Preview: 3D Dot Game Heroes

Demon’s Souls developer From Software is at it again, except this time instead of polishing up the dungeon crawling genre, its instead bringing back the good old 8-Bit glory days in a creative new way.

3D Dot Game Heroes is set in a classic 2D RPG world, where one day the king decides that the graphics are a little dated and switches the world to 3D. What he ends up with is an absolutely gorgeous rendition of classic 8-Bit games.

Players move from screen to screen battling various monsters in classic 2D format, paying huge homage to the classic Legend of Zelda games. So much so that you’ll find yourself exploring Zelda like dungeons, with a major focus on puzzles in boss battles and areas.

Aside from exploring said dungeons and defeating said foes, you can also level up your weapons and collect items. Perhaps the most enticing feature of the game is the unique character creation, which allows you to create your characters from the ground up in classic sprite fashion using the games sprite editor, making the opportunities literally endless.

The game utilizes simple controls, with one button being designated to attack and the other to items. You will also be able to collect monsters in an encyclopedia by bashing them over the head with a book, yep, complete with 3D models of each.

If all this wasn’t enough of a trip through time for you, the games loading screens praise classic games like Megaman with 3D Dot renditions of the characters. Pretty awesome.

The game has already made its way to Japan and Asia (without English, sorry importers) and can expect to be released in May 2010 in North America with Atlus as its publisher. Its also another game by From Software to be released only for the PlayStation 3.

Hopefully this trend of classic but modern games continues long after we receive what is looking to be a killer title for next year.

Tags: 3D Dot Game Heroes Atlus From Software Previews PS3