Dragon’s Crown: Vanillaware and Atlus
Vanillaware’s president and lead artist George Kamitani is clearly a fan of the, shall we say, “female form.”
And he’s not afraid to let you know it.
If you’ve ever played a Vanillaware game before, you should know this. You may have even been clued in just by reading this post.
In Dragon’s Crown, Amazon is a gorgeous, muscular woman basically wearing a metal bikini, Sorceress has an endowment bigger than Harvard’s (thank you, The Simpsons), and most of the minor female characters are designed and/or posed pretty suggestively, perhaps mitigated (or not, depending on your temperament) by the fact that several of said designs and/or poses are clearly based on classic artworks.
This whole thing caused a minor controversy when the game first released. Personally, I’m pretty neutral about it. I accept it as inevitable in a game that’s trying to be this unapologetically Fantasy-y. Women in metal bikinis is a long-standing tradition in the genre, and it’s not like Dragon’s Crown art is doing anything you’ve never seen a thousand times before.
I don’t necessarily like it. Sure, I’d like to see Fantasy art move beyond it. But it’s not enough to ruin the game for me, especially because everything about the game is stylised and exaggerated. I won’t fault you for thinking negatively about it, though.
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Moving on, there’s not much story to speak of. Though what writing there is comes across as a rather affectionate parody of the Fantasy genre (not unlike Realmgard, incidentally).
Nothing about the game takes itself very seriously.
The plot is more or less driven by a series of quests to get the Thing you need to in order to get the Next Thing until you’ve got all the Things you need to fight the final boss.
The game is narrated as if it were the DM of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign explaining things to you — “You meet in a tavern.”, “You must find the Thing.”, “When suddenly, Goblins!”, that sort of thing, and is full of snarky little asides. Usually at your expense.
Your characters get a fairy sidekick.
Photo by Tu00fa Nguyu1ec5n on Pexels.com
On the plus side, most levels have a unique gimmick to set them apart from the others, whether it be protecting distressed damsels from vampires, fighting for control of a magic lamp to summon a genie, floating down a river on a raft, or using a golem to fight another golem.
Unfortunately, progressing through the game is predicated on replaying every level at least twice, because each level has an initial path, followed eventually by a secondary path leading to a second boss fight. It’s a good way to add a little variety to the game, but does end up feeling more like padding and does get repetitive after a while.
It’s definitely my least-favourite part of the game.
So, in conclusion, Dragon’s Crown is a fun Fantasy romp best enjoyed with friends, though not completely inaccessible to the friendless.
It’s apologetically, bombastically Fantasy-y, and a clear love letter to the genre, for better or worse.
The rest of my recommendations are here.
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