Dragon's Crown (Vanillaware)

[ZellSF]

I got this and has been playing two hours of solo elf... Is it supposed to be difficult (it sort of is to me)?

Am I supposed to use continues? 150 coins for a resurrection seems like it would make the game TOO easy.

[PainAmplifier]

I got this and has been playing two hours of solo elf... Is it supposed to be difficult (it sort of is to me)?

Am I supposed to use continues? 150 coins for a resurrection seems like it would make the game TOO easy.

The difficulty ramps up at a low rate until you beat the 9th boss. (Gazer) But the Elf is one of the harder characters for me to deal with right now, her arrows are a bit hard to manage at the start and learning how to generate then collect the ones enemies drop in mid battle is a skill in itself you need to learn. You may want to play another class and see how they play as well.

Also, the rez cost goes up very, very quickly. Each one cost more than the previous, so costs can quickly sky rocket if you spam continues and you will end up broke constantly, not even able to buy all the runes in Lucain's shop when they become available.

I can't emphasize this enough for new players...yes the game gets difficult even if you are rolling over enemies right now. By the time you hit hard the reverse is true and enemies will be rolling over YOU. Someone else said it first, but it fits. The entire game up to the 'Final Boss' is just an extended tutorial for the game you play when you continue on Hard.

Please note I said 'continue' and not 'start'. This is because unlike the Diablo series or games like it, you do not 'start over' at the new difficulty, you continue the main story. It does become a bit open-world-ish as it doesn't open new areas up, but the new enemies and even new scenery makes it feel fresh again.

[evil_ash_xero]

After you beat Inferno, what happens? Like, can you just start a new game on any difficulty? Anyone know?

[gct]

Yea, I just beat Gazer for the first time on Normal (Fighter) and it's much tougher now. Have only been able to take one B path so far, but even the A path bosses are getting tough. All this time I only kept enough of my top equipment for one bag, and now that I just got access to multiple gear bags, my bank account has crashed trying to keep decent equipment in all of them for chaining dungeons.

Still going to try going solo for as long as I can...

[CStarFlare]

You can make one bag last at least three dungeons, which is enough to get a decent haul. Eventually you'll want to go longer, but I've never felt bad about calling it a day after the third or fourth if I didn't feel 100% confident about going forward.

[PainAmplifier]

Yea, I just beat Gazer for the first time on Normal (Fighter) and it's much tougher now. Have only been able to take one B path so far, but even the A path bosses are getting tough. All this time I only kept enough of my top equipment for one bag, and now that I just got access to multiple gear bags, my bank account has crashed trying to keep decent equipment in all of them for chaining dungeons.

Still going to try going solo for as long as I can...

Money should never be a problem. If it is you aren't paying attention to making money and more importantly how to avoid *LOSING* money.


Tip #1: It costs more to Identify equipment than it does to sell it after wards. Yes that is right. You lose money if you sell identified spoils. That money comes out of your haul from the level and any bonus cash you get from quests. Thus you only want to identify items that you are likely to use. Sell things that are obviously not worth it, without identifying it. By the time you open the B routes, this is pretty much anything with less than 2 Modifiers on it, or weapons that have obvious damage deficiencies. AKA, ?-?? can at most be 9-99, while ??-??? could be 99-255. Keep an eye on the number of question marks and it will give you an idea of what the revealed weapon will look have for damage range. Outright sell anything with no modifiers by this point in the game. Remember anything you sell outright is pure profit. This doesn't mean avoiding identifying things, it just means not doing so on the clear losers. Later in the game when you get more ???-??? items, you can start choosing based on grade and number of mods...but by then you should have so much cash it would be nothing to identify everything.

Tip #2: Don't continue constantly when you run out of life points. If you are dying in normal that often, you are playing badly and need to slow down and pay attention to your tactics or just plain run some of the easier bosses for levels. This includes paying for NPC revives. It is not worth it. Buy the Life point prayer in the Temple if you struggle a bit making it through the bosses when your level is lower, but as you go you should never have to buy revives before you hit Hard Difficulty.

