Old-school design at its best and worst.
Cons: Can easily get lost (and frustrated) later on; Some key things are not explained; Does nothing really new; Camera can occasionally obscure important details
I'm a little amazed Nintendo didn't sue FromSoftware. There's no way around it, 3D Dot Game Heroes is a Zelda clone through and through. The same fantasy dungeon-crawling, overworld exploring action of Nintendo's Zelda series is copied block-for-block here. Enemies, bosses, and even Items are even largely equivalent, albeit with different names.
And to make matters worse (for Nintendo anyway), 3D Dot Game Heroes is a good imitation. The same awesome feeling of exploring the overworld, defeating a dungeon boss, or reaching a previously inaccessible item, is just as prevalent here. It's like FromSoftware deliberately avoided adding anything new to the formula just so they could polish what Nintendo started.
But the boldfaced imitation is not merely some marketer's idea to gain sales-it's clear that the team at FromSoftware (and the translators at Atlus) really loved the Zelda games. The dialogue in this game has several throwbacks to the games of old, between lines like "It's a secret to everyone" or a character named Miyamoto who has a special cheat. The humor is ever prevalent and the game never takes itself seriously, instead choosing to simultaneously honor and laugh about games of old.
In that homage, 3D Dot Game Heroes sticks to some old conventions for both better and worse. Most significantly, there's not much in the way of assistance throughout your quest. You are told to visit the six sages and that's it. You have to find them, given a vague general direction, and then solve all the puzzles without any in-game help. At its best, this lack of direction is liberating, compared to the stifling amount of control over the player in modern games. Exploring and experimenting at your own pace is satisfying and makes you wonder why games ever try to keep you from doing it. But then you get reminded shortly thereafter why: sometimes the lack of direction can be frustrating when it's really, really easy to miss important information
Whereas most games err on the side of controlling you too much, 3D Dot Game Heroes is more likely to let you wander aimlessly without a clue. I missed one critical item at one point in the game, and eventually hit a roadblock where I needed said item. I wandered for a good hour looking for it, but I could not find it, and thus succumbed to using a guide. It turns out that I had overlooked the item in a tough-to-reach dungeon on the other side of the world. Of course. This was the worst case of getting stuck from lack of information, but it was far from the only one.
I honestly have no clue if newer gamers would like 3D Dot Game Heroes, not because it's not a good game (it most certainly is), but it adheres to old design rules almost to a fault. However, for gamers who were raised on old-school titles and don't mind a blatant imitation/homage when they see one should not hesitate to play 3D Dot Game Heroes. A winner is this game.