This mini review has been coming for a while. I actually bought the US version of the game on the US PSN store a few weeks ago, before it got released in europe, but then I wanted to get far enough into the game to get a proper taste for it. Not that it mattered cos I was certain that it was going to be awesome!!!
Anyway, Dragon’s Crown is the latest game from Vanillaware, who are well known for their insanely well animated 2D games such as Grim Grimoire, Odin Sphere and Muramasa (Muramasa just got a re-release on the PS Vita in Europe too!) and Dragon’s Crown looks just as gorgeous as those. The game gets some stick for some of it’s overly sexualised art in some parts of the game but screw those guys! Complaining about Sexism in video games is getting so common that the message is in serious danger of reaching irreverence. Hint to all those who like to stand on the soap box and shout: Complaining about a smaller number of real issues of sexism is more effective than ranting about every single damn infraction, big or small!! Now, a complaint about sexism in video games is more likely to get a response of “oh god, not another one” rather than the intended response (unless the writer is trolling…)
But anyway, that’s a long ass rant which should never reach these pages, or anywhere else for that matter, as I have better things to devote my energies to. Back to Dragon’s Crown! Basically, it’s an HD version of Golden Axe or Dungeons and Dragons. A freaking 2D scrolling beat-em-up!! See? How can this not be awesome??? You and up to 3 other characters basically get sent to various stages to battle through enemies and slay the final boss. Simples! As the stages get revealed, you are taught various elements of the game as the story is slowly revealed. Once you go through the stages once, the game properly opens up and asks you to fight through the stages again but gives you a second route in each stage to complete and a new boss to slay. Each of these new bosses will provide you with a talisman and once you have them all, the final stage is unlocked. Beat the final boss and you learn of other bosses to slay which requires you to complete the game on higher difficulty levels.
You are given the choice of 6 characters, each with different playstyles. The fighter is basically a tank, Amazon is a combo fiend, Dwarf is the heavy hitter, Elf can use her bow to attack from a distance, Warlock has all the offensive spells and Sorceress has all the support spells and a few other tricks up her sleeve. I spent most of the time playing as the Elf (voiced by Imai Asami! Yay!) and Amazon, though I dabbled with the amazon and fighter as well. There’s an RPG element to the game as you can level up your characters by completing stages and optional quests as well as use bonus points to learn new skills and abilities. You can tackle the stages in a team of 4 characters. During your battles, you come across piles of bones which can be collected and resurrected in the hub town to provide a NPC who will help you in stages. The game features a drop in system so even if you start a stage alone, characters can drop in at certain points of the stage. This is especially cool when you start your second run through the stages to collect talismans as that’s when the game unlocks online mode! You can get random players dropping into your game at any time so long as you have open slots and a net connnection! Most players I’ve come across are pretty friendly as well so you don’t really get the dick who just hoards everything but does sweet FA. I may have spoken too soon though. Maybe I just haven’t met one… Then again, you can just jump into a friends match if you want to as well. And, recently, there was a patch released to allow PS3 and Vita cross play!! I still have yet to get my Vita version but it’ll come!!!
Anyway, that’s pretty much the game in a nutshell, a 4 player, online enabled modern take of the fantasy side scrolling beat-em-up! Hell, it even has the animals to ride on and thieves to kick around for bonus items!! But, is it any good? (of course it is, but I’m going through the motions here!)
LOVED
- It’s a freaking side scrolling beat-em-up done well! Remember the fun we used to have with final fight, Streets of Rage 2 and Guardian heroes? Prepare to feel the fun all over again! I’ll still rate Guardian Heroes as the best of the bunch but Dragons Crown comes close!
- Online Enabled!! – The drop in feature for online is really cool and, if you decide to go on a different path, your team isn’t broken up but the AI simply takes over the players who went a different route
- Need to balance teams – This is less of an issue if you have nothing but human players in your team but it still really helps to balance your team with a variety of characters. A team of just physical characters like Amazon, fighter and Dwarf will struggle in places without a magic user and there’s a boss which will neuter teams with only magic users.
- The lost woods route B boss – I won’t spoil it but I’ll just say that fans of Monty Python are in for a massive treat!!!
HATED
- Random level select – Later on in the game, your usual mode of transport goes awry and starts randomly selecting the level when you use it, which makes completing sub-quests much harder as many require you to do tasks in specific levels. You can use a different method in order to choose which stage you go to, but it costs money.
- Weapon durability – everytime you hit or get hit, your equipment takes some damage and you’ll need to spend money to repair them or else they will break and become unusable. I understand why the system is in there (to prevent you from tackling the missions back to back and abusing the bonus) but couldn’t the repair be automatic?
- Slightly dodgy hit detection – You need to be reasonably lined up to your enemy if you want your attack to hit so pay attention to where your feet are. Even if you swing your weapon and think it should hit due to the old school way of thinking, it probably won’t
- Rune usage – In the stages, there are markings on the wall which you can touch and certain combinations will trigger spells or secrets, the only problem is that on the PS3, you need to move a pointer to the rune and then supplement the combination with one in your posession, which takes a lot of time. This makes it hard to perform if you’re under attack which makes the offensive rune spells almost useless as you’ve probably killed them all before triggering it. I suspect it’s less of a problem on the vita and the touch screen, but it’s a needless distraction for the most part on the PS3.
Despite it’s flaws, I really love this game. it reminds me of the old scrolling beat-em-ups which were great fun in co-op and the online is just brilliant and a huge step up from Guardian heroes on XBLA. The combat isn’t as deep as GH though, and the movesets are really limited but it’s still great fun to play. I can see myself taking this game on for some time, especially when I get off my ass and get a vita version too!
