K-Tuck of Spawn Kill was recently able to attend a live demonstration of 3D Dot Game Heroes, the upcoming parody/homage action/adventure title under the Atlus umbrella. During the demo, Atlus USA’s Manager of PR and Sales Aram Jabbari went through some of the bigger bullet points and finer details of the upcoming game.

Though the game is meant to appeal to people with simple old-school tastes in gameplay and aesthetics, the developers added in plenty of modern designs. The hero’s sword is given a “spin” option, where the direction the player is facing when an attack is initiated isn’t necessarily where the attack winds up being directed. It allows more flexibility in combat, which will quite apparently be needed in the difficult New Game +, Spelunker, and From Modes that are unlocked after completion. Other simple improvements include arrows that can be picked up from the ground if they fail to strike an enemy, the ability to move using the directional pad or analog stick, shields that can deflect and return enemy fire, and the quick-select area. Though the menu screen allows access to available weapons and items, most weapons can be put into a toggle mode accessible from the main screen. When entered, the player can cycle through all weapons using R2 and L2 at any time.

K-Tuck via spawnkill.com »