Tip #3: Points count. Strip the dungeon of sparkly loot points. Especially with the new patch it is really easy to sweep the level for items while barely slowing down. And those jackpots that give multiple items add a good amount to your score. Trying for a fast timer bonus isn't worth missing out on loot.

Tip #4: Know your runes! Double Score bonus, The Phoenix Incantation, Call Sylphid's Wind, Treasure Hunters Friend. Don't pass up the runes, not only can they provide loot, weapons or healing, they help you die *less* as a secondary effect. That let's you avoid wasting lives getting to the boss, then spending money to revive to get past it.

Tip #5: While the first Destination can be chosen at the Stables...extending afterwards always follows the same oath through the map. (Left to Right) Pick a starting point that has 1-2 follow up levels that are manageable for chainging, and avoid the ones still giving you trouble when you are trying to build money or gear.

Tip #6: Do the quests! Even more than the money, they provide Skill Points that make clearing levels easier.

Avoid wasting money and you will start building money instead. When I first unlocked the Runes (buyable) at Lucain's, I was able to buy all of them immediately! And I had a good amount of cash left over. All that and I was only replaying levels enough to do the quest that opens up after you beat the boss the first time.

[gct]

Thanks for the tips, PA. I've been doing all of them except #4 and #5 since the beginning. I've continued maybe only 4 or 5 times in total. I guess part of why I lost a lot of money is precisely because I bought all the runestones as soon as they were for sale, but I don't cast rune spells much, and I just took the quest where I have to resurrect 30 dead fools. I also have a lot of unspent skill points...

I never did grind dungeons much, only as much as necessary to complete the quests before Gazer, so it might just be that my level is a bit low. Some B path bosses are like 5 levels above mine right now.

Regarding score, where do life extends come in? Are they always at the same values for every dungeon/level?

[CStarFlare]

I think they come at 30k and 100k on Normal. I think there might be more after that, I recall being at 5 LP at one point but not exactly sure when it came about... 300k, maybe?

It changes for the different difficulties, though. 90k is the first for Hard, for example.

[Hagane]

The Elf is very easy to use. So far I didn't need to do much more than attack x3, slide, up + attack, air combo, down + attack, etc, much easier than it sounds since comboing requires pretty much no timing at all. The slide is great as a combo starter since it either knocks down or crosses up, so it's usually rather safe. When close the up + attack crosses up, so lots of enemies miss their counter attacks, and if you see they turn around to attack or there's someone else waiting for you you can just airdash to safety, and if that still didn't put you in safety you can shoot an arrow mid air to delay your fall, or double jump, etc.

Her high mobility keeps her away from danger too. Just avoid getting surrounded and don't mash too much and you are good to go.

I'll keep playing till I reach the Gazer then, to see if it gets interesting there. I don't know why they didn't make Hard available from the start.

[CStarFlare]

Hard isn't starting over at level 1 with tougher enemies, it closer to being a 2nd loop. Unless they changed the format, having it available from the start wouldn't really work. There's also no ramp-up period - every stage is pretty tough, which would be even worse if you hadn't been building skills and familiarity through all of Normal.

[Pretas]

Beat the final boss on Normal and I have no motivation to keep going, since I've cleared every route several times already, having grown well acquainted with every setpiece and enemy the game has to offer. Hard mode is really just an extension of the level cap, rather than a legitimate new challenge to overcome. If a stage is too tough, then grind, grind and grind some more until it suddenly becomes a cakewalk. It's a solid and enjoyable game, sure, but not an enduring classic. There should have been an arcade/"hardcore" mode that made it more like Tower of Doom/Shadow Over Mystara.

[iconoclast]

Hard and Infernal have different enemy setups, so there's a little more to it than a level cap increase. There are more enemies in each battle, more 'elite' enemies (dark goblins, dark pirates, etc.), and they also seem more resistant to launchers and knockbacks from my running attacks, so the game does get more interesting as you progress. (Then you'll reach the level cap, play through the first 9 floors of the Labyrinth of Chaos, and eventually start to realize it's a waste of time to go any further. It's fun while it lasts, though.)

