Jun 12, 2013

Dragon's Crown Unveils A Slew Of New Features



We had a chance to get some hands on time with Vanillaware's Dragon's Crown, bearing the signature art style of George Kamitani (Odin's Sphere), and came out of the experience even more excited, knowing that this game will be excellent. While we initially thought that the title would be a more straightforward beat em up, our hands on time revealed an incredible amount of depth to the gameplay experience, including dungeons with multiple paths, loot appraising, mounts, customizable weapons and armor and more.

Trailers, and especially screenshots of this game do not do it justice..The game is an absolutely beautiful painting in motion, channeling the watercolor aesthetic that Kamitani has established as the Vanillaware house style. I tried out the Fighter class, and found the gameplay to be tightly polished and responsive in a 4 player coop match through a dungeon crawl to take out a wyvern. One of the coolest aspect came in the form of a thief who accompanies throughout your quests and gathers up unappraised (Unidentified loot like in Diablo) and upon finishing your mission offers you a chance to appraise these items for a fee, with the chance of unlocking some truly rare items. While interviewing Atlus employees we also asked about the familiar sounding score, and were amazed to find out that the composers: Most notably Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata were the same composers behind the beautiful scores of games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy XII before resigning from Square. Check out a full breakdown of the classes, story and features after the break.

In the fantasy world of Hydeland, the only things standing between you and the most amazing treasure in the land are fearsome monsters, deadly magic, and all manners of traps, beasts, pitfalls and more. But none of that is a problem for the six fearsome adventurers: 



The Fighter, who uses his armor and quick-hitting attacks to tank and destroy enemies



The Dwarf, who specializes in getting up close and personal with grapple attacks



The Amazon, who moves quickly and wields a giant axe to unleash massive damage



The Wizard, who blasts fire at single targets or in pillars to incinerate foes



The Elf, who uses her bow and agility to launch devastating arrow volleys and escape danger



The Sorceress, who uses ice magic and undead minions to control the battlefield

Dragon’s Crown also features an immersive skills system to customize individual play styles, quests, loot all done in a painstakingly beautiful watercolor-esque art style. One of the most innovative features in Dragon’s Crown is the use of a cursor. The right analog thumbstick controls a pointer that can reveal hidden gold, command your companion to open doors and treasure chests, and more. 

Dragon's Crown will be out on August 6th on the PS3 and Vita. Consider it quite hype-worthy.

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