found Beyond Good and Evil to be an amazing take on basic Zelda design, even if it added many elements from other genres. I find the Zelda setup so intuitive even if it means the game is almost uncomfortably the same.

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So I borrowed this from a friend, ploughed a bunch of hours into it (lord is upgrading your swords grindy) and then consulted an faq because I got stuck somewhere only to find out I got locked out of a sidequest from not having talked to some dude waay earlier.

RAGE. :(

Moral of the story: never consult an faq when playing this game, or have one open from the get go.

Also, it's (as pretty much everyone has already said) very much 2d zelda (which I don't mind at all). Pretty fun actually, if you don't mind grinding for sword upgrades.

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Really? I remember playing Enchanted Arms and I didn't think it was laughing at any game conventions?:erm:

The fact that the teacher points out that the main character has been in his class for 2 years but is only now asking how to perform basic combat moves? The long winded explanations for how to 'Press A' to activate everything, the gay love story (and by that I mean there is an unrequited Yaoi love story), the constant references to the main character's powerful right arm that is meant as innuendo for wanking...

There are more but those are the choicest.

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