Chances are, if you live outside the reach of the Twitter moral guardians (and who can blame you), you may not have heard of Dragon's Crown. After all, as a fairly niche Japanese hack-and-slashy four player adventure, the game would probably have stayed somewhat below the radar, were it not for the outrage and anger some decided to vent online. The problem, it seems, lay with the game's characters, which features hugely disproportionate female characters with gigantic chests alongside men with equally ridiculous amounts of muscles and bare chests - and some people on the internet were not happy. But while everyone else was busy being all Mrs Lovejoy, we decided to go hands-on with the over-the-top brawler for ourselves - and thoroughly enjoy what we played.
Let's get the basics out of the way first - Dragon's Crown is a fairly simple side-scrolling beat 'em up where you and up to three friends can leap into the medieval swords and sorcery, Dungeons-and-Dragons-inspired fantasy world, as you join the search for a mythical and mega powerful treasure known as the 'Dragon's Crown', with the goal of finding it before it ends up in the wrong hands. As with most games like this, however, the plot is really just an excuse for everyone to work together to hack, whack and loot their way to greatness.
If only the Amazon had a thunder-based attack, then we could make some kind of hilarious thunder thighs based joke...
To kick off your adventure, you get a choice of six distinctive characters - and we're not just on about the Sorceress' heaving bosoms, the Amazon's gigantic thighs or the Dwarf's rippling muscles either. Each of the classes has their own specific strengths and weaknesses, such as the fairly standard armour-clad Fighter, who can take a beating whilst dealing out some hefty damage too, a fairly feeble staff-wielding Wizard capable of immense destructive magic, and a nimble Elf who fights with her bow from a distance. Who you choose to play as will depend on how you prefer to play the game, but we can't help but feel something of a kinship with the Sorceress - despite her impractical wardrobe and improbable proportions, the ability to conjure food out of nowhere to help heal her team-mates (whilst turning the bad guys into harmless frogs) has us sold.
In the short demo we played, we formed an axe-wielding, arrow-launching duo of a gruff dwarf named Bert, and a sprightly woodland elf, as we left the dim surroundings of the town tavern, eager to take on our first quest of the game. With hand-drawn, side scrolling backgrounds, exploring the town is simply a case of walking from one end to the other, as we sign up for the Adventurer's Guild, and repair our weapons and equipment, before setting off towards the ancient temple ruins as a test to prove our worth. Charged with helping a warrior called Roland, a rather muscular fellow who's out looking for the ill-prepared adventurers who have disappeared whilst exploring the ruins, we head into the lower part of the ruins, obliterating all the goblins, snakes and humongous spiders that stood in our way. It was during these first few battles the differences between the two characters became more apparent - Bert the dwarf was capable of picking up and hurling heavy objects and enemies around, as well as occasionally leaping up and crashing down into the ground with his hammer, sending out shockwaves to damage nearby enemies. Ginger the elf however, prefers to attack with arrows from a distance rather than get stuck in herself - but as she only has a limited stock of arrows she could carry at once, it required a bit more of a conservative, strategic approach to Bert's ham-fisted hammering. Before long we come to a dark, dank tiled floor littered with spiky traps, before stumbling across a rather ominous pile of bones - apparently Roland was right to be worried about those adventurers. Still, we press on, now wading through knee-deep water and fighting freaky lizard-men before ending up in a boss fight against a giant bird who likes to pick you up and carry you up high before hurling you into the ground for massive damage. Once we show the harpy who's boss, the quest ends and we return to the town.
It's Bert's Bearded Belly-Flop of DOOM!
During each mission, defeating enemies and picking up items add to your score, which is then converted into experience points at the end of each mission - collecting enough increases your character's level, making you more powerful and letting you learn new special moves. This is also where Dragon's Crown gets a bit more depth to it, as you can pick and choose what skills you want and create your own custom character. Perhaps you really like your Amazon's spinning attack? Upgrade it to deal more damage and gain the ability to change direction in mid-air. Think your wizard's a bit on the feeble side? Up his health a bit. Like turning your enemies to stone as a Sorceress? Increase the number of uses by adding skill points to it.
One thing that is also worth noting is that the labyrinth-like dungeons themselves often split up, with hidden rooms, paths and alternative routes to find - and of course tons of treasure to pocket along the way, meaning that it's quite possible to re-enter an old dungeon and discover something completely new. In particular, you'll notice in the breaks between the brawls is quite how detailed the backgrounds of the game are - but they do serve a purpose. Almost like a hidden object game, each player has a cursor to move around the screen and interact with the environment to find items, unlock doors and send your little thief companion Rannie running to unlock that chest for you. But while it's something we can see working well on the PS Vita's touchscreen, it does feel a little bit awkward on the Playstation 3, where it's mapped to the right analogue stick instead and takes a bit of getting used to.
Dragon's Crown launches on both the Playstation 3 and PS Vita on the 11th October.
