Dragon's Crown PS Vita/ PS3 review.

Format reviewed: PS Vita (PS VITA/PS3 crossplay available).
Published by: Vanillaware
Developed by: Atlus

Dragon's Crown is a side scrolling brawler with RPG elements and plenty of other added depth for good measure.

The game is set in a crisis hit medieval fantasy style world in which the king of Hydeland Kingdom; like many other adventurers, has left to search for the titular Dragon's Crown.  This artifact is fabled to give the bearer power over dragons, which you might imagine, could be reasonably useful. For example, starting a camp fire would become a cinch.........you wouldn't have to worry about burglars stealing your 75 inch plasma, and you wouldn't have to pay for extortionate flights and baggage fees next time you fancy popping over to Benidorm.

When you first play Dragon's Crown, you'll find there are two things vying for your attention. The first is the awesome art style and luscious graphics, and the second is the equally awe inspiring collection of bosoms. Yes, there are some serious shirt potatoes in this game as you can see below.



Yes, the over sexualization of the female characters in this game is really over the top. They make Dolly Parton look like Keira Knightley. We've seen this kind of thing before but in this game, it really is turned up to 11 to use a Spinal Tap analogy. It doesn't bother me, but I can appreciate how this will offend some players.

I don't want to dwell on it too much though, because I can't emphasize enough, how gorgeous this game is. Each and every backdrop as you scroll through the game is a masterpiece, and when you couple that with the character design, the stylish animations and other battle effects, you have the most gorgeous game of it's type I have ever seen.



The sound is similarly impressive. This game sounds stunning on the Vita through some good earphones. The soundtrack is suitably epic and absolutely, haunting, enchanting and uplifting where necessary.

Moving on to the mechanics of the game then......

Dragon's Crown has a predictable premise on the surface. You select one of a series of character classes, choose missions, and hack and slash along.  The whole thing has a great deal of depth however, for many reasons. The Character classes play very very differently to each other. There are a simple set of combat moves which are easy to pick up, but mastering each class, and their unique moves and totally differing skill trees is a lot deeper than most games of this ilk.  In addition to this, the game is packed to the hilt with loot, weapons and accessories to discover, which is just as well as currency is used for many things in this game, and you have to make tough decisions as to how you are gonna spend your hard earned. Wonga is used to resurrect or bury your allies, to continue after death, to pray for assistance bonuses from the gods, to repair your equipment and you even have to pay to appraise any gear you find in the dungeons before you know whether or not it's even worth owning. All this adds a great depth to proceedings. On top of this there is a rune system which you can use to cast powerful spells as you encounter said Glyphs in the environment.



You can play Dragon's Crown with AI party members. Bones found in the dungeons can be resurrected to add to your party, or can be buried in the hope of receiving a special item as reward. The best way to play however, is with 4 player local or online co-op and devise your own tactics.

Simple on the surface but with much depth, this is one slasher that doesn't get tired easily. Multiple paths, mini game sequences, and varied boss tactics, help stave off repetition even more than the aspects already mentioned.



All in all, a very slick game. Buy it now!!

8.5 silicon implants out of 10