[evil_ash_xero]

You're both right. It does have more enemies and switches things up on hard. And yeah, it should have had an arcade mode.

[evil_ash_xero]

Hmm...It's confirmed that this game does scale accordingly to how many A.I. characters you bring along. It also scales when you have real players with you.

Interesting.

Still, it's harder soloing. But it's nice to know there is a difference in enemy scaling. So, it's not all lazy about it.

[trap15]

The scaling isn't nearly aggressive enough if there actually is any. If I decide to bring in 3 AI partners, I don't even have to do anything.

[evil_ash_xero]

The scaling isn't nearly aggressive enough if there actually is any. If I decide to bring in 3 AI partners, I don't even have to do anything.

That's absolutely true. That's why I was kind of surprised to hear it.

The only way to go in this game for me is solo. Still I can NEVER shoot the Kraken with the cannonballs solo. Just impossible. Luckily you don't die.

Funny thing about this game, is that it kind of is hard, yet isn't. You do die a lot(well, I do), but you just keep buying continues with your money.

Maybe it's the same as trying to ICC shmups or beat 'em ups, that have limitless continues. Maybe players need to kind of make their own rules a bit.

I don't know how many times I've heard that shmups are easy because of the credit feeding. That's not the point!(as we all know here)

[CMoon]

I'm finding with the difficulty that it isn't hard until I get to a boss--and it depends on the boss from there. Fought the best in the woods last night (won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't fought it yet) and was finding the whole level a breeze until then. Doesn't hurt the thing has an insta-kill move which it managed to hit me with about 3 times. If I wasn't solo-ing it might have been a little easier, but still...

[PainAmplifier]

I'm finding with the difficulty that it isn't hard until I get to a boss--and it depends on the boss from there. Fought the best in the woods last night (won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't fought it yet) and was finding the whole level a breeze until then. Doesn't hurt the thing has an insta-kill move which it managed to hit me with about 3 times. If I wasn't solo-ing it might have been a little easier, but still...

I personally find that the difficulty just about perfect. It provides a challenge without being frustrating and yet goes up at a rate that almost feels effortless other than a few stopping points.

When I started the game, I ended up dying multiple times to the first boss and had to go so far as to buy a couple of extra lives. After unlocking the party slots, the extra NPC's kept enough attention off me that I had time to learn my character without being frustrated or feeling stuck. Each new level, enemy and boss was a learning experience.

Then I beat the Gazer. The new difficulty of the levels I had gone through priovided a new challenge that required a take more of a role from my NPCs. And the B routes had their own new challenges with the boss fight timers as well. Some fights required deaths than others, but overall I wasn't digging into the pay-to-continues. It took a couple of tries but I beat the Ancient Dragon without too much trouble. The inability to buy extends at that stage helps show where you may need to work on your skills.

And then I got to Hard difficulty. I died a huge amount just getting through the Harpy, which made me realize just how much I was relying on the NPCs. I went back to Normal mode and cleared every last quest I could. Not only did the extra skill points help, but by reducing my NPC party to just one extra I started paying more attention to my skills and enemy control. The solo boss fights tightened that up as well.

When I got back to Hard difficulty, it was much easier this time. I stuck to only 1 NPC as a decoy and other than learning to deal with the extra boss adds, I wasn't buring money buying continues again. I also started the Chaos dungeon, and the randomness of that and the random traps still provides me with a have not been here yet feeling.

I'm currently gathering the Talismans in Hard and Maxing out my gear/level for the Ancient dragon Loop2 fight, and I've even been trying out all the other character classes as well. Each of which has very different attack styles which takes some learning to utilize properly. Elf is my hardest one to master, as her attack patterns have very little similarity to the other characters.

