Dragon's Crown

Dragon's Crown is an action RPG from studio Vanillaware that combines a beat-'em-up in the style of classic arcade cabinets with a deep layer of loot collecting. The player picks from six archetypes, among them a fighter, an amazon, an elf, a dwarf, a wizard, and a sorceress, and with a party of up to four characters dives into labyrinths beneath the fantasy city of Hydeland, eventually reaching an artifact called the dragon's crown. The framing narrative is handled by a narrator whose fairy-tale tone gives the game the feel of an old adventure storybook.

Each expedition consists of short two-dimensional levels full of enemies, traps, and forks in the road, where the player chooses between two branches, and loot is split at the end. Weapons are found sealed and must be appraised in town, damaged gear gets repaired, and skill trees let each class be tuned quite differently. The game can be played solo with hired skeletons, in local co-op, or online, and higher difficulties unlock tougher variants of the same maps with new equipment. It's precisely these repeated runs for better items that make up the long-term content, and the game openly encourages them. Progress between expeditions is framed by a simple story with guild quests and visits to the tavern, chapel, and shop, where loot can be sold or upgraded.

The visual side is the major draw: hand-painted backgrounds, huge and fluidly animated characters, and richly decorated sets rank among the most beautiful two-dimensional games on PlayStation 3. The exaggerated proportions of some characters became the subject of considerable debate at the time. Hitoshi Sakimoto's music gives the whole thing an orchestral, almost cinematic feel. Reviews received it well, praising especially the graphics and co-op, with criticism aimed at repeating the same maps. Today Dragon's Crown remains one of the few games that managed to combine an arcade beat-'em-up with an RPG truly convincingly.