Atlus Delivers Dragon's Crown To The US This Summer

Earnest Cavalli

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Atlus Delivers Dragon's Crown To The US This Summer



Atlus, the world's leader in bringing Western gamers awesome Japanese titles that they wouldn't otherwise see, has announced an official release window for Vanillaware's gorgeous beat 'em up Dragon's Crown.

Those of you who played Odin Sphere on the PlayStation 2 should be able to agree with me on two points: One, that the game featured utterly stunning art work that still looks gorgeous to this day, and two, that the official release window announced this morning for the upcoming Dragon's Crown can't come soon enough. Fortunately, PlayStation 3 and Vita owners need not wait long for Vanillaware's latest 2D hack and slash adventure: Dragon's Crown makes it retail debut here in the West this summer.

You'll notice that the release window is still somewhat vague. Sorry about that, but Atlus failed to serve up a specific date for the game's release beyond "this summer." That could be as early as May or as late as August, depending on how Atlus reads a calendar, so you may not want to hold your breath in anticipation until more information is available.

Now, those of you who've never heard of Odin Sphere or Dragon's Crown are likely wondering why you should care about this upcoming release. Put simply, Dragon's Crown is a member of the nearly-dead side-scrolling beat 'em up genre. Think of it as akin to Golden Axe (or the recent Scott Pilgrim game, for you kids who've only known a single Bush administration) only with a large number of strikingly in-depth roleplaying game-esque subsystems complementing the whole package. Players can choose from one of six character classes and then spend a massive amount of time (given the genre) slashing, kicking and magicking various foes to death as they work their way through the game's story. Don't expect anything too novel from the plot - think: Japanese roleplaying game-level storytelling, with all the cliches that would imply - but this lack of literary chops should be forgotten the first time you see the game's graphics in motion. The screenshot embedded above looks great, but doesn't really do the game justice. Instead have a look at this trailer from E3 2011 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeCtJrWWK8g]. Gorgeous, no?

We'll have more information on when you can expect to see Dragon's Crown on the shelves of your local games retailer just as soon as Atlus sends it over, but until then try to track a copy of Odin Sphere. Like I said, thanks to Vanillaware's talented artists, the game looks gorgeous, even by modern standards, and thanks to its RPG-lite gameplay it should absorb a few dozen hours of your life.

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Tanis

The Last Albino
Aug 30, 2010
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I just hope they don't bonk it up like they did with Odin Sphere.

The PAL (SE) version of OS had less lag than the NTSC-U (Atlus) release.
Not sure why, but it was pretty noticeable on a few boss fights.
 

FalloutJack

Bah weep grah nah neep ninny bom
Nov 20, 2008
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Games from Atlus are most definitely relevent to my interest, and this sounds like FUN.
 

Ipsen

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Jul 8, 2008
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Feel it must be mentioned, Muramasa: The Demon Blade was also an excellent title from Vanillaware. I mean, I was on the Wii, so I can somewhat forgive the lack of recognition here, but it was this title that turned me on to Vanillaware.

To hear Atlus adds this game to their publishing list makes this day all the better, what with Bioshock Infinite getting reassuring reviews and all.

Now... We wait... For Friday!
 

-Seraph-

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May 19, 2008
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Been looking forward to this for a while, though its a damn shame that cross-buy and cross-play will not be supported. I really wish they'd at least patch in Cross-play at some later point though, that's a great feature that any PS3/PSV game should not miss out on.
 

KoudelkaMorgan

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The slowdown in Odin Sphere was the worst I've ever experienced outside of The Matrix. It was off the charts on unplayable during the Zombie Queen (I forget what the boss was) where various bones etc. were flying everywhere.

You'd literally spend 2 minutes coming up and down from one jump thinking your PS2 is going to fry.

There is absolutely ZERO circumstances in which a game should be released where most every boss fight has crippling slowdown every time. ANYONE that had ever bothered to play test it AT ALL would have seen it, and dialing back the number of projectiles and making them do way more damage would have been an easy fix. Though honestly there wasn't anything that intense that it needed to render in game. I've seen PS2 games with a lot more stuff on screen, rendering polygon like a boss with zero slowdown so idk wtf that game's issue was exactly.

