Dragon’s Crown (PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita)
Developer/Publisher: Vanillaware/Atlus
Released: August 6th, 2013
Dragon’s Crown starts off simple enough, giving you the chance to choose between six different character classes. Unlike other class-based games, a description of each available class in terms of difficulty is given as well. If you’re a newer player, it’s likely you’re going to want to choose to play as the Amazon or Knight. If you’re experienced enough, though, you may find it more challenging and rewarding to play as a Wizard or Sorceress. Fortunately Dragon’s Crown also has a standard difficulty setting for you to set to make sure you have an enjoyable time regardless of which character you choose.
As is the norm with most RPGs, you then get to name your character, select your color palette for clothing and choose your language setting. Once done, it’s time to jump into the world of Hydeland and get ready to start button-mashing bad guys throughout the land.
Hydeland is an amazing fantasy world that is scattered with nine different maps to play through, as well as a town hub where you conduct all of your business. In town there is a Tavern to recruit more allies into your party, a Church that gives you the opportunity to pray for benefits, bury bones you find on your travels, and even the ability to resurrect those bones in order to turn them into allies you pick up at the pub. Like most games you also have your standard item shop, magic shop, and Adventurer’s Guild where you can set skill points and pick up a myriad of side quests in order to help progress your character through the game.
Many gamers are going to feel like Hydeland is pretty small with just nine maps, but that’s hardly the case as each map offers two different routes and even two different bosses. It may sound like a cheap way to increase the amount of content on offer, but Dragon’s Crown is exciting to fight through and beautiful to look at despite the repetitive scenery.
Combat in these areas is fully fledged out and is quite different from character to character. This is further achieved by each character class having unique skill trees and common skill trees to change up the experience. The button-mashing, hack-and-slash portion of the game is rewarding in and of itself due to the difference in melee attacks and fighting options.
As you progress through each dungeon, so to speak, you unlock treasure chests and pick up loot from enemies. The loot is highly varied, comparable to a game like Borderlands (strangely enough) when it comes to addiction. Loot ranges in value from an F-Rank to an S-Rank, which determines how valuable a weapon or accessory is to you. One of the cooler aspects of the loot system is deciding whether to sell the item blindly or have it appraised to find out what it actually is. Since it costs an extra bit of coin to have an item appraised and it might be worth less than you’d like, the process becomes a gamble. Unfortunately, I didn’t find banking money that difficult in the game, so it kind of draws away from the risk/reward element of appraisal.
It’s a good thing Dragon’s Crown’s universe is so beautiful and the art direction is amazing. If it wasn’t for that, the repeated dungeons, catacombs, forests and other areas would be dull and boring to continually play through. Hydleland has been crafted as a vibrant world that will leave you staring at the screen during battle and will probably be responsible for your death several times.
Sadly, Dragon’s Crown isn’t all positive as one of the biggest negatives the game faces throughout play is its story. It’s not only a little boring but also massively repetitive in how it is told. The narrator’s voiceover is well chosen, but he tells you to do the same thing over and over again, yammering until you actually do what he’s talking about. So if you’re going in and out of sections of your town hub, you’re greeted with the exact same repeated response telling you what to do next. It gets very annoying after a while and a lot of people may just end up turning it off, which detracts from the game.
The online component for Dragon’s Crown can also be considered a negative or a positive depending on how you look at it. Oddly enough, you can only access the online multiplayer after completing all nine stages of play. According to Atlus, it’s pretty much a “crawl before you walk” situation. However, online play is stable on PlayStation 3 and while it does have its hiccups on Vita, it’s still more than playable and only becomes an issue when the screen is littered with action and your WiFi signal is low. If you have strong WiFi, everything should be good to go. Unfortunately, the Vita and PS3 cannot cross-play through online play. However, you can transfer your saves between each format, so in a way, you can still play with the people you want to depending on the formats they own…so long as you own both versions, that is.
Dragon’s Crown is easily one of the best Vita games of the year and you will get as much out of it as you put into it. Whether you go with the PS3 or Vita version, you’ll find it to be a worthwhile purchase. While it is a controversial title and many may avoid it due to a couple of character designs, it’s still a game worthy of your time and attention. Vanillaware has developed a magnificent experience that is sure to influence similar titles in the future.
As I played through Dragon’s Crown it is easy to see why so many gamers are anticipating its release. It manages to remind you of the games you played growing up while also providing the feel of modern games that have helped make gaming grow. Vanillaware has done a fantastic job creating a work of art that is going to appeal to both old school and new and, personally, that’s something worth recognizing as not many developers are capable of providing that type of experience.
http://www.stealthybox.com
By David Wales
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