And with all that I don't feel as if the game is mash button easy (As evidenced by the death rate of NPC's in Hard), but I also don't feel like I am spending too much time grinding out levels/gear (more like having fun searching for loot and levels are a bonus) and the game still promises a good challenge for the future. (Inferno and Labyrinth of Chaos)

[BulletMagnet]

Another patch.

[guigui]

Cant wait for EU release
Well, at least some pictures got me waiting...

[CMoon]

Just wanted to add a little to this thread since so much of it is dedicated to the people who want hard core arcade style and are playing it solo--which is definitely there in the game, but there are so many other ways to play it.

Used high level NPCs from my first character to quickly get my second character to the half way point so I could play online. Even though I'm very weak/inexperienced with this character (low level Elf), not hard at all to chain 6 or 8 route A dungeons to ramp up my experience a bit and get some better loot. I find myself bouncing back and forth between online, offline and solo based on what I'm trying to accomplish, and this variability in gameplay has turned a 9 stage 2D beat-em-up into a game I've now sunk 30 hours into, and only now checking out my second character.

Probably not the game everyone was looking for or expecting, but so easy to blow a couple hours on and feel like you've accomplished something and had a good time.

[evil_ash_xero]

I put like 35 hours into it, and gave it a bit of a break.

I can't believe that I had put so much time in it. Where does it all go?

[gct]

I stopped for a few weeks with my Fighter only at lv.23. Just started a new Elf for kicks now at lv.10, and damn this is way more fun. I'll see how it goes once I pass Gazer with this character though, if my cheesy spam tactics still work at all. The spirit magic is ridiculous.

[CMoon]

Posted a stupidly huge review on Gamefaqs

http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps3/633261-drag ... iew-155562

Didn't even get around to mentioning the arena...

[evil_ash_xero]

Posted a stupidly huge review on Gamefaqs

http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps3/633261-drag ... iew-155562

Didn't even get around to mentioning the arena...

I don't know if I'm gonna read it, since it looks like War and Peace , but I appreciate that you did write it.

Also, totally a blast from the recent past...but all the controversy this game got for it's designs... I mean, the guy at either IGN or Gamespot said it was akin to soft core porn.
Well, a lot of people(fans) scoffed at that. I'm gonna say, my mother came over to my place a few weeks ago, and all the big titties bouncing around and whatnot...it wasn't the biggest deal. But when that nun/knight showed up with her legs spread, I was picking my route REALLY fast.

That's THE most "close to porn" pic in the whole game. I mean, she's clothed, but she's spreadin' man!

But in the end: Fuck censorship.

Anyone know how well this game has sold in the U.S. yet?

[Hagane]

This is the Sine Mora of belt scrollers.

[trap15]

In what way?

[KAI]

Overrated much?

[Hagane]

In that it's pretty but vastly below the genre's standards, and people who are not knowledgeable on the genre (usually reviewers who believe that beat'em ups are "repetitive cheap button mashers") praise it as if it was the best belt scroller ever. I wonder how would a Vanillaware STG be... I'll guess 20 hours long, with no difficulty or depth and tits, probably.

EDIT: Good example of what I'm talking about on Cmoon's review.

Each of the characters is highly satisfying to play, offering a substantial range of diversity and challenge. Discovering how to most effectively chain moves together may take hours, offering more depth than we've seen in a side-scroller before.

Anyone who posts such a thing has never played much of Shadow Over Mystara, Alien Vs. Predator, Denjin Makai II, any IGS game, etc. Not that he's at fault, sadly most people in the West haven't cared to play such games in depth, but the point still stands.

[iconoclast]

I think you were setting yourself up for disappointment if you were expecting this to compare to an arcade belt scroller, because that's not what the game is trying to be. It has just as much emphasis on Diablo-esque loot collection, with leveling, online co-op, character classes with modifiable builds, etc. I'm not saying that makes the game good or bad - it's just what it is. It's like buying Monster Hunter or Dark Souls and expecting it to be as good as a pure action game, like Ninja Gaiden. You'll only be let down.