Muramasa was great graphically, but I found it to be really short and pretty repetitive/boring. The story also wasn't that great so I sold it after I finished it.

Dragon's Crown looks good for 2 reasons, and they both belong to the Sorceress. Other than the obvious fan service I haven't seen anything that makes me look forward to the actual game more than the already prolific amount of hentai its inspired.

I liked old school D&D/X-Men arcade games well enough, but I never liked Golden Axe. It definitely has the potential to be great, and it will assuredly LOOK awesome, but its had a really long and rocky development so far.

Hopefully they are polishing more than the jiggle physics.
 

The Wykydtron

"Emotions are very important!"
Sep 23, 2010
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Atlus giving vague release dates? *looks at P4A* yeah figures.




When we say "West" do you mean "West" West or "US only West?" Because Atlus has a great history of publishing games for the EU regions on time right? Yeah...

I suppose I could look at this Dragon's Crown thing when it inevitably turns up a year late, Atlus does usually make/publish good games in general.


[sub]Yes i'm still bitter[/sub]
 

Xathos

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Jun 7, 2010
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First thought: I don't know what I'm looking at in the picture above, but I like it.
Second thought: Oh, its some cool looking Dragon monster or something, awesome.
Third thought: Atlus huh...

Looks interesting at least. Seems to have a bunch of good points going for it I guess.
 

piinyouri

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Mar 18, 2012
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FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

I've been waiting and hoping for news of a US release on this since last year.
I'm just going to assume they fixed the slowdown issue since it's a more powerful console this time.
 

NightmareWarden

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Jul 2, 2011
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The phrase "calm your tits" has never been more appropriate than for this game's sorceress. When I first heard about this game, the...striking character designs were all that really registered in my mind. I honestly remember most of the classes, but some stood out a bit more than others.
 

DrunkOnEstus

In the name of Harman...
May 11, 2012
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Gameplay completely aside, one thing that I'll always love about Vanillaware is that you can take a screencap of any point of any of their games, frame it, and sell it for at least $100. Art direction > graphics, but you all knew this.

KoudelkaMorgan said:
The slowdown in Odin Sphere was the worst I've ever experienced outside of The Matrix. It was off the charts on unplayable during the Zombie Queen (I forget what the boss was) where various bones etc. were flying everywhere.
I tried to ignore it when I played it, and was a bit of an apologist about it, but you're absolutely right. There isn't a reason in the world that the game should have made it through QA with that stuff frequently happening. Like, literally 3-5 FPS at times. Especially when you look at what Shadow of the Colossus should be doing to PS2 processors. Honestly, the only reason I have a PS2 emulator on my PC is to put Odin Sphere and a handful of other games in the disc drive and run them all sexy. It's amazing how much harder the bosses are when you aren't in fucking bullet time trying to survive.
 

loc978

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Sep 18, 2010
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Is the animation in Dragon's Crown waaaaayyy choppier than Odin Sphere was, or is it just me (or just that youtube video)? I remember that game playing pretty damn smoothly...
 

MrMan999

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Oct 25, 2011
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Dragon's Crown looks awesome. And I'm not just saying that due to the Sorceress's "Assets" :p
It seriously looks like a fun action title.
 

A Weakgeek

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Feb 3, 2011
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Well the character designs are very unappealing. I never understood anime fans obsession with E cup breasts, the amazons arse isn't any better either.

Then again, as a non otaku/anime fan, this game isnt aimed at me anyways. Its a shame however, since the artist does seem very talented.
 

lunavixen

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Jan 2, 2012
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oh wow... I love Odin Sphere and this looks really similar, I can't wait for this to hit Australia. I picked up Odin Sphere on a whim and do not regret a second of it (I got Okami at the same time).
 

bearlotz

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KoudelkaMorgan said:
The slowdown in Odin Sphere was the worst I've ever experienced outside of The Matrix. It was off the charts on unplayable during the Zombie Queen (I forget what the boss was) where various bones etc. were flying everywhere.
While I agree...OS was still an amazing game. It was something interesting and unique with fantastic visuals and solid gameplay to back it up, so I'm willing to forgive a lot of technical issues. Any time a game can deliver something new and fun I'm usually pretty nice to it.