Drunken Reviews: Dragon’s Crown

Or should I say “Boobie’s Crown”… or “Dragon’s Boobs”… I think you get the hint. Aside from the gratuitous display of boobs, bums and God-like muscular builds this game is actually really fun to play.

Dragon’s Crown is a 2D side scrolling RPG featuring immediate out of the box local co-op and unlockable PSN multiplayer after completion of a couple missions. There are several re-playable dungeons with new “quests” being unlocked after every mission. Tons of gorgeous art (that is NOT another excuse to show boobs and bums… entirely. Yay!) is unlocked with each quest you complete.

There are 6 playable classes; Amazon, Dwarf, Fighter, Elf, Sorceress, and Wizard. Each class plays differently, even though at first glance some classes seem very similar. For example, Amazon, Fighter and Dwarf are melee based warrior type classes but each one plays with a unique fashion.

Here is a brief breakdown of how each character class plays:

• Amazon is a high strength but low defence melee character that increases attack speed and damage with each consecutive hit.
• Dwarf is a high strength and decent defence melee character who has the ability to harden his skin and raise his defences as well as the ability to pick up and throw enemies.
• Fighter is a decent strength and high defence melee character who excels at being in the heart of a fight receiving the enemies attention.
• Elf is a low strength and decent defence archer character who excels at her high speed attack mix ups including kicks, slides and the use of her trusty bow. She also has the ability to use various spirit magic to battle enemies.
• Sorceress is a low strength very low defence caster (mage) character who excels at various dark magics. She has the ability to conjure food and raise skeletal servents to aid her and her allies in battle.
• Wizard is a high strength and decent defence caster character who uses a type of destructive magic (different to the Sorceress’) to annihilate his enemies. He is unable to conjure food or raise skeletal servants but his main direct damage skills are far more destructive.

Dragon’s Crown has fun features and several unlockable “abilities”, such as the ability to make rune words: depending on the rune word a different ability is cast.

Overall, the game is based on the collection of treasure that is riddled throughout the dungeons you delve into. Treasure is based on a ranking of S, A, B, C, D, or E with S being the best and most difficult of treasure ranks to receive. The dungeons you are cleansing of evil contain a vast assortment of loot and enemies, as well as puzzles and over the top bosses to conquer and pillage.
I still have no idea how the ranking is determined; on dungeon runs I almost perfected the treasure was rank C, and on one dungeon I kept getting massacred in the treasure was rank S.

Dragon’s Crown features fun and fast paced gameplay that only gets better the more friends you have joining in with your adventures. If you are playing single player you will find the bones of fallen computer controlled characters that you can pay in game gold to resurrect, these characters are then able to join you on your single player adventure.
This game has great replay value and is fun to play alone or with friends. I was put off at first by the absolutely enormous (and seemingly nipple-less) chests of the majority of females in the game, but I quickly became wrapped up in the gameplay and it wasn’t so bad.

I mean… c’mon! How could you NOT mock this?

The downside of this all? Even if you are completely immersed in the story the over-sexualization of BOTH men and women in the game kind of breaks the illusion. During dialogue your screen will most likely have an enormously muscular male or a very busty (sometimes half naked) female and it breaks your focus with fits of laughter. (The outfits really just get more and more ridiculous as the game progresses)
This does provide great opportunity for plenty of drinking games, but be warned… the more inebriated you become, the less likely you will be able to play past some of the more ridiculous dialogue breaks. I was overcome by the temptation to ridicule and mock the stationary illustrations on screen. (I know, I’m immature)