Dragon's Crown

Dragon's Crown is a 2013 beat 'em up action role-playing game developed by Vanillaware for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita. It was published in Japan and North America by Atlus and in PAL regions by NIS America. A port for PlayStation 4, Dragon's Crown Pro, was released by Atlus in 2018.

Plot
The storyline follows adventurers as they journey across Hydeland and become involved in the search for the magical Dragon's Crown.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Mixing RPG and Beat em Up is a very creative idea that paid off.
 * 2) Outstanding visuals and animations since it's made by Vanillaware.
 * 3) Explore 9 amazing dungeons with each being large and rewarding.
 * 4) *Each Dungeon has two paths where one is unlocked after beating the dungeon first and both paths in each dungeon tend to be very different.
 * 5) Extremely fun combat.
 * 6) With some minor exceptions such as the PSVITA not having local coop and PS4 having 4K and all DLCs, all versions are exactly the same, therefore no version can be completely superior to the other.
 * 7) 6 Playable classes and each class is different from the other, granting huge replayability.
 * 8) *Knight: A warrior who's made to be for beginners and professionals in the game with hack and slash and melee combat.
 * 9) *Dwarf: Same as the Knight but he has much bigger strength while having less melee combat options.
 * 10) *Amazon: She's made for beginners who want a bit of challenge, her health is low but the more she attack the stronger her strikes become.
 * 11) *Elf: A Jack of All Trades class, She has high speed and uses a mixture of archery and close-range melee attacks, replenishing her arrows by defeating enemies.
 * 12) *Sorceress: For Advanced Players, she can cast spells that can help other players by aiding them and protecting them using mana, and can also use her spells to attack enemies.
 * 13) *Wizard: Same as the Sorceress but the Wizard has a much bigger focus on offensive spells, unlike the Sorceress.
 * 14) Amazing Couch coop that doubles the fun you can drop in and out anytime (up to 3 can join the main player), and if you got no one to play the game with, you can pay a small fee before entering a dungeon where the game sends in bots to join you in the game, which is great for people who have no one to play with and/or people playing the Vita Version.
 * 15) The game has cross save even with the Vita version, you can play on one console while continue with your save file on another console.
 * 16) The game also has cross play, whether you'll playing online on the PS4, PS3 or PSVITA, you can play with the ones on the other consoles as well.
 * 17) There are 4 difficulties (Normal, Hard, Infernal and Ultimate) and each are rewarding in their own ways, you star with normal and every time you finish the game you increase the Maximum difficulty with up to LVL 255.
 * 18) Upon playing the campaign you meet Randy, a thief who'll collect the loot for you while you're busy fighting.
 * 19) Once you defeat a dungeon you'll unlock quests that you can complete, upon completing them you'll be rewarded with money or equipment along with one beautiful artwork per quest.
 * 20) When you complete the game once, you unlock an optional dungeon called Labrynth of Chaos, this is more of a rogue like dungeon where you enter a random dungeon and once you finish a floor of it, you go to another random one.
 * 21) Defeating the final boss in infernal difficulty unlocks another optional dungeon called Tower of Mirages which is similar to Labrynth of Chaos but instead of three levels per floor it's now one floor per level and the enemies are much stronger, which is great for those who want a challenge.
 * 22) Runes can be activated anytime once you buy them, once memorized you can do certain magic regardless of class you're playing with such as gaining more XP.
 * 23) Every time you kill wild animals and/or collect food, once you beat the dungeon you and the other player(s) will start cooking said food where you have to eat and feed others (unless if you're playing coop) with meals, the more you all eat the better your stats will be in the next dungeon.
 * 24) Extremely epic boss fights such as the ancient dragon.
 * 25) *Depending on the path you take, you'll fight a different boss fight, making it up to a total of 19 boss fights (including the final boss)
 * 26) The game has a battle arena where you can fight against other players with no penalty, can be played alone or against another player.
 * 27) You can change the narrator's voice and make any of the classes voice them instead (DLC only however, they're available for free on the PS4 version).

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The game can get repetitive at times, specially when you're playing the game alone.
 * 2) There's barely any story in the game, while this isn't new to gaming and it's understandable considering the game's goal is to bring Arcade experience to RPG but this is an RPG which is a shame.
 * 3) * It does have a manga that tells its story however.
 * 4) Unlike other Vanillaware games, the PS4 remaster is the same as the PS3 version with mainly upgraded resolution and audio without any extra content.
 * 5) * This can be understandable however in order to make all versions the same and make no player have an advantage over the other.
 * 6) The bots that replaces the player can be inferior, this is extremely noticeable during boss fights.

Reception
The game received positive reviews, journalists praised its gameplay and art style, while the story and repetitive elements drew criticism. It also generated controversy for its exaggerated character designs and sexualized female characters. The game was a commercial success, eventually selling over one million copies worldwide by 2017.

International success took Vanillaware by surprise, with it becoming much bigger than Kamitani (game's creator) expected.

The game is popular among Vita owners.

Trivia

 * The game was to be made as a sequel to Princess Crown in 1997 for the Dreamcast, however due to the flop of the game the developers were blacklisted in the game industry and the game was cancelled, but after the success of Vanillaware's success with Odin Sphere and Vanillaware's next game Muramasa: The Demon Blade, The project was restarted and turned into Dragon's Crown.
 * The reason the game has an exaggerated design according to the creator of the game is because he wants the game to be unique from other fantasy games.