Today I decided to start a 2010 game I keep totally forgetting I own: 3D Dot Game Heroes! I tried this a VERY long time ago and I think I got the hookshot before I stopped (so about the 3rd dungeon or so). According to my old PS3 trophies, it was around 9 years ago, back when I was just an annoying kid on the Retroware TV forums (before I graduated to being the annoying kid on here

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The game starts off as I remember: pretty slow. I just finished the 5th dungeon after getting hella hooked and playing like ALL day, because the game really comes into its own at a point, but that point is around after the 3rd dungeon or so (once you get the encyclopedia, I'd say). At that point, you can start doing encyclopedia silliness by beating every enemy (and boss) with the encyclopedia until it gets registered in the book (I accompany it by shouting "READ" at them), and the game really starts getting hard enough that getting really used to things like the sword's swinging mechanic start getting really important. It's a really bizarre yet wonderful homage to Zelda 1, Link to the Past, and Dragon Quest (with toss-ins of cameos from other series) and I'm really glad I stuck with it. Definitely the best 2D Zelda-clone I've played (granted I haven't played THAT many), and honestly stands easily among Nintendo's own 2D Zelda games, as far as I'm concerned.
The only real flaw the game has, I'd say, is the lack of any kind of quest log. It doesn't help that I've been dealing with a terrible lack of sleep and a stomachache all day, so I'm only mostly trying to read the Japanese text (let alone be able to remember it ^^;), but even playing through so much of this game in one sitting, it's hard to remember where certain stuff is. The overworld map sucks and is generally pretty fantastically unhelpful (despite being pretty), and there are no indications of active quests, quest objectives, nuthin' at all, despite the game having tons of side quests you can do. All you have is a list of key items that doesn't even get items taken off of it when you give them away XP. I wanna DO this content because it's fun, but the game seems determined to make it as hard as possible to collect the apparently tons of optional special swords hidden throughout the world XP
I identify everyone via avatar, so if you change your avatar, I genuinely might completely forget who you are. -- Me