Final Verdict - Definitely Worth Playing
Hey y'all long time no see. I must apologize for the lack of content on the blog lately due to my overall stress and laziness alongside some in real life events. I hate when I feel like this because I feel you all deserve bright upbeat reviews and I don't want my dreariness to come across in my writing. However I feel even worse not trying at all and leaving you all high and dry so this week I tried my best to record some gameplay footage for you so we can review Dragon's Crown.
Dragon's Crown is an action role-playing game structured like traditional side-scrolling beat 'em up such as Capcom's Dungeons & Dragons: Shadow over Mystara or Sega's Golden Axe where players move their characters across the screen into the background or foreground while defeating the assailants that confront them from all angles. Set in a medieval world of swords and sorcery, the game sees up to four players travelling through dangerous dungeons and labyrinths in search of fortune and adventure. Cooperative options include both local multiplayer and four player drop in sessions over Sony's PlayStation Network service with data-sharing of save games and cross play between the Vita and PlayStation 3. Players may choose between one of six heroic character archetypes and travel through numerous environments alone or accompanied by computer controlled or other player characters defeating enemies using skills, combos, magic and collectable offensive weapons like bombs and crossbows recovered from chests or dropped by their foes. The plot revolves around a legendary relic, the titular Dragon's Crown, and the quest to retrieve it. A mysterious coven of magic-users with influence in even the highest levels of government seek the treasure and have used their sorcery to link long-forgotten ruins, dangerous labyrinths, and many other areas together in order to search for it.
What’s Good:
Graphics: The PSVITA does a great job of bringing across the truly crisp and visually engaging art style of this game. The level and character design are well done and have a vivid presentation that takes full advantage of the PSVITA's OLED screen technology.
Story-line: The story is well written and puts forth a wide cast of characters and personas that keep you eager to see where the game progresses to. I also liked the fact that they gave you at times choices in varying story progression where you would have to choose from two courses of action. This helped add a small portion of depth to the overall flow of the story.
Game Mechanics: There are six different classes to choose from as such with each class having its own set of specialized moves and play-style it is a varied experience playing the game. Skill points allocation for moves and item selection based on the type of enemies you are going up against make for a very customized experience.
Replay: The game has 3 main level caps in correlation to the difficulty level. as you progress through the game on Normal , Hard, and Infernal difficulty you experience the level caps of level 35, 65 and 99 respectively. Add to that the appeal of multiplayer online co-op, competitively and locally and you have yourself quite the replay value for your money.
Soundtrack: The voice acting is available in Japanese and really good as well as English. On top of that the game not only comes with added DLC voice over content but also you can buy in game voice narration based on the classes you use to beat the game with.
What’s Bad:
Game Mechanics: The online experience at times is not as smooth as one would like and you will find yourself experiencing lengthy loading times when playing online with others.
What Should Have Been Added:
Final Thoughts:
Overall its a great game and a wonderful addition to the PSN+ library. Anyone with a PSVITA should give this game a whirl cause its truly one of the PSVITA titles that goes a long way showcasing what the PSVITA has to offer as a portable gaming console. Compound that with its Cross Play feature and you truly have no reason to put this game down whether at home or on the go its at your beck and call. If you act quickly it should still be available on PSN+ for free if not then its worth the purchase on the Playstation Store. Tried capturing some gameplay for y'all as usual using this El Gato capture card I got loaned. Pardon the lack of an intro or outro or certain minor edits as this was a first time testing of sorts plus I was lazy to be quite honest.
