The concept of "Link" is little more than a consistently-reoccurring appearance (guy in green garb with a shield and sword) and no notable traits and motivations besides "he is the chosen one." In 3D Dot Game Heroes, you can choose from such "heroes" as knights, wizards, businessmen, mechs, animals, athletes and the cast of Tenchu. The fact that you can, at any given point, change who the "hero" is practically disses the notion of Link to me. The "hero" of course is a voiceless, characterless, personality-less drone who just does the right thing because people tell him to. The plot, for example, mocks Zelda in its simplicity an evil wizard wants to take over the kingdom and you the hero must deny him by way of fetching 6 magical orbs. To be precise, the gameplay is 90% the NES Zelda, borrowing 9% of ideas from Zelda 2 and A Link to the Past, and 1% random jokes from many, many games. 3D Dot Game Heroes is very much a direct clone of the original Zelda. But for a few fleeting moments and $45 out of my wallet, I got to tell the mainstream game industry to take their God of Wars and Halos and Legend of Zeldas and stick it up their asses. And sure, striving for the status of "hardcore gamer" is a fool's goal, not too far removed from striving to shut yourself out from the outside world. It was like I was sticking it to the man in supporting 3D Dot Game Heroes, despite being published by a big company (Atlus) on a console controlled by a bigger company (Sony). My e-penis became quite erect at the prospect of buying a title so niche, so leet, so underground that even the full-time staff of a games store never heard of it. I walked into two different Gamestops, on three different occasions, asking for this title, and none of the store clerks ever heard of the name. By -CANUCK- | Review Date: JI felt so hardcore buying 3D Dot Game Heroes.