Dragon's Crown (Vanillaware)

[BulletMagnet]

A little more info concerning game length and whatnot here.

[trap15]

Not particularly happy with that. I'm still going to get it, in the hopes that it's more tolerable than I'm expecting, but I'm a bit less excited for it now.

[KAI]

I'm not horny anymore. The OST will be awesome at least.

[CMoon]

The only thing I'm worried about is if the difference in levels will make it impossible for you to be online with your friends. Hopefully leveling will not involve changing your base character stats/HP/etc. but I'm sure it will--meaning it will change the arcade nature of the game.

Not as disappointed as the rest of you as I figured this is how things would go, however I'd rather have seen the whole game balanced for arcade type play. Guardian Heroes managed to pull this off with a leveling system...maybe Dragon's Crown can too.

[Hagane]

Not surprising at all. It's Vanillaware.

And damn, those comments. Every time I read average gaming Joes on mainstream sites talking about arcade games I can't help but think of Randorama and eugenics.

[opt2not]

I actually like the more RPG elements, but I'm a fan of RPGs as well. The skill trees and ability upgrades/unlocks are one of the things I wanted for games like D&D:Som. don't get me wrong; I love SoM, and it's gameplay, but it teased me with it's levelling. I feel like a game like this can evolve to have a bit of levelling depth and character building.

One of the most interesting gameplay elements was the ability to use the analog stick to bring a cursor on screen to interact with elements in the game. You use this to open treasure chests and to interact with elements in the background, such as opening a door to access a side area where you can obtain extra treasure, or perhaps even find some secret areas.

Darn I was hoping to run this in my cabinet but having the need of the RS kinda sucks.
I know my PS360's have a function command to swap from digital to analogue directionals, but it's a pain in the butt. I hope there will be a way to not have to rely on the RS.

[Hagane]

Leveling as it is on RPGs makes things easier, greatly dumbing down strategy and execution. That's as far from depth and evolution as it gets.

[opt2not]

Only if it's not properly balanced. Having skill trees also add depth because they give your characters personalized play styles, and in some good RPG's also allows for altering from generic classes. Now, this in a beat-em-up...that's something I can sign on for.

[trap15]

Skill trees are an interesting concept, though I generally find the concept of leveling up and gaining more 'avatar strength' off-putting. Gaining new moves that you can choose from a selection is interesting though because it allows experimentation with different character concepts from the basic character. I dunno. We'll see.

[Hagane]

If you want to customize basic classes to specialize them you could do that at the start of the game, with no need for leveling up. Just give people skill points to assign to the skill tree when you select your character. That way you would get all the abilities from the start too, which would make things more entertaining than having a gimped character at the beginning. And if you want to add "key" abilities (skills that open up new paths or possibilities), there's no reason why you can't do that as a reward for beating a certain boss or finding a rare item.

I really see no benefit at all for leveling your character (particularly in this kind of game, players should be doing the leveling, not characters), and it comes with lots of downsides.

[opt2not]

Yeah I can agree with you. Though I still think there needs to be some kind of "progression" of your game-play as a player, at least, in now-a-day's gaming. But your suggestion of skill points to spend as you wish at the beginning of the game is a good one. I'd love to be able to customize my character at the start, with like you say, perhaps unlocking skills as I go -- as the progression.

[Hagane]

What I'm mostly against is improving your stats through leveling, which introduces grinding to bypass challenge. I don't see getting new abilities as necessary, but I wouldn't mind that if it's something that opens up new possibilities, the game throws levels / missions at you specially designed to take advantage of them and aren't there just to make the game easier. To me good: Magnes in Order of Ecclesia, bad: killing 1000 green slimes to mindlessly get through that tough spot.

[Drum]

Pretty sure it's confirmed that enemies scale with you.

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

I enjoyed the RPG elements in Guardian Heroes. It could work. I just hope that there's enough content, not in terms of HOURS, but you know, please don't make whole dungeons out of 3 screens. Typical Vanillaware tactic. Get everyone excited with teh awesome 2D and then you find out that the content is indeed great but there's so little of it you get bored looking at the same stuff over and over.

I still preordered like a sucker, tho .

[BulletMagnet]

Pretty sure it's confirmed that enemies scale with you.

I do recall reading that baddies get stronger when you've got other players with you, but I'm not sure if there's been any confirmation as to other factors.

[CMoon]

In case no one has seen it, IGN is doing some videos on the game throughout the week. Today's is a very brief introduction to all the classes. To be honest, it is insufficient, but glad to have something rather than nothing...

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/07/05/ ... oming-soon

[BulletMagnet]

A handful more things following an event in Japan.

[drunkninja24]

Atlus has a booth set up for this game at Evo, so I had a chance to play some

Didn't get too much into the nitty gritty, but the game was fun and looked incredible. Definitely on my buy list now.

[BulletMagnet]

And one more video. Can't understand most of the features it's talking about, but hey, it's still pretty.

[Octopod]

Pre-ordered 'cause I want the art book so I guess I'll finally have to pick up a PS3. I want the Japanese limited edition of Chronicles of Mystara also anyhow.

[BulletMagnet]

Confirmed for Europe.

[CMoon]

[dcharlieJP]

Huge number of copies in Shinjuku Sofmap - either this is going crashing into bargain bins or .... ?

[BulletMagnet]

A few old drawings (which are apparently in the artbook someplace) from when the game was first being developed for the Dreamcast.

[shmuppyLove]

either this is going crashing into bargain bins or .... ?

gogogogogogogo bargain title

[GaijinPunch]

Should be here soon... now the hard part: making time to play!

[BulletMagnet]

Seems the game has a bit of Otomedius in its DNA.

[Hagane]

That's actually a reference to the Dungeons and Dragons beat'em ups.

[dcharlie]

So Dragons Crown is sold out in Shibuya, Shinjuku and Akihabara on both PS3 and Vita.

Given how many copies Sofmap had (absolute shelves full) then this could be a surprise hit - given how expensive the thing is on both platforms they've surely made some cash.

AS for the game - it's not without it's faults : despite the gorgeous graphics (artistically : take it or leave it - it's not going to be to everyones tastes and there is an erotic undercurrent*) it's difficult to see what is going on at times as there's only mild colour markers for each player, the combat so far is decent but there's not a huge variety of moves -yet- (some are unlockable skills etc), and i'm not sure i like the fact you have to identify each and every loot drop you get.

That aside - the game is pretty fun - the voice acting in English is pretty good and i especially like the thief who unlocks caskets etc. As another aside it sounds like the control of thief is better on the vita as it's touch based. There are some truly wtf moments in the game that i don't want to spoil - needless to say there's a lot of homages in there to games, gaming platforms (one of the rune sequences a seeming not to another platform), films etc.

All in all - so far i'm happy with it - i went in with my expectations tempered after trying to really like Muramasa and Odins Sphere but coming away with a feeling of the games being fairly run of the mill. But this has more meat to it , with the grinding aspect being mainly light so far.

So yup - thumbs up so far - my Warrior is at level 15 so i'm only about 4-5 hours in but definitely worth checking out.

[ArmoredCore]

Great game but one of my biggest complaint so far is, their really isn't any challenge (by no means am I good in a lot of other games lol). I haven't ran into much trouble and ive beaten it with 2 chars so far. Hopefully the labrynth will change my mind on the difficulty. Really fun game imo and worth a purchase for the awesome looting and skill building beat em up alone.