Dragon's Crown

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Dragon's Crown is a 2D Action RPG from Vanillaware, the makers of Odin Sphere and Muramasa the Demon Blade and published by Atlus for the Play Station 3 and Play Station Vita with the distinction of being Vanillaware's first game to be developed for an HD console. Originally set to be released in Spring 2012, the game was released in 2013 (published by Atlus) due to Development Hell.

The premise of the story is fairly straight forward: a group of heroes must venture into a labyrinth, uncovering treasures and strengthening themselves as they look for the Dragon's Crown, an item that could spell doom for the world in the wrong hands.

The gameplay is reminiscent of games like Gauntlet (1985 video game), Golden Axe, and The King of Dragons. Players can customize their characters and equip weapons and other items found in their sessions in the labyrinth. Up to four players can play the cooperatively, or the game can be played solo with three CPU-controlled characters. Playable characters include:

  • Amazon: They wield two-handed weapons that deal high damage and they're quite nimble on their feet, but they're quite fragile and slow to attack.
  • Dwarf: The only class capable of Dual-Wielding, dwarves have massive strength to pick up and throw objects or enemies, but have low defense and slow movement.
  • Elf: Uses a bow as their main weapon, but they use an assortment of special skills that help help them adapt to any situation and compensate for their low offense and defense.
  • Fighter: A fully armored warrior boasting the highest defense of all the classes, a shield that can be used to defend himself and the rest of the party, and fast attacking speed with his short-ranged sword.
  • Wizard: Specializes in powerful offensive magic, with the drawbacks being that he has slow movement, slow casting, and his spells take quite a bit of mana.
  • Sorceress: Despite specializing in dark magic, she more or less plays the role of support. She can control skeletons and Golems, turn enemies into frogs, and provide aid to allies.
  • The trailer also depicts Knight and Thief classes as well, but since they are not seen engaging in combat it is unknown if they provide anything more than a supplemental role.

Lead designer George Kamitani came up with the idea for the game right after his work on Princess Crown in 1997, on the Sega Saturn. It was planned as a Spiritual Successor to Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom. For better or worse Kamitani had difficulties getting a publisher to greenlight the project and it wasn't until finishing Muramasa: The Demon Blade, when he reworked the project plan, that Ignition Entertainment agreed to sign on with the game.


Tropes used in Dragon's Crown include: